Storm from the East

by Joanna Hathaway

“So might the victors,” I point out hotly.

  The Commander stands at last. “And what if this is Nahir propaganda, Princess? You have no proof I had anything to do with this. I gave a specific order against shooting prisoners.”

  “Then your order wasn’t good enough,” I tell him bluntly. “As long as this happens under your watch, then the Safire cause is stained.” I swing to Gawain, on fire with certainty. “In fact, I would say the same to you, Your Majesty, for I also uncovered evidence of crimes in Thurn, and I think you should know of those too.”

  Now, it’s frighteningly silent in the room. Gawain doesn’t seem to know what to do as I pull out Lark’s photograph and hold it up so that everyone can see, at last, the children executed before the wall.

  The Commander’s rage transforms to disbelief as he stares at me, holding his shame high before all. “What the hell are you doing?”

  “It’s Beraya, Commander. Do you not remember what happened last summer? I believe you were there, weren’t you?”

  “This is ridiculous,” he says, something rising in him too. His own desperation. “She’s trying to distract us from her mother’s trial with this—”

  “Liar,” I hurl at him. “Admit to what you’ve done and save whatever honour you have left!” I turn to Gawain again. “Do you need to see more, Your Majesty? I have plenty to share. How about this pamphlet, describing how your pilots swooped down and killed an entire family, falsely believing them to be Nahir? Or how about—”

  Gawain marches at me, snatching the photograph straight from my hand. “Commander, what is this?”

  Of course he’s going to spin this back round on the Safire, ensure they seem the guilty party, and I feel my first quiver of alarm—Lark’s photograph in his hands. “I want that back,” I say, reaching for it. “That’s my evidence.”

  He holds it closer. “Your Highness, evidence belongs to no one. Please, let’s settle this without hysterics.” He turns to the Commander. “Who on God’s earth did this?”

  The General’s son looks stuck—in his guilt, in his sin.

  He has no answer.

  “Give it back,” I order Gawain again, and I don’t care how I sound anymore, all I know is that I won’t let Lark’s photograph—the thing he died for—dissolve into the void of this League. “Give it back now!”

  “Your Highness,” Dakar intervenes finally. “This is a ridiculous distraction you’ve concocted. We’re not here to point fingers with hearsay, or debate the rules of warfare. We’re here for the murder of a king.”

  Gawain nods, clearly happy to return to the subject of my mother, not that of his own army. And in his quick assent, I realize my mistake.

  “Indeed,” he says firmly. “Now isn’t the time for this, Aurelia. War is a complicated business, too complicated for those who aren’t rightly involved.”

  I underestimated a Northern king’s vain pride.

  His pronouncement is fatherly scolding, so smooth it feels like perfect courtesy, rather than the insult it is. He’s saying this is too complicated for a little girl like me, and the children killed in Beraya don’t matter, nor the ones in Thurn, or in Resya, and as I look round the room, at the League, at all of the baffled faces who’ve been watching our fierce exchange, entirely silent, entirely neutral, I see the truth.

  They don’t care.

  I’ve offered them evidence, and no one here wants to look closer. This will never be about some worthless soldiers shot while trying to surrender, or some faraway cities burned up beneath night skies. These photographs will be filed away, contained, and all that will truly matter today is the high drama of a queen accused of murder—and the fact that the General of Savient now has an entire kingdom to control in the South.

  I feel the emptiness of my hands.

  My anger rising.

  Perhaps I thought I could be like Lark’s mother. She wanted to heal, to rescue, to care for everyone—Northern and Southern alike. But as I tremble on this stand, alone, I realize she died for that mission of neutrality, and it brought no lasting resolution. The world carried on. It didn’t care.

  We all have to choose sides. We have to, or nothing will ever change, and I know in this moment, looking at this room of cowards, I can’t ever choose them.

  I can’t.

  I rush at Gawain, trying to grab Lark’s photograph back myself, but two guards seize me by the arms.

  Gawain appears shocked at my outburst.

  I struggle against their hold as he strides near. “Your Highness,” he hisses, voice low. “Have you forgotten all rules of civility?”

  “Civility?” I repeat. “Look at you!”

  “No, you look at yourself, child! Bringing Nahir propaganda right into our League? You’re not helping your mother’s case. Not by any stretch of the imagination.”

  His threat silences me.

  He’s right, but I still want to slap his face for it. Has he listened to nothing I’ve said? Has he forgotten the photographs already? This isn’t propaganda. This is reality. The world as it is for far too many people beyond this petty courtroom filled with fools.

  “Perhaps we should adjourn for an hour?” Dakar suggests, maintaining some charade of perfect calm. “Let’s not tarnish the integrity of this case with theatrics.”

  “Yes,” Gawain agrees, nodding to the guards still holding me. “Take Her Highness back to her suite.”

  The men obey swiftly, and I want to protest, to run for Mother, but she only smiles faintly from her distant seat. I have no idea what she thinks of me right now—her daughter who’s just failed on this stand, holding everyone to account. Perhaps it’s the reason she never tried to do this. She knew they’d never listen.

  “You can shout the truth until your voice is hoarse.…”

  But what else is there to do? What hope do we have? I realize, very suddenly, that she’s marched all of these many roads, wielded both weapons and words, fought in North and South, and I desperately want her to tell me what to do next, what chance remains.

  But there’s no time.

  “I’m sorry, Aurelia,” Gawain says to me as his guards lead me away, his voice gentle again. “You’ll feel better once you’ve rested.”

  I don’t say anything in reply.

  I hate Dakar for his lies.

  I hate Gawain equally for his weakness.

  And like Lark warned, I’ll never trust an ambitious Northerner ever again.

  55

  ATHAN

  Tension ravages the room as the break wears on. Despite their best efforts to write Ali’s proclamations off as propaganda, Gawain is clearly rattled, and Arrin looks about ready to shoot me—as if this is my fault. As soon as she raised those merciless pamphlets, we both knew. She was behind them somehow, collecting photographs, sabotaging his efforts a second time in less than a year, and it almost makes me laugh. This revelation might provoke Arrin to no end, but it strikes me as inordinately funny.

  Of course she was behind them.

  She’s too clever for even him.

  But now they’ve forced her away, an order that has the ring of formality, like they’re only following reasonable rules and protocol. I’m going to get her back in here.

  Somehow.

  As I sit whirling through what move I can make, Kalt drops down beside me quietly. He’s fresh off some ship from the siege at Hady. A little disheveled, for him, and there’s a wary question in his eyes as he glances around. “What the hell did I miss?”

  “Would you believe Arrin being accused of war crimes before the entire League?”

  He raises a brow, but doesn’t look quite as alarmed by that as he should.

  This was supposed to be a trial for Sinora Lehzar and Ali made it a trial for the Dakars. A trial for me. It’s the grand and divine judgment I’ve been waiting for, ever since those black marks started appearing on my plane, ever since I first lied to Ali, ever since I was born with escape in my heart, and it’s time to make this right.

  I’ll start
with the only person sitting alone.

  Sinora.

  I wind through those now gathered on the League floor, the endless mutterings, judgments, and stop before her dark gaze. She’s endured this entire trial as gracefully as the sun going down, refusing to utter a single defense to the accusations, these rumours from the people who once served her. She’s entirely at peace, unmoved in her seat, awaiting her turn.

  We stare at each other a long minute.

  “You came back to me, little fox,” she says eventually.

  I don’t know what else to do. I cut right to the point. “Why did you never tell Ali my name?”

  This is the question I’ve wanted to ask most. It was my fault for not admitting it to Ali, but it was also Sinora’s fault, for pushing her own daughter into this without any kind of weapon.

  Sinora smiles. “Did you ever consider that perhaps I wanted her to learn what betrayal feels like? To never trust the word of a Dakar?” She gestures at my uniform. “You’re a greater lesson than any warning from me.”

  I stepped right into that trap, the obvious one, and my shame burns. I hate it. I’m tired of this, and I pull back on the mental throttle, getting out of the familiar dive. Here. Now. I stop seeing dragons and finally see Sinora—her lack of hatred even as she tells me this.

  What did I even come to say?

  She seems to sense my confusion. This woman who has outfoxed my father at every turn. “Did he ever tell you how we met?” she enquires.

  I don’t need to ask who she means. I shake my head.

  “It was kindness.”

  The very word startles me.

  “He picked me up on the side of the road in Thurn,” she continues, “after every other person had passed me by. Landorian. Resyan. I was filthy, fleeing for my life, and I offered him nothing of value. But he gave me a ride still, because it was the right thing to do. It was simply right.” She pauses. “You think your blood is corrupt, Athan Dakar, but the truth is there’s no such thing as damnable blood. You hold every possibility.”

  I swear to God she’s in my head, trying to make me believe the impossible.

  Father wouldn’t do this.

  Nothing gains you nothing.

  But she doesn’t stop, no waver in her voice. “I’m not an innocent woman, and that’s my confession. I am what your father has told you. I’ve lied. I’ve destroyed lives. I’ve buried hearts in the ground, hundreds of them. Same as him. It can all be true at once.”

  Her honesty is blunt and welcome, and I follow her lead. “He’s putting me on that stand next. He’s going to ask me if Ali said her father was murdered.”

  “Of course he’s going to do that. And you’ll tell the truth. You’ll honour your family.”

  I struggle for the words to explain that I don’t want to do it, that I’d rather have the thing she offered last summer—a life away from this, a life with Ali. I also want to apologize, but it doesn’t feel earned. I can’t redeem my entire family. I can’t make this right. “I tried to leave here,” I admit instead, “so I wouldn’t have to do this.”

  Her lips twist to a frown. “Leave?”

  “Yes.”

  “But why would you run from a chance to do what’s right?”

  “Last summer, you told me to escape.…”

  She shrugs. “I thought you were the one, and I was wrong. That chance has passed.”

  Too slow.

  Too late.

  Wide off the barrel roll, and my expression must betray my helplessness.

  “You’re not the one,” she explains, gentler, “but you’re still here, and that says even more. When I looked into your eyes last summer, I saw someone trapped. Confused. But you’re no good to anyone if you give in to that despair, little fox. If you disappear, you’ll never change anything.” She looks up at me, and her dark eyes are a perfect reflection of Ali’s. Holding a night sky. “You can survive him, but you have to have a strength to match his, something he can’t touch. And then you must understand that this is who you are. This was the world given you, and why would you leave it if you could do some good there?”

  She makes it sound very obvious, and far more comforting than it should be, like I have a purpose, like I’m meant to be here in this family even when it makes no sense. And then I wonder if that’s why she’s still here. She could have disappeared long ago. She doesn’t need to face my father—not with this public humiliation and his inevitable victory.

  But she’s here. Facing his strength with her own.

  “You escaped your world though,” I remind her, thinking of her as she once was in that photograph on Father’s desk. Rifle on her shoulder. Southern to the bone. Now what is she? The vain pinnacle of Northern glory, with a crown on her head?

  But her reply is swift. “No, I didn’t escape. I made a choice. Don’t you see the difference?”

  Her courage anchors mine, and somewhere in her explanation, everything shifts for me. A hundred muddled thoughts becoming clear.

  Choice.

  Choice.

  Choice.

  I’ve never made my own choice. I went to Etania for revenge. Then Thurn. Then Resya. Diving, spinning, flick-rolling. Maneuvers of desperate retaliation. All of it to please Father, to avoid his gunsight, to get cards in the game. None of it was my choice. None of it was me. Leaving here wouldn’t have been my choice either. I’ve never wanted to abandon Leannya or Cyar. It felt like me, but it was really still him. His ambition pushing my hand forever.

  I feel myself nod.

  “Good,” she says, her gaze refusing to let me back down. “I have my own regrets. A thousand of them, all threatening to tear this world apart. The saddest part of living is the realization you only get to do it once. So please, don’t make the same mistakes we did. I know you’re both young, and young hearts change, but never forget her. My daughter loves honestly and you’ll always know where you stand with her. Please trust that. Please trust her.”

  Ali.

  I realize what she’s asking, and I know these promises are dangerous, because I don’t know where they’ll take me. But it’s my choice, a power I hold, and from now on, I’ll use it. No more feeling small. No more running away. I’ll take Ali exactly as she is—even if she can never take me again.

  “I will,” I promise.

  As I say those words, this woman I once hated finally appears more at peace, and against all odds, it makes me feel better, too. If she wanted to play this last game—putting a loyal heart in her oldest enemy’s household—she’s done it well. I’m here. Willingly. “Give this to her,” she says, handing me a letter. “There’s no time to say goodbye.”

  “You’ll see her when this is over.”

  Sinora doesn’t agree. She only reaches out to touch my hand—warm, firm, slightly trembling. “I think,” she says to me with a small smile, “that I’m rather afraid, Athan Dakar.”

  56

  AURELIA

  I shiver through my lonely break in the bitter wind of a balcony view. My chaperones allow me this moment outdoors, since I’m still a princess no matter what their orders are, and I pull on my wool coat and gloves, looking out at the expanse of snow-dusted city beyond. There are too many things for my thoughts to run through, too many fears and regrets and furies. But for some inexplicable reason, my heart settles on only one—one small thing that was said, unimportant and in passing.

  “But you didn’t know him as I did before you were born, Your Highness.”

  That’s what Jerig said, and as I watch the distant streets, crowds of people plodding on with their little lives, I realize I have no idea who my father was before my life began. In fact, I scarcely know who he was for those few years given me. It’s like a dream. A strange dream that I remember, and love, yet it’s flimsy and shifting. What if he did hunt in the old days—and enjoyed it? What if he was an excellent shot with his rifle, and how could I even know? I was dropped into the middle of a story already being told. All of these years—these seventeen year
s—have felt like a beginning for me, a fresh world with new surprises, new revelations, new loves, but for my father and my mother, for Dakar and Gawain and Seath … for them, it’s the middle of something already in motion. An intricate world already mangled. And their own beginning, when they were young, was the same as it was for me, the middle of something else, things they couldn’t see or know.

  The past does matter—because it’s all a never-ending story.

  My cheeks growing numb, I allow the guards to lead me back inside the warmth of the League, onward for my prison. I’m nearly down the hall when someone taps my arm. It’s gently insistent, asking me to stop, and the uniformed men beside me appear bewildered. That’s how I know it’s him.

  I turn.

  Athan reaches out, but I back away, his hand left hovering in the air.

  “I know you’ve made your choice,” he says after a moment. “You don’t want me, and I understand that. I’ve done too much wrong. But I’m going to do better, and I hope someday you’ll understand my choice as well.”

  I try not to ache beneath the weight of his words. I want that other world, where the right and wrong are easy to see, where we only have to choose each other. Nothing else.

  But when I look at him now, I can only see his father.

  His brother.

  Beraya.

  “Please take this,” he continues, offering me a letter, and I’m scared of it. Letters are twisting paths to dead-end hopes. “It’s from your mother.”

  That revelation makes no sense, yet I still can’t speak. I usually have words, so many words, but I feel like I’ve used them all up. I broke myself open before the world, and no one cared. All of my raw hope spilt out like blood and wasted on rock. There’s nothing left, and I’m afraid Athan will see the dry well of my heart. I’m afraid he’ll pity me, try to love me, try to apologize, but I don’t want apologies. And his love is dangerous.

  I want something more.

  This dangling thread of my soul.

  He looks at me, as honest as I’ve ever seen him. “Whatever happens, Ali, please remember that I’m on your side. I always will be.”