“Your Majesty,” I said, when I reached the bottom of the dais, and I gave Trabin a formal bow. Then I turned to the Istian ambassador, a tall, white-haired man with a wildness in his eyes that didn’t seem to fit his role, and gave him a shallower bow. “Ambassador Eskir.”
My mother’s mouth twitched; she must have been as surprised as I was that I remembered the man’s name.
“Your Royal Highness,” Eskir said, dropping his hands rigidly at his sides and bowing. He had a low voice, all rounded consonants and hardened vowels—Shade’s impression of the accent had been quite good. “I do not think we have had the pleasure of meeting.”
Eskir’s gaze flickered over the other three men, and his eyes widened when he saw Rivano, but he said nothing else.
“I apologize for the interruption,” I told Trabin.
“What is the meaning of this?” he asked, his eyes darting past my shoulder, fixing on Rivano.
I put on my most innocent expression and asked, “Have I interrupted a disarmament negotiation?”
“No,” Eskir said, the word cold and hollow.
“No, you have interrupted a failed negotiation, unless you would like to try to convince Eskir that war with Cavnal will be their ruin?”
Eskir opened his mouth to counter the claim, but I held up my hand and even Eskir’s attendants stopped muttering.
“It will bring ruin,” I said, quietly. “But it will bring ruin to everyone.”
“We must be able to defend our customs, our life!” Eskir said. “We are not Cavnal. We are not Meritac. We are Istia. Istia does not want to be like Cavnal, chasing foolishly after the Bensalem dream.”
“But Bensalem has shown us that what we strive for is possible,” Trabin said. “Science can overcome the limitations of nature. We can proceed and advance and not be hamstrung by some fanciful and ignorant love affair with the past.”
“Bensalem will crash down under her own weight soon enough,” Eskir said.
This was going nowhere. I held up my hands again, a little stunned when both Trabin and Eskir fell silent. Trabin? Maybe he was just too curious to see what I would do.
“Your Majesty, I am here to request—” (Humbly? I thought. No, not really.)—”that you cease pressuring Tulay and Istia to sign the Accord. And to ask that the citizens of this nation known as mages be allowed to live in peace, or at least to leave and take up residence somewhere they will not be harassed for a birthright they did not claim for themselves.”
I fell silent. Everyone was staring at me. The air hummed with their shock…or maybe it was just the way my mind was humming, and the air singing, driving sound like a splinter into the back of my thoughts…
Vaguely I saw the electrical lights flicker, the room dimming just enough to be noticed.
Stop, stop, stop…I’m Tarik…I’m Tarik…I can’t be Shade right now…
My mother’s gaze flickered toward the row of lights, then fixed on me. I wanted to smile, but with a smile the world once blistered and the streets flowed with blood…
I winced, staggering a step forward before I could stop myself. Immediately Zagger was beside me, watching me anxiously.
Trabin shifted on his seat and said, “Your request has been heard. And denied. Explain now why he is here.”
I tried to glance behind me but the room dazzled with so much light…I couldn’t see anything, or I could see everything…everything so clear… Too much, too much… I couldn’t quantify; I couldn’t define; everything drawn and connected with snaking lines and words, words, words…words were pointless, grasping and snatching at reality and…
“Tarik!”
That was my mother’s voice. I blinked and glanced her way. Her face had blanched, terror in her eyes. I tried to hold her gaze but couldn’t.
“Did I say something?” I murmured to Zagger.
“No,” he said, voice low. “But the lights blew out.”
“What was that?” Eskir asked. “That could only be the work of a mage!”
“It was me,” Rivano said, taking a step forward. “I’m sorry. I wanted to get your attention. I speak on behalf of the mages of Cavnal, though not all of them are on my side. The mages have been treated like inhuman beasts for almost a century now. The only way a mage can survive in this city is by hiding his identity, pretending to be something he is not. We cannot hold a job of any dignity. We are forced into the slums and then mocked for our poverty. And we have not risen up and fought back—as you well know we could—because we believed that we were your brothers. The tie of our blood is even stronger than the bond that unites the mages.
“We don’t want war. We don’t want to revolt. You are Cavnal’s King, and we have no wish to change that. But please, let us live in peace. You don’t have to exterminate us. We are no threat to your science and your inventions and your brilliant, mad machines. We may stand back, but we do not stand against. Please just give us the liberty to stand back.” The plea in his voice vanished all at once and he took one more step forward, saying, “Or by Wake we will have no choice but stand with Istia and Tulay, and end this tyranny.”
“Is that a threat, Rivano?” Trabin asked, hands whitening on the arms of his chair.
“It’s a statement of fact.”
“Is this true?” Eskir asked. “You had some plan to exterminate the mages under your rule?”
Trabin’s face grew very still. I didn’t envy Rivano, pinioned on the end of his glare. Then, slowly, he shifted his gaze to me. Not so long ago, that stare would have made me retreat, surrender, cower in the shadows, but not anymore.
“Was this your plan all along?” he asked. “Have you decided to walk down that road?”
I glanced at my mother. Her face was pale, carved in stone, but in her eyes I read sorrow, and hope, and a promise…I could almost hear her thoughts in my mind, murmuring, All will be well. I am with you. Now is not the time to stand down. Stand, darling. Stand. I am with you.
I swallowed hard and asked, “Which of you tried to have me assassinated?.
The room had been silent before, but now the silence thundered. None of them had expected that question, it seemed.
I went on, addressing Rivano, “Derrin was your second-in-command. Did you make him attempt to kill me just so you could tell me you’d saved my life?” I turned to Trabin. “Or did you plot it yourself, trying to find a way to get rid your problem while turning the whole city against the mages who murdered me?” They both stared at me, and I heard myself shouting, “Which of you did it?”
“Derrin?” Rivano asked softly. “He had nothing to do with that.”
“He’s the only Ghost in Brinmark,” I snapped.
Rivano’s eyes widened briefly, then grew dark with something like sadness. “I had nothing to do with it. I came to save you because he warned me of the plot,” he said, nodding at Kor.
I spun to face Kor. “Is that true?”
Kor measured me in silence, as though he’d forgotten how to speak. Eskir and the Istian envoy just gaped at the lot of us, too bewildered and confounded to ask permission to withdraw.
“You see how that man would do anything to involve us in a war!” Trabin cried. “And here is all the proof I need of the Clan’s guilt.”
“Dr. Kippler ordered it,” my mother said suddenly, staring straight ahead. “It was not Rivano. It was Kippler. Holding the strings of Derrin’s mind, a master puppeteer.”
“He was keyed!” I hissed. I glared at Trabin. “So it was your doing.”
“Is this you turning your back on me, boy? Whose word do you trust? Your king’s, or Rivano’s?”
I stared at him, so confused. So weary. I didn’t know who to trust anymore. I trusted myself least of all. My gaze drifted back to Zagger and Kor, then to Rivano. None of them showed the slightest emotion. They just watched me, and waited. What were they thinking? What did they want me to do? Would Zagger still stand with me, no matter what I said?
You can’t betray Hayli. What about the lads who’
ve risked their lives for you, so many times?
I don’t want to betray them. But I don’t have to betray them to turn in Rivano, for bringing this city to such chaos.
It was either that, or lose everything I’d ever known. Become an outcast. Expose my mother’s life.
Zagger shifted his weight. Oh God, I wished one of them would just tell me what to do.
Suddenly I stopped, and my turbulent thoughts grew calm, and I smiled at Trabin.
“I don’t trust your word,” I said. “And I don’t trust his either. But I trust hers.” My gaze turned to my mother, sitting pale and still beside Trabin. “Kippler is a king’s man, through and through. And I saw enough of him today to know what he’s capable of. Maybe you didn’t give him the order. Maybe you just muttered a wish in his hearing, and Kippler, always so eager to please, forced his puppet Ghost to target me. Only Kor overheard the plot, and went to warn Rivano. Have I got the story right?”
“I will tell the world exactly what you are,” Trabin warned, his voice a low growl. “Stop now, or so help me, I’ll do it.”
If he’d thought that would intimidate me into compliance, he couldn’t have been more wrong.
“And her,” he added.
I caught my breath and my mother’s eye, saw her subtle nod.
“Why wait?” I asked. “I’ll tell them myself.”
“You will be disinherited.”
I could feel the rising shock of the Istian envoy, staring from him to me as they tried to understand what was happening around them. Behind me, I sensed Zagger and Kor—I could feel their anticipation, their resignation, their wonder. And Rivano? From him I could sense nothing but a calm certainty.
I drew a thin breath and fixed my gaze on Trabin’s face.
“Cursed the Crown that brought such grief to me,” I said. “I renounce it. After all, it was never mine to claim.”
“What—” Eskir started.
“Be very careful, boy,” Trabin said. “This is your last chance. Stand down now, and I will forget all of this nonsense. I will forget it entirely, understood? You will be safe, and your mother will be safe. But this has to end now.”
“Will it end?” I asked, bitter. “Or will you just send another assassin to try to kill me? It’ll be easier for you this way, Your Majesty. I’ll be just one of the hundred-odd mages in this city you’ve vowed to exterminate.”
His face blanched, then flushed red with anger, but he had too much self-control to explode at me this time, in front of the envoy.
“Oh yes,” I said. “I know that you’ve authorized the wholesale execution of the mages after your so-called scientists extract the samples they need from them. I know, because they thought about doing it to me. They never did try, though, because they knew they couldn’t control me. They wanted to mute my powers, though. The son of an Ace and a Maven, an unlikely combination. I think they call mages like me archmages. Brings back memories of Arnthor and the Scourge, doesn’t it? We can’t have someone like that running amok in Cavnal. Especially when someone like that could have divided loyalties. Loyalties to his mother’s country of Tulay, maybe? Or maybe loyalties to his father’s country, Istia.”
Dead silence.
Then, all at once, Eskir stood up straight and drove his fist against his breast, crying, “Godarson!”
The other members of the envoy stared at him, then at me, then at Rivano. Rivano nodded once, slowly.
“Godarson!” they echoed.
My heart hammered terribly, my mouth turned dry. I knew enough of Istian government to know that, if a Godar died, then in the absence of a Moot to declare a new Godar, that title transferred automatically to the Godarson, if one was alive. Istia had no legitimacy laws like Cavnal; a son was a son in the eyes of the Godartheng, even a bastard. Which meant that, as far as the Istian ambassador and his envoy were concerned, I was now the acting Godar.
I swallowed hard. I’d pushed Trabin to the edge, again, and this time there was no way I could back down and smooth things over.
“Will you agree to my terms?” I asked.
“Your terms!” Trabin mocked. “You are no longer the Crown Prince. You have no authority to speak in my presence. You are nothing but a traitor and a conspirator.”
“He is Godar,” Eskir said.
I winced. I hadn’t wanted that. How could I be the ruler of a nation I’d never even visited? A nation who had never even met me? What if they rejected me? What if I wasn’t Istian enough? I didn’t want to rule anyone. I wanted to…
“Run,” I whispered to Zagger. “We’ve got to get out of here, now.”
“Godar,” Eskir said, coming closer to me. “You’re in terrible danger. That man intends to murder you.”
“You’re a Knack?” I asked, and he nodded. “Come with me. You know he’ll try to have you killed too.”
“I cannot. I swore an oath.” He noted my confusion and said, “I swore I would secure Cavnal’s assurances of our sovereignty, or die trying. I’m not afraid of death. I’m Istian. It was an honor to meet you, Godar. I will serve you as I served your father, to the end. Perhaps I can buy you some time.”
I drew a thin breath and nodded.
“I have given my terms,” I told Trabin, but then I paused, my declaration frozen on my tongue, my gaze holding his.
Trabin. The man I’d known as a father for seventeen years, the man whose respect and acceptance had once meant more than all the world to me. He watched me, measuring me, waiting to see what I would do. And I knew he took me for a coward, worthless, a fool.
I said, “If you do not accept my terms, there will be no further negotiations. I am done. I stand with Istia, and Istia stands against you.”
I caught my mother’s gaze and mouthed one word at her: “Run.”
Then I turned away, and with Zagger and the others close on my heels, I made the long walk across the Leaf Hall. Zagger and Kor threw open the doors.
“Stop him!” Trabin shouted behind us. “Stop them all! Traitors!”
All of the guards raised their rifles, but I reached out and Pulled them away, sending them skidding across the marble.
“Another time,” I said. “Stand back.”
“Your Highness!” one of the guards whispered as I passed. “You’re… you’re a mage.”
“I’m not your prince,” I said.
“Impostor!” one of them hissed. “That was a mage impostor!”
My mouth quirked in a smile, imagining how they would stop the rumors now, how they would divide the myth from the truth. Was I Tarik? Or was I an impostor?
Maybe Tarik was already dead.
Maybe I was only Shade.
Chapter 17 — Hayli
I made my way back to the Hole, desperately hoping that I’d find one of the lads hanging about, but instead I’d found Kantian’s body and an eerie emptiness that chilled every bit of warmth from me. I scoured all the passages but the whole place had been abandoned. The barracks were empty, the mess was empty, cluttered with plates of half-eaten food. A deck of Tozkorol cards lay abandoned on a crate in the lounge. I’d just come from my childhood house, but seeing the Hole empty like this was more terrible by far.
I climbed back up to the enclosure and poked my head into the abandoned factory, but even that felt colder and darker and stiller than ever.
I hugged my arms tight and turned around, and tried not to jump when Derrin stepped out of the air in front of me.
“Hayli,” he said. “Glad I found you.”
“Everyone’s ganned away,” I said.
“We got the kids all to safety. The mages took them outside the city limits, to the old aluminium smelter. You know which one I mean?”
“The one on the river?” I asked. “Out west?”
They’d abandoned it after they built a larger facility up in the hills. Me and some of the lads—or, the lads and me sneaking along behind—had gone exploring the old smelter before, so I remembered it all too well.
“The mages a
ll scattered after we got out of Esobor, to hide more easily until we found a place to gather. I’ve been letting all the mages I could find know where to go, and any of the other south-streeters who need shelter, too. So far about half of the mages have showed up, along with all of the Hole kids, and some of the Bricks.” He turned, scanning the enclosure. “Where’s Shade? Did Doc see to him?”
“Yeah,” I said. “He’s on his feet again. He…he went to try to convince the King to stand down. Let us live in peace.”
Derrin laughed in surprise. “Shade tried to get an audience with the King? He’s barking mad, that boy.”
I swallowed and didn’t tell him the truth. “He sent me to help rally everyone. What can I do?”
He opened his mouth, then turned away, running his hand through his hair. I stared after him, my heart sick with confusion. That was Derrin, my Derrin, but…he’d tried to kill the King. No, if Rivano was right, the bullets had been meant for Prince Tarik, for Shade. He’d tried to kill Shade.
But why? What could have driven him to that?
I’d turned on Shade when he needed me the most, and I’d been wrong. I didn’t want to do that again, not to Derrin.
“Something bothering?” I asked him, following him across the enclosure.
“No. There’s somewhere I still need to go, some mages I still need to find, but it’s too dangerous. I wouldn’t send you in there. Trust me, Hayli. But…” His voice trailed off, and he turned to study me. “I’m afraid to go for them myself. I had a bad run-in with some of that group, and they might not be too happy to see me. You, though, they might listen to.”
“I’ll do it,” I said. “Just tell me where to gan. This crow is a bit cracked…she won’t mind gannin’ dangerous places.”
He smiled, and rubbed his thumb against his jaw. “Merko,” he said. I frowned, because Derrin didn’t often throw foreign words around. “All right, listen. Go and wait for Shade to get out of the palace, if—God help him—he actually manages to walk out at liberty, and tell him where the mages are rallying. Then you’ve got to go to Billiman Square. There’s a brick building there. You’ll know it when you see it. There will be some folks on guard post outside the door. Tell them a passcode: Gantry. They will let you in. Then just find the mages inside and tell them where to go. Don’t tell them you know me. They might not listen to you otherwise.”
The Madness Project (The Madness Method) Page 63
