Rynn is silent for a moment, her eye moving as if reading, pondering some deep meaning or if the vision of a floating hand could be real. “I saw that vision in one of the floating lights … They are all illusions. Fabricated memories. Implanted through our dreams.”
Nyranna
Armed sweavers in bronze uniforms march alongside Nyranna, two to each side, two in front, and two to the rear. These police of Grendermane would be specifically watching to make sure no Elemiscist slipped her a Star Map that she could use to escape her coming trial.
The binary suns of Grendermane spiral around each other outside the reinforced windows in a fiery sunset of frustration and rage.
Nyranna’s anger seethes and grows with each step through the palace. The Northrite council tricked her into this entire ordeal, allowed her to hope that she might escape Uden’s oppressive control over her life, only to offer her death.
She mulls this over as well as a recent Whisper from a Frontiersmen officer, a Whisperer she did not know. The Frontiersmen claimed to be training a second Phantom and were flaunting the discovery to the entire galaxy. With only three Phantoms in all of history, the chance that another would arise at the same time Adersiun lived was infinitesimal. Recently, lies seemed to be spreading across the galaxy as plentifully as empty space. Even if a second Phantom were possible, would it change anything for Nyranna now?
They enter the hall leading to the Northrite’s governing chamber, the third time she’s been here now, this time her last.
A figure armored in white steps from around the corner ahead, his white cape snapping and waving like a river of snow. Adersiun. His helmeted and visored face nears.
“Please keep away from the prisoner,” a sweaver says.
Adersiun’s visor jerks to face the sweaver. The man cries out in pain but keeps marching; his face relaxes as if sleeping. The others appear in the same languid state.
“Nyranna of Uden.” Adersiun marches with them, his tone a deep echo, like a voice inside a grotto. “I agree with your views of Elemiscists ruling over simple humans who don’t understand nor can control the elements.”
Nyranna stumbles over her own feet, almost falls, but catches herself.
Does he know that she sent the Whisper to his Everblade Whisperer some time ago, revealing the plans of the Elemiscist insurgency? If the Northrite or Uden knew of this, both would want nothing more than to publicly punish her, take her life in a painful, drawn-out fashion to instill fear in any Elemiscist thinking of revolting.
Adersiun’s voice booms inside her head in a Whisper, a blinding light flaring in her brain like a newly formed nebula among the floating glow flies. Would you prefer this method?
The only living Phantom’s attention is directed straight ahead as they slow their pace to the chamber, the guards still sedate and unconcerned.
Adersiun says, “Don’t worry, these pitiful sweavers are so Beguiled they think they’re on another planet right now. If they hear words, they will remember nothing.”
Nyranna veers left to create distance between them. How could he know, is he that powerful of an Elemiscist that he could tell who sent an anonymous Whisper? Such ability was beyond any limits she’s ever heard of.
I don’t know what you’re referring to, she Whispers in reply, her hand on the raised flesh of her linkchain.
“I know, Nyranna of Uden, as I know the elements themselves. Do not deny it. You have a great power, a control of your elements that I have a need for, and I’ll assist you in the coming trial.”
Nyranna marches faster, and the sweavers match her pace. “If you didn’t answer my Whisper then, when I needed someone strong to back me, I don’t need you now. You’re not that special. There’s another Phantom.”
She’s unsure why she’s furious with him, probably overwhelmed by anger, desiring only to get it all over with.
“Impossible. There are no other Phantoms.” Adersiun then falls silent, no more talking, no Whispers.
Is he angry? His supposed help will mean nothing in the face of a Northrite ruling. Soon enough it won’t matter what he’s thinking.
The domed ceiling of the governing chamber appears overhead. The six Northrite in their masks and dark robes await in raised benches, watching Nyranna intently as she enters and Adersiun steps away to the side of the chamber. Vinessia is not in attendance.
Nyranna holds her head high as she approaches the bench her attorney sits behind, waiting with crossed legs.
Corrupt Northrite politicians before me, Uden enslavers in my past. I’ll be a traitor put to death for all of history, although it’s all lies.
“I demand to know if the Northrite ordered the autopsy on the Grand Patriarch.” Nyranna crosses her arms over her chest.
Silence permeates the room and presses against her eardrums.
They are shocked that I’m so audacious.
“Silence that Manipulator of yours, Arrigale.” Breman stands in front of the Northrite benches, furiously blinking his eyes independently of each other, some ingrained, dissociated reflex. He tugs at his mustache. His epaulettes wave over the shimmering medals of his uniform, a hostile appearance even in his accessories. “She’ll be silenced by force if there’s another outburst.”
Arrigale grabs Nyranna’s arm, pulling her into an antigravity seat behind their bench.
The Apostle in the teal mask—representing a kind-looking young man with a shovel beard, the absent member the last time Nyranna was present—speaks in a distorted voice, “Grand Matriarch Vinessia wouldn’t allow the cutting of her beloved husband and had him incinerated in their family’s custom.”
Why? To hide evidence that you killed him? But if Vinessia’s not a Northrite councilmember, what would she gain by his death? Or is she dead now as well?
A gavel falls with a dull crack that drains hope from Nyranna’s very bones, as if leeches are adhered in teething clumps to her skeleton.
“How do you plead to charges of high treason, war crimes, and the assassination of the king of Staggenmoire?” the Messiah asks from behind a silver and gold façade.
Nyranna glances around. There’s a full house of attendees seated to the rear of the auditorium chamber. Another three men in robes of yellow, brown, and red stained-glass diamonds sit in a corner. Beguilers. Reading her emotions, here to detect lies. Not foolproof but highly sensitive.
Her attorney stands and whispers in her ear behind a cupped hand. “To plead guilty would save time and effort and will grant you some leniency.”
“To what end?” Nyranna snaps. “A slightly quicker or slightly less painful death?” Nyranna stands, lifts her chin, and looks each Northrite member in the eye. Each of you knows that you set me up for this fall.
“Not guilty,” a voice calls across the courtroom. Two men and one woman in stiffened white suits file into the lower chamber, antigravity briefcases hovering beside them. Heeled shoes clack on stone as they stop beside Arrigale.
“We are Uden attorneys representing Nyranna,” one of the men in white says, “appointed by the Royal Father Medegair. By intragalactic law we cannot be dismissed, as we were not given adequate time to prepare and respond prior to commencement.”
Uden’s best attorneys here? Medegair must have predicted a guilty verdict, must have become overly worried about how it would affect Uden.
“Take your seats,” the Messiah says. “Let it be known that Uden was allowed to represent itself with its most accomplished intragalactic attorneys. Prosecution, proceed.”
Over the following several hours, an attorney representing the people of Grendermane—a stick of a man: arms as long as legs, overextended at the waist as if he has a bent pipe for a spine—brings forth all the evidence against Nyranna on a three-dimensional viewer seen from any angle. He goes through everything as though laying out a row of instruments on a table: her documented presence on the planet Anihelios, the only planet in the galaxy where the assassin spider could be found; the death of King Goldhammer, verified
pictures of the spiders crawling inside his abdomen, taken by Elion; the abdominal spider infestation of an attendant of the council in this very palace, one who died before anyone realized his signs.
This last death forced the council to bring in a troop of exterminators from across galaxy.
The attorney paints Nyranna as a servant of Uden, an Elemiscist with a linkchain who must follow orders. In her situation as the first-ranked Strider-Whisperer amalgam of Uden, her master is Medegair, the Royal Father himself. Nyranna was only the assassin.
“State your case and evidence,” the Messiah then requests of Nyranna’s council.
The hour has likely gone past midnight, but they show no sign of recessing.
Arrigale stands. “My client, Nyranna, did not assassinate the king of Staggenmoire.”
Will she mention that the Northrite were the ones who sent me to Anihelios?
Nyranna’s three new attorneys stand, place a seat under Arrigale, and have her sit.
One man in white clears his throat and speaks each syllable with a complete lack of emotion. “Nyranna’s visit to Anihelios is documented in her overseer’s log.”
The woman with them brings up a digital log on the three-dimensional viewer. The dates and times of Nyranna’s visit to Anihelios are highlighted beside earlier dates of her visit to Staggenmoire with the diplomat. The dates of the Moonrider attack on the castle are also included for reference.
The courtroom grows quiet, even breaths freezing.
“Objection,” Grendermane’s council says. “Unsubmitted evidence. We did not have the opportunity to assess this document’s validity.”
The Messiah nods. “Given the expedited trial, the advantage must go to Uden. Overruled. But, Grendermane may also submit additional evidence.”
The stick man sifts through documents, then quietly converses with two other men at his bench. One leaves the room and returns several minutes later.
Grendermane’s attorney then steps up to the viewer and displays a document. “This is the accused’s own Star Map data, obtained and then documented by an independent third party.”
Dates and times of Nyranna’s travel to Anihelios and Staggenmoire are highlighted beside Uden’s evidence. The dates differ. These show that Nyranna visited Anihelios before visiting Staggenmoire with the diplomat.
“We believe Nyranna’s overseer manipulated his log entries in an attempt to exonerate the accused,” Grendermane’s attorney says.
Murmurs from the audience roll through the room.
Grendermane’s attorney shouts, “Ask the accused to confirm.”
“Granted,” the Messiah says. “Nyranna, please state for the court that your attorney’s defense is indeed true and correct. Nothing more.”
For a moment Nyranna ponders what to say. “I agree that the statement about me being unable to poison King Goldhammer with the assassin spider is correct. Never in my life had I been to Anihelios until you, the Northrite, ordered me out there, supposedly to—”
A gavel bangs over her voice. Her three new attorneys tug at her sleeve, scold her in whispers, and tell her to shut up.
Nyranna continues, yelling now, “The cover was to report the Ruin, the trick was the spider you made sure that I—”
A jolt runs through her, and she drops onto the stone floor with a sound of slapping skin, a thud of bone, her eyes wide. Paralyzed.
Breman kneels beside her and smirks.
Nyranna lies on her chest. Her back rises and falls with breaths, nothing more. She can only see in one direction.
“Beguilers, confirm her emotion when answering,” the Messiah commands.
“Lying.”
“Lying.”
“Lying.”
All three of the Beguilers have discredited Nyranna’s defense as a lie. Even other Elemiscists would sell out their own kind for their masters. Everyone and anyone would sell her out, give her up, command her life.
Nyranna sees a man in the crowd, the dangerous bounty hunter, Elion. An artery throbs in the groove of his neck as he stares at her, as if he’s experiencing an impending heart attack. He remains silent, still.
“Any words of regret, Nyranna of Uden?” the Messiah asks. “Return her ability to speak.”
Nyranna is hoisted up, held in a standing position by an antigravity sling. Something pricks her back.
Her lips and tongue feel like swollen worms as she stumbles over words. “I request the Penal Planet Plea.”
The Northrite pause, stare, look to her council, then after a few seconds converge behind the Messiah’s bench, becoming a circle of hushed tones.
Nyranna learned from her extensive reading over the last couple of days that she could request to be sent to the inhospitable planet of Climice without judgment or sentencing, to save time and cost to the galaxy, a death sentence in itself from the elements and wildlife of the planet. Such a sentence would not be on these Northrite’s terms. Rarely in the history of the galaxy had someone actually requested the punishment.
The plea would implicate Uden but remove the guilty spectacle the Northrite desired. If she could never free herself or her undeserving people, she wished to at least spit in the Northrite’s masked faces.
The Northrite reclaim their seats.
Her lead council clears his throat. “We wish to make it known that Uden requests a dismissal of the Penal Planet Plea.”
The Messiah nods and leans forward. “Noted. Nyranna of Uden, we hear your plea, but in this case of such extenuating circumstances, war crimes and treason, your request is denied. You’ll be judged and sentenced as the first-ranked Strider-Whisperer of Uden.”
All the feeling in Nyranna’s lips and tongue seems sucked away again, her energy falling out of her feet and pooling across the floor.
“Then, Nyranna of Uden,” the Messiah says, “you are sentenced to death. Held for a week to give testimony against Uden, which may help cleanse your soul for whatever afterlife you believe in. Sentencing and sanctions against Uden will fall on a later date. As will indictments and additional trials for the Moonrider attack on Staggenmoire castle and an Uden warship attack on a Silvergarde barracks.”
The gavel falls.
Acceptance comes quickly, and Nyranna’s blood burns like magma in her veins. Frustration, rage, hate. They have the audacity to make her wait a week, pondering her inescapable death.
Sweavers jerk her out of the antigravity sling by her armpits and start to drag her away.
Adersiun stands, his white visor focusing on her face. “Northrite council, I’ve something to add.”
Nyranna’s limp head is still, but her brain seems to lurch and bang against her skull in surprise. How much more torture will be brought upon me when Adersiun tells the Northrite that I attempted to incite an insurgency of Elemiscists?
“I request immunity for Nyranna of Uden.” Adersiun plants his fists on his hips.
The shadow of Forgeron sidles over to Adersiun, takes his hand, and attempts to direct Adersiun away. Adersiun kicks the creature, and the shadow sails across the room, a ghost fleeing from the light.
“I ask for immunity from the charges on Nyranna’s behalf.” Adersiun steps closer to her. “If she’ll accept servitude to the Everblades.”
“So, you’re choosing sides now, Adersiun?” the Messiah asks. “You’re choosing Uden over the Northrite and the Patriarch?”
“The Patriarch is dead, and this has nothing to do with Uden.”
Twenty Everblades in white armor and black capes emerge from the masses of spectators and press together behind Adersiun.
Tingling begins in Nyranna’s fingers and toes. Feeling is returning to her limbs; the tip of her thumb twitches.
“You need to prove your sworn loyalties,” the Messiah says. “For all of your Everblades. Help keep the galaxy’s peace.”
“I’ll assist you in deescalating the newest threat on Jasilix by whatever means necessary,” Adersiun says, “but the council should also compromise in the name of
peace and let me have Nyranna.”
A silence descends, one so thick that Nyranna feels she could reach out and touch it.
Why does this sibylline man want me to join his Everblades so badly? What can I offer him that is so valuable?
Breman shouts, “If she’s granted immunity as the assassin of Staggenmoire’s king, she must still face charges and a death sentence for secretly gathering the Elemiscists without the permission of their overseers. Such a meeting was not an order from Medegair, not an order she was forced to perform. Manipulators cannot get away with such treachery or they will only attempt more: more lies, more corruption, more murders.”
“I thought you might raise an objection, Breman.” Adersiun motions to his Everblades. “Bring in the Elemiscist who initiated the meeting.”
Is he talking about me? Is this how he wishes to punish me, to crush me after giving me the hope of escape?
Two Everblades come forward, dragging an old man with a swollen face, one eye closed, cheeks cracked and bleeding, hands bound before him.
“Please,” the man says, the voice of the Kindling.
Did they catch him just after they arrested me?
The Everblades and Adersiun march up to Nyranna and shove the Kindling to his knees.
“You must kill him as punishment for the crime of the secret gathering of Elemiscists,” Adersiun says to Nyranna, loud enough for the entire court to hear.
Adersiun strides to the Northrite’s bench and reaches out.
The councilmembers flinch in unison: stand, slide away, jump out of their chairs.
Adersiun snatches something from the evidence table, returns to Nyranna, and shoves a jar with a single assassin spider inside into her tingling fingers.
“You kill him or you die,” Adersiun says. He places his palms on Nyranna’s shoulders. A surge of energy flows into her, and the tingling in her limbs spreads through her body.
Nyranna flexes her elbows and knees. Hesitates.
You kill him or you die.
She unscrews the lid of the container as if to dump the spider onto the ground and refuse, to defy them all. She forces a deep, cleansing breath and swings the open jar over the Kindling’s face.
The Forgotten Sky Page 38
