Lightfall, p.41
Lightfall, page 41
“Not to mention,” Maleck added, “if Salvotor managed to sway any of the High Tribunes in some other way we don’t know about. All he needs is to control a single vote, and he walks free.”
Cistine flexed her fists and forced herself to breathe deeply as another wave of panic rolled through her. “What’s the likelihood of that?”
Thorne shrugged up from the wall. “I think we’re about to find out.”
Astrid, one of Adeima and Maltadova’s guards, stood grim-faced at the mouth of the hall. “Thorne, the Chancellors would like you to stand with them in the courtroom. You as well, Ariadne.”
Cistine’s heart thundered. Was that show of unity a precaution, or were they trying to send a message to a soon-to-be-free Salvotor that Thorne was still Kanslar’s Chancellor in their eyes—that they believed Ariadne’s testimony despite what was voted?
Nauseated all over again, she followed Thorne and Ariadne into the courtroom, where Bravis already droned on about the rule of law and the necessity for an accord between the five Courts. She barely heard a word of it; she was tired of hearing about laws and reasoning. She just wanted this to be over.
“High Tribune Hallvard.” Bravis’s tone gentled slightly. “Has a verdict been reached?”
“It has.” Hallvard’s voice was strained from a night of weeping.
“Step forward and state it.”
Cistine’s fingers hunted for Ashe’s, squeezing with all her might.
“The Tribunal has deliberated.” The rough words carried like a boom in the quiet. “We have reviewed the evidence. And in the case of Traisende Court against Chancellor Salvotor of Kanslar, we find the accused—”
Salvotor’s chair creaked audibly. Ariadne tensed. The whole room took in its breath all at once.
“Guilty,” Hallvard announced, “of the charge of rape of a visnpresta acolyte in direct violation of Valgard’s laws. The Tribunal recommends ten years’ imprisonment, in accordance with the law.”
“Let it stand,” Bravis said. “The accused will serve the full sentence. Branko, have your men remand him to his chamber pending detainment in the prison.”
The Vassora hauled Salvotor up from his chair, and he wrenched an arm free, gesturing sharply at Ariadne. “Not once in ten years did this woman come forward! Now she destroys a man’s reputation on baseless accusations from untrustworthy witnesses, and you’ve all allowed it for the sake of raising up a High Tribune whose title I’ve not recognized in a decade. There is no imitation of lawfulness in this kingdom anymore!”
“That’s enough, you’ve had your chance to state your piece,” Bravis said. “Escort him out.”
“I’m not finished!” Salvotor snarled, and Cistine wasn’t the only one who flinched. “You all think you need no king, no ruler—that your laws and Tribunals protect you? This is what you have become! Courts allowing foreign emissaries into their very hearts, trials carried out on a decade-old accusation without any scrap of evidence, without—”
“Hal ulda viy.”
Salvotor hesitated at the whisper near the windows from one of the many figures in a star-sprinkled robe. Cistine’s skin prickled with gooseflesh; a startled, wary hush clasped the room. Then Salvotor barreled on, “This trial has been a mockery of justice. I will contest this sentencing until my last breath. I know my words were never heard, that this liar had you all convinced before you even—”
“Hal ulda viy.”
A second woman took up the words near the back wall, her voice a breath stronger than the first. Then another joined in. Then another.
“Hal ulda viy. Hal ulda viy.”
Chills spilled down Cistine’s arms as the black-robed figures stepped nearer to the fence all at once. Nearer to Ariadne. Nearer to Salvotor.
“Hal ulda viy!” The Old Valgardan chant spread among them, linking woman to woman through the chamber. They cast back their hoods, baring faces full of snarling defiance and pure rage angled at Salvotor. But their words they directed at Ariadne: “Hal ulda viy!”
We are with you, they shouted.
Ariadne’s mouth tumbled open, Iri pressed a hand to her heart, and Saychelle hissed, “Visnprestas.”
Ariadne’s former sisters all joined their voices together, drowning out Salvotor’s accusations, silencing his hate with a cry for their fellow acolyte with her dreams torn asunder, their friend ripped from their arms by this man’s cruelty. They stood with her now, women of every color and shape, hoods cast back, eyes blazing, palms striking the wooden railing until it rattled, all their voices as one raising the chant high.
We are with you. We are with you. We are with you.
“Silence them!” Salvotor roared. “This disorder cannot be tolerated in the Courts!”
But no one moved to stop the tide of voices, the pounding hands, the cries in the ancient language soaring to the rafters, rattling the windows and shaking the courthouse to its very foundations.
“Hal ulda viy, Malatanda!”
That shout came from Tatiana, hands cupped around her mouth. Then from Ashe, gaze burning with pride. From Saychelle and Iri, tears streaming down their cheeks. And from Cistine’s own lips, her fierce joy uncontainable, screaming the words with the others.
We are with you, sister. Hal ulda viy.
At a cut of Bravis’s hand, the Vassora dragged Salvotor toward the gate. Still he fought, digging in his heels, spitting at Ariadne, “This changes nothing! No matter what they chant, you will never be one of them again!”
She raked him with a long look, the strategist sizing up her enemy as Branko unlocked the gate. “Perhaps not, but that will never stop me from praying. And I will pray for you, because I have what you’ve never known: healing from what broke me. I’m sorry no one ever tried to heal you.”
Salvotor’s head whipped back. “I need no healing. I am…”
But the shouts crowded out his words. It was a worthless posture, anyway; perhaps no two people understood brokenness like the boy turned to villainy by his father’s cruelty, and the warrior he’d wounded by the arm of his own pain.
He was silent when the Vassora marched him from the courtroom. Aden was the first to break rank and stride out after them; Cistine chased him into the hallway, the rest of the cabal on their heels, even Thorne and Ariadne. Side-by-side, they all watched Salvotor vanish around the bend in the corridor, flanked by his guards.
After several heartbeats of silence, Tatiana glanced at Ariadne. “Those women. They were…”
“From my acolyte school, yes. From our Order.” She turned to Thorne. “You brought them here.”
He nodded. “So you would know that no matter what happens, they never stopped believing, just as we’ve always believed in you. I barely had to ask…every temple I wrote to, anyone who knew the name Ariadne sent their reply in a matter of days. They came for you.”
Her eyes glossed with emotion. She threw her arms around his neck, and for the first time, Cistine’s stoic teacher and steady friend burst into sobs. “Thank you. Thank you.”
Thorne cradled her face to him, tears sliding through his dark stubble as well. “Laws can’t dictate the heart. You are theirs as much as you’ll always be ours. I wanted you to know they love you, too.”
“And the gods love you,” Aden added. “They aren’t done with you yet.”
Another sob ripped from Ariadne’s chest. “I wasn’t certain…before today, I could never be sure of that.”
“I’m sure.” Thorne pushed her out at arm’s length and took her shoulders. “You are everything it means to truly be a Starchaser, Ariadne. And I’m proud to have you at my side.”
Pride raised her chin, drying her tears so swiftly it was like she never cried. “Well, with the irreverent company you keep, someone must hold the balance.”
Quill burst into laughter and swooped an arm around Ariadne’s shoulders. “It’s done!” He whooped so loudly Faer took flight to the windowsill with a cross squawk. “That bandayo’s finished!”
Then they were all shouting and embracing at once, and Cistine laughed as they knocked each other back and forth in a jouncing tangle of arms. She didn’t even realize they weren’t alone until a throat cleared gruffly behind them.
Silent as shadows, six of Kanslar’s Tribunes joined them in the hall—Marcel no longer among them. The cabal broke apart to a silent, wary line again, regarding these men who’d met them at Thorne’s swearing-in with such hostility.
“Chancellor,” Njal of Eben spoke first. “Word has spread of how you thwarted Salvotor’s schemes against Sander and the other High Tribunes.”
Thorne’s chin sank slightly. “If you came to bring a warning from my father, walk away.”
“Actually, we came to apologize,” Tribune Tadeas said. “High Tribune Sander was not as alone as he thought he was. Yes, we voted to have your title stripped, and we followed Salvotor’s orders—some of us more willingly than others.” The pause allowed for Marcel’s notable absence. “But the Valgard Salvotor sought to create was not our vision.”
“Why didn’t you swear fealty to Thorne as soon as Salvotor was deposed, then?” Aden demanded.
“Why do you think?” Njal scowled. “He has our Names.”
“What his men did to the High Tribunes is child’s play compared to what he’s done to us,” Tribune Vaclav added. “Threatened us. Compelled us. Used our families as leverage.”
“This is what it’s meant to be a Tribune of Kanslar Court for more than a decade.” Njal fixed Thorne with a piercing stare. “But you know this. It’s why you chose to leave.”
“A choice for which you all voted to have me whipped,” Thorne said slowly. “But I’m beginning to think that may not have been as much out of spite as I once believed.”
Njal folded his arms. “We’ve been watching you closely, wondering if you would become like your father. But last night, you fought for the Tribunes with your own hands. That’s something I’ve never seen.”
“It’s a shame you haven’t, because the Courts should always fight for their own,” Thorne said. “I’m sorry your Chancellor never fought for you.”
Njal eyed him shrewdly. “Something tells me that’s going to change.”
“Something tells me it already has,” Tribune Hafgrim added.
After a long, thoughtful silence, Thorne smiled. “We need to have a chat, I think, you six and I. I want to know precisely what my father is holding against you so we can break his grip. I intend to make him fully aware you’re under my protection now.”
Njal dipped his chin. “Chancellor.”
Vaclav, Hafgrim, Tadeas, Gunther, and Enar all mirrored him without a flicker of animosity in their faces. Then, as quickly and unexpectedly as they arrived, the Tribunes departed.
“And that,” Aden checked Thorne’s shoulder with his, “is how you make friends, Mavbrat.”
Thorne checked him right back. “We’ll see how that friendship holds in the days to come, when I remove Marcel from this position and place you on the Tribunal.”
“Something tells me they’ll be pleased to see another supporter of Salvotor removed from power.” Bravis broke in on their conversation, striding from the courtroom with the other Chancellors in tow. “A fitting spectacle to end the utter spectacle of all this. Thank the stars that’s over.”
“What now?” Cistine asked.
“We’ll do the appropriate thing, which is guarantee Salvotor a secure place in the prison. In the meantime, he’ll be watched night and day by no less than twenty guards.”
“I’d make it thirty,” Benedikt grunted.
“I’ll take that under advisement,” Bravis smirked. “It’s only appropriate, too, that we disseminate the verdict as efficiently as possible to the elites. I would think a celebratory feast should do the trick. Let him hear the music while he rots in his rooms.”
“A feast it is.” Valdemar rubbed his hands together. “And then I’d like to speak a bit more with Talheim’s emissary. Now that we are allies, it’s time to decide what that means precisely for trade.”
“My pen is ready when yours is,” Cistine grinned, and to her disbelief, he smiled back, then led the other Chancellors away discussing feasts and litigation; all but Thorne, who lingered with a hand on Ariadne’s shoulder until the doors opened again and a stream of black robes flooded out, aiming straight toward them, Saychelle and Iri carried along in their midst.
The hall erupted in a storm of voices all at once, cries of Ariadne’s name, prayers and shouts as different hands spun her left and right, and arms embraced her from every side. Above the din, she cried, “How did all of you even secure leave to come here?”
“We told the temples we were going, and if they couldn’t make do without us for a few days, they would learn to make do without us forever,” one girl smiled wolfishly.
“You risked your place in the Order for me?”
“Have you gone deaf?” Another woman knocked her knuckles on Ariadne’s temple. “Did you not hear us in there?”
“Malatanda.” Someone else took Ariadne’s face in her hands. “That will never change. Damn old creeds and ancient laws, you’ll always be our sister. And now you’re coming with us—we have so much to ask you about!”
Ariadne’s head swiveled toward Thorne, and he jerked his chin. “Go. You have some catching up to do.”
Her smile even brighter than her Name, Ariadne left the corridor encircled in her sisters’ arms. Weightlessness broke through Cistine as she watched them go, the rest of her body finally catching up to what was accomplished. The treaty between their kingdoms was sealed now, Thorne’s place on the Judgement Seat secured, and Salvotor only just beginning to pay for his crimes against Ariadne, the Courts, and Talheim.
Suddenly, Cistine could barely breathe.
Julian’s killer was convicted.
Something small and light and frantic beat along her ribs—a grieving call that demanded to be heeded. She stepped back from the grinning cabal, and when Ashe’s eyes cut to her, she forced a smile. “There’s something I have to do. I’ll see you all later.”
At the end of the hall, she broke into a run, and didn’t stop all the way to Kanslar’s garden.
A hush blanketed the frozen hedges, the paths and fountain, when Cistine finally slowed, quieting her heavy breaths as she wove between the greenery. There was nothing in particular she was looking for, but when she spied a certain tree, it seemed fitting—an orange tree for the boy with the orange blossom tea.
She crouched at its base, cleared away tangles of brittle ivy and fallen leaves, and started digging.
She ought to be making a larger hole than this; a proper grave. There should be a funeral procession, complete with trumpets and standards and pipes, the kind her grandmother received at her interment; the kind that would one day be given for her father and mother, and then for her. Julian deserved that and more, but all she had to give was a small hole barely as wide around as her fist; and in that fist, the lightning-warped betrothal ring he’d given her in Veran all those months ago.
Tilling grave dirt was so different from tending a garden. The soil felt dead, clotted and thick under her fingernails. She yearned for her living gardens in Hellidom and Astoria, even for the box in her room…places of life and growth. But this had to be done.
When the hole was dug, she crouched on her heels and stared into it, imagining if there had been a body to return to Talheim to give Julian the burial he deserved; if she would’ve ever stopped crying, seeing his face so still, eyeless and disfigured and dead. Never coming back.
“I wish I could give you more.” The words jarred out so suddenly they startled her. She hadn’t thought any would come. “A Talheimic procession. All those banners and trumpets and drums. A few weeping girls for lasting effect. You would’ve laughed at that forever.” She cuffed her face with her sleeve. “When we called off our courtship, I never saw our story ending like this. I told myself one day you’d find a woman to love who fit you perfectly in every way I couldn’t. And I’m sorry you never had that, Julian. I’m sorry you never got to ride bareback through the fields at home again, or hug your mother or be a great Warden or rule Practica as one of my trusted advisors. I’m sorry Salvotor took that future away from you. From us.”
Tears fell in earnest now; she didn’t try to stop them.
“We made so many promises to each other. I wish we had a lifetime to keep them. But if nothing else, I’m glad I kept this one: I brought justice for you. The man who killed you will never be free to harm anyone else again. And now I…” Tears masked her lips, filling her tongue with the taste of salt. “Now I have to finish what you died for. I have to set myself free.” She opened her fist to stare at the betrothal band. “The truth is, keeping this never really made me feel closer to you. And I couldn’t understand why when it was all I had left. But now I do.”
She hesitated, letting out her breath on a sad, wondering laugh. How strange and unfair that it was easier to speak to Julian when he was dead than in those last few weeks they’d had together after Veran.
“It’s because this ring was from the worst part of our courtship,” she whispered. “I’d rather remember us when we were happy and everything made sense. That’s how I’ll honor your memory…by remembering the Warden you were going to be, and the man who served his princess to his dying breath. The man who made his kingdom proud.”
She pressed a kiss to her knuckles, then dropped the ring into the shallow hole and slowly scooped the dirt back over it. As the dull glimmer disappeared, a strange weight lifted from her chest, different from all the other griefs she carried. All that remained of Julian was this ring, and it was right that it should live among the growing things, like a seed planted in the heart of Valgard, watered with her tears, sprouting a legacy of memories.
“You and I are Talheim’s children. You are Talheim, Julian Bartos. And I’ll carry you with me for the rest of my life.” She scooped her hair back and bent down to kiss the mound of dirt—a last goodbye.
