“She said that my mother sent us here to die.”
“And you believe her?” he says, without a trace of sarcasm or judgment.
“She was meant to – my mother, I mean – she was meant to send a squad of elite soldiers to help us in this mission to find Bardin and bring her in, but they never turned up, and that doesn’t seem right to me. I guess she knew we’d go on without them. Briony was so desperate to find you, and there was no way she was going to wait, but…” I trail off.
“Why would your mother want you dead, Beaufort?”
“I’m one of many children, remember,” I say, with a bitterness I can’t keep hidden. “I’m dispensable.”
“I find that hard to believe. You’re powerful, and you’re bonded to two other powerful shadow weavers. I’m sure you’re an extremely useful asset. And then you are her son.”
I screw up my eyes and rub at my head. It’s all so confusing when he says it like this. I think I’m wrong to doubt, and that I shouldn’t for one second be giving any credence to Bardin’s words. But there’s more, and I plow on regardless. He needs to know the whole truth. Maybe he already knows it.
“It’s not me she wants dead. Not really,” I say, “it’s Briony.”
“Briony,” he says, shock radiating over his features. But it only lasts a moment, and then I think he pieces the jigsaw together himself. “Because of the light wielding.”
“The light wielding and the dragon, I imagine. Bardin claimed that my mother has been eliminating students from other Quarters who showed promise or who had powers, thatshe’s been doing it for years, that Bardin has merely been an instrument of hers.”
“Out there,” he jerks his chin toward the wall behind him, “Bardin suggested we join her. She wanted us to work together against the Empress. She could have told you all of this in order to win you over, with the ultimate aim of saving her own skin.”
“Yes,” I say. “I know. But there are still the soldiers.”
“There may be a million reasons for that.”
“Correct, there could be. And yet …”
“And yet you think there’s some truth to what Bardin told you.”
“All those deaths at the academy over all those years, and the Empress never questioned them.”
“No one questioned them, Beaufort. We just accepted that’s how things were at the academy – that some children died in the trials that were designed to test and push them.” He runs his fingers through his beard. “What was the reason she gave? Why did she say your mother wanted these children dead?”
“To retain the status quo,” I say. “To stop the whole system from crumbling around our ears. To keep…” I hesitate, because fuck, this is hard to admit, “to keep shadow weavers elevated and in power and everyone else…” I plunge my hands into my pockets and kick at the dusty earth. “What do you think, Tudor? Who do you think is telling the truth – the Empress or Bardin?”
“Bardin,” he says without hesitation.
“What makes you so certain?”
“I’ve told you over and over again, Bardin isn’t stupid. She likes blood, she likes the chase, she likes the hunt, but she wouldn’t risk her position and everything she has for that. She may be unhinged, but there are easier ways to satisfy her murderous tendencies. She wouldn’t have risked all this unless the Empress had sanctioned it.” He blows out air through his teeth. “Besides, it all makes sense now, doesn’t it?”
I nod my head. “It does. But what are we going to do about it?”
“What are our options?” he asks.
I sigh. I’ve been thinking about this since Bardin disappeared into the spinning abomination of shadow magic. None of the options are attractive, but maybe the professor will have a better idea.
“We tell everyone. We tell everybody the truth. We expose the Empress for what she is and for all her lies.”
“Okay,” he says. “What else?”
“We flee,” I say. “We flee far away from this place, somewhere else, somewhere safe, somewhere she can’t strike at us.”
“Does such a place exist?”
I shrug.
“Right,” he says. “Anything more?”
