In the end, I find myself standing in front of the fire, rehearsing in my head what I’m going to say to the people out there. Everyone seems to appreciate that I need my space and they leave me to it until finally Fox rests his hand on my shoulder.
“It’s time to go, sweetheart.” He hesitates. “I know why you want to do this. I understand that it’s the right thing to do. But my dad is also correct. This exposes us. Places us in danger. There’s no obligation, Briony. Fate may want us to do certain things, but there’s still free will in this world, and we have a choice.”
“Do we?” I ask, blinking up at him.
“Yes. We can walk away. We can run. We can hide.”
I turn back to the fire. “I don’t think we can.”
Maybe it’s been there since the day I learned of my sister’s death – a responsibility to find out the truth and expose it – and if I’m to do that, then I have to bear the consequences of that action as well.
But is it right? To do that and place the people I love in danger?
Maybe there is no right or wrong. Maybe there are just the decisions we make in the moment.
I guess I’m about to find out.
There’s a raised pavilion on one side of the town square that stands outside the courthouse, the only substantial building in the whole of Slate Quarter if you discount the factories and the mines. The court building has a tiled roof and columns flanking its front, but it’s still as dirty as the rest of the buildings in Slate Quarter. Some of the glass in the windows is cracked and the main doors need a serious lick of paint.
It’s funny, I never noticed those things before. The courthouse always seemed so grand and elegant to me back when I lived here. But now I’ve been to the academy, now I’ve seen Onyx Quarter and the palace, I see just how deteriorated everything out here is.
A crowd of people has already gathered in the town square. I wonder if they know who the Princes are. They must sense that the men with me are shadow weavers, just like I had known they were the first time I’d seen them. They must also recognize Fox, although I doubt anyone here remembers me.
I march to the platform, the others all following me, and turn to face the waiting crowd. I open my mouth to address them and realize, despite spending all day thinking about this, I don’t know what the hell to say. The others look equally confused when I turn to look at them. I take a deep inhale and turn back around.
The words I’d practiced by the fire tumble through my head in a confused array and none of them seem adequate. They barely make sense. I peer back at the faces of the people staring back at me.
And it dawns on me, I don’t need words. Words will be dismissed. Words won’t be believed. Words can be twisted. I don’t have the booming voice of Fox, the sense of humor of Dray or Fly, or even the commanding air of Beaufort or Thorne. What I do have is my power and my ability.
So I say nothing, hold out my hand, and let a stream of light soar from my veins all the way up into the cloudy sky above us.
There’s an astonished gasp that ricochets through the crowd. A few people clap. A few people laugh. I let the beam of light flicker in front of me and then find my voice.
“The Empress has been lying to you – has been lying to all of us. All these years, all these decades, you’ve sent your children to the academy to face the trials in the hope they’ll be sent somewhere better than this place, than Slate. Maybe you even hoped that they’d have the ability in their veins to weave magic. But whoever has? Who from Slate has ever had magic?”
There’s some murmuring. And then someone calls out:
“You’re from Slate, aren’t you? You’re one of the Storm daughters.”
“I am,” I say. “My name is Briony Storm, and I come from Slate Quarter. My sister came from this Quarter too, and she also had the ability to wield light in her veins. And do you know what happened to her?”
There’s a harsh silence. I think, to my surprise, many peopledoknow. They do remember.
“She died at the academy, and they told us it was some accident, like every death that happens there. But it wasn’t,” I tell them. “She was murdered. Killed by the headmistress herself on the orders of the Empress.”
There’s a shocked hiss this time among the crowd. Several people move uneasily on their feet, or flick their gaze around. I hear whispers oftreason, andtreacherous words.
I let the light flow back into my veins and face the crowd.
“Yes,” I say. “I know these words are treasonous, but they’re also the truth. And it isn’t only my sister who was murdered. Other students have been too – from Slate, Iron, and Granite – all so the Empress and the shadow weavers can maintain control of this realm, can keep us in poverty and squalor while they live in luxury and wealth.”
“The shadow weavers protect us from the demons!” a girl from the back of the crowd shouts out. I skate my gaze across the many faces peering my way, attempting to locate the source of that voice.
“The shadow weaverscreatedthe demons,” I say, talking over the voices of others who speak up in agreement with the girl. “They killed my kind – the light wielders – to gain control of the realm, and in doing so they altered the balance of power forever. They extinguished the light and left only shadow, and that act created the demons that have terrorized our realm ever since.
“But I’m here to change that,” I tell them. “I’m here to restore the light. And I believe that there are others like me among us who can help me.”
More chattering breaks out among the crowd. And then that same girl calls out from the back: “You’re a mad woman. Insane. Or maybe you’ve been drinking, just like your father.”
