Alaric nods. “When my father tried to force me to purge the memory of Besnik’s death, I siphoned it into this button instead.”
“So does the memory exist only in the button? Is it like learning the truth anew every time you watch it?”
Alaric rolls the button through his fingers. “For now, I have it in my mind and in the button. But it’s only a matter of time before I slip up and my father discovers I didn’t purge the memory. The button ensures the truth will never be lost, and it’s far more detailed. Our natural memories fade over time, and I want to remember every detail of Besnik’s sacrifice. It’s the least I can do to honor him.”
“How does it work? How do you bring the memory to life? Delphinesaid she’s never seen anything like it.”
Alaric looks down and lets out a long, slow breath before answering. “I hadn’t either until late one evening, several years ago, I was returning to the Fortress from a jobsite and noticed an old woman creeping into a mine shaft that had been permanently closed. A pocket of gas had caused an explosion that collapsed several tunnels and killed dozens of miners. I didn’t want the old woman to meet a similar end, so I followed her into the abandoned shaft. I presumed she was senile and had wandered in by accident. My only intention was to bring her back up to safety. But as I descended into the gloom, I heard her singing—a sad, strange song I’d never heard before.
“I tried calling out to her, but the woman was singing too loudly, and before I could reach her and carry her to safety, she was surrounded by a burst of golden light. I watched in awe as the light formed into the visage of a man with a scraggly beard and three younger boys, ranging in age from perhaps twelve to thirty. They danced to life around her, laughing and embracing each other, blowing out birthday candles, and singing songs around a cookstove. It was like a dream, only more detailed, and it wasn’t until I watched the man and boys don mining boots and hats, collect their lunch pails, and blow kisses to the old woman, that I understood what I was seeing.
“This was a memory. These men—her family—must have died in the accident, yet here they were, so real and alive. As if she’d found a way to bring them back to life. It was what I wanted that more than anything—to see Besnik happy and alive, rather than a bloodied corpse strewn across a banquet table—and I was willing to do anything to get it.
“I’m not proud of what I did next.” Alaric looks down and sheepishly rubs the back of his neck.
I almost laugh. I didn’t have a high opinion of him to begin with, so it’s not like he has much to lose, but I force myself to hold my tongue because he’s finally opening up. And because I can’t deny that my opinion of him is changing.
I’m not sure what, exactly, I think of Alaric Alaverdi, but it isn’t all bad.
He clears his throat and continues. “I waited for the memory to end and confronted the woman. I accused her of trespassing, of conjuring sorcery and stealing memories from the earth. When she insisted they were her own memories that she never gave as tribute, I refused to believe her unless she showed me how she brought them to life. I made her teach me the song, which was a promise to the earth—a sacrifice of moments of joy—in exchange for not reporting her suspicious activity to my father.
“I exploited her pain,” Alaric says miserably. “What kind of person does that?”
“The grieving kind. I would have done the same to see Rowenna again. It doesn’t make you a bad person.”
“It doesn’t make me a good person either. But I needed to know the truth. By that point, it had been several years since Besnik’s death, and the loving way my father treated me, the way the people adored him, and how assuredly he spoke of his version of events, I was beginning to question my own sanity. I wondered if I had invented the tragedy to absolve my guilty conscience. If there was a way for me to witness the truth, I needed to see it.”
“For what it’s worth, I don’t think you did anything wrong. You didn’t take the old woman’s memories of her family or report her to Soren.”
Alaric shrugs and turns his attention back to the bagrava, skimming his fingers along the fruit.
“I’m glad you shared this with me,” I say after a beat. “But if I’m honest, I’m not surewhyyou did.”
Without any warning, Alaric lobs the silver button at me. “Catch.”
I’m so surprised, I barely manage to grab it. Then the instant the metal hits my palms, I shriek and almost drop it again.
The button pulsates with energy—an intense thrumming, like anangry bee buzzing in my hands.
I gasp and look up at the Vanzadorian prince. “Is italive?”
“In a sense,” Alaric says. “Memories are made of energy. They encapsulate the vitality of the time they represent. So when we give our memories to the earth, that energy is converted into power that funnels into my father and me. But when that energy is siphoned inside an object, it has nowhere to go, so it builds and brims, waiting for release. All siphoned memories emit this thrum. Someone in the Fortress might possess a memory of your sister, and now you know what to look for.”
I don’t know what to say, and the longer I stare at Alaric in open-mouthed shock, the more his cheeks redden.
Objectively, the odds that anyone saved a crucial memory of my sister are low. And the odds of me finding said memory are even lower. But the fact that Alaric shared this information is monumental. He’s letting me in. And he’s given me an ideal excuse. I can hunt for the triad gemstones under the guise of hunting for hidden memories. All the places people might choose to hide precious memories—like in the finest salons or personal chambers—could also be places they’d hide precious gemstones. Maybe Alaric will take me to these places if he believes I’m only hunting for memories.
“Thank you,” I murmur, reaching for his hand.
Surprisingly, he lets me take it. And that’s how Delphine finds us—hands clasped in a planter of newly grown bagrava—when she bursts through the solarium door a moment later.
Twenty-Eight
“What’s all this?” She gapes from me to Alaric, her eyes settling on our clasped hands.
“Nothing,” I say, yanking free. “Just a bit of gardening.”
“A bit of gardening?” she sputters.
