Some figures Roy couldn’t identify, some names eluded him, but this filled him with excitement. He found himself grinning at the idea of absorbing new information, of linking the ideologies he’d learned from his idol philosophers to historical events he had previously not heard of. He only stopped smiling when he remembered his mother would not take kindly to such a display.
Overhead, small portholes surrounded a large skylight covered thickly in snow, wrapped around which was a panorama illuminated by dreary gray light. Curved bas-reliefs depicted a series of foregone affairs: a queen sitting within a palanquin, carried by six knights whose helmets were capped with plumages of blue-gold feathers; the sails of a ship set aflame, drifting across a dark sea toward a distant shore; and an ambushed army, pristine silver shields raised, encircled by the cavalry cantering over the hills around them. Roy could almost hear the drumming of their horseshoes, the battle cries of soldiers carrying over the wind.
He turned his attention to the balcony railings at the edges of the upper six levels. Each ascended higher and higher, black as pitch, peaking at the seventh story like a pyramid. He couldn’t see much of the fifth, sixth, or seventh stories from his vantage point, despite the dim illumination offered by the skylight, but he imagined bookshelves lurked there in the dark, filled to the brim with novels and poems, treatises and theses. He was suddenly seized by the compulsion to dash off into the shelves and explore, and he might have done just that, but the responsibility that had been heaped upon his shoulders was too heavy, the price of failure too steep.
By the Scribes, the Orphic Basilica had to be as large as three countryside villas. Dawnseve Manor was considered by other noble families to be one of the most ambitious domiciles in history, but the Basilica dwarfed even that. Moreover, the library seemed alive despite having been half forgotten. There was still a heart here, in these seven floors of sagas and fables, and Roy fancied that if he closed his eyes and strained his ears, he might’ve heard it.
He trailed Dimestra and the emissary up the spiraling staircase resting in the middle of the first floor, the black wrought-iron railing adorned with grinning, sharp-fanged basilisks. The carpet runner had ended before the first step, and so the percussion of three pairs of boots rang through the library, creating an eerie symphony of overlapping echoes.
Roy looked up at the remaining stairs they had left to climb—he figured the fifth floor, from which the lamp he’d seen outside had glowed, was their destination—and then felt a wave of vertigo. The skylight seemed darker, subdued. He cast his gaze down and saw much of the same: a fine layer of shadow lay upon the carpet runner and spread outward, encasing the surrounding bookshelves in gloom.
He was so distracted by the illusory sensation that he lost all sense of where he was going and stumbled into the Citadel emissary. The tall, burly man had stopped in his tracks, his eyes wide with shock, and was twisting on his heels and whipping his head around as if someone from his past, a bully he thought he had long outrun, had called out his name. He clasped the felt cap lying askew on his head, his hand shaking.
Dimestra looked over her shoulder, annoyed but also a little discomfited. “Evan? What is it?”
Evan shook his head, then wiped away the sweat that had gathered on his brow. “Thought I saw someone, Matron. Never mind me.” He continued up the stairs, darting quick glances over his shoulder, and added in a mutter, “But I can’t say I much like this place.”
Roy disagreed, mainly on account of what it contained and represented, but he could see why Evan was frightened by his surroundings. Though the Orphic Basilica had seemingly sat in neglect for thousands of years, lain untouched—and this was immediately evident in its appearance—it did notfeelabandoned or unused. Had someone been here, maintaining it, dusting the books, tidying what had been disorganized? He had no reason for thinking this; everything he knew about the city made this a ridiculous notion. The anti-intellectuals of Northgard had no love for academia and so would undoubtedly bear even less love for a librarian, let alone the building itself, which had inexplicably withstood years of attempted acts of arson.
And yet the question wouldn’t leave Roy alone.
Is there someone here?he thought.Someone whom I cannot see?
Anxious, Roy could barely keep himself from stumbling; the snow on the soles of his boots had melted, making the stairs slick and glossy. They were on the second floor now, the deep and heavy silence irregularly broken by Evan’s rasping breaths and Dimestra’s grunts of discontentment. If there was ever a time to run, Roy realized, it was now; they were losing their focus, they were disoriented. But he couldn’t deny the truth. He was intrigued. He could not leave now. He had barely made his foray into the academic community; how could he simply abandon it after being handed an opportunity such as this?
Thatis your true weakness, Roy. You want to live in a cocoon, safe and protected by those who provide that safety.
Again, he couldn’t help but think that Dimestra had been right. But what was so wrong about wanting to survive? Or had survival in Northgard become something so impossible to imagine that the very act of imagining it was selfish?
Roy staggered into something hard and tall. He stumbled back, rubbing his forehead with the heel of his palm, and realized he had once again stumbled into Evan, who was murmuring to himself, almost spinning in circles with horror.
Strangely disinterested in whatever Evan was experiencing, Roy felt drawn to the balcony. Once there, he leaned over and saw shadows and hazy sunlight slashing stripes across the red carpet. Small reading alcoves, in which tables were cluttered with stacks of documents, were scattered throughout the library, and rolling ladders were intermittently placed between the bookshelves. Then his eye caught on the four balcony railings jutting out like bookmarks. They had made it. They were here.
We’re on the fifth floor.
“Roy,” ordered the Matron, somehow shaping the three letters into a cruel demand. She clenched her jaw, agitated, like she was restraining herself from scratching at an itch, though she eventually relented and raised a hand to her temples, massaging them. Between the rapid decline of Evan’s senses and what looked like the Matron’s developing headache, Roy was baffled. He felt fine, perhaps even saner than before entering the Basilica. What affliction had so debilitated his companions but had done nothing whatsoever to him? “Present yourself to the Governor with utmost respect,” she told Roy. “Remember your station, if only to remember his. A higher power most will not behold.”
Roy took advantage of Dimestra’s confusion, as he didn’t think her capable of violence in her current state, and said, “Likely because he’s too busy shoving children into uniforms and calling them soldiers.”
“Did you hear me?” the Matron hissed. “Are you listening to me?”
“As ever.”
Dimestra gave him a displeased once-over, then turned on her heel, dismissing his dry remark.
They kept walking. To Roy’s left was a glass cabinet occupied by books on wooden stands, and five paces ahead it curved into a small, dark room. There was a heavy, though remarkably pleasant, scent of spilled ink and parchment pages hanging thick in the air. Study spaces, fully equipped with lanterns, quills, inkwells, and long-backed armchairs, had been set up about the area.
There came a brief shuffle of movement from the study space tucked into the far-left corner, where sat a hunchbacked elderly man, his white hair pressed back slick across his scalp like a cap. He wore a pristine cream coat, the lapels covered in a menagerie of swan feathers, and long white trousers that complemented his thick gray boots. An onyx necklace hung about his throat, glittering dimly where the lamplight struck it. His eyes, an unnerving shade of bottle green, initially seemed lifeless to Roy... but the longer he looked, the more aware he became of their hidden depths.
“Is this the boy?” the man asked, squinting. There was a feeble smile on his pale, spotted lips. “Come, Roy. Take a seat.”
Roy had expected this man—The Governor, he forced himself to acknowledge—to lunge at him as a predator would do to its prey. He’d expected to be beaten, to leave this room with a mouth full of blood. But he was shocked to find the Governor, who appeared well into his eighth decade, looked as powerless and hopeless as Roy himself.
Dimestra crossed over to Roy and grasped his forearm, fingernails biting into his flesh. Her features were cool, inscrutable.
The Governor held up a hand, stopping her. “Release him, Matron Dimestra. This message is for the boy and the boy alone. Of all people, you should know this. I have given ample thought to the proceedings that shall take place here. Would it not be appropriate that I see these through myself?” He nodded to her, then to Evan. “Neither of you are required here on this day. You may vacate the premises.”
Dimestra’s grip slackened on Roy’s arm, and he twisted, freeing himself from her clutch. He looked askance at her, surprised to see a flicker of disbelief cross her face as she regarded the Governor, cocking her head. “I must confess, Governor, I did not anticipate this turn of events. I considered it my responsibility to administer all aspects of my rule as both a Matron and a commander of Drove squadrons and, as such, would have thought my presence for this discussion necessary.”
