“You’re doing this for her,” Percival said suddenly, “even beyond her death.”
If the Governor seemed shocked by this conclusion, he didn’t let it show. “We shared our sentiments about Northgard. She... She...” The Governor shook his head, his lips curved into a brittle, trembling smile. “She would want me to do what’s best for Northgard. You know, I should really thank you both. You’ve arranged the perfect groundwork for a swift political reconfiguration. This has been long in coming.” He rose to his feet with a groan. “And with that in mind, I have duties to attend. I apologize for the brief meeting.”
Roy and Percival followed behind him and his guards on their descent to the first floor. During the walk there, the two Droves—whom Roy had previously believed insusceptible to the migraines and skittishness to which the Matron and the Governor’s first entourage of Droves had fallen prey to—were pestered by ghosts. They swirled over their heads and around their arms and through their legs, screeching. They shrieked in various degrees of agony, from promises to what sounded like profanities.
One ghost made a sly grab for the baton of the guard on the Governor’s left, but he managed to bat it aside before he could be divested of his weapon.
Amazed, the Governor looked around, marveling at the spectacle that his appearance had produced. A small smile touched his lips.
Roy did not want to wonder what was on his mind, but the thought came to him of its own volition: The Orphic Basilica, engulfed in flames. The ghosts, entombed in a perpetually burning graveyard. He wondered if they would die with the library, or if they would be stuck in purgatory, some excruciating state of limbo from which they would witness the goings-on of the world beyond but never again roam it.
Once they were on the first floor, the five of them gathered near the entryway in a loose semicircle, the Governor slowly turned, his blank-faced guards doing the same. “You know, I’m rather glad you’re still here,” he said. “There’s one last thing which I would like for us to tackle before my departure tonight.” He brusquely plunged a hand into a pocket of his trousers and pulled out a pile of soggy papers, which he threw at Roy’s feet. They made a wet slap, splattering water across Roy’s boots. “My guards spotted a dead horse and its rider, a young woman—both fallen to frostbite and hypothermia—on the side of the road on our journey here. These papers were in her pocket. I assume she’d been on her way to the library.”
Frozen, Roy looked down at the crumpled, damp papers, but dared not touch them. He knew what they were.
“Pick them up,” the Governor demanded, his voice monotone. “Read them.”
Roy picked them up. There was nothing else to do, no way of escape. He wished the ghosts would wreak havoc upon the Governor and his guards, that they would drive them beyond the brink of madness, that they would steal into their minds and memories and crush every thought they’d ever had.
Instead, Roy unfolded the papers. There were four sheets of parchment. They were soggy, but the writing was legible.
In essence, the letter—penned by Irene—detailed the urgency of Briar’s mission, which was to inform Roy what had transpired during the time they’d been separated, as well as to relate the ever-shifting relations of Governorship and the Radiant Droves’ barbarous acts of harassment inflicted upon the middle class, the lower class, and the academic community. Some scholars were scarred and flogged. Others were stripped naked and forced to survive the worsening climes.
At the end of the missive, Roy was petrified to find a blueprint of the Burrow, which Irene claimed Farrek had stolen from Drove’s military coat.
Everything was in this letter.Almosteverything, anyway, but Roy didn’t believe that the Governor was foolish enough to think Irene, Briar, Tessa, and Farrek—and whoever else Briar had recruited into her secret circle of conspirators—were not aware of what had taken place in Rasileus. If word got out, Northgard would spiral deeper into despair and desperation, exacerbated by the Old Ones’ continuing assault, and the Governor would have to pick up the pieces.
Word hadn’t gotten out, though. It was in Roy’s hands. And before him was the despot who had proven he had no compunction leaning into the darkness if it meant keeping just a bit more control.
Just like he’d done fifteen years ago when he’d ordered all those bookshops and libraries burned.
The Governor met Roy’s horrified stare. His skin was limp like melted wax, but there was something thrashing and alive in his green eyes.
“Roy,” Percival whispered, looking wide-eyed at him. “Roy, what—”
“I was fortunate to make sense of it,” the Governor said. “I guess I should thank your sister’s friend. Had it not been for Tessa, I might have been oblivious to Irene Larifor leaking military secrets. Her mother and father have demonstrated their unswerving loyalty and devotion to my cause, so I should think that they will be pleased to attend their traitorous daughter’s public execution tomorrow. And your sister...” He smiled. “Well, Briar Dawnseve might have escaped my notice, too, had Tessa been a little more careful not to reveal telltale information. Therefore, Briar will be joining her friend—or lover, I suppose, according to the nature of some of their letters—on the execution block. A final reunion, at long last.”
Roy had thought he’d sorted carefully through the outcome of Briar’s treachery, that his and Percival’s deal with the Governor had circumvented the safety not only of his country but of his sister. But as dread crawled through his bones, Roy began to doubt everything that he’d worked for, everything that he’d given up.
“Please,” Roy murmured, then said aloud, “My sister is an asset, a second heir. Briar’s... She’s exempted from the Law of—”
“Nobody is exempted from justice,” the Governor snapped, apoplectic. Spittle flew from his lips and struck the carpet at Roy’s feet. “Law is undeniable; it is the answer.” He pointed a shaking finger at Roy, gave him a vicious, spiteful smile. “Your sister did me wrong, boy. She aimed to ruinmeandmine.”
Mine.
He means the city. Its people. Northgard.
He truly believes they belong to him, and him alone.
The ghosts had vanished without a trace since the Governor and his entourage had stopped in their tracks before the Orphic Basilica’s entryway. The library was silent but for the occasional raucous blast of thunder or lightning, and no loitering entities monitored the bookshelves.
Now they returned, peering out with their iridescent crimson eyes through the risers of the iron staircases and uttering low, aghast moans. Books and scrolls started shuddering and toppling from the shelves again, filling near and distant pockets of the library with booming cracks and thumps, repeated and amplified by a persistent echo.
But it was all faint and other to Roy, so painfully far away.
He was rooted in place, his mind spinning around the Governor’s words.Nobody is exempted from justice.
Roy sprang forward, overcome with uncontrollable rage. He took no more than three steps before one of the guards lunged and tackled him to the ground. Roy uttered a nearly soundless gasp, the air whooshing out of his lungs. He reached up, attempting and failing to claw at the guard’s face, when the guard suddenly wound his hand around Roy’s long hair and pulled hard.
