Seek the Traitor's Son, page 2
The augurs are all different ages, the oldest a straight-backed elderly woman, the youngest a teenager with soft, pink cheeks. All their eyes lock on her the moment she walks in, and the effect is unsettling. Those eyes see more than hers ever will.
“Go to the center of the mirror,” Nerina says to her.
Elegy glances at the Sword. She may not like the woman whose body formed hers, but in this strange place, she’s Elegy’s only ally. The Sword nods, and Elegy walks past Nerina to the edge of the mirror. It looks fragile, like her weight will break it, but when she steps on it, it feels solid. She can see herself reflected upward at a dozen different angles, in one a downturned mouth, in another a fidgeting hand. She walks to what looks like the center, the window showing blue sky above her. Sunlight stretches across her body. At once, all the augurs step forward and look at the reflections of her in the glass.
“You see,” the youngest one says, pointing at one of them. “It is her.”
“That’s the faulty logic of the young,” one of the others replies. “One piece of evidence and you say it’s certain.”
“Enough,” the oldest augur says. “We’ve decided on a course of action, and no debate will change it.”
The other augurs nod, and fall silent again.
The oldest augur goes on: “Elegy Rosyk. Welcome.”
“That’s not my name,” Elegy says, before she can stop herself. “Rosyk” is the Sword’s name—Elegy goes by her father’s, which is “Ahn.”
“It’s not your name yet,” the oldest augur says. “But we can hardly be expected to keep track of ‘yet.’ ”
“ ‘Yet’ is meaningless,” one of the others says, rolling his eyes. “Everything is was.”
Elegy doesn’t get a chance to puzzle over this bit of nonsense. A heavy door closes somewhere deep in the building. There are voices. Scuffling. A moment later another black-robed attendant, like Nerina, comes into the room from the door behind the augurs, identical to the one Elegy used to come in. She’s followed by a Talusar woman.
The woman is tall. The tallest woman Elegy has ever seen. Her feet are bare, but she wears armor in the pattern of a thousand tiny copper plates layered over each other to look like feathers. Her dirty-blond hair is braided into a crown around her pale face, which has an aristocratic look to it, her nose hooked and her mouth pinched.
“Stand beside her,” the woman’s attendant says to her, gesturing toward Elegy.
The woman looks Elegy over with a mixture of contempt and curiosity. She steps onto the mirror, and Elegy shifts to put more space between them.
“Rava Vidar,” the oldest augur says. “Welcome.”
Elegy chokes, and tries to disguise it by coughing. The Sword told her the Talusar would be here, but she didn’t mention one of them would be Rava Vidar, the Butcher of Calgara.
The Talusar empire spans their planet under the headship of the emperor, Icar Talus. Rava is his grandniece. Her mother, Icar’s niece, is the most famous of the family members the emperor has installed to reign over his territories, known for her exacting standards and her fatalistic acceptance of brutality.
Rava is her mother’s enforcer and her right hand. It’s a job she’s had from a young age, young enough that all of Cedre made jokes about the child general. (What does the Talusar general say to her first in command? someone would ask. And the answer: Nothing, she just learned her first word last week!) But Rava attained early victories against Fever-changed rebels from the north, and then—Calgara. She invaded Cedre’s colony there, infected its residents with Fever, and turned the cold war between the Talusar and the Cedrae boiling hot.
The jokes about Rava Vidar’s age didn’t sound so funny after that.
“It’s only right that you should be introduced,” one of the augurs, a bearded man with round spectacles, says. “Rava Vidar, daughter of Ileth Vidar, this is Elegy Rosyk, daughter of the Sword of Cedre.”
Elegy sees herself through Rava’s eyes: a woman not much younger than she is, who stands a head shorter than her, in worn black pants and a rumpled shirt, her face covered to protect against Fever. Compared to this blond titan in febra armor, she’s nothing and no one. Daughter of the Sword, what a joke.
“I’m sure you’re both wondering why you’re here,” the oldest augur says. “Or perhaps . . . why the other is here.”
Rava and Elegy don’t look at each other.
“There is a prophecy,” the youngest augur says, his pink cheeks even pinker than before. “It might concern you—” He gestures to Rava. “And it might concern you—” He gestures to Elegy. “It will decide the fate of one of your nations, or the other.”
“It . . . might concern me?” Elegy says, her voice muffled by the mask.
“Show some respect,” Rava says to her. “Cedre swine.”
It doesn’t occur to Elegy to be angry. She just looks at Rava with interest. She’s never been called “swine” before.
“Some augurs deal in words, and some in images,” the oldest augur says, as if neither of them spoke. “Some see few visions, and see them clearly, and some see many, and see them vaguely. We work together to arrive at the path we believe to be the most likely, but it’s not an exact science. And in this situation, we have reached an impasse. That is partly because of the relationship between you.”
The oldest augur steps onto the mirror. Her skin is freckled across her nose. There are creases around her mouth, as if she’s spent a lifetime keeping words in. The end of her robe trails on the glass. She stops in front of Elegy and Rava.
“The two of you share a two-pronged lineage, of which each of you is the last living descendant,” she says. “This prophecy trickles down that bloodline—all the way down to Ileth Vidar, and her many-generations-removed cousin: Keen Ahn.”
Elegy thinks of her father, Keen Ahn, slouched over his morning coffee, his hair sticking straight up as he checks her math homework. The memory aches. The thought of him being related to Rava Vidar even distantly is laughable. But the augur doesn’t appear to be joking.
“What does this prophecy say?” Rava asks.
The augur smiles.
“That is where our solution to this problem comes in,” she says. “This prophecy concerns the future of your respective people. It assures victory for one of you over the other—and through you, victory for your people over the other’s.”
Elegy feels a laugh bubbling up inside her, but it’s not a mirthful one. It’s all panic, all confusion. Victory for one of you over the other. She can’t look at Rava Vidar, the titan, the warrior, the legend. Elegy and her mismatched socks are no match for her. Victory for your people over the other’s. Victory for the Cedrae over the Talusar isn’t something she’s ever imagined. She thought they were fighting to survive, fighting to maintain the little corners of this planet that they occupy—not fighting to win.
The augur goes on: “But this prophecy is . . . a storm. Chaos and confusion. Tumult and rupture. And we have devised a way to make it settle.” She looks back at the other augurs, her body angling away from Elegy so she can’t see the woman’s face. “Half of us believe it speaks of one of you, and half of us believe it speaks of the other. So we will divide and reveal it to you separately. The questions you ask, and the guidance you receive, will force the prophecy in one direction or the other. But you will not know which—not until it’s too late to change anything. By the time you leave this place in peace, the wheels of fate will already be in motion. One of you will triumph, and the other will not. The Cedrae will be victorious . . . or the Talusar.”
The augur looks from Rava to Elegy.
“We will proceed immediately. Yes?”
“Yes,” Rava says.
And though all Elegy wants to do is refuse, run out the double doors to the salt flat, and leave this place far behind her, she knows that’s not an option.
“Yes,” she answers.
2
Elegy sits with the Sword in the antechamber, on a bench that makes her back ache. Salt prickles on her palms. At the Sword’s request, Shir stands just outside. The shadow of his boots interrupts the line of light under the door.
When Elegy was a child, a blast from a nearby furnace blew a hole in one of the buildings in the market. Chaos erupted in the street and she lost track of her father. So she crawled to the nearest market stall, climbed it, and stood on top of the awning to look for him in the crowd. He spotted her crouched there over a row of paper umbrellas.
She remembers that now, and she tries to find that feeling—to climb above this somehow for a better vantage point. Instead the words of the augur rattle in her head. This prophecy is a storm. Standing within reach of Rava Vidar, more legend than woman, more monster than Talusar. One of you will triumph, and the other will not.
“I never wanted children,” the Sword—her mother—says, and Elegy chokes a little.
“The fun never stops when you’re around, you know that?” she says.
“I don’t say this to wound you.” The Sword rubs beneath her eye socket where the mask digs into her cheekbone. “I say it to explain. I was destined from birth to be the Sword; the Cedre founders believed that having the role of protector be inherited would serve us better than leaving the office of Sword vulnerable to eager campaigners. And I was suited for it, this guardianship of my people, but I wasn’t suited for every part of it.”
Elegy doesn’t want to hear this. She’s comfortable with what she is and who she is: her work with the search and rescue team, her rank as primary, her marriage, their little apartment in Losan that they barely spend any time in, and a specter of a mother she never has to deal with. She doesn’t want the Sword to come any closer to that life.
“I was told to produce at least two children. I chose Larke’s father as a clever bit of social maneuvering, and I chose your father because I believed he would be a capable teacher and protector, and so I had two daughters, just as I was told to.” The Sword clears her throat a little. “No one expected me to struggle with it, because despite all the progress we’ve made toward equality, people still view women as naturally maternal and I am a woman. Yet I did struggle with it. I did.”
The Sword’s mouth twists, and Elegy feels sympathy, despite herself. Cedre encourages its citizens to have children, if they can, but it’s not compulsory. She never thought about the fact that her mother didn’t have another option.
“But despite my various failures,” the Sword goes on, “both my daughters have grown up capable. So it all turned out well, somehow. My point in telling you this is to explain that fate doesn’t require us to be well-suited to our roles . . . it simply requires us to fill them.”
Cedre is supposed to be a nation of choices. The choice of Quorum leaders. The choice to quarantine from Fever rather than surrender to it. The choice to speak whatever language you wish. “Fate” isn’t something Elegy has ever thought about . . . but now it’s a hand wrapped around her throat.
“I’m supposed to ask them questions,” Elegy says, and there’s a note of panic in her voice that she wishes she could get rid of. “And the questions I choose will affect the future of Cedre. How am I supposed to know which ones to ask?”
“That’s my point, I suppose,” the Sword says. “Simply ask the questions that occur to you. Trust that you will be what you’re required to be, in this role you didn’t choose.”
Elegy laughs again. “You make it sound so easy.”
“It’s the only wisdom I can offer you,” the Sword says, a little gruff.
Elegy leans her head back against the stone. “Well . . . I guess I’ll take it.”
* * *
When Nerina invites her back into the sanctuary, it’s empty. The augurs have disappeared into some rear chamber, and Rava Vidar is gone.
Elegy walks to the edge of the mirror and looks at her reflection in one of the larger facets. It’s strange that all her life, she thought that if some important role were to fall in her lap, it would come through her mother, not her father. But if the augur is to be believed, it’s her father’s bloodline that brought her here. Some fine, breakable thread connects her to Rava Vidar.
Keen’s eyes stare back at her, Keen’s downturned mouth.
She steps onto the mirror again, disrupting her reflection, and walks to its center. With the sky reflected back at her, it almost looks like she’s floating. She tips her head back to look at the window above.
The door opposite her opens for the augurs. She’s curious to see which ones will come in—which ones believe in her, and not Rava. The oldest is the first to enter; the youngest, with his bright cheeks, is last. There are three others: one with a shaved head, one who’s at least a head shorter than any of the others, and one with black hair down to her waist. They stand in a semicircle around the edge of the mirror, fanned out so she can’t look at them all at once.
The oldest augur clears her throat.
“I saw a vision.” She takes a piece of what appears to be chalk from the pocket of her robes, then bends down to draw a horizontal line on the stone floor in front of her.
“I saw a great lever, with the Cedrae on one side and the Talusar on the other,” she says. Beneath the horizontal line, right at its center, she draws a triangle.
“And beneath it, a fulcrum that determines which side rises and which side falls.”
The augur tucks the chalk back into her pocket. Elegy recognizes the drawing from her brief study of physics. It’s a seesaw, basically, and it balances on a single support. In this case, that support is a triangle the augur called a fulcrum.
“She who moves the fulcrum,” the oldest augur says, “controls the outcome.”
Before Elegy can process that statement, the youngest augur steps forward.
“When I saw the great lever, I received words,” he says. “I heard that the three points of the fulcrum are three voices in harmony.” He kneels before the drawing the oldest augur made, and touches a finger to each point of the fulcrum’s triangle as he speaks. Three voices in harmony. “She who moves the fulcrum controls the outcome.”
Elegy’s mind is blank. She doesn’t understand this image, this abstraction. Moving a fulcrum that’s made up of three voices—it’s nonsense. It’s meaningless.
The augur with the shaved head steps forward. “I saw a vision of a sign that will precede the outcome. I saw a great storm quenching the thirst of the dusty streets of Losan, flooding its streets with water.”
“I saw,” the augur with the long hair says. Her voice is low and clear as a bell. “I saw a man.”
Questions rage in Elegy like the bubbles in a boiling pot, about to spill over. She forces herself to think of what the Sword said. Ask what occurs to her. Trust that it will be enough. She thinks of the youngest augur’s finger touching each point of the triangle. If the triangle is this fulcrum they’re talking about, she has to get them to be more specific about it.
“What do you mean when you say the fulcrum is ‘three voices in harmony’?” she asks.
The youngest augur leans forward to smile, almost smugly, at the one with the shaved head.
“In this case,” he says, “I mean the fulcrum is a meeting of three specific people.”
Elegy nods. Her hands tremble as she goes over the words in her mind. The fulcrum is a meeting of three people—so all she has to do is assemble the right three people?
“These people,” she says. “How will I know who they are?”
“You already know them,” the smallest augur says, and the one with the shaved head makes a scoffing sound.
“She doesn’t know them all yet,” the augur says. “She is aware of them; there’s a difference.”
Elegy wants to spit curses. She wishes they were speaking her native language; Talusar is confusing enough without augurs debating its fine points. She forces herself to focus on what she’s heard. These people, the fulcrum. The meeting she needs to facilitate.
“How will I recognize them?” she asks. She feels like she’s repeating herself, but if she can just get them to be more specific—
“One will bear the Vidari name,” the oldest augur says.
“One knows the taste of Cenobium salt,” the youngest augur says.
“And one,” the augur with the long hair says, “you will know by other means.”
One will bear the Vidari name. It turns her stomach, but at least it’s specific. One knows the taste of Cenobium salt—well, that sounds like an augur.
But what about the third person?
“The third one,” Elegy says. “I’ll know them by what other means?”
“You have never said his name,” the oldest augur says.
“He will bring you death,” says the one with the shaved head.
And the black-haired one: “You will fall in love with him.”
Elegy’s first thought is of the shadow of Shir’s boots under the door to the Cenobium. His rough fingers curled around hers as she descended the steps to the salt flat.
She’s said Shir’s name so many times. Admonishing him for leaving suds on the dishes when he puts them on the drying rack. Calling for him when she gets home from the corner store. Whispering in his ear when they’re tangled together in bed. She can feel his name in her mouth right now, as familiar as her own. Elegy’s throat feels so tight she can barely breathe.
They aren’t talking about Shir.
“I’m already in love,” she says. “And how can I love someone who brings me death, anyway? What the hell does that mean—he’s going to kill me?”
“Kill you?” the youngest augur says. “Doubtful.”
And the oldest: “Though . . . perhaps the transformation forced by love is a kind of death.”
