TALIA
An attendant summons me to dinner in Lyall’s apartment, which takes up the whole of the thirty-seventh floor. I'm surprised it's not higher, but once I enter I understand why—this space feels huge. The floors of the pyramid get progressively smaller as they reach the top, so here he can spread his wings metaphorically and perhaps literally, since it’s basically just one large open concept.
Instead of the mismatched salvaged furniture of Celena's suite, the king's chamber is minimalist. Not fashionable. Maybe that is a statement in and of itself. He has no need to follow the prevailing trends. It’s not particularly comfortable-looking, either. There is a seating area in the center of the room with extremely modern couches with hard, thin cushions. An enormous dining table that could probably seat twenty stands against the wall, but only two table settings have been placed down at the end.
A pair of Fai stand at attention behind the table. Ryin crosses the space and disappears without a word behind a door to what I assume is the servants’ room.
Lyall appears from a hidden door, talking to someone on his comm. He smiles at me kindly and pulls out my chair, helping me settle into the seat comfortably before sitting himself.
With a flick of his wrist, he orders one of the Fai to pour drinks and ends his call.
“I heard you went to the arcade,” he says. He jerks his head at the pair of Fai men, who retreat to the same door Ryin used. “You used to so enjoy those entertainments as a child. You would want to spend all of your time there.” He sighs, lost in a memory.
I take in the similarities and differences between him and my real father. Aren't we all a product of our own experiences? What made this man into who he is? Is he a monster or a loving father? Can he truly be both?
“Are you experimenting on Revokers in the Citadel, Father?” I ask.
If he's surprised by the question, he does a great job of masking it. He simply puts down his glass and pulls a dampener from his pocket, pressing the center to turn it on. It glows with a pulsing blue light. Then he leans his elbows on the table.
“Yes.” His voice nearly echoes off the empty pale walls. “We developed this strategy about six months ago. The soldiers who patrol across the wall lure and capture them. It has been difficult, and costly, but worthwhile.” He tilts his head. “How did you discover this?”
I swallow, trying to breathe through the knot constricting my throat. “To what end?”
“Understanding their physiology helps us hone our battle techniques.” He clasps his hands together, studying me intently. “And we are studying their venom. It is the most powerful poisoning agent we've ever seen. Knowing how it works will allow us to create an antidote that doesn't require a Fai healer.” He spread his hands apart. “A worthy goal, no?”
“Is that all?”
“Do you truly want to know?”
“Did I know before?”
He nods.
“Then yes. I would like to know.”
His scrutiny ends and he breaks eye contact, looking down at his hands before giving a little shrug. “I doubt you will support the plan any more than you did before. But, you certainly have the right to know. We cannot allow the Fai to continue to hoard the bliss. Our survival depends on our access to it. Our remaining mines are producing less and less. Pockets of bliss within the matrices are becoming more difficult and dangerous to find. When an area is emptied, the voids left are delicate and prone to cave-ins. We've lost three trammeled drudges this week alone in mine collapses.”
I gasp and try to tamp down my reaction, but he makes no mention of it.
“The Fai are difficult to fight in their home territory. The Greenlands are heavily forested and of course they have home field advantage. We have attempted various deforesting chemicals to kill their trees and ground cover, but too many of their daimons are skilled in growth. They just bring the plants back.” He chuckles as if amused at the audacity of these people to repair the damage to their land.
“But synthesizing the Revoker poison,” he continues, “well, it allows us to kill multiple birds with one stone, as it were. The poison is deadly both to Fai and vegetation, and with enough of it, we can overwhelm their ability to heal themselves and their greenery.”
I blink. “You're trying to recreate Revoker poison?”
“We have been trying for months. We have finally succeeded.” A broad grin breaks over his face, revealing sharp, white teeth.
My stomach seizes.
“We are now working on the distribution methods, developing a way for our air force to deliver the poison. Within the next week, our tests should be complete, and we will be ready to finally bring this conflict to an end.”
He reaches out to take my hand, which lies cold and lifeless in his grip. “I know you do not approve, and I am certain you will make the same arguments as before, dear one. But we cannot allow these ambushes and skirmishes to continue. Our need is too great. Without bliss, life would be chaos once again as it was just after the Sorrows. Neither you nor I remember, but my father told me of the suffering. The brutality as we destroyed one another for resources, battled the remaining mundane humans and the Fai. It cannot be like that again. It is my duty to preserve our way of life and create a legacy for you and your children.”
I pull my hand from his grip. “Please don't say you're going to wipe out an entire people for me.” I shake my head in disbelief.
“Nimali lives will be at risk if we continue as we are, if we lose our advantage.”
My head is still shaking rapidly. I don't know how to process this.
“You are disappointed in me, I see,” he says, sorrow edging into his voice.
I steady my breathing before responding. “I think it should be possible to rule without cruelty.”
“What you see as cruelty, I see as expedience. The Fai threaten the lives of every Nimali. We capture some of them, keep them bound to us with their souls locked away, but don’t ever think that if they had the ability they would not do the same to us. I assure you that at this moment they are plotting ways to destroy each and every one of us.”
I purse my lips. He gives me a rueful glance. “You still wish to negotiate?” he asks. His expression is all patience. His respect for my thoughts and opinions is clear on his face, but I can’t answer. I drop my head, feeling twisted inside.
He leans forward. “Say we were to release a handful of drudges, pull their souls from the vault, restore them, and send the Fai on their way as an act of good faith. They would know too much about our organization, how we do things. We'd be sending back the perfect spies.” He shakes his head. “No Fai that has lived in the Citadel can ever leave, my dear. You understand that is not possible at this point.”
My brain is stuck. “Their souls are in the vault?”
He takes another sip of his drink and nods. “Of course. Safe from any threat of theft and near enough so that they cannot leave here. But you do see why they must stay, why bargaining for their freedom cannot work.”
I nod mechanically. “Yes, Father, of course I do. I wasn't thinking clearly. My own...experience beyond the wall, whatever it was, must have colored my thoughts.”
Something clarifies within me, coming into sharp focus. I cannot take part in this ruse much longer. I have to find a way to stop this genocide.
My stomach growls and it wipes the contemplative look from his face. He shuts off the dampener and pats my hand again.
A whistle appears in his hands and he blows it in sharp blasts that hurt my eardrums. The Fai appear immediately, trays in hand as if they’ve been standing waiting on the other side of the door listening for his call.
I'm not sure how I eat with my stomach in such turmoil, but I need the energy. I keep up the facade, chatting with Lyall about my day. Listening to him complain of some of the jealousy of his councilors—jealousy he himself instigated to keep them off balance. I nod and smile at all the right moments. I bide my time.
If it's a matter of days until the destruction of the Fai homeland and the genocide of an entire people, then what I must do becomes startlingly clear.
And I don't want Lyall to see it coming.
RYIN
I slip out of the king’s apartment to the back staircase and race down to the thirty-second floor. The king often lingers with his meals, and I’m certain he and “Celena” have much to talk about. Still, I cannot tarry—I’ll need to be there when I’m summoned. Talia will stall for time as much as possible to give me the opportunity to warn my people.
I wish I were a telepath, able to contact others at will, but that is not one of my daimon’s gifts. I burst onto the Fai floor and nearly run into an older man.
“Von? Xipporah?” I ask, a bit wildly. He points me to the east kitchens, and I race in like something is chasing me.
Xipporah stands at the stove stirring a steaming pot. She looks odd there, her graceful form honed from years of training. She’s a soldier, not a cook, and even though she was captured voluntarily, the sight of her wasting her gifts rankles.
“Emergency meeting,” I sign. There are no guards visible, but we never speak about meetings aloud. “Where is Von?”
Xi immediately stops what she's doing. The woman who had been chopping cubes of cloned meat at the counter next to her smoothly steps up to take her place at the stove. Xi removes the apron covering her drudge uniform and motions with her head for me to follow.
We rush through the halls, keeping an eye out for patrols, and end up in the mechanical room, where Von sits at a small, folding table in front of a wall of bliss-powered equipment. Enzo and Nyana, two more GenFi members, are with him.
It’s hot and noisy in here, with pipes and tubes running from floor to ceiling. Panels with gauges and switches line the opposite wall. On the table, sheets of crumpled schematics are laid out. They are pre-Sorrows plans for the building’s machinery, the paper somehow having survived the destruction, but someone has drawn additions in the margins. The words “biometric security override” are scrawled in slanting script. Farther down the page is written, “blood, hair, dna???”
All three straighten at our arrival. Von stands, a frown on his face.
“Revokers on floor sixteen. They’re in a lab. Being experimented on.” The looks I receive in return are all horrified. Everyone exchanges glances and Von closes his eyes. Xi steps up and grabs his arm.
I’d forgotten that he has a direct line to our leaders back home. Even with an amplifier, no other telepath in the Citadel can manage communicating over such a distance.
When he opens his eyes, blue with the light of his daimon, his face is a hardened mask. His fingers fly as he signs. “We do this tonight. Where is the princess?”
Talia's secret burns a hole in my chest. Should I tell them or not? Indecision wars within me. What will keep her safer, being the princess or not?
“Where is she, brother?” Von signs again.
“Dining with the king,” I say through clenched teeth.
“Tonight then, after she goes to bed. Wait for my signal and then grab her, subdue her by whatever means necessary. We will kidnap her tonight and make our demands of the king.”
“We do not yet know what they're doing with those Revokers. The princess is asking the king as we speak. She will be able to give us more information.”
“Do you think it is anything good?” Von scoffs. “Experimenting on them? Keeping them on one of our floors? Whatever else is going on, we will pay the price.”
He's right. But I don't like the idea of using Talia as a pawn. Even less than I liked the idea of doing so with Celena.
Von steps toward me, eyes shining bright. “What is the cause of your hesitance, brother?”
“She is turning. She is the reason we have this information in the first place. Noomi was right, the princess—the one who returned—has sympathy for our plight. Using her like this does not sit well with me when there may be other options.”
He considers this. “Whatever change of heart she may be having will be too slow for us. Her influence over the king will not get us what we want now. We need our freedom, not tomorrow, not next year, but today. And we cannot wait for anyone else to give it to us. We must take it. If I've learned one thing from the Nimali way of doing things, it's that.
“The Crowns have need of you. Your people do. What does the fate of the princess of the beasts have to do with us? What care do they take with their prisoners, us? I intend to show our Nimali captive exactly the same care her people have shown to us.” He grins, wide and feral.
I take a step back, the war within me raging. How can I agree to this? But how can I not? I swallow as misery tears my gut apart. “What are you all doing in here, anyway? What are these plans?” I motion to the schematics.
Xipporah speaks up. “Nyana here found these headed for the compost. They were hidden in a ceiling during a renovation of a Cardinal apartment.”
“The bliss technology was added directly over the building’s original electric and mechanical infrastructure,” Nyana adds. “They modified some things but left other systems in place that no longer worked. If we can get them working again, we can override their tech and get into restricted areas. Cause some real trouble.” The woman grins.
“Those are big ifs,” Von signs. “And would have taken too long anyway. We have our new orders.” He turns to me. “It all hinges on you getting the princess where we need her.”
The others all stare at me. Xipporah looks worried. Enzo and Nyana, soldiers who I have shared this hell with and fought beside for years before, they are counting on me. Every Fai in this building is counting on me. I am the one best placed near the princess. The one with access to her.
I take a deep breath. “Yes. Fine. When you give the signal.”
I tell myself I will keep her safe. It’s better that I do it than anyone else. But apprehension prickles at me.
Von steps back, his daimon receding. There is a glint in his eye that I do not like. Noomi’s reproach echoes in my ears. If I had stepped up to leadership in GenFi like she wanted me to, like others expected given my family history, I could have pushed us in another direction. Maybe she was right—is my cowardice to blame for whatever happens next?
Freedom is on the line. The lives of all of my brothers and sisters are at stake. And how can I possibly keep Talia safe and not betray my people?
The question haunts me as I return to the king's chambers and wait for dinner to end.