CHAPTER ELEVEN

Deny, refuse to comply.

Close eyes against the tyranny

you cannot bear to be.

You will not mirror that which you

don’t see.

—THE HARMONY OF BEING

Varten raced to catch up with the distant figure he was certain was Zeli. Though she had such short legs, she was speedy when she wanted to be. It took him the length of two entire corridors before he reached her as she entered an unfamiliar narrow chamber in a part of the palace not much trafficked.

The lighting was dimmer here, the walls and decorations older. This place must be deep in the heart of the building where it butted up against the mountain. He reached out to touch her shoulder and she shrieked and spun away, clutching something to her chest.

“I’m sorry,” he said, holding up his hands. “I didn’t mean to scare you. But you were running so fast.”

Her normally vivid skin tone was ashen; she looked almost as scared as she had this morning. He had the urge to comfort her and bring her in for a hug, though she was so squirrelly he wasn’t sure she’d appreciate the gesture. As it was, she looked at him with shaking, fear-filled eyes.

“A-aren’t you supposed to be at your birthday party?”

“It was a bore. You didn’t show up.” He grinned, but her expression didn’t change.

“I’m on a mission from the Goddess,” she stammered.

“A secret mission?”

She frowned and looked around the empty hallway then down at the bundle in her arms. She seemed … lost, and her expression made him determined to give aid in whatever way he could.

“You don’t have to tell me. How about I just walk alongside you, like a guard, while you finish your mission.” He lowered his voice. “If a wraith shows up, they can take me and you can run for help.”

This seemed to startle her. “You think they’ll come back so soon?”

He shrugged. “Even if they don’t, I’ll need to practice guarding people if I’m to join the army.”

“You want to join the army?”

“Well, I need something to do. Papa wants me to finish school first, but he’s not around to teach me anymore and Jasminda has better things to do. I’ve never been to proper school anyway, and I wouldn’t know how.”

She considered, then started walking again, a little more slowly. He fell into step beside her. She was still hunched over her bundle, which, now that he was able to get a closer look, was a book.

“I’ve never been, either,” she said. “To school. Though my mistress taught me to read and write, mostly to amuse herself.”

“The Goddess taught you?”

“No, my former mistress. I grew up on the estate of the Magister—he ruled our city and its territories. His daughter and I were the same age, and I was her personal servant.” Pride rang in her voice. Varten wasn’t surprised. She seemed to take her job very seriously.

“So what is it that you have there?” he asked, motioning to the object she clutched like a safety line.

“Are you sure no one will miss you at your party?” She eyed his formal suit dubiously.

Varten shrugged out of his jacket and tossed it over his shoulder. “It’s my party. I should be able to take a break from it if I want to.”

She looked at him like he had a cat on his head. “This is for the vault.”

He rubbed his hands together. “Ooh, the vault. I’ve never been to the royal vault before.”

Zeli shrugged. “It’s not much to see. Metal doors half a pace thick. Lots of locks and combinations.”

“And She’s entrusted you with all of that?”

She nodded; Varten grinned, impressed. “Well you must be very special then.” She dipped her head, embarrassed. Varten got closer. “So what’s the book about?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t read it. The Goddess found it and it … It made Her uncomfortable.”

Varten picked up on her distress and shared her worry. “What kind of thing could do that?” She looked up wide-eyed. That was answer enough.

He peered closer at the leather-bound book. “She didn’t say what was in it?”

“No, She barely wanted to touch it. Though She said it wasn’t magical. Just words on paper.”

“Words on paper can be magic enough,” he mused. “Maybe we should have a look.” Zeli’s eyes were in danger of bursting from her face and running away entirely. “I mean, aren’t you curious?” He could tell she was by the indignant look she wasn’t quite pulling off. “What’s the harm of taking a quick peek?”

She wavered, then tightened her arms and shook her head. “No, it isn’t our business.”

But Varten had seen the chink in her armor. “I suppose you’re right. The Goddess Awoken always has our best interests at heart. She never tricks or manipulates things in order to get Her way.”

Zeli appeared surprised at the bitterness in his voice.

“Not like She let my sister die or anything.” Varten hadn’t been there for Kyara’s execution, but he’d seen the newspapers and heard the radiophonic newsreaders. Jasminda had collapsed, poisoned, something the Goddess should have been able to prevent easily, but hadn’t, all to test Kyara’s power or some such.

“I’m betting the situation this morning isn’t the only secret She’s keeping.”

Zeli stopped walking entirely, her jaw dropping. After a long moment she spoke, voice wobbly. “Maybe She gave me this task to test me?”

“She’s been known to do that before. She tested my father—that’s how he came to this country in the first place.” It was also why they’d ended up in prison, but he restrained himself from mentioning it.

Zeli swallowed. They continued walking until they arrived at an intersection. Down the hall was a small door, nondescript but guarded by two Royal Guardsmen. The vault must be somewhere through there. But instead of approaching, she made a turn and dipped into the side hallway; this one looked to be for servants. She stopped in an alcove.

“I don’t know. She told me to put this in the vault with the—” She cut herself off.

“With the what?”

“Something else powerful and dangerous that needs to be kept away from everyone.” She shook her head. “I should just do what She said.”

Varten tapped his lips in thought. Zeli’s stance was relaxed, not as rigid as before. “You’re right. You’ll want plausible deniability in this type of situation.”

“Plausible what?”

“My brother and I believe that one should ask for forgiveness instead of permission.”

Her confused expression lasted a moment longer until Varten plucked the book from her hands. Her eyes widened and her mouth opened into an O. Varten danced around her, fleeing down the hall, not knowing where he was going but hearing her feet race behind him.

He tried a few doors, all locked, then finally one at the very end of the hall opened. He found himself in a sitting room, one that hadn’t been in use in quite some time. White sheets covered the furniture, making it seem that the place was full of lounging ghosts.

The smell of dust hung thick in the air. There was no switch on the wall for electric lighting, but a bookshelf held two oil lamps. He pulled out the pack of matches he always kept in his pocket and lit the lanterns, while Zeli watched from near the door.

“You can honestly say you had nothing to do with my actions,” he said. “That’s plausible deniability.”

She shook her head as he uncovered some of the furniture, then sneezed as the dust caught up to him. He revealed two armchairs and a side table. The fabric smelled musty, but he tested one of the chairs, which was still springy.

“You don’t even have to look. I’ll just take a quick peek and you can stay right over there. Afterward, we’ll make sure it gets into the vault.” He settled into the chair with one of the lamps on the table next to him and carefully unwrapped the book. It fell open to a place in the middle, well-worn pages covered in neat handwriting.

It was a journal, written in dark, fading ink. The pages were thick and hearty, handmade, and very old. He flipped to the front, seeking a name or identifier of the journal’s author. Grinning, he read the inscription. “‘A gift from the heart to my beloved.’” It was only signed “O.” Hmm, the mystery increased.

He looked up to find Zeli’s eyes on him. She’d inched closer. He bet if he read far enough she might make her way over here as curiosity gripped her.

The first few pages contained sketches of simple machines and bodies. He scanned a few more pages until Zeli was seated beside him, craning her neck. He shouldn’t tease her too badly; how could they resist taking a peek? So far he’d seen nothing he imagined would make the Goddess uncomfortable.

Taking care with the old parchment, he flipped toward the back—he always read the end of a book first to know what he was in for. He stopped on a page filled with writing, but with one word larger than the others, outlined over and over again.

BLOOD.

Zeli gasped.

“Can you read this?” he asked.

“I can read. It says ‘blood.’” She sounded affronted.

“But it’s written in Elsiran.”

She frowned. “No, it’s in Lagrimari.”

He squinted at the words, clearly written in the language that his mother had painstakingly taught them all to read. They’d learned to speak Lagrimari from Papa, though he hadn’t known his letters in order to pass on reading and writing to his children.

“But the written languages aren’t the same,” he said, heart beating faster.

“They’re not,” Zeli said. “But the characters are. This is sort of like an old-fashioned version of Lagrimari. It’s not particularly easy to read but—”

“It’s understandable.” Varten felt the same way. It was like wading through the classic literature Mama had made them read. Jasminda had loved the stuff, Roshon hadn’t particularly cared one way or the other, but Varten hated it. He’d struggled through the lessons, always resenting having to learn something so archaic.

“That doesn’t make any sense,” he said. “It shouldn’t be possible.” Zeli’s gaze was tense. She scooted her chair closer for a better look at the book. Now they were knee to knee and she draped herself over the arm of his chair to read.

“Here,” he said, giving it to her.

She shrank back. “Plausible deniability.”

He chuckled, shaking his head. “You learn fast.”

“That, I do.”

On the opposite page from the ominous, underlined word was an outlined sketch of a man’s body, a circle in the middle of his chest with arrows pointing in and out. Varten traced the text below it with a finger and read.

“‘The question of whether there is, in the body, an internal organ such that separates the Silent from the Songbearers has been definitively answered. There is not. The Song then must be deduced to have manifested in some other sphere, perhaps from the combination of bodily humors or some other esoteric blend of forces.’”

He met Zeli’s perplexed gaze with one of his own.

“‘Regardless of whether its source is physical or energetic, the removal of a Song from a Songbearer requires a fleshly severing of the aethereal from its bodily form. Its restoration cannot be undertaken by simply reversing this process, though true mastery of the replacement methodology may provide a future procedure to that end.’”

The last words dissolved into breath. “Does this mean what I think it does?”

She didn’t respond, but the truth was in her wide-eyed expression.

He was almost too scared to put it into words. “Is there a way to restore lost Songs?”