“They don’t look that way in the photographs,” I observe. “They’re usually half falling down.”
“The photographs? From the newspapers?” Lark draws a deep, balancing breath, and I’m fairly certain I inadvertently try his patience more than I should. “This is exactly what I mean. You’ll justify anything to prove you’re better than the rest of us. Do you even remember the old monarchies of the South?”
“There really were royals in the South?” I ask, intrigued.
“Stars.” He thumps one hand on my book. “Education is wasted here.”
I’m wildly fascinated by the prospect of far-away royalty, wondering what they might be like and if they’re still there and how their palaces are, but Lark’s only interested in war and politics and theories of resistance. When I press him further on the subject, he waves it off, saying monarchies are the way of the past and the South has moved beyond it, to a place where all might be equal and have their say—with or without a gun.
“You remind me of someone else I know,” I remark with a sly smile.
He gives me a quizzical look, doubtful, but I keep my Safire friend a secret. I’ve learned well of Lark’s deep hatred towards the General, which might be even greater than his hatred of Landore. Any mention of Athan certainly won’t go over well. But this only reminds me that I’m still not sure why Lark cares so much about Thurn. He’s from Resya. All of this is closer to him, yes, but it’s still not … his. How on earth did he wind up embroiled in the Nahir cause?
I want to ask, but I feel it’s a later lesson. A more personal one. In the meanwhile, I’m beginning to realize Athan might indeed be right about the South, that there is something darker going on than we in the North know, truths you can’t understand until you’re there to see them with your own eyes. Enough to make a girl beg the Safire for help. It gives further credence to Lark’s impossible hope—that my mother, who has lived in both worlds, might arrange a negotiation and invite reason to reign and peace to be restored. If she became the woman who saved the world from war, Lark says, how could anyone in the North ever speak against her?
It’s a gamble, and we both know it. But Lark is practical enough about the whole thing it suddenly seems entirely reachable. And I like that.
So, I sketch visions from his Southern life—born of his rambling monologues—and then add them to the little secret box which is the heartbeat of my joy. I’ve tucked Athan’s letters away there, the one place that seems safe and inviting in a world of sheer uncertainty. His folded pages hold the scent of kerosene, and heat. His touch. He tells me stories of Cyar hunting for snakes, of the funny new pilots he flies with and their training flights above the sea. My stories in return must seem painfully dull. But I always kiss the letters before I seal them, though he’ll never know.
“I have a plan,” I wrote him in the last one, “and you’d be pleased with my dedication to it. I’m not simply waiting behind these walls any longer. I’m going to do more than anyone imagined. Perhaps I’ll make a Safire soldier yet.”
I don’t only mean the negotiation scheme. I have another idea sheltered inside, one that’s just for me. It takes me to the University and then to another city, like Norvenne, and Athan’s there, older, walking with me down the wide street arm in arm, no wars anywhere at all. The steps in between are hazy, the specifics not entirely sorted out, but the ending’s clear. He looks very good with a few years on him, broad-shouldered and handsome. Playful, still, and teasing me.
And every evening, when I’m drowning in his sketches like a lovesick fool, imagining where he’s touched them, I also imagine his hands on me. I kiss the side of his jaw, then his lips, and I feel electric all over, wondering at the idea of his bare chest against my skin.…
I blame Violet for these ideas.
And then, as the summer begins to turn, General Dakar’s eldest son stands before the Royal League, striking in his uniform, bold before a balconied room full of old men at desks, and destroys my impossible hope with his own impossible speech.
Reni’s still on tour, and Mother’s sequestered away in meeting with Havis. Lark manages to secure a reel for us to watch, since he knows I want to witness our tragedy unfold—and I know he wants to share his opinion of it.
I’m hoping he’ll have some practical solution.
Seated together in the quiet of his guest quarters, we watch the General’s son on screen as he adjusts his Safire cap and strides for the podium, a reflection of his father—straight-shouldered, focused, handsome. He appears not the least bit intimidated by the sea of impassive faces before him, leading with a brilliant smile. “Gentlemen, I stand before you today as one who was born in war. I knew it long before I ever knew peace. The struggle in Thurn is one familiar to me, the same struggle from which Savient was birthed, and this revolution is not an accident. It’s a reaction born of bitterness and frustration. For too long you’ve watched without mercy, choosing to intervene only when it has promised you reward.”
I glance at Lark, since on these points I think he’d be inclined to agree, but Lark doesn’t notice, fixated grimly.
The speaker from Landore objects. “You spent a week touring the territory, Commander, and now you’ve the nerve to pass judgment on us?”
“I do. Because I’ve seen Thurn with my own eyes, unlike most seated here, who read it all from a report.” There’s a momentary stir at the desks, but the Commander doesn’t stop. “Every day that you wait, the shadow of the Nahir spreads further, inciting them to violence. They won’t stop with Hady. Decisive intervention is the only answer.”
“We’ve tried, Commander.” That’s a speaker from Elsandra. “It’s never as easy as that, not in the South.”
“Easy?” He laughs. “If that’s what you’re waiting for, then I can see why things have reached this point.”
“You know his meaning,” the Landorian man retaliates. “And I’m certain you know as well as us what kind of suffering the South can bring.”
“As if any one of them knows what it’s like to suffer,” Lark mutters.
For a breath, there’s a waver of resentment on the Commander’s face, acknowledgment of this knifed statement. But he straightens, voice sharpening. “You’re right. I do understand suffering. My mother was innocent, had no quarrel with anyone. Whoever murdered her brought the fight to us, and they will be held to account.”
“You would go to war because of a personal vendetta?”
“I would go to war for a chance at saving the South.”
“And you think your army can do this?”
“Yes, because we will cut the roots that feed the Nahir and bring Seath to his knees once and for all.” The Commander swings his hand towards the representatives from Resya, facing them. “There’s a certain kingdom on Thurn’s borders that has pretended to be a friend of the North even as it works against us. They sit here now, claiming neutrality, yet their king supplies money and weaponry to the rebels who fight you at every turn.”
I knew it was coming, heard the rumours preceding the reel, that the General’s son had actually condemned Resya before the entire North.
But here it is before us, igniting my anger.
Ugly in its boldness.
Lark taps his foot rapidly, arms crossed. The Resyan representative on screen protests eloquently, but since everyone is in a flutter, no one entirely hears, and it’s the Landorian man who silences all with the incredulous question in everyone’s mind. “Commander, you’re accusing His Majesty King Rahian of funding the Nahir?”