I’m shaken from my daze to find Dune in front of me. His look of concern is genuine, but it’s concern for me, not for Gabriel or Balmora. He doesn’t share the pain of my brother’s loss. Dune may try to comfort me, or he may not, but one thing is true: he wanted this. This is the best outcome the Gates of Dawn could have imagined. But I am unraveling. I feel as though if you pull a frayed piece of me, I’ll unwind into ribbon.
“The Virtue has been alerted,” Dune says. “He understands that Balmora is dead and that it’s confirmed suicide. He’s going to want to know what she said before she jumped.”
“She gave me a message from Gabriel,” I reply. I sound distant, even to myself.
“What was the message?” Dune asks.
“She said Gabriel wants me to follow the crow to the trees in the sea.”
Dune’s expression grows more intense. “Do you know what she meant by that?”
“No,” I reply, “but the only ‘crow’ I know is Agent Crow.”
A woman’s shrieks echo in the corridor outside Dune’s apartment. He turns to look, and the door is thrown open by a disheveled woman. Her long blond hair is half set, as if she were interrupted in the middle of grooming. Clad only in a long jewel-colored robe, Adora storms into the drawing room.
“Where is she?” The Virtue’s wife howls, and then her eyes fall on me. “You! What have you done?” Her voice is high-pitched, overwrought. I shudder at the snarl on her beautiful lips. “My daughter would never kill herself! She was too strong for that! You killed her!” Adora thrusts her finger at me. Deep lines of sorrow appear around her mouth.
My head shakes involuntarily. “She was my friend,” I whisper. Hot tears fill my eyes. “I tried to save her, but she—”
“Liar!” Adora’s agony shimmers. Tears drown her eyes. She lunges forward to slap me, but Reykin captures her and thrusts her arms behind her. “Let go of me!” She jerks and twists, but Reykin easily holds her. He nods his head to the Fated Virtue’s bodyguards, who have trailed in after her. They come forward to hold her off.
Then The Virtue storms into the room, tight-lipped, flanked by his personal bodyguards. “Adora!” He tries to hug her.
She wrenches away from him. “You promised me that if I agreed to keep her locked away in the Sea Fortress, nothing bad would ever happen to my baby. You lied! You’re a liar!” Adora spits viciously at her husband. “You’re all liars!”
The Virtue motions to his bodyguards. “Take the Fated Virtue back to her apartments,” he says. “Call for a physician. Have her sedated.”
Gently but firmly, the Exo guards pull Adora away. Her wailing and threats of retribution recede, but the air remains stained with them.
The next few hours are complete chaos. The Virtue paces, grilling me with questions about Balmora’s death. Both Quincy and I present the facts of her death without revealing the treasonous part about arranging Gabriel and Balmora’s reunion. Most of the questions he asks us are about things I pretend not to know. Ignorance as a defense is weak and unacceptable to The Virtue. I fear for Dune’s furniture as the brutal despot crashes around the apartment, laying waste to all the most fragile appointments.
“You were supposedly her friend,” he rages, almost toppling over a delicate table and sending an iron bowl filled with orbs crashing. The noise feels like slaps to my already taut nerves as his anger escalates from vein-popping to murderous.
“We were friends,” I reply with a distinct lack of emotion, not because I’m unemotional, but because I’ve forced them all down. “But we’re also Transitioned secondborns. Relationships cannot be intimate. It’s unacceptable to form deep attachments to anything outside one’s duties.” I use the law as a fallback. If they’re going to create ridiculous rules, I’ll throw them back in their faces.
“You expect me to believe you’re a robot?” he asks. “I’ve seen you fight. Your passion is why you excel, not your detachment!”
I’m stunned for a moment, not sure how to defend myself from an accusation that’s so true. Movement by the door draws my attention. Two firstborns from The Virtue’s administrative team creep into the room. Both are young, lithe females wearing terrified expressions. The one with the Virtue-Fated moniker inches forward and interrupts The Virtue’s scathing tirade. “Excuse me, Clarity Bowie.” Her timid voice quivers.
He whips around at the disruption. “What is it!” he bellows.
“Exos found this in Secondborn Commander’s tower room.” She holds up a palm-size hologram recorder. “It contains a message from your daughter.”
“Show it!” he roars.
“But, Your Excellence, it’s a very private kind of—”
“Play the bloody thing!” Spittle flies from The Virtue’s mouth.
The woman scurries forward, placing the recorder on the floor in the space between them. She activates the message. Holographic light projects up from the cylindrical metal base. Balmora’s image appears.
“Hello, father,” she says in a brittle, condescending tone. She’s wearing the white nightgown she died in. Her hair, beautifully mussed as if she has just woken up, frames her tear-stained cheeks. Puffy eyes attest to her crying. She is perched on the edge of the bed in the Fate of Seas tower. Gabriel’s corpse is visible behind her, resting against damask pillows. “It may come as a shock to you that I’ve been in love with Gabriel St. Sismode since I was very young—and he loved me. We kept it a secret from you and Mother, not by choice, but because you and your perversions forced us to.
“Gabriel has always been kind and gentle, a man who hated being the heir to the cruelest Fate of the Republic. Unlike you, Father, he never thought my being secondborn was a curse, or that it made me inferior. He loved me despite my birth order. We were going to change the world together, he and I, but now it’s too late. He’s dead, and I’ll be joining him soon. So I won’t waste much more of your time with my insignificant prattle. I know how you hate that.
“Gabriel made me promise I’d give you a message from him. He said his mother is set to bring a wave of war and terror to your shores, the likes of which you’ve never seen. He said there was no way for him to stop her. He believed that only his sister is cunning and strong enough to do that. So he’s stepping aside as the heir to the Fate of Swords. He took his own life so that Roselle could take his place.” Bitterness shows on her face. She swallows hard. “Personally,” she growls through gritted teeth, “whatever monsters Othala is bringing, I hope they destroy you and your entire dynasty. Good-bye, Father. May your death be long and painful.”
The hologram projection blinks out. The Virtue’s mouth is unhinged, resembling the severed head from the bronze statue in the Trial Village, locked in its last moment of horror.
“She’s mad,” he whispers. The Virtue clears his throat. “If Othala wants a war with me, she’ll get a war.” He points at me. “I’ll see that you become The Sword, Roselle. You’ll lead the Fate of Swords. Secondborn soldiers will follow you, not your mother! After all, you were one of them!” To the two trembling assistants, he barks, “Assemble all the Clarities of the Fates Republic, except for Swords. I want a meeting today! Roselle shall have a private suite in Upper Halo. I need her close to me at all times. Move!” The assistants scatter.
I’m herded out of Dune’s apartment. Quincy and Rogue get diverted by a pair of The Virtue’s assistants. Before they go, the assistants assure me that they’ll take Quincy to my new apartment to await me.
Dune and Reykin flank me as we pass through security and into corridors I haven’t seen before. The hallways don’t make sense at first. The outside of the hovering structure appears to be hollow, but to my complete amazement, it isn’t. The architecture is circular, but it’s solid throughout, with surfaces that give the illusion of sky.