I want to see Edgaard become the Patriarch of our family. I want to marry my beautiful wife and serve her and our charitable work for the College of Electors.
“I want to make you remember who you are so you can bring this system of patriarchy crashing down. Then only I will be left to rebuild the world in my image.”
“And they say I’m the singer.” I smile ruefully. “You’re the one who sings so sweetly.”
I’m a singer? Yes, I’m a singer.
“We use the gifts we’re given,” she says evenly. “Do you have the stones to use yours? For Nadia.”
The glass drops from my hand and shatters on the floor. Nadia. My love. Memories pour into my brain like too much sand in a sieve—Bone. My mother. Nadia. Gorham. The Maestro. All dead. My unborn child. Pain. He murdered them. Edric murdered them. He tried to brainwash me. He tried to make me forget. He lobotomized then murdered my mother. I scream and collapse to the floor clutching my head in my hands.
“Edmon?” Lavinia kneels next to me.
I grab her fiercely by the arms. “Don’t speak her name!”
She winces at my grip but smiles. “Now that’s the brother I remember.”
“I remember, too,” I say. “Everything.”
“Good. Then act,” she whispers.
I look around at the crowd, the guards, The Companions, my father . . .
There are too many to fight physically. Even if I could win, what would I do after?
Lavinia points to the dozens of camglobes hovering the rooftops, broadcasting the celebration all across Tao. “You have an audience. Tell them the truth about the murders that Edric Leontes commits.”
Our father may kill me. Lavinia may win. So what? Use the gifts I am given . . . I’ll destroy Edric and avenge my love. Lavinia is right. There is more than one way to fight.
I walk to the orchestra, to the first chair electric viola. I rip the magnetic amplifier off his instrument and pin it to the lapel of my suit. The man protests so I punch him in the face, breaking it. There is an intense hiss of feedback as the amplifier adjusts to the new sound source. I make my way to the middle of the dance floor. I raise my arm, signaling that everyone should come to a silence. My father stands behind the wedding table. Miranda gapes like a hooked cod. The camglobes hover and converge on my location. They orbit around me like moons.
“Today we celebrate the union of two noble houses of Tao!” I toast. The guests erupt in cheers. “A bond between the long and storied, now sick and dying, behemoth of House Wusong, and the lowborn, inauspicious, young upstarts of House Leontes!” The applause now comes with a tepid pitter-patter. Is this praise? they wonder. “All in an attempt to consolidate power and move us forward to a new future. A blind future.”
I look to The Companions. Perdiccus grins. Sigurd glowers. Hanschen rests lazily on Phaestion’s arm. Phaestion’s eyes flare with interest.
“People of Tao, this marriage is a farce!” Cries erupt from the audience. “I was drugged and forced; my words were not my own this day. I resist now in telling you. You, too, must resist. It is not the circumstance of our births that define us, but how we choose to live!”
My father grabs Alberich and tells him to send for the guards.
“Those born with the title, noble, have done nothing to earn that gift. I stand here before you the son of a lowborn and of mixed race, but I’m a free man who chooses to struggle against the oppression. Oppression that says one person is better than another. Oppression that says this one should live while that one dies. Oppression of brother against brother!” I look at Phaestion. “And oppression of the father against the son.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Lavinia smile with sinister glee.
“My gift is not a Combat. My gift is an elegy for all those who have died in the struggle.”
Guards hustle into the reception area. My father directs them to surround me. I look Edric square in the face, and I sing. I sing the song that The Maestro wrote the words for. I sing the song my mother sang to me as I child. I sing the song the people call “The Song of Edmon.”
Edric’s jaw tightens. The veins stand out like cords in his neck. His hands clench with the intention to strangle me, but now he’s the one who stands frozen and impotent. As do they all. The Maestro knew this day would come—the day we lost. The words he wrote to the tune my mother taught speaks of a last glimmer of hope’s light against darkness. I reach the climax, and my voice rises in the cool twilight like a beacon. I force back tears.
Nadia and my poor unborn child. I won’t forget you, but I will not let them see me cry. I will not let them see me break.
Silence hangs between me and the rest of the world—a vast gulf unable to be crossed.
Lavinia smiles like a shark. Phaestion shakes his head, each of us lost to the other. Edric yells, “Seize him!” All hell breaks loose.
I stand in one of my father’s bedrooms in a Wusong-Leontes scraper, several miles from the remains of the party. My hands are bound. I’m bleeding from the mouth.
“Wipe the shit-eating grin off your face,” my father snarls.
“Wipe it yourself. You’re the one who put it there,” I retort.
He backhands me with his fist. My nose breaks, and I crash to the floor. My eyes water so that I can hardly see. Blood drips onto the marbled floor. Edgaard and Alberich stand like sentinels at the door, presumably to prevent me from making some kind of mad dash for freedom. I laugh. I don’t want freedom. I just want it all to be over.
“Edmon, I’ve tried,” Edric begins calmly. The throbbing in my face keeps me from a smart-ass response. My tongue feels like a thick rubber slab in my mouth. “I’ve showed you mercy and compassion—”
“Mercy? Is that what you showed me? Is that what you showed my mother? Is that what you showed Nadia? My unborn child?”
“A quick death is a mercy. It would be a mercy for you as well, but you are no longer deserving. There is more at stake than your petty desires and your insignificant teenage longings. A whole planet hangs in the balance. I’ve tried to bring you into the fold. I’ve tried leaving you to your own devices. Yet you will not shut up!”
His scream echoes through the chamber.
His voice drops deadly low again. “All you had to do was wait, fool. You could have stayed tucked away and forgotten. I was wrong to think you would do that. Who knows what damage you’ve caused here tonight. I will not be humiliated by you again. I will end you without mercy. Take him to the Wendigo.”
He nods at Alberich, and I’m dragged from the room.
MOVEMENT II: INTERMEZZO
CHAPTER 16
TREMOLO
My hands are bound. My head is covered. I see nothing. I feel the hum of a sondi engine and discern I’m in a passenger compartment full of bodies. We rock and bump together, packed like sarfish in a can. The dirigible banks its way over the frozen wastes of the Nightside. At least that’s what I imagine. The temperature in the cabin drops perceptibly. I calm myself, breathe slowly, and try not to shiver.
“Approaching drop zone,” a metallic voice cuts in over the speakers.