She wasn’t prepared for it, and answered off the top of her head, with no way of knowing what he thought of her responses until he’d sat back in his chair, looked at her from over the top of his glasses, and said, “Very well. I’ll be your advisor.”
“There’s one other thing you should know,” she said, and he’d tilted his head, waiting. “I’m not convinced the man running against me is Mael Ventaxis. I think it’s more than likely he’s an imposter, and a puppet for Vespus Corrigan. I plan to find out who he really is, and expose him.”
Luvian had given her a long look before taking off his glasses and cleaning them methodically on his sleeve. “Because if you can prove it, you’ll automatically win?”
“Yes. No.” Sorrow paused. “Yes, I’d automatically win. But … I don’t think he’s running for election because he cares about Rhannon. He’s doing it because Lord Vespus told him he should, and because he thinks it’s his place to. He said as much the first time I met him; he wants to belong, and Vespus has convinced him he belongs here.” She took a deep breath. “But how can he belong here when he doesn’t know it? He thought he was Rhyllian until two years ago, and everything he’s learned about since Rhannon has come from books, or been taught by Rhyllians.”
“But you’ve only known Rhannon as it is,” Luvian said. “All you know of what went before is from books, and your grandmother’s stories. So how does that make you more qualified than him?”
She looked down at her clothes, the grey tunic over darker trousers. Her voice was quiet when she spoke. “I tried on a dress two days ago. A green one. I’d worn colours before, my grandmama’s old clothes. Locked away in my room, knowing no one would ever see me. A rebellion, if you like. One I expect a lot of young men and women have taken part in, hidden in attics and bedrooms.”
She’d looked up to find him watching her.
“But this time I knew people would see me in it. That was the point, so I’d know what I looked like. And do you know what happened to me, as I imagined them looking at me in my green dress? I broke down. My heart went haywire; I was shaking and sweating. I got a rash, all over my chest. I thought I was going to be sick. Mr Fen, I’ve dreamed my whole life of wearing colour, and when it came to it I panicked because every fibre of my body told me it was wrong. Dangerous, even. He can’t know how terrifying it is, that moment when someone knocks at a door and you realize the curtains are open. He can’t understand the guilt that comes from smiling, because it’s not how his life has been. The cultural changes he’ll have to undergo to learn to be Rhannish aren’t the same ones the Rhannish people will be going through. He won’t be like them; their problems won’t be his problems. Their fears won’t be his fears. I don’t think he’d be a worse chancellor than my father, but he’s not the chancellor Rhannon needs right now. I really believe that.”
“And you think you can do better?” Luvian asked.
“Yes,” Sorrow said simply. “I can build the Rhannon the people deserve, because I’m one of them too.”
He’d stared at her for a long moment, lips slightly parted, before they’d widened into a wolfish grin that both thrilled and frightened Sorrow in equal measure. “Well, Miss Ventaxis, it doesn’t matter who Mael really is, or why he’s doing this. With me on your team, you’ll win anyway.”
He was undoubtedly cocky, sly and incredibly arrogant, but he hadn’t put a foot wrong yet.
And as for Irris… Sorrow didn’t know what she would have done without Irris over the past five weeks. Irris had been steadfast throughout, helping her to convince the Jedenvat that a state funeral was inappropriate. She’d held her hand as a dry-eyed Sorrow watched her father’s coffin be interred in the vault in Istevar, three days after he’d died. When Mael had stared at her across the room, Irris had moved to block her from his view, echoing the way he had stood between her and Vespus once. Protecting her.
Once the funeral was over, and an official mourning period of four weeks set, Irris had cheerfully handed her place on the council back to her brother, Arran, and moved with Sorrow to a new base in the North Marches. The Jedenvat ruled no one could campaign from the Winter Palace, and Sorrow had fought to be based in the north, close to the bridge. She wanted to know who came over it, and how often.
“You don’t have to do this,” Sorrow had told Irris while they were packing up their things at the Winter Palace, worried her friend was once again sacrificing herself for some greater good. The idea of Irris not being by her side pained her, especially with Rasmus gone, but she wouldn’t force her. “If there’s something else you wanted to do instead, you have to. I don’t want you to stay out of duty. I know how much university meant to you.”
Sorrow needn’t have worried, though.
“I can go once you’ve won,” Irris had beamed at her friend. “Unless you plan to fire my father and make me your vice chancellor. In which case I accept.”
“You rumbled me,” Sorrow had replied. “Don’t tell Charon yet, though.”
“Your secret is safe with me.”
“We’d better get started, then.”
And so they had.
The Gift
Though she’d done her best not to show it, aware that most of Rhannon didn’t know how bad things had been between her and Harun, Sorrow had spent the last four weeks itching for the mourning period to be over so she could officially begin campaigning.
She’d been disappointed to find that there wasn’t very much to do – candidates simply gave a presentation to the Jedenvat at the beginning of the campaign, and then waited for the formality of election day to be over so they could get to work. She supposed it made sense when there was just one candidate – after all, the entire country would have to abstain in order for someone to lose, and the Jedenvat’s approval was guaranteed in the face of one candidate – but things were different this time. She’d be competing for votes. And she found, to her surprise, that she wanted to test her mettle. Rasmus had always said she was unnaturally competitive for an only child.
Luvian had told her how in Svarta the prospective fain – their version of a chancellor – would travel the land and visit the various tribes, asking what they needed and wanted and incorporating that into their campaign. And in Astria, the presidential candidates held rallies and galas to gather support. Sorrow thought both sounded like ideal opportunities to actually get out and meet the people, as well as to see Rhannon, and had asked Luvian to write to the Jedenvat, to find out how she would go about arranging it.
So when the Jedenvat had replied saying that, in honour of there being two candidates, she and Mael would give two presentations – one at the beginning for the public and one before the election for the Jedenvat – but otherwise “recommended she adhere to the protocol”, Sorrow was annoyed.
“What does that mean?” Sorrow had asked Luvian. “Is it a suggestion, or a command?”
“How on Laethea should I know?” Luvian replied.