Chancellor Ventaxis
In that moment Sorrow realized he’d do it all, and more, to win. That he’d been playing this game for so long the idea of losing was unthinkable. No matter the cost, he’d keep rolling the dice until his numbers came up.
“Don’t look so downhearted, my dear,” he said softly. “Say yes, and all of this will go away.”
Sorrow turned to him, mouth slack with despair, hysteria rising inside her. This couldn’t be happening, it couldn’t…
“I will tell no one about you and my son. Or that you are not in any way eligible to run for this election. Or that Lord Day has spent the last thirteen years lying to the entire country and covering for the Dowager First Lady’s crime. In return, when you win tomorrow, you will invite me to stay on as the ambassador. You will, in fact, insist upon it. And then, a few months later, perhaps I will uncover a plot by Bayrum Mizil to overthrow you, and you will reward me by giving me his lands. All of the North Marches.”
“But the people…”
“Sorrow, do you imagine I give a shit about the Rhannish people?” Vespus said. “Have I not made it clear that I don’t care how I get the land, as long as I get it? How it happens, you can decide, if it makes you happier. Make up a disease and quarantine it, offer the people a financial incentive to move. Close down the facilities – schools, hospitals, workplaces – so they have to move. I don’t care.”
Sorrow could only shake her head. She couldn’t do it; she’d promised she’d make things better…
“Perhaps I could sweeten the deal. Throw in my son for you too. Have him return with me, and you could go back to your illicit nights.”
Sorrow gagged.
“He wouldn’t object,” Vespus spat at her. “He’d sooner whore himself for you than do anything else. And you won’t object once he touches you… Like father, like daughter, I expect.”
Sorrow’s blood boiled at his words, both ashamed and furious that he knew how close she’d come to being addicted to the pain relief Rasmus’s touch offered. Now, she decided. Now it was time to play her only card. Now or never. It was all she had.
“I know you brought Lamentia to Rhannon,” she said, fighting to keep her voice steady. “I know it’s what happens when Starwater evaporates. I know it all.”
“You do, do you? Tell me, how did I get Lamentia into the chancellor’s hands, while I was in Rhylla, living a highly visible life at my half-sister’s court, or on my farm?”
“You had an agent,” Sorrow guessed.
Vespus rolled his eyes. “Obviously. Who? Come on, Sorrow… Who arrived in the Winter Palace mere months after I left, at exactly the same time Lamentia appeared… Another clue? Your family killed his, a long time ago, when they made their grab for power. If it wasn’t for you Ventaxises, he might have been a prince, or a duke. One more … he especially hates you, after you locked him away while his wife died.”
Balthasar. Of course it was. He came from nowhere and won her father’s favour almost overnight. With Lamentia. How had she not seen? How had Charon and her grandmother not seen?
“He’s been waiting a long time for his revenge on your family.”
Sorrow locked eyes with Vespus. “I’ll reveal it. I’ll say you made up this lie about me, about my grandmother, because I uncovered the truth about Lamentia. I’ll force Balthasar to testify. Everyone will know it’s your fault the last chancellor died.”
“No one in their right mind is going to begrudge me that, Sorrow,” Vespus sneered. “He was hated. Besides, in order for you to do that, you’d have to admit you knew about Lamentia all along. As did your grandmother. And the Jedenvat. You’d have to confess that you all conspired to cover up the chancellor’s addiction, while the Decorum Ward ran amok and Rhannon crumbled. No one will care where it came from. Or how I managed it, despite being back in Rhylla. They’ll be too busy burning your palaces to the ground and slaughtering the nobility. Again. It’s already begun, hasn’t it? The Sons of Rhannon… Well, they do say we’re all doomed to keep reliving the past.” His smile was slick. Victorious.
She had no choice. The realization was almost freeing, the band around her ribcage loosening. She couldn’t beat him. Even if she fled, he could reveal what he knew and bring Rhannon to its knees. He’d find a way to get the land, one way or the other. He wouldn’t stop. But she might be able to protect her people if she agreed to his terms. She’d be able to shield them a little, at least. And if she stuck close to him, watched him, waited. Bided her time as he had done, she’d find the chink in his armour.
“Well?”
She couldn’t say it. Instead she nodded, a single, damning lowering of the head.
It was good enough for Vespus.
He held out his hand and she shook it.
“Until tomorrow, Chancellor Ventaxis.”
She had no memory of getting back to her rooms. When Irris came to wake her the next morning she found Sorrow sitting on her bed, still wearing the clothes she’d worn the night before.
“Sorrow?” Irris rushed to her side. “What is it?”
But she couldn’t tell her. Telling her would mean betraying Charon and revealing she wasn’t Sorrow Ventaxis. Besides, what good would it do? Vespus had been plotting for twenty years, honing his scheme and moving the pieces where they needed to go. He’d sewn it all up so neatly that Sorrow, and Rhannon, were damned if she tried to retaliate. Retaliate now, she reminded herself. This wouldn’t be for ever. She’d lure him in, wait until he was vulnerable and strike then. She’d learn from him.
Though even that seed of a plan wasn’t enough to thaw the rime that had grown over her heart as she’d shaken his hand.
“Nerves,” she ground out finally.
“You have no reason to be nervous. Today is your day. I know it.”
Sorrow nodded, unable to speak.
She bathed, and dressed in the outfit Irris chose for her, a soft blue dress that fell to the floor, the same colour as the one she’d caught her grandmother holding up in front of the mirror all those years ago. She pulled a brush angrily through her hair, while Irris went to fetch the shoes that matched the dress.
Sorrow wished more than anything that Luvian was there. Perhaps she could confide in him… But no. He’d come to her because he wanted to be something other than what he was. He wanted something legitimate, and real. Something honest.
Words that could never be applied to Sorrow.
Sorrow threw the brush into the mirror, shattering it, causing Irris to run into the room.
“Sorrow? What happened?”
“It flew out of my hand,” Sorrow replied in a monotone.
Irris watched her for a moment, then moved to stand behind her. “Let me help you finish.”
She brushed and painted Sorrow until she looked like a woman, not a hollowed-out doll. Then she left her, and Sorrow sank into a chair, staring into the distance.
The ballot had opened at six in the morning, and was due to close at midday. By six, the votes would all have been counted, and by nine in the evening the envelopes would have been delivered directly to the vice chancellor, and they’d know who the chancellor was. Sorrow stuck to her rooms, turning away the visitors who tried to see her: Bayrum, Tuva, Arran and even Charon. She sat on her bed, ignoring the frightened looks Irris kept giving her. There was nothing she could do, nothing anyone could do.
Unless she lost.
Vespus had convinced her she’d win; she hadn’t even considered that she might not. She allowed that tiny possibility to unfurl, sifting through it. Again she wished she could speak to Irris; she was so much better at this than Sorrow was.
Think, she told herself. What would Vespus do if she lost? Would he still expose her, even though it would change nothing?
No, she decided. He’d want to hold on to the ace he held. Perhaps he’d try to use her to sway Mael instead. Could she flee then; would he allow it? He might. Exposing her would only weaken the Jedenvat, which would weaken Mael, and therefore him. That would be his very last resort; he’d only do it if he knew he’d lose, a kamikaze move to take them all down with him.
So if Mael won, she’d leave. Maybe Luvian would come with her; he didn’t like his life in Rhannon any more than she did and he was still technically a wanted man.
“Sorrow? It’s time,” Irris said.
Sorrow looked up, bewildered. Time? But she’d only just sat down…
Irris herded her from the room and she saw the clock on the wall of her parlour. Half past eight. Had she eaten anything that day? She couldn’t remember. She was like a shadow as she drifted behind Irris, as though if someone turned a light on her she’d be obliterated. The wood of the banister felt strange to the touch; her hand felt as though it was passing through it, and she had to concentrate on descending the stairs she’d known all her life.
The crowds outside the gates of the Winter Palace were five deep, the Decorum Ward fighting to keep them from climbing the gates. When they spotted Sorrow a great roar went up; she could hear them chanting her name, calling for the Graces to bless her.
It made her stomach turn.
Were her real parents out there, somewhere? Were they here today? Did they want her to win, the girl who had lived the day their daughter was taken?
“Sorrow,” Irris murmured, urging her to where Charon and the Jedenvat were waiting on the steps of the Winter Palace.
The Jedenvat were dressed in formal robes – the first time Sorrow had ever seen them as such, out of their blacks. They looked fierce and proud, Bayrum in sapphire blue, Tuva in green, Arran in red, all of them smiling at Sorrow. Balthasar wore purple, and he smirked at Sorrow as she approached. Samad was in gold and he gave a curt nod; Kaspira in aquamarine also nodded, with a fraction more warmth.
Charon, dressed in a darker red than his son, his chair gleaming in the last of the sunlight, already held seven envelopes in his hands. The results. They would be opened live, in front of the crowd, and declared as they were opened. If there was an outright winner, if one of them had the majority of districts, the Jedenvat would have to do nothing but applaud. But if a district was tied, it would be down to the Jedenvat to decide. Sorrow and Mael would have to endure the entire process, winning and losing publicly.
There had never been a loser before.
Mael was already there, Arta beside him. Both men were dressed in blue, Arta whispering something to Mael, who seemed to be ignoring him. Sorrow tried to smile at Mael, but the muscles in her mouth wouldn’t move and it wasn’t as if he would have seen; he turned from her the moment he set eyes on her.
Sorrow looked away, searching the crowd for Luvian, but couldn’t find him. Not as a servant, not as a moustachioed man. Not at all.
Someone handed her a glass and she drank the contents, barely tasting the summer wine. Irris frowned, and herded her to where Charon now sat with Mael at his right. Sorrow took up her spot on the left and waited.
“Are you ready?” Charon said in a low voice. Mael nodded stiffly, but Sorrow kept her eyes locked forward, looking beyond the crowd.
“Sorrow?”
“She’s ready,” Irris said.
Charon frowned, but began.
“People of Rhannon. You have cast your votes in this historic election. You have spoken and now will be heard. Without further ado, I have the results of the vote.” He paused to open the first envelope, giving nothing away as he read it.
“The district of Istevar votes for Sorrow Ventaxis.” His voice rang across the courtyard, and as it was picked up and carried, a great cheer rose up from outside once more. To Sorrow it felt like a knife to the heart.
Charon took another scroll.
“The district of the North Marches votes for Sorrow Ventaxis.”
Again the rush of whispers as the news spread, and again a huge cry of joy.
Asha went to Mael, to no one’s surprise, and Sorrow tried to meet his eyes to congratulate him. But he kept his gaze fixed on the horizon.
The East Marches went to Sorrow.
But then the tide turned.
“The district of the West Marches goes to Mael Ventaxis.”
The hesitation was minor, but everyone close heard it, and Sorrow’s head snapped up from where she’d lowered it. She turned to Irris, momentarily forgetting about Vespus. They’d thought the West Marches was a safe seat for her, Tuva had been one of Sorrow’s staunchest supporters, and yet…
The tiniest spark of hope ignited in Sorrow at this unexpected development.
As expected, Balthasar’s South Marches went to Mael.
It came down to Prekara. Kaspira had never truly liked Sorrow… And it was the home of the Rathbones. The birthplace of the Sons of Rhannon, and they despised her…
Over Charon’s head she met Mael’s eyes, and the two of them kept their gazes locked on each other as Charon reached for the final scroll.
“The district of Prekara goes to … Sorrow Ventaxis.”
The cheer was instant, deafening, and Irris hugged her tightly, holding her up as the Jedenvat all clapped and Charon beamed at her.
She’d won.
She’d lost.
From the corner of her eye she saw Mael walk away as people descended on her.
Bayrum Mizil had tears running down his face, beaming at her, as Tuva Marchant gripped her hand and thrust it skyward in victory. Arran Day was shouting something to her, his arm around his father’s chair.
It was as though she was drowning on land; she couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe.
“She’s in shock,” she heard someone say.
Sorrow turned, looking for someone she knew, someone she trusted, but there was still no sign of Luvian, and Irris had been borne away by those wishing to celebrate with them.
Then she saw him. Standing at the base of the steps, with ambassadors from Svarta, Skae and Meridea.
Vespus Corrigan looked up at her and smiled.
And Sorrow knew then, despite her attempts to tell herself she could fight back and that one day she’d defeat him, that the curse her mother had laid on her the day she was born had finally come to pass. To the people of Rhannon, and to the people she cared about.
Sorrow, for that is all she brings us.