s’Ex reached up and removed his headdress, and as he let it fall to the smooth red floor, his eyes narrowed and flashed peridot.
“How sure,” he demanded.
“Willing to put my life on it. And yours.”
His decision was announced as he looked at the locked door—and then, without making any fuss, he took two leaps toward it … and buried that serrated blade right into what turned out to be a seam.
Either that, or he simply made one.
Placing both hands on the knife’s hilt, he put his tremendous weight to the side and crack! He made an entry into the small gold room.
“Make it fast,” he said grimly.
Catra wasted no time. Running over the chips of stones, she jumped inside and slid on the gold floor, throwing her arms out to balance herself.
Numbers. She saw a thousand gold drawers marked by numbers.
It was all arranged by birth date, not name.
Closing her eyes, she cursed. She had no idea when Trez had been born.
Except, wait—up high on the right, there were two drawers that were not gold. They were white.
Heart pounding, hands shaking, she rose up on her tiptoes and pulled out the top one. The drawer was as deep as her arm, and she had to catch the back of it lest the contents spill out.
No, it had a lid.
Putting the thing down to the floor and opening the top, she found four rolled sheets of parchment, each tied with a ribbon of silk and sealed with red wax that bore the Queen’s star. Other than that they were not labeled. One was smaller than the others.
She took out the first she came to and broke its seal, unrolling the document on the floor. It was so old, the parchment cracked in places and so resented the flattening, she needed to put a lip of the thing under the drawer and kneel on the other end to keep it flat so she could look the chart over.
Sacred symbols and writing in black pen were interspersed with countless red and gold dots that, when she leaned back, formed a constellation.
It was her mother’s birth chart.
She let the thing curl up on itself and put it aside. The next … was her chart, and it, too, resisted an awakening from its slumber. The third …
The third unfurled itself as she released the bow and broke the seal, and as she leaned over to read it, she smelled the sweet scent of the fresh ink and paint that had been applied to the parchment. This brand-new chart was the infant’s, and the ritual death was marked in each corner with black stars—showing that the soul had been returned to the heavens. Or at least that was her interpretation.
After a moment of sadness, she set the thing aside.
The fourth one, the smaller one, had to be Trez’s. And indeed, when she unfolded it, she was right. For one, in the scribing, there were notations that it was a male, and born with a twin—it was this momentous birthing occasion that had first sparked interest in Trez and iAm. Catra could remember all her life palace staff remarking about the unusual and special occurrence.
His chart was not as big as the other three because he was not a royal, but in the corners of the parchment there were golden stars, showing an ascension to the heights of the Shadow court.
Sitting back on her heels, she read through its notations and symbols.
Then shook her head.
She had been so sure … and yet nothing seemed amiss.
“Stand down,” she heard s’Ex say out in the circular room. “Or, as much as it pains me, I shall have to kill you all.”
Wrenching around, Catra looked through the messy portal s’Ex had made for her.
Three guards, dressed in black, had surrounded the executioner, and they had their knives out.
Oh, stars above … what had she done?
She had made a terrible mistake coming here. What arrogance to think she had ascertained some secret that would save them all.
And now, there was nowhere to run. No way to win against what was surely just the first squadron of many that had been sent for them.
She did not want to die.
Reaching forward, she picked up the long, thin, heavy drawer. It was the only weapon she had—
For some reason—and later she would wonder exactly why—as Trez’s chart rolled up on itself, resuming the shape it had been trained to prefer, she looked down at the thing.
The floor had been perfectly clean as she had entered, no dust marring its surface, no scuffs, no scratches.
But now there were chips of … paint … and little flakes … around where the chart had rolled itself up.
Frowning, she put the drawer aside and flattened the parchment back out.
As the sounds of fighting commenced in the gazing room, folds of robes flapping, grunts and groans sounding so very loud and close, she leaned over the sacred writing.
In the center of the chart, a portion of the paint had chipped off.
Revealing …
The exhale that left her mouth was the result of her ribs seizing up.
And to make sure she was not imagining things, she reread what she thought she was seeing.
Then she took her fingernail and flicked it under the cover-up that had been executed.
“Oh … Fates…” she breathed.
Scrambling to her feet, she raced over to the boxes where the charts of the subjects of the s’Hisbe were kept. Her eyes bounced around, searching for the right birth number, and when she found that drawer, she slid it out, put it on the floor, and lifted the lid.
The civilian records were tied with strings that had little tags on them, and they were in no particular order, some twenty different scrolls shoved in together. With her breath panting out of her mouth, and her hands shaking, she rifled through them as quickly as she could.
When she found the one she was looking for, she rushed back to the doctored document.
Putting them side by side, with the drawer at the very top, she stretched them out.
Sure enough, there was a patch in the center of the second one, the area of cover up painted in with such care that the doctoring wouldn’t have been noticed at the time. It had, however, aged badly over the course of the years.
Chipping it free, she found … that in fact … the Anointed One was not Trez.
Of the pair of twins, he had been born second, not first.
It was iAm who was the sacred male.
In spite of the mortal danger outside, she slumped over the records, putting her hands to her face.
Why had they switched them? Why—
“Princess,” s’Ex barked. “We need to get out of here—”
“She switched the records.”
“What?”
Catra looked at him over her shoulder, and recoiled at the amount of blood on his sleeves, his robes, his face and hands. But there was no time to get rattled. “The Queen switched the records of the infants, of Trez and iAm. I don’t know why, though.” She pointed to the doctored parts of the charts. “It’s right here. The Chief Astrologer is the one who prepares the most sacred charts for royalty, not the Tretary. So he must have done this, and AnsLai had to have known. But what’s the benefit—
“Behind you!” she screamed.
Just as the guard who had appeared at s’Ex’s back raised a knife over his head, the executioner wheeled around—with his own blade at throat height. Within the blink of an eye, s’Ex overpowered the guard by slitting the male’s jugular open, red blood splashing out.
Horrified by the sight of the death, Catra could feel her mind departing, sure as a spectator might retreat at a fighting contest that had turned too violent.
But, as with what s’Ex said about regrets, she didn’t have that kind of luxury.
Rolling up the charts, she put Trez’s and iAm’s in with hers and her mother’s in the box. s’Ex’s infant daughter’s was still on the floor—and she nearly left it behind.
At the last minute, however, she reached over and began to roll it up—and that was when she felt an odd cool spot. In the center.
Why would parchment be cool?
She flattened the chart out again … and ran her fingertips over the surface. When she got to the middle, there was a subtle change of temperature.
Because a thickened area of paint was still drying.
That was the source of the sweet smell.
They had doctored the infant’s as well.
“Time’s up, Princess,” s’Ex said with urgency. “We—”
“Give me your knife.”
“What?”
“Clean it off and give me your knife,” she commanded, putting out her hand.
SEVENTY-NINE
The last thing Trez did before dematerializing away from the Brotherhood mansion was take out his phone. He texted his brother just four words.
I am at peace.
And then he walked back over to the front steps and placed the cell down on the cold stone.
A moment later, he was gone. He didn’t look back at the house … didn’t hesitate … didn’t have any misgiving.
The fight was over. The long stretch of struggle that had defined his life had reached its conclusion.
When he re-formed, it was before the great gates of the s’Hisbe.
Walking forward, he knew that he would be instantly spotted on the security cameras, and he was right. Without his having to make any announcement at the check-in telephone that was for the benefit of humans, there was a clinking and a break in the center of the entrance’s two solid panels.
For the first time in so many years, he put his feet back on the soil of his people, striding over the divide that he was prepared to never resurface from.