And I helped prove it.
I wish I had never come here.
I wish I had never asked Kudshayn to come.
FROM THE DIARY OF AUDREY CAMHERST
4 Fructis
Lord Gleinleigh is due back at Stokesley tomorrow. If I were feeling paranoid, I’d swear he’s been calculating the exact day we were likely to finish, and planning his return so he can scoop up our notes and run off with them in triumph.
Whether he has or not, it doesn’t matter. Kudshayn and I are out of time.
I went to his refrigerated room today, even though it’s windowless and miserable and of course freezing, because he’s coping with enough already; he doesn’t need to be uncomfortably hot on top of everything else. I brought my coat and sat on one of the stools, and then we were both silent for a painfully long time, because neither of us wanted to speak.
He looked awful. Draconeans don’t show it the way humans do when they haven’t been sleeping, with dark circles under their eyes and the like, but his scales were dull and he slumped like it was taking all the energy he had just to sit upright. I wanted to put my wings around him; I wanted to have wings I could put around him. Instead I sat close to him and wished I could do something that would set everything right.
But I’d been thinking about it all night, and when I finally got up this morning it was clear to me that there is only one thing we could do to minimize the damage.
“I refuse to let them use me like this,” I said at last. It wasn’t any of the dozen ways I’d thought about broaching the topic, but the words simply came out. “I’ve been Aaron Mornett’s patsy before; I won’t let him do that to me again. The same goes for Gleinleigh and Mrs. Kefford. I won’t play their game.”
Kudshayn shifted on his seat. “What do you mean?”
My stomach churned. I didn’t even eat breakfast this morning, that’s how tense I was, and normally my appetite can survive anything. “Gleinleigh wants to defame your people in the public eye right before the congress. But if that were all he wanted, then he could have published Mornett’s translation. He hired me, and then he hired you, because he wants us to lend weight to the whole thing. Mornett isn’t famous, and the people who do recognize his name mostly know he’s a Calderite and plagiarist. If he said the Anevrai practiced human sacrifice, people would question it—at least some of them would. But if it comes from us . . .” My hands knotted tight. “We can’t stop Gleinleigh from publishing whatever Mornett has. But we can stop him from using our own names and reputations.”
Kudshayn’s wings stirred, then tucked in again. “We signed a contract with him.”
“Damn the contract,” I said violently. “Let him sue me. I guarantee you my family will pay.”
For all his worldly ways, Kudshayn still isn’t very familiar with human laws and courts and the ways they can be used to drag things out for years. He said, “But Gleinleigh has a right to publish what we’ve produced.”
“He can’t publish it if we destroy our papers.”
Kudshayn shot to his feet, wings unfurling. There isn’t space for them in that room; they hit the walls, bruisingly hard. “Audrey—”
If I’d wanted to face him down, I would have stood and spread my arms, in imitation of his wings. Instead I kept them close by my sides and remained on the stool. “I walked right into their trap, Kudshayn, and I invited you into it, too. Because—because—”
I went over this a hundred times in the night, trying to steel myself to do what was necessary. Forcing myself to say it still carved me apart. “Because I wanted to make my own name with this translation. I thought, if I do this, I’ll finally feel like I can live up to the reputation of my family—be worthy of my father, my mother, my grandfather, my grandmother. They’ve all done such amazing things, and what have I done?”
Kudshayn was silent. I didn’t dare look up to see whether he was searching for a reply or waiting for me to be done. I said miserably, “I know I’m young; I know there are decades left for me to do something impressive. But there was this chance, right there in front of me, and I wanted to grab it. Only—” I had to try three times before the rest of it would come out. “Not if it hurts you. No amount of reputation and acclaim is worth doing that. I’d rather shred all the work we’ve done and never speak of it again than be the hand holding the blade that goes through your heart. So if you say the word, Kudshayn, I’ll do it. I’ll destroy all our copies, all our notes, and tell Gleinleigh he can go whistle for his tale.”
The soft sound above me was Kudshayn folding his wings. No need to keep them outstretched in the cold, because there wasn’t any confrontation. Whatever he decided, I would do it. The choice was his, not mine—because the epic belongs to the Draconean people, not mine.
I sat in the freezing air and waited.
Then his hands came down and wrapped around my wrists, tugging gently. I let him bring me to my feet, then followed as he opened the door and led me out into the bright, hot air.
The cave is where you go to think things through, to contemplate your options. Decisions get made under the sun.
Out in the garden, Kudshayn turned to face me, holding both my hands in his own. It was a blazing, muggy day, the kind that brings sweat out all over me; I could hear his breathing strain almost immediately. I didn’t want him to stay out there any longer than he had to, so I forced myself to raise my eyes. He still looked tired—but also at peace, for the first time in weeks.
When he spoke, it was in his own language. “Audrey. I know how much this work means to you, and how much it must hurt you to talk of destroying it. That you are willing to do so . . . that is a gift whose value I will remember forever.”
Sweat beaded on my skin, but inside I was a block of ice.
He closed his eyes and tipped his face up to the sun. Then he said, “We will publish the translation.”
All the breath went out of me. I mouthed what?—there was no air to give it voice.
Kudshayn gripped my hands hard. “Sooner or later, the truth will come out. Hiding from it will not save us; this ghost from my people’s past will haunt us until we lay it to rest.”
“But the ghost doesn’t have to come out now,” I protested. “Not when the governments of the world are about to decide your people’s future.”
He shrugged sadly. “I wish it could have been otherwise. But in the end . . . this is part of our past, whether we are proud to admit it or not. Whatever our place is to be in the world, it must be a place we can claim with honesty, not one we slip into on the basis of a lie.”
I could barely find any words. I spent hours last night imagining different ways this conversation might go, a dozen different variations—but none of them went like this, with Kudshayn arguing in favour of walking into the trap. “It isn’t a lie! It’s just—”
“A lie of omission, instead of commission?” His breath rasped in and out. “That kind of manipulation, that dishonesty . . . it is the sort of thing they would do.”
Gleinleigh. Mornett. Mrs. Kefford and all the other Calderites. Hadamists like Zachary Hallman. Picking and choosing their history to support the tale they want to tell, one where humans deserve to have everything and the Draconeans get nothing except what we give them. Making this story public will serve their ends—but concealing it would be using their methods.