Or so I’ve been told.
Gritting my teeth, I reach out and grab Farley’s hand. I squeeze her callused fingers, just for a second. Without hesitation, she squeezes back.
The first hall is columned, hung with green and white silks gathered with silver and red ties. The colors of Montfort and the colors of both kinds of blood. Sunlight beams down from skylights, filling the space with an ethereal glow. Many chambers branch off, visible through arches between the columns or locked behind polished oak doors. And of course there are people in the hall, clustered together, their eyes on all of us as we pass. Men and women, Red and Silver, their skin a vast array of hues ranging from porcelain to midnight. I try to feel armored in my skin, protected from their gaze.
Ahead of me, Tiberias holds his head high, his grandmother on his right arm while Evangeline takes his left. She is careful to keep in step with his long stride. No daughter of House Samos walks behind. Her gown’s train forces Farley and me to keep our distance. Not that I mind.
Julian walks behind us both. I can hear him muttering to himself as he looks back and forth. I’m surprised he doesn’t take notes.
The People’s Gallery is aptly named. As we approach the entrance to the chamber, I hear the low hum of hundreds of voices. It rises quickly until it drowns out everything but the thunder of my own pulse in my ears.
Massive doors of white and green enamel glide open on oiled hinges, as if bowing before the will of Premier Davidson. He enters to the cascading noise of applause. It spreads as we follow into the amphitheater that is the Gallery.
Hundreds crowd the many seats ringing the room, most of them in suits like Davidson’s, in varying shades of green and white. Some are military, clearly marked by dress uniforms and insignia. All rise when we enter, their hands clapping together to celebrate . . . us? Or the premier?
I don’t know.
Some don’t clap, but they still stand. Out of either respect or tradition.
The steps down the bowl of the amphitheater are shallow. I could run them with my eyes closed. Even so, I keep my focus on my feet and the folds of my shimmering dress.
Davidson reaches the floor of the chamber, making for his own seat at the center, flanked by still-standing politicians. There are empty chairs for us as well, each one marked by a drape of colored cloth. Orange for Anabel, silver for Evangeline, purple for me, scarlet for Farley, and so forth. While Davidson greets the men and women on the floor, shaking hands with an open, charismatic grin, we take to our chairs.
No matter how many times people put me on parade, I never get used to it.
Not so for Evangeline. She sits next to me, arranging the falling folds of her dress with a flick of her hands. She raises an eyebrow, imperious, a living painting. She was born for moments like this, and if she is afraid of them, she will never show it.
“Kill that fear, lightning girl,” she mutters to me, fixing me with an electric stare. “It’s not like you haven’t done this before.”
“True,” I whisper back, remembering Maven, his throne, and all the vile things I said at his side. This will be easy in comparison. This won’t rip me apart.
Davidson doesn’t sit down, watching as the others in the room take their seats in thunderous unison.
He clasps his hands before him, bowing his head. A lock of gray hair falls over his eyes. “Before we begin, I would like to observe a moment of silence for those who fell last night, defending our people from raider attack. They will be remembered.”
All over the room, his politicians and officers nod approvingly before lowering their own heads. Some close their eyes. I’m not sure which is appropriate, so I mimic the premier, knitting my fingers together and dipping my chin.
After what feels like an eternity, Davidson raises his head again.
“My fellow countrymen,” he says, his voice carrying across the amphitheater with ease. Something about the room, I suspect, built to maximize acoustics. “I would like to thank you. Both for agreeing to this special session of the People’s Gallery—and for showing up.”
He pauses, grinning at the responding wave of polite laughter. The bland joke is an easy tool. I can pick out exactly who his supporters are, simply by how much they laugh or grin. A few politicians remain stoic. To my surprise, they are both Red and Silver, judging by the undertones of their skin.
Davidson pushes on, pacing as he speaks. “As we’re all aware, our nation is a young one, built by our own hands over the last two decades. I am only the third premier, and many of you are in your first terms of office. Together we represent the will of our diverse people, and their interests, and of course we work to provide for their safety. In the past months, I have done what I’ve thought is necessary to uphold what our country is, and to safeguard what our country strives to be.” His face turns stern, the lines on his forehead deepening. “A beacon of freedom. A hope. A light in the darkness surrounding us. Montfort is a country, the only one on this continent, where the color of blood does not rule. Where Red and Silver, and Ardent, work in tandem, hand in hand, to build a better future for all of our children.”
My knuckles turn white in my lap as I squeeze my hands together. The country Davidson speaks of, what it represents—could it really be possible? A year ago, Mare Barrow, knee-deep in the mud of the Stilts, would not have believed it. Could not have. I was constrained both by what I was taught and by the only world I was allowed to see. My life was limited to the bounds of work or conscription. Each a different kind of doom. Both lives already lived by thousands, millions. There was no use dreaming that life could be different. It would only break an already broken heart.
It’s cruel to give hope where none should be. My father told me that. And even he would never say it again. Not now, when we’ve seen that hope is real.
And this place, this step toward a better world, is somehow real too.
I see it before my eyes. Red representatives with their blooming flushes alongside Silver. A newblood leader walking the floor before us. Farley, her blood red as the dawn, sitting so close to a Silver king. And even me. I’m here too. My voice matters. My hope matters.
I glance across Evangeline to the true king of Norta. He followed me here because he still loves me, a Red girl. And because he truly does try to see things for himself.
I hope he sees what I see here. And if he does take the throne, if we are unable to stop him, I hope he hears what the premier is saying.
He looks at his hands, his fingers clawed on the arms of his seat. His knuckles are just as white as mine.
“And yet we cannot claim to be free, we cannot claim to be any kind of beacon, if we allow atrocity on our borders,” Davidson continues. He stalks toward the lower seats, gazing at each politician in turn. “If we can look at the horizon and know there are Reds living as slaves, Ardents slaughtered, lives crushed beneath the feet of Silver overlords.”
The royal Silvers with us do not flinch. But they don’t do anything to deny what the premier is saying either. Anabel, Tiberias, and Evangeline keep their eyes forward, their expressions locked in place.
Davidson paces back, completing a circle of the floor. “One year ago, I petitioned for the ability to interfere. To use a fraction of our armies to aid the Scarlet Guard in their infiltration of Norta, the Lakelands, and Piedmont, all kingdoms built on tyranny. It was a risk. It exposed our nation, which had been growing in secret. But you graciously agreed.” He steeples his fingers, half bowing to the Gallery. “And so I ask again. For more soldiers, more money. For the ability to overthrow murderous regimes, and for the right to look ourselves in the face. So we can tell our children we did not stand by and watch as children just like them were murdered or condemned. It is our duty to witness, and to fight now that we can.”