Chapter 7: Silent mornings when birds are gone

When I lay in bed towards the dawn, with Theo, silent and fully dressed, pondering over the events of this night beside me, I had one sudden realization in this deafening silence—there are no birds on Noctemar. I had never noticed that before, but in this life, I had quite taken to them on Retgaron. At the academy, I did a project on birds for my aerography class, having spent hours studying the architecture of their wings, the air flows hugging these little beings as they fly. Since then, I had been visiting the cherry orchards in the warm houses—the birds were always busy there, and it calmed my mind.

I wondered what Theo was thinking about? Did he also remember our life on Retgaron? Did he mourn it? His mind must be also far from here, he has been dealing with so much lately…

Those birds on Retgaron were not natives of course, humans brought them all the way from Earth. I was imagining how nice it would be to have birds here, at least some wrens, chickadees or titmouses with their repetitive sweet little song, to hear it in the Tower, on this cold island in the midst of a hostile planet. Noctemar had an independent spirit, and the humans living on it for centuries did not impress the planet in the slightest. The size of the main colony was still relatively small, with a few other scattered colonies in the warmer patches of the planet. 

I was thinking about the freezing acid seas, about the fogs, and the snow melting in those endless restless waters, when I was falling asleep, so when the words of the messenger informing Theo of the current situation and of Osmond's death reached me though light sleep, this news blended with my dreaming of dark cold seas. I imagined Osmond drowning and gasping, unable to ask for help or cry out in this freezing water, and no one hearing him, before I was fully awakened and aware.

I am not exactly new to the sharp sting of loss.

I turned onto my side, staring at the gray light filtering through the thick curtains. My body felt heavy, as if the gravity of Noctemar had doubled overnight.

I had thought I had already mourned Osmond, a decade ago when I had believed him lost. But then my friend was given, no, gifted to me again, and taken from me so abruptly. He had cheated death once—but no one did it twice. Well, almost, I say, living my tenth.

And wasn't it the cruel weave of my presence that killed him? He has been surviving among the monks and the military, and once I appeared on the stage, here he is, lying dead and cold. What if wherever I go, disaster follows? 

Theo left for a meeting at dawn. I watched him button his coat with mechanical precision, his face composed, his shoulders squared. There was an unspoken weight pressing on him, one that he bore without complaint, without confiding in me. He hesitated briefly before the door, as if wanting to say something, but instead only exhaled and left. That was a little unusual of him, a little foreboding, but at the background of my secret loss, I could not notice such minor things in his behavior.

I needed to talk about that to Amalia, but I could not bring myself to leave the room, and also, I assumed Amalia was at the morning council - she was the head of security, and Osmond was found dead right at the gate to the Tower's territory, the most secure place in the whole Empire. Or maybe not at all.

I stepped out onto the terrace of the Tower, carefully touching the cold stone of the railings. The day was not as cold as the night, but the frost helped with concentration. The shield's protective field pulsed in the cold air, and the city looked as though seen through patterned glass. Shuttles darted through the streets, and overall, everything seemed as usual. Only the snow seemed to have been left untouched—perhaps they were saving energy, or maybe there were not so many pedestrians left in the City, as the streets were taken over by shuttles...

Now that Osmond was dead, without revealing his secret to me, it was time to get to the old observatory at all costs and search for it myself. There it was, on the outskirts, clearly visible from the Tower, its round contours gleaming with melting frost. A shuttle ride to it would take no more than half an hour. This would be my number one task, but I didn't know how to proceed.

It seemed I had started relying too much on Amalia, and it was time to remember my own moves. The status of queen consort, on one hand, provides freedom, but on the other—it greatly limits my actions.

I began to think about my mysterious memories when I was around fifteen, but as an Academy student, my access to information that might help was severely restricted. In past lives, I hadn't managed to gather much as well, mostly being busy surviving and managing very pressing issues. Mostly, rumors about intrigues, the monks' hypocrisy, the corruption of the Chrono Guild, and a large amount of contradictory data about Them. I am indeed well prepared to be the Consort.

But I've found out next to nothing about me, about what I am and why, about the Law. What Osmond said—about how to kill those like me—struck me as one of the most valuable findings from my ten lives, and now I had to figure out how to get to it, considering I wasn't entirely sure there wouldn't be any ambush.

Before lunch, Theo hadn't come by, and I went to the hall on my own, accompanied by reinforced guards stationed near our chambers. At first, there was silence during the meal, and the atmosphere was tense. Klaus and Victoria weren't there, nor any representative or minister from Zios. Instead, there was Theo's uncle, Orion, Kael Wormund, the secretary of the Council of the Irreversible, then Lucian Faerstorn, Theo's mentor from the Order. There was also Gustav Ravenmar, the army colonel who looked like a former miner or a miner's son, though I didn't know much about him, and Tybald Haargrim—a representative of the Guild at the Council, and, of course, Amalia.

Amalia, despite her usual impenetrable expression, looked tired and worn out— I think she hadn't slept all night since Osmond had been found dead, and at the Council, her work had obviously been questioned. She kept discussing something with the tanned, bearded Gustav and the thin Tybald. Theo was speaking with Lucian, as I noticed, because it seemed to me that the man's influence on my Theo was growing.

Kael Wormund, the secretary of the Council, a faded man of tall stature whose age was impossible to guess, was left without a conversation partner, just like me, and, with visible arrogance, though with exaggerated politeness, addressed me while I remained silent.

"Your Grace, has the head of security briefed you on the safety protocols in the Tower? In connection with recent events... Of course, it's not easy to begin a reign in such conditions, with unrest in the streets. But I assure you, such daily affairs of rulers, we must maintain the fragile balance in our Union."

"Yes, I've been briefed, thank you. Though I can't say I've found peace in what's happened. Though, the man who was found dead—he didn't die in the Tower, did he?"

"Exactly, Your Grace, he was not. He was found outside the gates. Someone took advantage of the changing of the patrol outside the shielded area, while some units were involved in handling the unrest in the City, and at some point, the poor monk was stabbed with a chronoharpoon."

"So, the killer got close enough and lay in ambush?"

Kael grunted and slightly shrugged, spooning rice with vegetables onto his plate as if to signal that he knew more but wasn't willing to make the effort to tell me.

"The Tower is safe, Your Grace, Amalia will take care of it. Just follow the safety protocols."

I decided to eat as well, understanding that the most interesting things would come from Amalia when I finally got a chance to speak with her without attracting attention. I looked at Theo. He was a far cry from his usual self and didn't even glance my way.

Clearly, it was time to tell him, because keeping him in the dark was tying my own hands when it came to helping my Emperor.

I love my emperor in all our iterations, and searching for the answer, I accepted that my role was to protect my emperor, help, and stand firm in the storm.

Theo sat, like a stone monument— in just a few days, he seemed to have aged ten years, with stubble on his chin. His profile—sharp, with a straight nose and full lips—looked stern. His academy training was flawless—even sitting, he looked as if he was standing guard. His uniform—dark green, the color of the imperial army—had epaulettes resting on his shoulders as if they carried the weight of this heavy, foolish empire.

It was time to tell him, no doubt. Just to pick the right time, maybe tonight or tomorrow morning when he'd rested. I'd have time to recall the experiences of past years and also find something in the Tower that I hoped would help speed up the realization process and prove that I was in full control of my faculties and hadn't drunk too much Zios tea to lose touch with reality.

We had lunch quickly, and Kael, my polite yet dismissive conversation partner, said that next week he would ask the Minister of Education to brief me on current affairs—the late queen consort had been responsible for education and had built a new academy on Retgaron, which she liked to visit. Ha, I know, I graduated from that academy, but first of all, I was the one who built it.

I thanked him politely and started scanning the room for Theo. He motioned for me to speak with him. When we entered the conference room and he shut the door, I saw it in his expression before he even spoke—the restrained anger, the disappointment beneath it.

"You weren't with Victoria last night," he said, voice controlled, too even. "And you dismissed your guard."

That was hell of a surprise. I held his gaze, forcing a lightness into my tone that I didn't feel. 

"I wanted to wander the city. To clear my mind." I decided not to invent anything wild, also thinking that I will be able to explain everything to him very soon.

"Alone? With no protection?"

"I needed space," I countered. "From all of this. And you know that I finished the same Academy as you, and do not need protection like a snowflake."

"Yes, Mira, and I would never just go and wander the city alone! Not in this new status. It's just stupid, it's just unlike you, unless you have anything to tell me. Have you forgotten what we are now? You are supposed to help me, not create distractions and make me explain myself to the council, commenting on why you wander the city alone when the protesters are going wild and a man is lying dead at the base of the Tower! It's good that Captain Drakwald confirmed that she saw you walking by yourself not far from Victoria's gallery and escorted you to the Tower!"

Thank you, Amalia.

For a moment, I thought he might press the issue, demand answers I wasn't ready to give. But instead, he exhaled sharply, shaking his head before turning on his heel and striding away—off to another meeting, another crisis.

I watched him go, my chest tightening. He was right.

I thought back to the past iterations. The moments I had revealed myself to my emperor. The disbelief, the disappointment, the lengths I had gone to in order to prove I wasn't insane. It's time to find The Box.