The Rebel Assassin

Chapter 20: Myths and Legends

The next morning, Cyrus and Dell had already left for the Representatives' meeting hall by the time I had dressed and eaten breakfast. I had a strange sense of being loose and untethered, since I had no real job here. I'd thought I would be needed to convince Emorial to make the alliance, but from what Joshua and Dell said it seemed nearly certain already. Surely signing treaties and such was just a formality; what would take time was working out how to attack and secure Solangia for the revolution.

All of that was out of my depth. As long as this ended with Magali unable to control us, I'd be happy.

Well. As long as no one worse ended up in charge.

I trusted Ysmay to be fair, even though we'd never gotten along. While Roman and I got along better, I'd be much more uneasy with him on Solangia's throne. It all came down to that damn prophecy... Roman might become king, or I might kill the king. I disliked King Aeric enough that I didn't think I'd mind doing it, but it was one thing to imagine it and another thing to kill a man.

Rather than continue with that line of thought, I picked up the map Representative Liora Chanson had left for us and went looking for the library.

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The morning air was cool and the rain had mostly dried up, leaving the stone buildings around me pale gray, but the stone beneath puddles in the sidewalks still shimmered a faint blue. The city woke up slowly as I walked through this affluent section. Flags with blue and black designs hung from some windows and balconies. Store signs in Emorian were mostly unreadable to me. The two languages were close, but not close enough to understand the other automatically.

I found a large square that was labeled Plaza of the Queen on the map, which must have been made for Solangian tourists. But the street sign for it hanging over my head was carved of pale new wood, and the Emorian words on it didn't seem to match. Based on similar words in Solangian, I guessed it said "Freedom Square". I wondered how many places in Solangia would be renamed when the Phoenix took over.

The square was completely hemmed in, like a dead end. Where it seemed that the street should have continued on the other side, a small building had been squeezed in instead. The cut of its stone seemed newer than the other, larger, grander buildings around the square.

I guessed from the huge flags unrolled over the sides of these buildings that they housed the government. But one building, next to the office blocking the road, had no flags. Columns stretched across a covered walkway before it, graceful shapes belying the strength it must take to hold up the massive stone work that was the roof.

I paused before it, staring up at the carvings on the flat front of the roof. It looked like several people — no, just two people, repeated over and over, I realized from the repetition of their faces. A man standing over what might have been a cradle, then a panel of him holding a book and appearing to read to a young girl. Then the girl, older, holding a book as the man looked over her shoulder. Then the girl as a woman now, a crown on her head, the man kneeling next to her. And finally the woman laid down as if in a coffin, the man standing with his head bowed.

The carved figures were boxy and stiff, but there was a heavy sort of precision in the way the carver had made the girl recognizable throughout her life. The only thing they had neglected was showing how the man aged as well. Perhaps they simply hadn't cared. This was clearly a remnant of Emorial's monarchy; perhaps the carver had only cared about depicting his queen.

In any case, the use of the book in the carving reassured me that I had read the carved words between two columns correctly: this was the library.

My footsteps echoed in the arched ceiling of the entry hall as I stepped past the heavy door. The air had a subtly dusty scent. The walls were covered in murals painted either in pastels or once-rich colors that had faded with age. I had to fight with myself not to sneeze.