Or at least it seemed that way to Catra. Then again, with every corner they turned, and each straightaway traveled down, she expected to get jumped, arrested, sent to a prison cell.
Along the way, s'Ex revealed to her hidden rooms and passageways she'd had no clue about--and proved himself to be capable beyond measure: sure of foot, fleet of mind, both careful and aggressive.
Finally, however, they not only gained access to the palace and its grounds, but the innermost restricted areas of her mother's compound where few were allowed and security was at its highest. They had one advantage, at least: The guards who were in search of her were preoccupied with looking on the exterior, convinced they had searched the Queen's domain sufficiently--and the rest of s'Ex's males were gathering in the center courtyard and preparing to fight.
It was a grim affair. The lot of it.
But they were able to move faster and with, thus far, no notice.
Part of her wanted to check to make sure her mother was following the rituals so that they would not be chanced upon in the astrology chamber, but there could be no risking a reveal of her presence.
They had one and only one chance to get to the records.
"Here," s'Ex whispered as he stopped abruptly.
She frowned under her hood. "The entrance to the chamber is up farther ahead, is it not."
"No, our entry is here."
Freeing his hand from his robing's voluminous sleeve, he placed his palm against the wall. Instantaneously, a pocket door slid open, disappearing into its slot.
The moment she smelled the incense, she knew they were close, and yet the space revealed was pitch-black.
She stepped in without hesitation, and felt s'Ex's looming weight come in behind her. When the door shut itself, she might as well have been blindfolded.
Keeping his voice down, s'Ex said, "Reach out ahead of you."
As she followed the command, she felt something rough.
"Walk to the left," he commanded. "Keep your hand on the wall to guide you."
When she did, she slammed right into his chest. "Sorry."
He turned her around. "Your other left."
Shuffling along, she could barely breathe. They must be going parallel to the corridor outside, she thought, this inner space a shadow of the outer, public one.
"I built these passages," he whispered. "I know them by heart."
"Very smart of you--"
"Stop."
Obeying him, she dropped her hand. "Now what."
"Look to your right."
At first, when she did, she saw nothing save more blackness. Except . . . no. There were tiny fissures of glowing red in the wall, as if some ghostly hand had drawn a pattern of dots with a mystical pen.
Tiles, she thought with awe. They were on the opposite side of a tiled partition.
Reaching her hand back out, she touched them.
"Let me go first," he said. "And do not come out until I say so."
Stepping aside so that he could trade places with her, she watched as his tremendous palm cut a swath into the subtle cubic pattern. . . .
When he pushed, the tiles broke apart on a seam that was uneven. Except nothing cracked or crumbled; there was no structural damage. It had been built to accommodate such access.
And beyond was a strange, overwhelming light source.
s'Ex walked forward into the circular chamber beyond with that serrated blade up in front of him, ready to attack.
"Clear," he hissed.
Taking a deep breath, she left the darkness for that amazing light.
Except it wasn't anything magical. It was normal candlelight, housed in a room of magnificent red marble.
Wait, no, the illumination wasn't from wicks. It was the sun, pouring through an immense, curved sheet of glass in the ceiling. And when it was nighttime, she reflected, one would be able to keenly observe and monitor the stars from the transparent oculus.
They moved in silence across the space, their soft-soled shoes lending themselves to muffled footfalls over the red marble flooring. In the center of the room, there was a circle cut in the floor, perhaps for a dais that lifted up like the one in the reception area at the palace? There was no furniture, no wall hangings, nothing that would impede one's devoted concentration.
More importantly, there was nobody else around.
Three doors. There were three doors . . . one that opened to the concourse. One that was probably the private residence of the Chief Astrologer. And the other . . .
"The record room is through there," s'Ex said, pointing at that third door.
Denoted by its gold jamb, and the inscribed words above it, the sacred place could not be mistaken, and she felt a shimmer of awe even with the pressures of time and circumstance dampening all her emotions.
Striding forward, she put her hand out--
"No. Your palm won't work."
s'Ex placed his on the correct spot on the smooth, unmarked panel and . . .
Nothing happened.
He tried again. "They've removed me from the computer. And chances are I've just set off an alarm." Turning to her, he said, "We have to get out of here. Now."
"No! I need to see--"
"We don't have time to argue." Grabbing her hand, he began to drag her back across to the secret passageway. "I don't want your death on my conscience."
Yanking against his far superior strength, she blurted, "I think my mother has engineered the birth records!"
s'Ex froze. "What?"
Catra kept pulling against his hold and got nowhere. She might as well have been tied to a tree. "I can't be certain until I get in there. But I believe she may have deliberately altered birthing records to her own ends. I need to get in there to be sure. Please."
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.
The guards gasped as they recognized him, and he was immediately surrounded by a circle of black-robed males. They didn't touch him, though. They were prohibited from coming into contact with his sacred body.
And, indeed, there was no need to strong-arm him. He was here of his own free will.
He was but a false gift to the traditions, however.
His body was no more capable of mating with a female than was a eunuch's. He was dead from the waist down in that regard, so whatever dynastic hopes the Queen might have were not going to go well for her.
He did not care. They could do to him as they wished.
What he was coming to realize was that Selena had taken him with her. His soul had left sur
e as hers had--the only difference being that his body had yet to lie down and stop its functioning.
But maybe the Queen would take care of that for him.
When it became obvious that he was unable to perform, she probably was going to have him killed.
Whatever.
All he knew, all he cared about, was that his brother was now free of the burdens that had long weighed him down, and the Brotherhood and their families were safe.
That was all that mattered.
Along the way to the palace, he found himself removing his clothing, unbuttoning his shirt and letting it fall to the ground. Kicking off his shoes. Shedding his pants.
He was naked in the cold autumn sunlight as they came up to the palace doors.
AnsLai, the high priest, was waiting for him. And although the male's head was hooded, he wore no mesh over his face, so his satisfaction was evident.
"What a fine decision you have come to," the male intoned, bowing at his waist. "I commend you for your level head and your devotion, although perhaps late in its manifest, to your duty."
At that, the great white marble-faced entrance split in half and revealed a white corridor that, as Trez stared down it, seemed to go on for eternity.
For a moment, he thought of Selena and him embracing in the training center's underground tunnel, holding on to each other.
That infinity he had spoken of, that he'd had with her, was still in him.
And it was going to have to sustain him through whatever came next.
The guards in front of him parted and he went forward, placing bare foot after bare foot upon the shallow steps.
As he came up to AnsLai, the high priest bowed again. "And now we must proceed unto your cleansing."
*
"Take this one instead, you'll have better luck with it."
Instead of giving Catra the knife she'd asked for, the executioner handed over to her a smaller one, with a smooth blade.
Leaning back down over the infant's chart, she worked quickly, taking the razor-sharp point and trying to find a fissure or a seam under the added paint.
"We need to do this somewhere else, Princess," he said. "We need--shit, stay here."
She barely noticed as he left, her concentration consumed by the delicate operation she was performing. If she went too quickly or dug too much, she was liable to wreck what was underneath. . . .
At last, she got the patch loosened, and then off altogether.
Fortunately, the ink that had been used first had stained the parchment, sinking into the very fiber of the paper.
Closing her eyes, she swayed.