Eagles and Swans
Chapter 15: The End of the Story
The plum blossoms had burst into bloom overnight, opened by the touch of spring. They had unfolded in full colour today, every orchard and ever airborne garden blessed by the fragrance of their bowing branches.
Plum blossoms were all they could smell as classes came and passed, as the sun arced across the sky, gleaming white on the marble, pulling the shadows thin.
The very moment Mr. Caeben entered the classroom with a book titled The End of the New Truth, Ruthenia felt like she shouldn’t be there.
But it was too late to escape by the time he had reached the desk and parted the book’s pages on the tabletop. Everyone had scrambled to their seats by then, and was awaiting the start of lesson.
“Now that we understand the basics of post-Revolution governance,” said the tutor, “we are ready to discuss the next, and very crucial, stage in Astran and world history: the New Truth.”
Mr. Caeben spoke, as they all did, in abstractions. Of the movement’s philosophical origins, following the New Truth that had swept Bel and Cerdolia in the ten years prior, born of the seeds left by war. He talked, at length, about 470 Petrosa and the loss of romance, the investments in scientific advances, the age of learning—the industrial revolution that followed, and the movement away from Ihirin ideals.
“History is a series of conspiring events,” said Mr. Caeben. “And as it is, it was the confluence of two that gave rise to the divine mandate that would precipitate the end of the New Truth. First, on June 10th in the year 485, Lita Kyril unveiled the Threadless Engine to the Astran public. Then, not three days later, Ceila Derue was removed from the advisory council upon having been found guilty of corruption. This left the council without the New Truth's most vocal champion.”
Ruthenia knew how this story ended. No matter how many times it was told, no matter how she wished it would diverge one day, it always came out, immutably, the same.
“The event came with much fanfare, but was also met with intense backlash. Now as we understand it, the Arcem-Ayda government was deeply reactionary, and deeply sensitive to religious opinion, having been elected on those grounds. When calls were made for them to honour their duty to Ihir and crack down on such a flagrant act of sacrilege, the monarchs were moved to drafted the divine mandate.
“The terms of the divine mandate were simple. Either the inventors of the Threadless Engine would destroy their invention, burn every plan and blueprint, and only suffer imprisonment, or they would be executed in public, and the above actions carried out by the government. Indeed, there was no need for the government to charge every scientist in Astra, for Lita Kyril had made herself the face of the movement, through outspoken overtures in the press.
“The choice appeared straightforward to many: the outcome would be identical, except only the first option would keep them alive. Of course, as we know, Kyril and her colleagues impenitently chose to be executed. So, on the 15th of June—”
No, stop it, stop it, don't tell them the ending.
“—the execution proceeded by firing squad, as a warning—”
She was boiling over.
“—to all who should think to flout the holy law, and—”
Ruthenia was standing alone on the corner of the square. Blindfolded figures were dragged onstage, to kneel before the firing squad. They were meant to be pleading, wailing for release only to be denied. But these convicts did not cry nor plead. They knelt with an impervious calm, as if there were something grand they saw, somewhere far away, that eclipsed even Ihir's rage.
Lita Kyril gazed serenely up at the guns, and smiled.
Ruthenia couldn't watch.
As she turned to run, she heard gunshots boom, bloody explosions. She screamed, the tears racing down her cheeks.
The booms came over and over and over, like fireworks, resounding over the square. Over and over until the voices were no more.
She glanced once over her shoulder, only to glimpse them peeling limbs off the ground, like carrion. She whipped around again; she could never look back.
She ran, and ran, and ran for six years. But the gunshots and blood were always right behind her.
The scent of plum blossoms awakened her to her senses again. The first thing Ruthenia felt was the pressure of her hands clutching at her eyes, and the tears dripping from her fingers. She uncurled them. Her vision was blurred. Everyone was staring.
At the front of the classroom, Mr. Caeben lowered his textbook. “Is something the matter?” he said, voice soft all at once.
Ruthenia sobbed so hard her chest hurt. The light continued to pulse around her, everything muffled in her ears. “N-no,” she stammered. “Nothing's wrong.”
“Miss Cendina, are you—” His eyes widened. Hers was a common family name, but there was no way the entire room wasn't making the connection now.
Lita Kyril. Ira Cendina. Wife and husband, martyrs of the New Truth.
“I’m very sorry,” the History teacher's words tumbled out. “Do you need some time away from class?”
She nodded mutely, steeling her face, while another huge tear rolled down her cheek. She rose from her chair, picked up her bag, and without another word she left the speechless classroom behind.
Here in the Central Circle School, it was all about family. Whatever your lineage harboured, it was part of who you were to your classmates. There would be rumours about this—there was a reason she had hidden her history. As she wandered through the empty, glittering corridors, she made herself small, pulling her limbs inward.
She barely knew how long she had been walking aimlessly, but the closing bell soon chimed through the granite hallways as she was shuffling towards the landing platform. Behind her, the halls filled with crowds of students. She thought she heard a call of her surname, but just hearing it made her heart ache.
This wasn’t how it was supposed to have gone.
She felt the wind from the fields as she ascended to the landing platform. The air smelled of wet grass, making her think of stormclouds as they melted into after-rain mist. The air was still heavy with the scent of blossoms waiting to turn to fruit. A lone pair of Astran doves sat on a parapet, preening.
At the staircase she mounted her umbrella, a full two minutes of snatching at slippery Threads and yelling out in frustration before she finally managed to make it stay. She was only barely aware of a set of footsteps coming to a stop behind her, as she climbed on.
“Miss Cendina?” came a call from some way down the staircase.
Ignoring it, Ruthenia flew up through the gateway and over the arch of her school, up so high that she could see the entire levitating structure from above, as well as the tiny garden on the grounds, ten floors below, where the plum trees were pink.
She landed on flat portion of the roof and slid off her umbrella, feet meeting the granite with a thud. The rooftop was a popular tea break haunt for students, but it was always empty this late in the day.
She clutched at her flight mount, and stared out at the otherworldly red sky, jaw clenching. “Ihir, why do you leave nothing but hate wherever you go?” she yelled. “I’m sick of it! I'm sick of living in your country!”
As if in answer, she heard a flutter of wings to her right, then saw a flash of white at the corner of her eye that made her turn, eyes widening. From beyond the edge of the tower ascended a white equine, which landed with a clop of hooves on the rooftop and whinnied, trotting towards her.
Ruthenia squinted up. She only knew one person who flew an equine. “Aleigh? What?” she shouted, every last trace of anguish startled out of her.
He swung onto the horse’s stirrup and leapt off, but did not move any closer, as if afraid to take a wrong step. “I was worried,” he said. “And I'm sorry you have been put in this position.”
She stared right back. “You? Sorry? What are you apologising for?”
“Well—Mister Caeben just recounted your parents' death to a room of Astra's most cruel students. I think an apology is the least you're owed.”
As the wind blew, shadows swept across the fields below, the sky folding and untangling itself in the late spring light.
“Yeah, the whole thing's a mess,” she cried. “I didn't ever want this to happen. And I'd managed to avoid it so far, too. But now,” she threw her arms in the air, “now they all know! They all know I'm the daughter of Astra's most famous heretic! And you know how these Central Circle students are—I'm screwed!”
“That would only be typical of them,” he said. “But if I see anyone give you grief for your parents, I will not stand for it.”
Ruthenia sat there for a stunned few seconds, wondering at how bizarre these words sounded out of the mouth of the Arcane Prince. She began to wonder if she had mistaken an entirely different person for him—but no other student called her by her last name.
She murmured, “Why are you being so...nice?”
A look of indignation swept over Aleigh's face. “How else am I meant to respond? Every time I took offence at your behaviour, I never thought to imagine there was a reason for it. But it turns out, this whole time, I was just a walking reminder of your misery!”
She stared back. For a good minute she looked on speechlessly. And then she began to laugh. First in an undertone, then in a scream, feet kicking at the rooftop. “You actually feel sorry for me!” she howled. “You—you actually, I don't know what I'm meant to do with this. I don't understand what's going on!” She fell into another bout of wild laughter, pounding her fist on the floor, before heaving several deep breaths and righting herself. “Yeah, you know what, I do hate them. Your whole family. Especially your bleeding brother. You know how sick I felt watching him come to power using my parents' names? And then turn into a watered down version of Queen Arcem?”
“I'm very sorry.”
She shook her head. “Don't be sorry for something your brother did,” she sighed.
At this, Aleigh frowned in thought. “You saved my mother's life, when you could have ended it.”
“Of course I did,” Ruthenia huffed. “Because I'm not killing someone over a grudge. No matter how mad I am…no matter how unfair I think the world is…nothing is ever worth taking a life for.”
Her voice trailed off, swallowed by the wind. For an endless minute, they lingered in stunned silence, battered by the roaring gales at the top of the north tower, steeping in the glow of that blazing red sky.
“Anyway, that aside…I still need that spooled Thread,” Ruthenia muttered. “Thursday, don't miss it.”
“Of course,” Aleigh replied. “I will see you on Thursday morning.”
“And stop calling me Miss Cendina,” she said. “We're not business associates.”
“Alright, then. It has been good talking to you...Ruthenia. Have a safe flight home.”