Relic (The Books of Eva I) (23 page)

“Are you suggesting that my Chronicle was wrong?” I ask.

“I wish that was all, Eva.”

I descend the stairs to the solar with a heavy heart. I wanted to feel light and joyful, if only for this one night. Now that Lukas has the Apple altar, he has taken any possibility of joy from me. Maybe forever. But the Feast awaits and I slip back into my Maiden role, as if I’d never gone beyond the Ring. I smile demurely at the compliments of my aunts and uncles. I kneel for the Basilikon’s blessing with the anointed Healing waters. I stand by as glass after glass of mead is lifted in toasts to my victory. I watch as our guests shovel mouthfuls of glorious abundant food into themselves. And I stand by and listen to my Relics and my Chronicle become legend.

It sounds as if everyone believes they know my Elizabet. They talk about her life so proprietarily, as if she was their discovery instead of mine. It bristles, and I unconsciously
touch the amulet hidden under my dress bodice.

“Is there a fray in the stitching, dear?” My mother asks. Nothing escapes her prying eyes. I’d been so distracted by my encounter with Lukas that I’d forgotten to thank my mother for the gown. “Oh no, Mother. It’s gorgeous. How can I thank you?”

“Just being here today, looking so lovely and alive, is my thanks,” she says, very kindly and gently. So unlike her old self.

I feel a sudden surge of sympathy for my mother, and I squeeze her hand tight. “Well, I do thank you. I feel like a true Lady.”

She smiles and squeezes my hand back. “You look like one.”

The Feast conversation grows lively, and my mother and I turn to a very animated Jasper. He’s regaling the guests with tales from the Testing, injecting levity into moments I remember more darkly. I take a tick to steal a glance at Lukas. He stands against the wall with the other Attendants as if nothing passed between us, just waiting to serve us as if it were any other day. How can he be so implacable, when my own stomach roils and my heart pounds at the thought of Elizabet’s secrets? Should I really have trusted him enough to hand over my Apple altar? I can’t go back now.

I hear the words “musk ox” being bandied about, and it catches my attention. Seeing my gaze, Jasper smiles at me, and continues his story, “So, I watch as Eva hauls the thing out the Taiga by herself. A musk ox!”

One of my aunts gasps. Our other guests squeal in laughter at the thought of Maidenly Eva dragging one of New North’s hugest creatures out of the forest, alone. I smile
along with them, but it feels strange. Almost as if the Testing had been created solely for New North’s entertainment. I wonder what the families of Tristan and Anders are doing right now. Surely not laughing.

The Attendants serve honey and fruit and cakes, usually my favorites. I’m sure my mother ordered them as a special treat for me, but they taste too sweet. False on my tongue. I push the delicacies around on my plate until the bell before the Evensong rings.

All the guests rise, even the Lexors, Archons, and Basilikons who don’t need to leave follow the bells. I guess everyone in New North is used to having their days structured by the
Campana
. As I take my place at the front door to say my farewell, I realize that everyone’s waiting in line to receive
my
blessings—not my father’s. In the course of one day, power has shifted from my father to me. Me. Eva. It’s too weird.

When the front door finally closes, I collapse into my father’s waiting arms.

“You must be exhausted, dearest. Why don’t you go to bed? Tomorrow will be time enough for us to talk about the future.”

“The future? I thought my future was pretty well set. You know, being an Archon and all.”

“Well, there’s Jasper to consider now, too,” he says.

I’ve just won the Archon Laurels, and they’re already talking about my marriage prospects? I’m not exactly surprised, but it’s a bit overwhelming right now. Especially since I have no idea how I feel about Jasper beyond friendship. “Jasper? I can’t even think about that—”

“Of course not, Eva,” my mother interjects. “There will be plenty of time to consider Jasper’s offer in the days to
come.”

Offer
. The word spins in my brain. Has one already been made? I don’t dare ask. I’m not ready for the details.

My mother hands me off to Katja. “Please get Eva settled in her bed. She needs her rest for the days ahead.”

I start up the stairs, when my father calls out, “One last hug, Eva?”

Perhaps he’s aware of the power shift, too. Perhaps he wants one last moment to think of me as his little girl. I race back down the steps into my father’s arms. Only then do I realize that Lukas has been standing alongside the solar wall, listening to our conversation the entire time.

How can I sleep? I’m bone-tired, but my mind won’t rest. What is Lukas going to tell me? That the Testing is a sham, and that Eamon meant to challenge it? I’ve already started believing that myself. Or is it something else entirely?

Not for one more tick can I sit in this claustrophobic bedroom, doing nothing. I can’t take the heat anymore; my body has grown too accustomed to deep cold. I slip on my
kamiks
and put my sealskin cloak on top of my nightdress. Slowly, I creak open my bedroom door and check the corridor. No one stirs in the house, so I tiptoe down the hall to the turret doorway.

The heavy wooden door groans when I push it open. I stiffen, certain that someone will wake up and catch me. But I hear nothing, so I proceed. My
kamiks
glide up the familiar
spiral stairwell, and I settle onto the hard stone bench lining the turret wall. The night is blue and still and cold, but not nearly as frigid as what I’ve felt outside the Aerie. I wrap my sealskin cloak around me like a blanket, and within a few ticks I’m comfortable enough. I spend the bells recording the past days in this journal.

When dawn comes and daybreak crests over the turret wall, I’m waiting.

Lukas jumps when he sees me. “How long have you been out here, Eva?”

“Not long. A few bells,” I lie as I stand up to face him.

“That’s long enough on a frigid night like this.”

“Not when you’ve been beyond the Ring, Lukas.”

“You’re right. Sometimes I forget that you were really out there.” He looks a little sad. As if it was somehow his fault that I’d entered the Testing. But I have no more patience for his so-called “secrets.”

“What do you have to tell me? About my Apple altar?”

“I think it might be better seen than told.”

Lukas is still making no sense, and I’m furious. “Are you deliberately trying to confuse me? Do you know what I’m risking?”

“Of course. But you have to understand: this isn’t what you think. You were taught in School that this is a diptych, a folding altarpiece like many New North people keep in their homes to pray to their Gods. Except, supposedly the pre-Healing people used this to pray to the false god Apple, instead. Right?”

“Right.” Why is he stating the obvious? Something every Schoolchild in the Aerie knows?

“It’s actually something called a computer.”

“A computer?” I’ve never heard the term before. Now
he’s speaking gibberish.

“It’s a Tech device through which the pre-Healing people received images and information.”

“Where they received information from the false god Apple?”

Altar in hand, Lukas moves closer to me. “No, Eva. It’s a device were they received images and information from other pre-Healing people. They didn’t use it to pray. They used it to communicate. Like we do by carrier pigeon. It’s hard to explain, so maybe I should just show you.” He starts opening the altar and pressing its edges.

“What are you doing?” I gasp. Instinctively I reach for it. I don’t like him handling it so roughly.

Lukas gently moves my hand away. “Turning it on.” He tears his gaze away from the altar to look at me. “Eva, this device captures power from the sun. I’ve been charging it since dawn. Just watch.”

I stand next to him so I can get a better view of the altar’s face. I still have absolutely no idea what he means by “on,” but I figure I should wait and see. In a few ticks, the face of the altar begins to come alive with a jumble of color. I stifle a scream and jump back. It’s evil, just like we’ve been taught. It has powers not of the Gods—not the Earth or Sun or Moon—nor The Lex. This is Tech. I have a terrible premonition that just by witnessing its power, I will die.

Lukas reaches out a hand to steady me. “There’s nothing to be afraid of Eva. This is what I meant about turning the computer ‘on.’ In a few ticks, we’ll see what kind of images it stores.”

I have no choice but to stare. I am too paralyzed with fear. The face turns bright blue. Pictures of the constellations
begin to appear on it. How can the nighttime sky be appearing on this thing? It makes no sense. Without realizing, I reach out to touch it. To see if it’s real.

Lukas grabs my hand before I make contact. “Don’t. After all that time in the ice, it’s pretty delicate. We don’t want to break it before we see what’s inside.”

“We’re going to open it up?”

“No. I don’t mean actually
opening
it. We’ll look at the screen.”

“The screen?” All these new terms are making my head spin. How does Lukas know all this? And why hasn’t he ever said anything about these things before?

“What you’d call the face of the altar,” he clarifies. He begins to press on some small squares on the other side of the altar, and after a tick or so, a rectangle appears on the face. He taps on the altar again, and Elizabet’s image emerges.

“By the Gods, it’s Elizabet!” I’m so excited to see her face that I nearly forget the terror. Lukas clamps a hand over my mouth, but I’m squealing underneath his fingers.

“I want to see her,” I mumble.

“Will you keep quiet?”

I nod, and Lukas removes his hand. I stare at the image. The blonde hair, light eyes, and sinewy limbs are exactly the same as all the pictures in her pink pack.

“It’s really her. She looks just like the images in the Kirov Ballet book,” I say.

“Would you like to hear Elizabet speak?”

“Speak? You can make her speak?” I sound like a child. I feel like one. It’s as if my wish to make Elizabet come alive is becoming true.

The ever-humble Lukas puffs up a little. “I think so. Let
me try.”

He presses some squares again, and she moves. Her voice is shaky, and although her English is accented, her words are articulate and clear. She speaks directly to the computer. And there are tears running down her face.
“Robert, are you out there? It’s me, Elizabet. I’m just praying that you get this post. Our connections have been getting weaker as the ocean waters have risen. Do you have any Internet connection left? I haven’t received anything from you since last night …”

I’ve stopped breathing. The world has shrunk to this miraculous vision.

Elizabet pauses to wipe the tears away from her eyes. Her eyes are bright, and very blue.
“My kultanen, I saved your message.”
She rubs the amulet around her neck.
“Here, so I can keep it close to my heart. No matter what happens. The captain finally told me where we are going. Our course is due north, once we make it to the North Sea from the Baltic Sea, that is. We are heading for some obscure island in the Arctic, a place the captain says will be safe from the rising ocean waters. My family supposedly will be waiting for me there.”

Shaking her head, Elizabet says,
“I’m still trying to make sense of what he told me. I mean, how did my family know to go to this Arctic island? How do they know it’s safe? The melting of the polar ice caps happened so suddenly. What would make them leave the safety of their Finnish palace almost a week before the catastrophe started? The captain said that my dad and the men from some of these other families were there because they’d been working on a joint venture oil project on this Arctic island. But that still doesn’t explain the timing.”

I turn to Lukas, wide-eyed, but he raises a finger to his lips, his brow furrowed in concentration.

Elizabet laugh a little ruefully.
“But you know me, I didn’t
want to leave the Kirov until the last possible second. I just had to debut the La Bayadere at the Mariinsky Theater, Armageddon or not. I just had to secure that glory and fame, didn’t I? Stupid, huh? Stubborn, at best.”
The laughter stops.
“Did you get on that boat, my kultanen? You know, the one you tried for in Helsinki.”