The Council Hall exploded almost immediately.
"No..."
"That cannot be true."
"Open the Archives!"
"He's lying!"
"The Chancellor admitted the originals exist!"
Voices crashed into one another until I could no longer tell outrage from disbelief.
Reporters abandoned all pretence of composure, their quills racing furiously across paper. Courtroom artists scratched at their canvases with trembling hands.
Professors who had lectured for decades on the Tishian Treaty stared blankly at the enormous painting of Jean and Furla
I looked too.
The painting had not changed.
The words beneath it had not changed.
LOVE BEGAN THE WAR.
THE TREATY PRESERVED THE PEACE.
Yet somehow...
everything had.
I remembered standing beneath those words less than an hour ago.
I had believed them.
Every child in Tish believed them.
Every student.
Every teacher.
Every sheriff.
Every councillor.
Three hundred years.
Three hundred years of children lifting innocent eyes to that painting and learning a lie.
A strange ache spread through my chest.
Then it broke.
Not because of Jean.
Not because of Furla.
Because of Maren.
And Darien.
Neither pleading.
Neither begging.
Simply holding each other's gaze while the flames climbed higher.
I remembered the smell.
Burning flesh.
Burning hair.
The crowd had watched.
The crowd had called it justice.
It hadn't been justice.
It had been murder.
My eyes stung.
I pressed my lips together.
No.
Not just murder.
Execution.
State-sanctioned execution.
For a lie.
Another face rose before me.
Frodo Peppins.
His tired smile.
His trembling hands.
His voice telling Viviette that fourteen years had been worth it because every morning he woke beside the woman he loved.
Fourteen years.
Hidden beneath a cellar.
Not because monsters hunted him.
Not because nature demanded it.
Because men did.
Because somewhere, three centuries ago, powerful people had discovered that fear was easier to govern than hope.
A tear escaped before I could stop it.
Then another.
Somewhere in the gallery, someone was sobbing openly.
I turned.
Principal Scavenger had buried his face in both hands.
Beth sat frozen, tears streaming silently down her cheeks.
Cassidy stared at Percy as though she no longer recognised the world she lived in.
Even Peach...
Peach wasn't smiling.
For perhaps the first time since I'd met her...
she looked frightened.
My thoughts drifted to Viviette Tom.
She had buried Frodo four days ago.
No.
Not merely buried him.
She had buried fourteen stolen years.
Fourteen birthdays.
Fourteen Christmases.
Fourteen summers.
Fourteen winters.
She had believed fate had been cruel.
She had been wrong.
History had been cruel.
Power had been cruel.
Someone had written a lie...
and generations had died trying to obey it.
I turned slowly towards Jordan.
He wasn't looking at me.
His face had gone strangely still.
The swagger was gone.
The arrogance.
The effortless confidence.
All of it.
He looked...
young.
Just nineteen.
A boy who had spent his entire life believing there was something monstrous about loving me.
I suddenly realised something that stole the breath from my lungs.
Jordan wasn't my tragedy.
He was another victim.
"So all of them..."
I whispered.
No one heard me.
"So all of them died for nothing."
The words disappeared into the uproar.
"No!"
One of the councillors had risen to his feet.
"This hearing has exceeded its purpose!"
Another councillor stood almost immediately.
"Our purpose is justice."
"Our purpose is order!"
"Our purpose," a third snapped, "cannot be founded upon falsehood!"
The chamber erupted again.
High Chancellor Magnus Blackwood struck the silver table repeatedly.
"Order!"
No one listened.
The chant began somewhere near the back.
One student.
Just one.
"Open the Archives!"
Another voice joined.
"Open the Archives!"
Then another.
And another.
Within seconds the entire public gallery was on its feet.
"OPEN THE ARCHIVES!"
"OPEN THE ARCHIVES!"
"OPEN THE ARCHIVES!"
The marble walls shook beneath the force of it.
Reporters were shouting now instead of writing.
Professors demanded access to the sealed records.
Students pointed accusing fingers at the Council.
I saw Moira Files standing near the entrance.
She hadn't moved.
She looked down at her own hands.
Hands that had arrested people.
Hands that had enforced Article Nine.
Her lips parted.
"How many..."
Her voice barely existed.
"How many warrants have I signed?"
She stared at her palms as though they belonged to someone else.
"How many people..."
A tear slid silently down her cheek.
"...did I help condemn?"
Across the chamber, Seraphine Velos removed her spectacles with slow, deliberate care.
She cleaned them with a folded handkerchief.
Not because they were dirty.
Because she needed something to do with her hands.
When she finally looked at Magnus Blackwood, her voice was almost unbearably calm.
"Your Excellency."
He did not answer.
She asked only one question.
"Did you know?"
The Chancellor remained silent.
He didn't need to speak.
His silence answered her.
Around me, the world I had entered as a scholarship student seemed to crack like thin ice beneath too much weight.
I had thought Jordan and I were standing trial for loving each other.
I understood now how small that was.
This had never truly been our trial.
It was the Treaty that stood accused.
It was history.
It was every execution.
Every prison sentence.
Every lover forced apart.
Every child taught to fear.
Every family broken.
Every cellar.
Every flame.
Every grave.
All because, three hundred years ago...
someone had discovered that a lie could rule a nation far longer than the truth ever could.