The Lost Voice Read online

  It was Reya and Topher.

  Jessamine glanced frantically at the clock and realized with dismay that it was already after five.

  Where did the day go?

  “Excellency,” they greeted her solemnly, though Topher was staring at her with such intensity that he obviously wanted to say something more to her.

  Sorry, Topher, she thought ruefully. I know you are used to counseling Jessamine the woman, but right now the world needs Jessamine the Vicereine.

  “Were you able to obtain my armor?” she asked Reya, opening the door further to allow them in and turning to gather all her notes from the floor.

  “I was, Excellency.”

  “Good work. Please bring it in here and give me a minute to change.”

  They did so in silence, and Jessamine could feel the heightened level of formality between them now like an impassable chasm. She was no longer just the heir to the Viceroyalty; she was the leader of the planet. Did her father ever feel this isolated and lonely, or had he learned to navigate these waters many years ago? More than ever, Jessamine wished he was there to talk to, to get advice from. Why had she wasted so much time that she could have spent with him?

  Forward momentum, she chided herself, closing the door on the Majors and stripping off the clothes she had borrowed from Topher.

  She pulled on the stretchy black bodysuit she had been wearing during the night of her escape, because it was more comfortable to wear under armor than anything else. She did the cursory inspection of her armor by rote, flexing the joints and examining them for signs of obvious damage before pulling the armor on and securing it. Finally, she turned to the mirror and pulled her hair back into its usual bun.

  I finally look like myself again.

  She didn’t feel like it, but that would have to come later. She opened the door to find Reya and Topher waiting patiently on the other side, standing at attention in the hallway.

  “Come in. We have a few minutes before we leave, and I need to brief you both on what’s coming.”

  They entered the room, Reya glancing at her surroundings with obvious interest, perhaps forming her own picture of how Topher grew up based on what she saw. Jessamine handed her a stack of paper and said, “These are draft notes of mine. I always think better when I can put pen to paper instead of dictating to my comm. I’ll need them burned before we leave.” She had consolidated everything of importance onto a single sheet of paper, which was currently tucked into a pouch on her belt.

  “We have been preparing for you to speak in person at the Academy tonight,” Topher spoke now, his expression as unreadable as ever. “To that end, we made a covert trip down there earlier to do a threat assessment. We looked for optimal vantage-points for potential sniper threat, and mapped out a security detail with our most trusted people. We have located the ideal place for your speech. To ensure maximum protection, the southwest side of the clock-tower will be best. We also assumed you would want a speaking platform. Lorna has been overseeing the placement and arrangement with our security concerns in mind.”

  “Good work, all of you.” She paused for a moment. “I plan on addressing the world tonight. I want the maximum number of people to see me alive and well to deprive any other traitors inside from having the chance to dispose of me quietly and claim I am still missing.”

  Reya nodded to indicate this made sense. Topher’s face remained blankly neutral.

  “We will return to the Augenspire immediately following my address at the Academy. I expect the General Assembly will scramble to greet me, but first I want a meeting with all of the Majors, Darius, and my sister. After we are finished in the High Chamber, I intend to go visit Hanna. After all that, I will meet with the General Assembly in full.”

  The others accepted her orders in silence, though Reya glanced at the clock behind Jessamine’s head and said, “We should leave soon, Excellency.”

  “Then let us depart—after I thank Hera for hosting me on short notice for the better part of the week.” Her relationship with Topher’s mother had gotten off to a rocky start, but she could certainly understand why the woman had some bad feelings about where her son ended up, and she had taken Jessamine in on no notice and provided her with everything she asked for.

  At a glance from Topher, Reya said, “I’ll go thank her on your behalf, and ours. You and Topher can…get the speeder ready for departure.”

  Jessamine recognized the pre-arranged attempt to get her alone, or perhaps Topher just didn’t want to see his mother right now. The two of them hadn’t really spoken to each other since the night he and Jessamine barged into the kitchen together after fleeing the Augenspire. Jessamine felt she really ought to thank the woman personally, but they were getting short on time, and Topher clearly wanted to say something to her.

  Screw it. The world can wait.

  “I’ll keep it brief.” Jessamine walked past them and went to the living room, where Hera was burning her notes in the fireplace.

  For a moment the two women stared at each other in silence. Jessamine could feel all of the things that went unsaid between them. But some things needed to be said aloud.

  “I want to thank you for opening up your home to me with no notice and for accommodating my work here. I know we got off to a rough start, but I am truly glad to have made your acquaintance, and I hope we can work together going forward.”

  Hera gave her a thoughtful look and said, “Of course. I may not agree with the way your family has run the government for the last two-hundred years, but I look forward to working with you towards a better future.”

  The two shook hands, while Topher stood to the side looking rigid, eyes flickering between the two of them as though trying to puzzle out how their relationship got off to a rough start.

  “I’ll just use the restroom before we go,” Reya announced, giving Topher and Jessamine a chance to speak privately.

  They walked together through the house and out the front door to the aerial speeder parked out front. She wasn’t sure where Maxton and Ana were—though she assumed Ana was probably at the Academy, still spreading word about the speech.

  What if no one shows up?

  Jessamine shook her head. Not possible. Her father had cultivated a culture of fear of repercussion for too long. Tonight she would use it to her advantage.

  She opened the door and slid into the backseat of the speeder, surprised when Topher joined her there, rather than getting in the front. When the doors were shut, she said, “You wanted to speak to me privately?”

  “I’m worried about you.”

  “So am I,” she admitted with a humorless smile. “I’m not sure if you’ve heard, but someone tried to kill me the other day.”

  He didn’t react to this, face still grave when he asked, “Are you okay?”

  “I don’t really have much choice,” she responded. “I either need to land on my feet or I’m going to have a very short reign.” Her entire life would be summarized in a footnote in their history books: Vicereine Jessamine ascended to power for a minute or two and then was promptly murdered by her own people. “I appreciate your concern, Topher. I really do. But this is what I’ve been training for my entire life. You’ve always put your trust in me. Please continue to do so.”

  Topher was silent for a few minutes.

  “Are you angry with me?” Topher said at last, and Jessamine felt they’d finally reached the thing eating at Topher. “I failed you by failing your father, and Hanna.”

  “What? No, Topher. I’m not angry with you. I know why you came to me and not my father that night; he would have thought the voice in your head was some sort of tech-induced madness and taken you off of assignment. Honestly, I kind of thought the same thing at first,” she admitted. “But you were assigned to me, and you knew I would hear you out, so you did your job and you saved my life. I guess I need to tell Gareth I’m not angry with him either—lord knows I can hardly blame the man for saving Hanna’s life and bringing down my father’s kille
r just because he didn’t do it fast enough.”

  She shook her head to clear her thoughts. The list of things she needed to do and the people she needed to talk to was growing exponentially, and she wouldn’t have enough time in the day to get to everything.

  “If I’m mad at anyone, it’s those ungrateful shits—Parl and Fox—for doing this in the first place. My father gave them the greatest honor possible, and they betrayed him and murdered him because they disagreed with his policy?” She scowled unpleasantly. “For that, there is no Hell horrible enough to contain their worthless souls.”

  “Jessa,” Topher reached out to touch her hand, but she pulled it away.

  “Don’t coddle me, Topher,” she said, hating the words but needing to say them. “Especially in public. I have always valued our friendship—you know that more than anyone—and I am boundlessly grateful to you for stepping up and helping Shellina this past week, but I am the Vicereine-elect now. I need to be strong and in command of the situation, and, more importantly, I need to be seen as a strong leader by those around me. I have always valued the input and honesty of my people, and I will continue to do so, but you can’t have pity on me or worry over me in front of others anymore. You can question the validity of my decisions, but not my emotional state while making them; do we understand each other?”

  Topher looked like he understood the rebuke completely. His face was still an unreadable mask, but there was something rigid about him when he said, “I understand, Excellency.”

  He opened the door and got out of the speeder, leaving her in the backseat alone as he took the passenger seat beside Reya, who was opening the driver-side door and climbing in.

  “Are we ready to go?” she asked the pair of them, studying her colleague’s face closely and frowning thoughtfully at whatever she saw there.

  “Yes, let’s go,” Jessamine said from the backseat, feeling miserable for having to push Topher away, necessary though it was. Part of her felt like nothing so much as a scared child in the backseat of a speeder, flying towards her inescapable death.

  Forward momentum, she coached herself mentally. If they’re going to kill me, I might as well go out with a bang.

  The trip to the Academy was mostly silent, which left Jessamine stewing in her dark miasma of worries and fears. Reya must have found the mood in the speeder oppressive, because she eventually said, “Topher, do you want lateral-sixty or lateral-one-twenty?”

  “Sixty, if you don’t mind,” he responded evenly. “You have better aim at long-distance, and one-twenty will give you a better vantage against any snipers.”

  “Fair enough. I’ll be equipping Eyes and Infrared then.”

  Jessamine agreed silently; Reya would want heightened vision and the ability to see heat signatures for energy-powered weapons if she was going to be watching for snipers.

  “I’ll likely use Scan and Block,” Topher replied.

  “Block?” Reya asked in surprise, glancing sideways at him.

  “Yes,” Topher responded calmly, offering no further explanation for why he was equipping a Talent that would dampen all of his emotions, when they had a different Talent that would suppress only fear, and others to heighten certain feelings.

  Maybe he just wants to be completely rational and focused on security, instead of worrying about any of the other thousand things going on inside his head right now, she allowed.

  Jessamine listened to them discuss security plans in silence until they banked the speeder on the lawn of the Academy, only a few yards away from the portable wooden stage she would be speaking on in a matter of minutes. She was pleased to see that hundreds of people had turned up to hear whatever the big announcement was. Many of them look worried.

  Announcements haven’t gone well for them in the past, Jessamine sighed.

  Risa Vorhees had told her she could never understand the plight of the Gifted. Jessamine thought she understood their fears quite well.

  We have the same fears, she thought glumly. I am more like you all than you know.

  After Topher and Reya exited the speeder, Jessamine paused for the count of three heartbeats and then followed.

  The noise of the crowd increased considerably when they caught sight of her ascending the stairs to take the stage. There was a podium set up for her, but in the moment, she decided she wouldn’t need it, preferring to face her people with nothing to hide behind.

  The media had also come through for them, though none of them looked pleased about being lied to regarding the exclusivity of the filming. The cameras were set up and reporters were speaking in front of them. Jessamine could see the blinking red lights on the fronts of the cameras, which meant this was being broadcast live instead of pre-recorded.

  Good, she thought with grim satisfaction, trying to ignore her trembling hands by standing at parade-rest with them behind her back. Topher and Reya fanned out to their predetermined positions, both of them behind her so she couldn’t see them without turning.

  It’s probably better this way, or I’ll be staring at Topher the whole time, trying to decide whether he thinks I’ve gone completely off the deep end and signed my own death warrant.

  According to the giant clock-tower behind her, it was six o’clock. She had no idea if the Augenspire was watching or not, but trusted Gareth to come through for her. Hopefully they were tuning in to the broadcast inside the building as well.

  Topher and Reya put me on the side of the clock-tower that doesn’t face the Augenspire. She couldn’t blame them for worrying about the possibility of a strike against her from the military itself while she spoke, but it was unnerving to think it was necessary.

  Forward momentum, she thought one last time before accepting the voice projector to speak.

  “Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining me here tonight on such short notice,” she made her opening remarks, allowing time for the level of noise to die down as people fell silent and turned to listen. “You are probably wondering why I’ve called this emergency broadcast.”

  Time to find out whether I’m a fool or a genius.

  “I called you here because my father is dead.”

  There was a sudden upswing of noise and she paused to give it time to naturally die down. The newscasters were agape, talking frantically through their headsets, and she saw shock and fear on every face of the Gifted.

  When the crowd was mostly silent again she went on. “My father, Viceroy Roald, was murdered four nights ago by a trusted member of his own government.”

  Another outburst of noise followed this, and this time Jessamine held up her hand for silence. Miracle of all miracles, the crowd fell silent.

  “Few people knew of this, until now. I’m sure my advisors will be horrified at me admitting this failure within the highest level of the government, for fear it will make us seem divided and weak.

  “They wouldn’t want me to tell you that on the same night, another trusted member of our government attempted to murder me. But I’m telling you anyway.”

  She took a breath, collecting her thoughts.

  “They wouldn’t want me to tell you I have been in hiding for the last four days, waiting for news of my father and sister while I decide what to do. But I am telling you anyway.”

  She could have heard a pin drop in the silence, as hundreds of stunned faces gave her their undivided attention and the cameras remained steady on her face.

  “Now for the part they really won’t want me to tell you,” she continued. “I have come to learn that the reason my father and I were targeted was because these particular members of the government thought we were being too soft towards you, the Gifted.

  Nervous muttering broke out at this, and Jessamine could tell they were growing frightened of what was to come. Was she going to blame them for this and order another purge like her ancestor, or give them further restrictions to appease her doubters? Her heart was beating hard and fast, for she knew that here would be where she set her legacy.

  “I am
convinced that the traitors within our ranks have been found and dealt with—” it was a lie, but one she needed to tell, “—and those who remain in the Augenspire are loyal to me and to our people. But in case I am wrong, let me make one thing absolutely clear to you and to them: I will not hide any longer. I will not give in to fear and hate. I will not strike out at you like my foolish great-grandfather, who was so weak that he called for genocide rather than dealing with his problems head-on.” More shocked looks at this. It was probably the first time anyone in her family had ever publicly admitted the Great War was a blunder.

  “This adversity has only strengthened my resolve to continue working towards the equality and integration of all people across Elaria. This is why I am here tonight, telling you these things my advisors would be horrified by, offering you the truth instead of issuing a false statement from within the Augenspire, attributing my father’s death to some natural cause and covering the entire incident up. It would be an insult to your intelligence and to his memory. It is also why I am issuing my first official act as Vicereine-elect.

  “I am lifting curfew on the Gifted.”

  There was disbelief and shouting in the crowd, as people hugged each other and cried. Some cheered openly. She held up a hand for silence once more, though it took a minute for it to come this time.

  “I know that for some of you this will not be enough, and for some of my advisors it will be seen as too much, too fast. For me, this is the start, but not the end of what I intend to do during my reign as Vicereine. For the time being, you will still be required to maintain official residence at the Academy, but I don’t give a damn how late you stay out at night. This becomes effective tomorrow, as I want to ensure I am able to communicate the message thoroughly to my Provo-Minor to avoid any unpleasant confusion.

  “I want to thank you all for coming here tonight. I know that in the past, my family has been unfair and unkind, and your trust in me will be difficult and hard-earned. But I’m telling you all this anyway, because it’s time for change. And I’m ready to see that change through.”