Page 131 of The Song Rising

I crumpled the note into my hand.

Nashira will not let you go once you are in her clutches. She will chain you in the darkness, and she will drain the life and hope from you.

When music sounded in the corridor, I raised my head. The transmission screen outside my cell was now fixed on the live broadcast of the Jubilee. The walls inside the stadium were covered by black drapes, each bearing an immense white circle with a golden anchor inside it.

Hundreds of tiered seats provided the best views. The groundlings, with cheaper tickets, had gathered at the edges of the vast, ring-shaped orchestra pit, and were craning their necks to see the top of the stage.

“Esteemed denizens of the Scion Citadel of London,” Burnish said, and her voice resounded through the space, “welcome, on this very special night, to the Grand Stadium!”

The roar was deafening. I made myself listen.

That was the sound of Scion’s victory.

“Tonight,” Burnish said, “we welcome a new year for Scion, and a new dawn for the anchor, the symbol of hope in a chaotic modern world.” Applause answered her. “And now, before the stroke of midnight, it is time for us to reflect upon two centuries of our rich history, brought to you by some of Scion’s most talented denizens. Tonight, we celebrate our place in the world, and embrace our bright future. Let us set our bounds ever wider, and grow ever stronger—together. The Minister for Arts is proud to present—the Jubilee!”

The ovation rumbled on for almost a minute before mechanisms began to move in the stadium. A performance, then. Or a message from Vance.Look at our imperial might. Look at what you failed to thwart.

A platform rose, and the light ebbed to a twilight ambience. On the platform, a line of children sang a soulful rendition of “Anchored to Thee, O Scion.” When the audience gave them a standing ovation, they took a bow, and a new stage was drawn up, this one decked with the old symbols of the monarchy. A man, dressed as Edward VII, performed a lively dance to a violinist’s music, accompanied by actors in lavish Victorian gowns. Once the séance table was brought on, the dance became more tormented, and I understood that this was the story of Scion’s origin—heavily edited, of course, to remove the Rephaim from the equation. The lighting enflamed, and more performers swept on to the stage, executing acrobatic dances around the principal actor, clawing away his regalia. He was the king who had dabbled in evil, and they were the unnaturals he released into the world. Just like the play at the Bicentenary, all those months ago.

The scenery began to change. Now it was a shadow theater, and new actors were forming the shapes of skyscrapers and towers, rising ever higher until their figures loomed over the stage, where the dancers had all fallen to their knees. This was the remaking of London, the rising from the ashes of the monarchy. The music swelled. Scion had triumphed.

The stage cleared of actors. The lights went out. When they returned, they were cool and muted.

A woman in an embroidered bodice with a black skirt, her fair hair coiled at the crown of her head, was poised on her toes in the middle of the stage. I recognized her at once: Marilena Bra?oveanu, Scion Bucharest’s most beloved dancer. She often performed at official ceremonies.

Bra?oveanu was as still as a porcelain doll. When the camera focused on her, close enough for every viewer to see the finest details of her costume, I realized the skirt of her dress was made up of hundreds of tiny silk moths.

She was the Black Moth.

She was me.

The stadium fell silent. Bra?oveanu sailed around the stage to the tune of a piano, fluid yet erratic. Then another dancer ran out—the Bloody King—and snatched her hand, spinning her into his arms. I watched, mesmerized, as the Black Moth danced apas de deuxwith him. She was the Bloody King’s heir; the herald of unnaturalness, of sin.

The dance became faster. Bra?oveanu whirled her leg out in front of her and tucked it behind her other knee, over and over, while the lights raced red around her and the music became ferocious, like a storm. The Bloody King lifted her above his head, then swung her into his arms again. She was seduced by evil. Actors held signs marking them asFREEDOMandJUSTICEandTHE NATURAL ORDER. Then an army, who had been waiting in the shadows, stepped forward, and all of the actors fell down with their signs, murdered where they stood, while the Bloody King brought the Black Moth gently to a stop. She walked into the blaze of a spotlight, her arms raised high. This was the moment of my death in Edinburgh.

It was beautiful.

They had made my murder beautiful.

Slowly, Bra?oveanu took center stage. A hush had fallen. When she spoke, she raised her head high, and I was sure I saw the dark fire of hatred in her eyes.

“We need everyone,” she said, and her microphone sent it all around the stadium, into the home of every viewer in the country, “or everyone loses.”

I froze. My own words, a call to revolution, spoken on a Scion stage—that couldn’t be right. The camera, which had just panned to the Grand Box, caught the complacent smiles of the ministers stiffening before it cut back to the stage. There was an apprehensive silence.

This had not been part of their plan for tonight.

Bra?oveanu took her bow; then she slipped a silver pin from her bun and peeled open her throat.

Screams erupted from the groundlings, the only ones close enough to see the red sheeting down her neck. I stared, thunderstruck, as she dropped the pin. That blood was as real as mine.

Bra?oveanu collapsed on the stage, as elegantly as she had moved in life. The orchestra played on. The male dancer, who was wearing an earpiece, lifted her wilted frame into his arms and raised her above his head. He pirouetted with a plastic smile before dancing off the stage. Though the groundlings were in disorder, most of the audience were still cheering.

Something kindled deep within me. Marilena Bra?oveanu was Romanian. She had witnessed an incursion, too—and now, tonight of all nights, she had used her own blood to spoil the beauty of the anchor’s lies.

A Vigile rattled the bars of my cell.

“Come here, 40.”

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