Page 132 of The Alien in the Archive

Except for Thorne, who is completely silent.

He stands at the center of the room, cuffs joining his wrists behind his back. His silver hair is tied into a bun, purely on my urging, and he’s still wearing the clothes Riley lent to him, making him look at least a little more like a normal person.

Of course…he’s not, is he? There’s no one else like him in this room, even with the various species gathered here.

The Tribunal sits in their semi-circle, banners of each Pact species hanging behind them. A symbol of unity in theory…but in practice? All I can think about is the fact that they’re threatening the man I love.

At the center of it all is Administrator Kyral, the Merati chief of security and a professor of military strategy in the Nautilum. He’s tall, regal, with silvery skin and flowing robes, white-blond hair flowing down his back. I don’t know anything about him, but I’ve heard he’s stern and ruthless.

And, of course, there’s Kaelion Rhyss seated to Kyral’s right. His purple-tendril hair shifts like it’s alive, his glowing blue eyes fixed on Thorne. He doesn’t look at me, but I see the flicker of his gaze when Thorne is brought forward.

The Tribunal has never seen anything like this—a Borean fugitive, thousands of years old, who lived among us unnoticed. The weight of it hangs over everyone.

Davina rises first; my single hope on the Tribunal.

She looks as steady as ever, dressed in loose black pants and a long, crimson red robe. There’s a golden chain strung between her antlers, a pendant depicting an icon of the goddess Yrsa hanging from it. For all the tension crackling around us, Davina is calm, behaving like she’s faced down far worse than a room full of administrators. She doesn’t even glance at Thorne as she passes him, though she looks to me and nods.

“Members of the Tribunal,” she begins, her voice loud and clear. “I come before you not to defend a criminal, but to illuminate an unprecedented opportunity.”

A ripple runs through the room at her choice of words. I hear the thoughts, disjointed, overlapping.

Opportunity?

—what does she mean?

This is absurd?—

—he’s dangerous…

I tune them out. I have to.

“For centuries,” she says, “the loss of the Borean archives has loomed in our academic memory as a tragedy. When the Empire erased their history, they effectively cut us off from any avenue of understanding the peoples who terrorized the cosmos for millennia. The Skoll rebellions, the Nyeri’i Cataclysm, the War of Reclamation…the Convergence. We knowwhathappened. But how much do we truly understandwhy?”

Her question lingers, capturing the audience.

“We have grown comfortable with a simple narrative,” she continues. “The Borean Empire as a monolith of conquest—a dominating force with the wholesale buy-in of every single one of its subjects. But I would argue that’s the history that the Empirewantedus to believe, because as this man recently told me, an empire cannot seem eternal if it has a history.”

The room stirs, a few people nodding. I cling to those faces, searching their thoughts…seeing they agree.

“We’ve known for many years that there were dissenters in the Borean Empire, but that they were violently silenced. Some of those voices have names and titles—including Lirian Xhaeven, Soryn Drevaris…and even Zerithek Nexorin, the mentor of the accused—but some do not. Thorne Valtheris was one of them.”

“Show us the sources!” someone shouts. A Merati, laughing with a few other scholars across the room from me. I glare at them, but Davina seems happy about this development, giving them an appraising look. Thorne doesn’t move; he just stands still and proud, face impassive, as though every word isn’t potential damnation.

“I will,” she says. “Because there’s an entire collection of documents regarding Borean collaboration with the Skoll and Merati, concealed deep within the Obscuary…and I’ve developed a report delivered to the Tribunal just this morning.”

A few of the councilors nod along; the Jotenbei administrator, a female green giant from the Arborium, looks open to hearing Thorne’s story.

“The Obscuary,” Davina continues, “was more than a storage place for our most dangerous texts. It was built as a sanctuary of knowledge shared between species—Boreans, Merati, Skoll—before we had even made contact with any others. The Archive was not an isolated anomaly, but a symbol of collaboration.”

I chance a peek at Professor Rhyss, and I find that he actually looks…thoughtful. I lean over to Riley. “Is that normal for him?” I whisper, gesturing.

Riley frowns, then looks back at me. “Actually…I think he’s buying it.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“Thorne Valtheris helped with the creation of the Obscuary,” Davina is saying. “And when he fled Borealis to escape persecution for his opposition to the Celestial Convergence, he returned here. Now, he’s revealed himself with the intent of translating and cataloguing the texts in the Obscuary, and he can supplement those texts withreal experience.”

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