Page 287 of Mother of Death and Dawn

“What Orders?” Helena repeated, aghast.

“The Orders have been used to justify some truly reprehensible things. First of all, multiple coups.” Max raised a finger. “War crimes.” Another finger. “Torture.” A third. “Inciting ofseveralwars, and—”

“We understand, Maxantarius,” a councilor mumbled, rubbing his temples.

“But you’re— you’re the Arch Commandant,” another said, somewhat helplessly.

“For now. Until I can get rid of the title. And in my opinion, the best way to get rid of it would be to throw the entire sorry thing out in the trash.”

I winced a little at his, as always, evocatively tactless choice of words.

He had floated this idea to me, several nights ago, as we lay tangled up in bed. Then, he’d been softer and more pensive—more uncertain. He’d been raised his entire life to see the Orders as the pinnacle of what he should aspire to be. It was not as easy as he was making it seem now to wipe all that away.

“But what could it possibly be after this?” he had said, that night. “What good could come from it? Look at what it had become even before this. Look at that they did to you, for fuck’s sake. And to the Fey Nura imprisoned. Even...”

“Even to you,” I said, quietly.

He just shook his head, too angry to keep speaking.

He was right about that. I’d been thinking it too, though I didn’t know how to voice it. As long as the Orders continued to exist, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to convince the Fey that we were not endorsing or repeating Nura’s actions. Even the Alliance was skeptical—the Orders, under Nura’s rule, had owned slaves, after all. The taint was everywhere.

Most of the Council saw our points, but still argued. It was no small thing to disband an institution so fundamental to their way of life.

“Once an organization sanctions that kind of torture,” I said, at last, “how can we continue to support it?”

Even the staunchest advocates of the Orders fell silent at that.

Still… I understood the sadness on their faces. When the decision was made, I still found myself returning long after nightfall. What had once been Ara’s most majestic landmark was now just a pile of silver, gold, and glass. I stepped through the ruins and picked up a book embossed with the sigil of the Orders—a sun and a moon intertwined. As a slave, I’d had a similar book. I had learned Aran between its pages, memorized in obsessive nightly readings.

I had so believed in the Orders, then.

“The end of an era.”

I turned when I heard Iya’s voice. He looked like a ghost in the moonlight, and his stare seemed to peer straight through me.

“It is the right thing,” I said, quietly. “But it is still sad.”

“I’m surprised you think so. You never got to see what the Orders once were.”

“I imagined them.” I held up the book and gave him a small smile. “When I was a slave, these Towers were my dream.”

“I am sorry for that, child. What a disappointment.”

Maybe. Maybe not. They failed me in so many ways. And yet, that dream brought me here, to this life.

“When I was a young man in a land very far from this one, I dreamed of the Orders, too,” Iya said. “I came to Ara because of them. It was better back then, but even still… they were not what they were promised to be. When Araich and Rosira Shelane founded the Orders, they were explicitly intended to be independent of all nations, even though they stood on Aran soil. I believed in that promise when I came to this country. But I too found that Arans, even within the Orders, were not so welcoming to those who spoke with a different… flavor.”

He gave me a small smile, and despite myself, I chuckled. Yes, I knew that well.

“It is honorable of your husband to willingly give up his power by disbanding the Orders,” Iya said. “It’s the right decision. But… even I cannot help mourning that promise.”

He picked up a little piece of rubble. It was a piece of the mural that had adorned the bottom floor of the Towers—Araich and Rosira’s hands touching where the Tower of Midnight met the Tower of Daybreak.

A knot formed in my stomach. I was speaking before I could stop myself.

“Maybe the promise does not have to die.”

Iya’s eyebrow raised. “How so?”

---