Gagargi Prataslav halts exactly in the middle of the narrow platform and spreads his arms wide. His black sleeves are like the wings of a crow, the bearer of bad news and ill tidings. He leans toward the crowd, toward us, as he always does. Though he’s on the platform, he’s still too close for comfort. His gaze searches the crowd, and he smiles to himself as if he knew the name and lineage of everyone present. “I know why you have come here tonight.”
And it’s as if he’s speaking to me! My urge to flee strengthens, and I stumble backward, tread on my love’s toes. The gagargi can’t know I’m present. He mustn’t learn that I’m here. For if he did…
“The time of change is upon us. Soon we will all be what we were meant to be, regardless of our birth and origin.”
The crowd listens to the gagargi’s words in utter silence, with faces carved from stone. No eye blinks. No nostril flares. I have never witnessed such before. Not even in the churches during the holiest of ceremonies devoted to my father. Always, always someone has coughed in his fist or a baby has burst into tears. But now… even the unsteady beat of my heart is too loud in the confines of my shrinking ribcage.
“Very soon,” Gagargi Prataslav says, and lifts his right hand in the air, extends his long, bony forefinger. He, too, wears red gloves. His voice is low and mellow, and everyone in the hall must surely strain their ears to hear the words. “The Great Thinking Machine will make everyone equal.”
The machine? I have just enough time for that one frightening thought.
“Aya!” The crowd bursts into a reply so strong that it feels as if the very air were vibrating. My love joins the ear-shattering chorus. People lift their right fists in the air again, and the sea of red spreads over them. I wonder—wherever this thought came from—if eventually we are all going to drown in our own blood. “Aya! Aya, at last!”
I frown in open puzzlement. The crowd knows more than I do. What does the gagargi’s machine have to do with anything? How can the people know more than I, who have seen the thing with my own eyes? I who know what it requires for fuel!
“No more starving children.” Gagargi Prataslav’s words ring loud and clear, as though every word was produced by a smith’s hammer against an anvil. “No more soldiers sent to certain death. The machine knows everything. The machine cares for every single one of us. This is the end of injustice.”
Injustice? I shiver despite the multitude of layers hiding my identity. But, yes. My mother thinks her rule just, but that it is not. She has been so focused on expanding the empire that she has forgotten those she is supposed to shelter. She sends men to faraway countries, while their families slave in the fields. And to fund these excursions, she has increased taxes, so that the families have nothing to show for their hard work but debts.
But nothing in this world comes without a price. I have seen the Great Thinking Machine. And though I claimed otherwise to Alina and Merile, it runs on human souls. That’s the reason why Mother rejected it. How is the gagargi planning to solve that blasphemy?
“Equality is efficiency.” Gagargi Prataslav’s gaze brightens as if he were burning with passion inside. And perhaps he is. “No price is too great for such freedom. No price is too great for a better world.”
I wonder, do the people know the true price? Perhaps not. How will they react when they find out? Will they ever find out? What is the gagargi’s plan?
“The Moon has blessed our cause,” the gagargi says, his voice is so enchanting, so mellow. He turns sideways and gestures up the stairs, toward the foreman’s office.
A woman in a hooded cloak the color of a cherry sliced open stands in the gaping doorway. She’s almost as tall as he is. I can’t yet say anything else about her, but she must be of great importance to the gagargi.
The crowd holds their breath once more as the woman descends the stairs. Her movements are ethereal, beyond graceful. The edge of her cloak trails behind her, barely touching the floor.
There’s something familiar about the way she moves, commands the space to accommodate her movements. When she takes her place before the gagargi, I’m sure I have seen her before. When the gagargi whispers in her ear, she nods in reply, a curt, imperial gesture. I know her name then, even before she pushes the hood back and reveals her symmetrical face.
“Celestia…” I whisper before I can stop myself. What is my sister, the heir to the empire, doing up there, with the gagargi? My neck clicks as I turn to meet the man who brought me here. “Did you know about this?”
The crowd mills about in confusion, and my love’s gaze is wide with wonder. He might have known about the gagargi and hidden that from me until tonight, but… “No. I swear to the Moon, I didn’t. None of us did! But this is wonderful!”
Gagargi Prataslav and Celestia wait as if they had all the time in this world. My sister has a placid, almost dreamy expression on her face. Her silver hair is undecorated, merely curled. She wears a white dress with a high waistline, and white satin gloves envelop her svelte arms. As she places a hand on the railing, Gagargi Prataslav places his on top of hers.
I gasp, but there’s not enough air in the hall to fill my clenched lungs. I have suspected for some time already that my sister has a lover. But now it’s glaringly obvious. Her first lover is none other than Gagargi Prataslav. And for her to present this man to the common people before announcing her choice in the court… I don’t know what to think of it. For that matter, I don’t know what to think of anything anymore.
The sound is faint, a mere clatter of boots against metal. But it’s real, and it comforts me.
A guard has climbed up the stairway to the platform and brought with him a wooden tray. On the tray is a simple glass pitcher filled with dark liquid and an equally simple glass bowl. The guard holds it out before the gagargi. The gagargi picks up the pitcher and raises it over the railing. “Our hands have always been red with the blood we have bled for this empire.”
People cheer once more, and I wonder if they ever tire of shouting. If they have lost their mind in consensus. If I’m the only one really thinking of what lies under the surface.
For it’s not wine in the pitcher, but thick, clotted blood. I watch as one of the crowd as the gagargi pours the blood into the bowl, for what else can I do? Celestia, she just stares directly ahead of her. As if she really were not present. Or as if she existed only as a shadow in the world beyond this one.
The gagargi lowers the pitcher onto the tray and then accepts the whole tray from the guard. He turns to my sister. “This has not escaped the Moon. Tonight, next to me, stands his eldest, honored Celestia, the empress-to-be.”
Celestia turns her head slowly, her whole body. Hers is the most exquisite silhouette; slender, but round at bosom and hips. Her red cloak rests against her white gown, heavier than it should.
“I am here for you,” she says, and then… She sinks her hands into the bowl. “I am one of you.”
I gape in utter horror as Celestia raises her hands up in the air. Blood dribbles down her wrists, her arms, onto her dress, onto her pale neck, even onto her face. Her expression doesn’t flinch. No, it’s utterly serene as she faces the crowd once more.
“Celestia!” The crowd bursts into the loudest of shouts yet. “Prataslav! The age of equality!”
My mouth moves on its own, but no words come out. If I had thought I’d anger my father by wearing peasant clothes in public, Celestia… she has gone too far. In her scarlet cloak, in her bloodstained dress… I don’t understand the game she is playing. And yet I do. She means to overtake our mother with the help of the gagargi.