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Hypatia concluded, “It is my sincere hope you are satisfied with the steps we have taken to ensure Phaedros never harms another mortal again.”
“Come now.” Chrysanthos spread his hands, inviting the circle to agree with him. “You know our laws. Do you think Phaedros’s incarceration is likely to satisfy us?”
“Can you deny that imprisonment until the end of time is a weightier sentence than execution?”
Cassia flinched. Lio had anticipated the shock in her aura, but it hurt worse than he had prepared himself for. The circle’s words tasted bitter in his mouth as he made himself continue to repeat them.
Chrysanthos replied, “I think submitting Phaedros to Anthros’s judgment the most fitting sentence.”
Hypatia’s tone and face were steel. “I assure you, no punishment is harsher upon a Hesperine than spending eternity with one’s own conscience.”
“You would argue he has a conscience? He carved a swath across Tenebra, creating an army of his creatures with the intent of marching upon Cordium. What conscience did he show toward the common people who flocked to become his followers, whom he deluded with promises of a new era? How many of them accepted his blood, and from his so-called Gift of immortality, received only excruciating death? I can tell you he spared no conscience for mages. He left no cult untouched. Whether through deception or brute force, he stole the gods’ own for his cause and turned them into agents of his retribution.”
Hespera’s Mercy, the circle should never have spoken of this. This debate was supposed to have addressed esoteric theory, not the most controversial conflict between Hesperines and mages!
Lio could not allow this. He must get to his feet here and now and rescue his Summit from Hypatia. To Hypnos with the consequences. Lio tensed to rise.
Just then his uncle caught his gaze. Lio recognized the look in his mentor’s eyes. Wait. Be patient.
Of all times, Uncle Argyros chose this moment to give the only advice he had offered since the night he had voted in favor of the Summit. Surely he saw where this was headed. It could only be a disaster.
Lio felt the touch of his uncle’s mind, as surely as a hand on his shoulder, encouraging him to stay in his seat.
Uncle Argyros must know something about Hypatia’s strategy. It was possible she had confided her intentions to him, her fellow elder firstblood from Hagia Anatela. The Summit may have cast Lio from the good graces of his mentor’s closest colleagues, but no difference of opinion, however controversial, could erode Uncle Argyros and Hypatia’s friendship.
Lio answered his uncle with acquiescence and sat back in his chair.
Cassia eased forward to have recourse to Eudias’s translations again, and Lio hastened to give her his own. He would speak for his people, however it shamed him.
Chrysanthos had yet to give Hypatia reprieve. “If you will not give us the satisfaction of seeing Phaedros rightfully punished, why have you broached this subject at all?”
Hypatia’s composure remained flawless. “We can have no hope of meaningful discussion when this scar stands between us, unacknowledged. As proof of our earnest commitment to reconciliation, we wish to face our own faults with honesty, unflinching. Phaedros played a role in the devastation of the Last War in ways that continue to grieve us these many centuries later. We can hold no one accountable for their offenses against us, if we are unwilling to hold ourselves accountable for our offenses.”
Lio had to admit, the esteemed elder now making chaos of his carefully composed Summit was playing it like an expert harpist and turning it into an anthem of Hesperine principle. In the time before the debates were silenced, Hypatia had faced off with the Akron himself and bested him. She had outwitted the mind that later ordered the destruction of their temples. Chrysanthos was a little firefly buzzing about the star of her intellect, nearly invisible in the light of her conscience.
“I have broached this subject,” she informed the mage, “in order to offer you words that have been impossible to speak in these sixteen hundred years of silence, which have held our cults in bondage. Phaedros, who was once my close colleague, has doomed himself to his chains, but in speaking his forbidden name aloud, I hope to strike off our people’s shackles. On behalf of all Hesperine kind, empowered by my Queens to speak for Orthros, with Second Princess Konstantina, Royal Master Magistrate, to stand witness, I hereby offer you a formal apology for the Phaedric Terror. I express our sorrow over every single life Phaedros destroyed. We say with one voice, we carry your grief in our veins.”
Gasps and murmurs went up around the room. Now Lio understood the look in his uncle’s eye. Now he was glad he had done nothing to interrupt this stroke of genius—this long-overdue absolution.
Chrysanthos looked back at Hypatia, and Lio knew there was nothing in the mage’s artfully crafted expression that she had not seen before. There was nothing he could say that would surprise her. “We will accept your apology, if you submit Phaedros to Anthros’s judgment. Surrender him into my custody, and I will see to it the Order of Anthros brings him to justice.”
Hypatia did not flinch. “We cannot agree to that, for your safety. You would not survive long enough to contact the Order, were you exposed to Phaedros. Although he forfeited his legacy as an elder firstblood through his criminal acts, he is our equal in age and magic. Only our power is enough to contain his. With our apology, we offer you this solemn vow. He will never harm another mortal again. Will you accept this?”
“My terms, once laid out, do not change.”
She addressed the entire circle. “We have laid our hearts bare to you and placed them in your hands. It grieves me your spokesman will not accept our contrition. I can only hope the keenness of our pain is apparent to all of you. Although his answer is not what we hoped, we find consolation in saying these words to you at last.”
Chrysanthos didn’t understand at all. His response was irrelevant. Of course, it would be ideal if some true reconciliation could be achieved through this, but no one knew better than Hypatia that the Order of Anthros never changed its terms. No, she had not done this for the little insect who attempted to carry the ancient Akron’s Torch.
She had done this for her people.
She had said those words for Hespera’s own, who might now be able to forgive themselves.
There was no sound in the room except the rustle of skirts. Cassia stood, and all eyes went to her place in the second row.
“Honored Master Adelphos has spoken for the mages and thus for the gods, and all those who serve the divine must abide by his ruling. But it is my duty and my honor in this land to speak for those like myself, who are but humble non-mages, striving ever to become more holy creatures. On behalf of the people who live outside the temples, against whom Phaedros committed the greater part of his crimes, I wholeheartedly accept your apology. Henceforth, let it be known that in the eyes of Tenebra, Phaedros has paid a fit price, and we consider the scales of justice balanced.”
Chrysanthos rose up from his chair and faced her. “You speak with a greater voice than you have been given.”
