Chapter Text

Part XX – A.M. Iohannes

I. Message to the Mountain

The Council Chamber sat in stillness, the kind that settled not just over wood and stone, but in the air between breaths. Morning light slanted through the high windows, gold against granite. Makar sat at the head of the table in quiet concentration, her robe sleeves folded over one another like layered parchment. The light did not quite reach her eyes.

Nicander entered, with Marckus, without announcement, formality rarely stood between them anymore. She held a plain envelope in gloved fingers. No seal. No emblem. The same blocky typeface as the last two. That alone was enough to set every muscle in the room on edge.

“This one’s addressed to you,” she said.

Makar took it wordlessly, her fingers brushing the edge. A faint crease lined her brow.

“Third time,” she murmured, more to herself than to anyone else.

Lincoln shifted in his seat across the table, an elbow resting near a stack of unfinished motions. Colin, seated quietly in the corner with his notes and teacup, paused mid-sip. Only the clock ticked on.

No one spoke over the sound of Makar opening the envelope. The paper inside was slightly thicker than the last. She read it in silence, her lips pressing into a hard line by the time she reached the final sentence.

Then, with no comment, she passed the sheet to Nicander.

Marckus leaned in to read over her shoulder. The script was plain.

To the High Mark of the Nova Republic,
You who were elected, not crowned, yet rule like a monarch under ink instead of oath.
The Iohannes legacy ends with the granddaughter. This is not personal. It is correction.

Do not look for her. You have already passed the place she was taken.
You rode past it once in spring, and no one looked twice.

You are all too busy looking up the hill, to see the ditch behind it.

Nicander read it twice, then spoke.

“‘You rode past it once in spring.’”

Lincoln exhaled through his nose. “That’s poetic nonsense,” he muttered. “Trying to rattle us.”

But Nicander didn’t look away from the page. “No. It’s something.”

Marckus frowned. “Could be anywhere. A bluff. Symbolic.”

“No,” Nicander said. “Not with her.”

Makar looked up then, finally meeting Nicander’s gaze. “What do you mean?”

Nicander stepped closer to the table, her voice soft but precise. “You used to do spring circuits as a magistrate. I know your routes. I followed them for years, quietly, back when I was still wearing the uniform and trying to keep up with you through half-frozen mountain towns.”

“That was a long time ago,” Makar said.

“Exactly,” Nicander replied. “And that’s why this message matters. They’re not guessing. They know where you rode. And they’re referencing it for a reason.”

Makar leaned back slightly. “I stopped the circuits twenty-seven years ago.”

“Right after the Second War,” Nicander said. “After Makram came to live with us. But before then, you had patterns. Routines. And some of them were known.”

Colin cleared his throat gently. “The route you would’ve taken in the last spring before you retired, do you remember it?”

Makar’s fingers tapped once against the polished armrest. “The last spring run …”

She closed her eyes for a moment.

“Carmichaelton,” she said slowly. “Down through the riverbend, past the old brickworks. Then we looped north, crossed the dry basin, and passed by … the old boundary road through the Ditchlands.”

Marckus’ eyebrows rose. “The Ditchlands?”

“They called it that after the First War,” Lincoln explained. “It’s what’s left of the old logistics corridor. The ‘Last Ditch’ before the capital. Got chewed up during the Second War. They never really restored it. Too expensive, too empty.”

“But not uninhabited,” Nicander added, her voice sharpening. “Some farms, some granaries. A few repurposed bunkers used for grain storage.”

“Quiet,” Makar murmured. “Too quiet, even then.”

“They’re hinting at a location,” Nicander said, nodding to herself now. “They think we won’t remember it. That it’s buried.”

She turned to Marckus. “I want every map of that corridor. Military-grade overlays, old cadastral files, grain depot registries, storm shelter records, anything that could hold someone long-term without being noticed.”

He was already halfway to the door. “Understood.”

Nicander turned back to Makar, holding up the note between two fingers. “They wanted you to see this one. Not the Assembly. Not Maria. You.”

Makar studied the paper for a moment longer. “They think I won’t act.”

“They think you’re too removed,” Nicander replied. “Too symbolic. A figurehead.”

Makar’s voice was quiet. “They’re wrong.”

Nicander’s mouth set into a grim line. “Then let’s show them.”

The chamber remained hushed, but the stillness was different now. Not paralysed, but focused.

Makar stood, the robe of her office trailing behind her as she stepped to the window and looked east, toward the hills beyond the city’s edge.

And this time, when Nicander said, “We’ll find her,” she meant it.

And Makar believed her.

II. The Ditch and the Daughter

The war table had been dragged out from the shadows of the old Council records room, its surface long since scuffed by decades of elbows, ink stains and emergency plans. The air held the scent of dust and forgotten paper, brittle with age and tension. Around it, parchment maps lay unrolled edge to edge, weighed down with bronze paperweights and the urgency of three sleepless nights.

Marckus stood with his sleeves rolled and fingers braced on the edge of the table. His voice was steady, but low. “Here,” he said, tapping the map with the blunt end of a pencil. “Between the collapsed aqueduct and the east-facing ditch reservoir. This grain depot, decommissioned eight years ago. Storage operations shifted west. No patrols. No rail. No one’s checked it in years.”

Nicander leaned in, eyes narrowing as she followed his line. “And here,” she said, pressing her fingertip against a crease that intersected a faded mark, “this storm shelter. It was built deeper than standard. Used during the Second War to house evacuees. Record says three tiers.”

“I remember,” Marckus said. “But only two tiers were inspected after the war ended. The third was sealed. No one wanted to waste budget reopening it.”

Nicander gave a short breath, not quite a laugh. “A perfect place to hide someone who matters.”

Marckus nodded. “Too quiet to notice. Too obvious to guess.”

She folded the map with care, sliding it into a worn leather tube with one practiced motion. “That’s it.”

Marckus met her gaze. “I’ll take a team. No one I haven’t worked with before.”

“I trust you,” Nicander said, firm. “And so will she.”

She left the war table behind, her steps brisk as she crossed the stone hall toward the Chancellor’s wing. Outside Maria’s Mark House office, Mireille was already seated at her desk, eyes alert. She didn’t need to speak, she simply nodded and the door opened.

Maria stood at the tall northern window of her office, hands resting on the sill. The sun had just cleared the skyline, casting long gold streaks across the slate walls. She didn’t turn when Nicander entered.

“We’ve found her,” Nicander said.

Maria exhaled through her nose, sharp and slow, as if bracing her lungs. “Alive?”

“We don’t know. But we’re moving in within the hour.”

Maria turned then. Her face betrayed nothing, only the tight line of her jaw, the set of her shoulders. “Marckus?”

“Leading the team himself.”

She nodded. Once. “Good.”

Nicander stepped closer, her voice quieter now. “We only missed it because they knew how to misdirect. You have every right to be furious.”

Maria shook her head. “I’m not angry.”

She glanced back toward the window.

“I’m ready.”

There was a long pause before Nicander rested a hand gently on her shoulder. Her voice was softer than the stone walls around them. “She’s not her grandfather, Maria.”

“No,” Maria whispered. “She’s better.”

The storm shelter beneath the old Ditchland depot was colder than she remembered ‘cold’ feeling. Fausta sat with her back against the wall, her arms folded, not for warmth, but in discipline. Her legs were sore. Her ribs ached. One shoulder throbbed where a guard had yanked her too hard days, or maybe just hours, ago. The air was still, stale, thin.

A single shaft of light crept across the floor, angled down from a slit too high to reach. She’d tried once, just to test. The pain in her knee had stopped her.

But she hadn’t screamed. She hadn’t begged.

She didn’t intend to start now.

She’d lost count of how long she’d been there. But she’d kept her sense of self. That mattered.

Once, when she was nineteen, she’d sat in a second-year political theory lecture at Saint Marcia. The room had laughed when a guest lecturer from the Assembly cracked a joke about her grandfather, “a tyrant with a fountain pen.” She’d sat still. Then raised her hand and asked, calmly, whether history remembered cowardice or courage better. The room had gone quiet.

That night, someone scribbled traitor’s blood on her dorm door.

She’d cleaned it off without help. She never told the provosts.

That memory stirred something now. Not grief. Not anger. Just clarity.

The guards hadn’t come today. No food. No new threats. Just silence. She imagined they were watching to see how she cracked.

She shifted slightly, grimacing at the pain in her ribs. “You wanted an Iohannes to be proud of,” she whispered to the dark, “well, here I am.”

She closed her eyes.

And she waited.

Not to be rescued.

But to rise.

III. Providence Preserves

The moon had hidden itself behind heavy cloud, leaving the fields around the old depot in a darkness thick enough to swallow breath. Marckus crouched in the tall grass at the edge of the ditch, his gloved hand resting in the earth. Wind pressed southward through the trees, rustling the undergrowth in brief, cold bursts. Behind him, four others knelt, silent, steady, weapons checked and eyes fixed. All of them were either veterans of the Second War or hand-selected elite from the magistrate’s old network. No one needed further briefing. The plan had been committed to memory long before they moved.

“This isn’t a rescue,” Marckus had told them back at the staging post. “It’s an extraction. Fast. Surgical. Absolute. You see anyone light a match, anyone at all, you stop them. No hesitation.”

Now, crouched at the base of the incline, he touched the hilt at his belt. Not the ceremonial blade that came with his commission, but the curved iron dagger passed down from his grandfather. Polished, balanced and sharp enough to remember why it had survived two wars and one revolution.

“On my mark,” he whispered.

They surged forward like a single breath, disappearing into the shadows.

Two agents peeled toward the storm shelter entrance, ducking beneath the rusted out signage. A third looped wide to the power box, ancient, fuse-based, and prepared the black-out. The fourth took rear cover, eyes on the perimeter.

At the switchboard, one twist sent the shelter into full darkness.

Below, Fausta had already opened her eyes.

The murmur at the door had grown louder in the past hour, panicked now, not rehearsed.

“Do it now,” hissed one voice, urgent. “She’s no use if we wait. This ends tonight.”

“No, no–wait, wait–we need the Assembly to see it,” another argued, voice thinner. “We cut her hair, stage the body. Blood on the floor. Something symbolic. Otherwise it’s just noise.”

Fausta smiled, the kind that barely touched the corners of her mouth.

“You think Providence wrote you into its design?” she said, voice low. “It wouldn’t waste its ink.”

Then the hinges gave way.

The blast cracked the room in two, a concussive burst of smoke and sound. Screams collided with debris. One of the radicals fumbled for a match, only to have it kicked from his hand by a booted heel. Another tried to flee, but never made it past the threshold. Tackled, pinned and silenced before he could shout.

Fausta remained seated, back straight against the stone, a bruise blooming beneath her jaw and a steady calm behind her eyes. She didn’t move until she saw the familiar figure storm in, broad-shouldered, sidearm raised, eyes sweeping.

“Clear!” Marckus called.

Then he saw her. He dropped to a knee, lowering his weapon. “Assemblymark. You alright?”

She blinked slowly, the stale air of her cell giving way to something lighter. Her voice cracked only slightly.

“You’re late.”

Marckus grinned, relief slipping through his discipline. “You sound like Maria.”

“Then Providence really isn’t finished with me,” she said and exhaled.

He moved quickly, cutting the bindings at her wrists with a swipe of his knife. She flexed her fingers with a wince, then rolled her shoulders, rising to her feet with a stiffness that didn’t diminish her poise.

Around them, the team worked quickly. Tying, gagging, disarming. One agent offered Fausta a thermal cloak; she took it with a nod and wrapped it around her frame like a mantle.

“Let’s get you back,” Marckus said. “You’ve got a seat waiting. And I don’t think anyone’s brave enough to fill it in your absence.”

Fausta adjusted the collar of the cloak, her voice returning.

“They’d better not have touched my nameplate.”

Marckus gave a short laugh, then gestured toward the stairwell.

“Come on, Assemblymark Iohannes,” he said. “Let’s go home.”

IV. You Made It New

The hospital room was too bright.

Fausta sat upright in bed, a pale blanket folded neatly over her lap. The walls glared sterile white in the morning light and the air smelled of antiseptic and eucalyptus balm. Her bruises had begun to yellow at the edges, the worst of the swelling reduced to a dull pressure beneath the skin. The doctors had cleared her for discharge in two days.

She had already asked, sternly, if she could return to work tomorrow.

Maria had said no. Mireille had said absolutely not and threatened to confiscate her slippers. Madoc hadn’t said a word, just kissed her forehead, squeezed her hand and sat beside her for an hour without letting go.

She hadn’t expected another visitor.

The door clicked open. Softly, deliberately.

Fausta glanced up, spine straightening by habit.

Councilmark Lincoln Langlais stepped in, dressed in a greying charcoal suit with frayed cuffs and a weather-worn satchel at his side. He held a bouquet in one hand. Sharp-stemmed crocus, deep purple and defiantly upright.

“I brought something that won’t die in a week,” he said, voice dry as the air outside.

Fausta blinked, thrown for a moment. “You brought flowers?”

“They’re from Courtney,” Lincoln replied, already crossing the room. “I’m just the delivery man.”

He found a narrow vase on the windowsill, plastic, utilitarian, and slipped the crocus in without fanfare. Light filtered through the petals, casting small, fractured shadows against the sill.

He pulled a chair close and sat beside her bed, legs crossed, hands folded loosely. For a moment, he said nothing.

Then, quietly.

“I failed you.”

Fausta turned toward him, brow creasing.

“We all did,” he went on. “The Council. The Assembly. Even Nicander. None of us saw it coming. None of us acted fast enough. For that, I’m sorry.”

She didn’t reply. But she listened.

Lincoln leaned back, exhaling through his nose. “When I first read your name in the candidate registry, I told Courtney there was no way. No way the Republic would ever trust another Iohannes. Not after Faustus.”

He looked at her then, direct, honest. “But you didn’t ask for trust. You earned it. You didn’t flinch. And you didn’t run from your name. You made it new.”

Fausta’s fingers tightened slightly around the blanket’s edge. A breath caught in her chest, sharp and unexpected.

Lincoln’s voice softened. “I was wrong. I’m glad I was.”

She looked down for a moment, composing herself. “It wasn’t easy.”

“No,” he said. “And it shouldn’t have been. But you did it anyway.”

He stood, smoothing out his coat sleeves as though brushing off dust. “When you return, don’t return quietly. Speak louder than ever. Make sure when they hear ‘Iohannes,’ they think of you. Not him.”

Fausta nodded, slower this time, her throat too tight for more than one word.

“Thank you.”

Lincoln offered a faint smile. “I’ll tell Maria to stop fussing. But only a little.”

He turned toward the door, hand brushing the frame.

“Councilmark,” Fausta called suddenly.

He paused.

“Do you think my grandfather ever believed in the Republic?”

Lincoln didn’t answer right away. He glanced over his shoulder, expression unreadable at first. Then he said,

“I think he believed in himself.”

Fausta nodded once, absorbing it.

“And me?”

Lincoln’s gaze warmed, the edges of it softening. “You believe in something bigger. That’s what makes you different.”

He stepped out, leaving the door ajar behind him.

The crocus in the vase shifted slightly in the breeze, their petals catching the sun, as though bowing toward the light.

V. The Name That Stands

The Assembly Chamber had never felt so full.

Every bench brimmed with marks in formal attire, robes pressed, collars sharp. The upper gallery was packed. Clerks, aides, journalists, retired dignitaries who had begged for standing room. The low murmur of anticipation was like wind before thunder, brief, trembling, expectant.

Down below, even the clerks at their desks sat unusually still. Pens were frozen mid-stroke. Ink bled softly into margins as hands forgot to move.

The Council was present. All of it.

High Mark Makar Hall sat flanked by her Councilmarks. Her robes were black, not the ceremonial kind, but the kind she wore when the Republic needed to be reminded of its own gravity. Lincoln Langlais sat to her left, chin slightly raised, expression somewhere between austere and proud. Nicander’s eyes were razor-sharp beneath her lashes, every movement of the chamber tracked, judged, recorded in silence. Dr Colin Orr, seated just behind them, tapped his pen once before folding his hands tightly on the polished desk. Even that small sound felt like punctuation.

Maria Langlais-Somers, Chancellor of the Republic, sat still and upright. Her fingers rested lightly on the edge of her desk. Her wife, Mireille Cavanah, sat just beside her in the Clerk-General’s chair, hands clasped over the Assembly records like a prayerbook. Maria hadn’t said a word all morning.

Because today, it wasn’t her turn to speak.

It was Fausta’s.

And Fausta Iohannes didn’t enter through the usual side corridor. She chose the long walk, down the central aisle, between rows of hushed Assemblymarks. The click of her boots was the only sound.

Some gasped softly. Others exhaled.

She wore no makeup to cover the healing scar that trailed from her temple to the jawline. Her wrist was still wrapped in bandages. The bruises had faded to a deep ochre, but they were visible. She walked slowly, but not weakly. There was a tension in her shoulders. Not stiffness, but resistance. Like a dam refusing to break.

She reached her bench. She did not sit.

Fausta placed both hands flat on the polished desk and let silence settle.

Then she spoke. Clear, measured, unwavering.

“Fellow marks of this Republic,” she began, “a few weeks ago, I was taken from my home by those who claimed they loved this nation.”

Her voice didn’t tremble.

“They said they loved it more than I ever could. They called me ‘traitor.’ Said I’d sold our people. That the blood of my grandfather ran too thick in my veins to ever be loyal to the Republic.”

Still, silence.

“I say this now, and I’ll say it again, and every time they try to drag me down, I owe no debt to Faustus Iohannes. I carry his name, yes. But I rebuilt it. Piece by piece.”

She looked up now, her gaze sweeping the Assembly like a lighthouse beam, steady and unflinching.

“In the dirt and dust of rural schools. In faded letters from grieving families. In bruises on my skin. In the oaths I took. In the votes I cast. In the ones I blocked.”

She let the words hang. Then.

“I carry this name. But I made it new.”

A breath. Deep. Quiet.

“There are some who fear we’ve given too much. That diplomacy, that reform, that change has cost us our strength. That the Charter is weakness. That peace is submission.”

She paused again, no theatrics. Just truth.

“I say this, fear is not strength. Rage is not loyalty. Hate has never served the common good of this Republic.”

Her voice climbed now. Not loud, but resonant.

“Let them see our bruises. Let them see our laws stand. Let them see our languages spoken side by side. Let them know, we are Marks. And we will not fracture. Not now. Not ever again.”

She finished. Looked to the gallery. Then to the clerks. Then to the Council.

And finally, finally , to Maria.

Maria was already standing.

The rest of the Assembly followed. One-by-one. Then row-by-row. Until every mark was on their feet. Even the aides. Even the scribes. Even the old clerks who had once muttered about Fausta’s name behind their hands.

Mireille stood with tears shining in her eyes. Not falling. But there.

Maria clapped. First and hardest.

The gallery followed. The sound filled the chamber, not polite applause, not rehearsed protocol. But something real. Something earned.

In the Council row, Lincoln gave a single nod. Not solemn. Proud.

And Fausta remained standing, unmoved, her eyes shining but dry.

Only when the last hand lowered, only when the chamber stilled again, did she sit. Smoothly. Quietly. With no ceremony.

Maria cleared her throat. Her voice, when she spoke, carried a smile beneath the gravel.

“Well,” she said, standing once more, “shall we get back to work?”

Fausta leaned toward her just slightly and raised a brow. “Took you long enough to ask. I was worried you’d gone soft.”

Maria snorted. “Soft? You think I gave the floor to you out of mercy?”

“Oh, I assumed it was guilt,” Fausta said coolly. “For banning me from returning to work while you got to lounge in the chamber all week.”

“Lounge?” Maria gasped. “I’ll have you know Mireille confiscated my coffee privileges on day three.”

Mireille, behind them, didn’t even look up. “Because you kept trying to replace sleep with espresso and vengeance.”

“That’s government efficiency,” Fausta muttered.

Maria turned back to the Assembly. “Motion to censure Fausta Iohannes for smirking in official session?”

A few chuckles rippled across the chamber.

Fausta leaned back, voice calm. “Let the record show the name Iohannes stands.”

And Maria, still smiling, replied softly, “Yes. It does.”

The chamber exhaled. The centre held. The Republic, wounded but whole, got back to work.

VI. Letters and Lanterns

The first letter arrived two days after the Assembly session.

It was folded in cream stationery, sealed with wax that had cracked in transit. A hesitant hand had addressed it simply. To Assemblymark Iohannes . No return address. No request. Just thanks, quiet and unadorned.

Then came another.

Then a dozen.

Then crates.

The Clerkship eventually had to clear an entire table in the Assembly mailroom just for her correspondence. Mireille, bless her, always precise, had labelled it Section D: Public Letters (Fausta Iohannes) . The tag was handwritten, underlined twice and laminated the next morning.

They came from every corner of the Republic, grainbelt villages and border towns, factory rows and mountain parishes, teachers and tailors, children and great-grandmothers. Some were typed. Most handwritten. A few were scrawled in pencil on torn exercise paper. One was in crayon, signed in careful block letters, THANK YOU FOR YELLING AT THE BAD MEN .

Mireille had brought the first bundle herself, tucked neatly into a folder she held like a holy relic.

"You’ll want to see these," she said, voice warm and proud as she set them on Fausta’s desk. “Don’t worry, I already sorted them by legibility.”

Fausta raised a brow. “How thoughtful of you.”

She picked up the first one. Her wrist still ached from the bindings, but she ignored it, unfolding the paper carefully.

“You’re one of us, Fausta. You stood up for us and came back standing taller.”

She turned to the next.

“I’ve never voted Decentralist before, but if your name’s on the paper, you’ll have mine.”

Another.

“You make the name Iohannes something we can say with pride again.”

She read each one slowly. Deliberately. She never skimmed. She pressed her fingers gently to the page of that last letter, just once, then folded it neatly and set it aside. Her smile was small, almost imperceptible. But it was real.

A knock tapped softly against her office door.

“Come in,” she said, not looking up.

The door creaked open.

Madoc Aalmers stepped in. Not his usual hurricane-self, not with that maddening, toothy grin or a wild new idea about how to rewire democracy by lunchtime. Just quiet. Hands tucked in his coat pockets. Shoulders slightly drawn in.

His eyes were soft. Unsure.

Fausta set down her pen. “Madoc.”

“I thought I might–” he started, then faltered. “I just wanted to see how you were.”

She gestured toward the overflowing tray. “According to the public, I’m now the patron saint of civic moderation.”

He didn’t laugh. Not yet. His gaze fell to the floor, then rose slowly to meet hers again.

“I was afraid,” he said.

“Of what?”

He took a breath that seemed to come from somewhere far older than his lungs. “Of losing you.”

The silence that followed wasn’t cold. It wasn’t awkward. It just was.

“I’ve always admired you,” Madoc said, and the earnestness in his voice was almost disarming. “Even when we fought. Especially when we fought. You’re brilliant. And terrifying. And impossible. And I–”

He shook his head, a sheepish grin flickering and vanishing.

“My younger self would faint if he heard me say this, but I have feelings for you.”

Fausta blinked.

Once.

Madoc rubbed the back of his neck. “I don’t expect anything back. I just needed to say it. Because when you disappeared, I thought, really thought, that might be it. That I’d missed the chance to ever say it at all.”

Fausta folded her hands together.

“You’re insufferable,” she said at last.

Madoc winced theatrically. “Not the reaction I was hoping for.”

“That was my first impression,” she continued, evenly. “Loud. Reckless. A little bit smug.”

“Only a little?”

She looked up. “But not … entirely objectionable.”

There was the briefest pause before he leaned forward.

“Are you saying you like me?”

“I’m saying,” she said, rising to her feet, “that if you were to ask me to dinner, I might, might , say yes.”

The grin returned, slow and bright and entirely too pleased.

“Fausta Iohannes,” he said, offering a slight bow, “would you do me the honour of joining me for a meal of questionable seasoning, overpriced tea and the subtle thrill of listening in on nearby diplomats?”

Fausta exhaled, the sound suspiciously close to a laugh.

“I thought you’d never ask.”

She reached for her coat. Madoc held the door for her, still grinning like a lovesick student.

In the mailroom, letters still spilled from crates. In the Assembly, her seat still bore her nameplate. And above the city, lanterns had begun to dot the streets again. Soft light, steady flame. The Republic was healing.

And Fausta Iohannes, scarred, stubborn, undefeated, walked out of her office into the dusk with a new letter yet unwritten and perhaps, this time, a little less alone.