Page 10

CHAPTER TEN

Elician

F or five hours, Elician managed to avoid being alone with Lio. He had spent that time doing everything in his power to not think about his angry sister, the list of names he needs to read and the tasks that are still set out before him. He thinks he has done an admirable job on all those fronts. Cat had been a beautiful distraction – and Elician had made full use of their easy conversation. But he should not have embraced Cat like that at the end of their walk. He should not have held him so familiarly.

He had expected Lio to slam the door when he eventually cornered Elician in his room after dinner. He had expected stomping feet or some other sign of displeasure. But as Elician awkwardly prepares himself for bed, Lio is a picture of serenity. He closes the door gently, with nary an excess sound. ‘Did you talk to Fen before you came to find me?’ Elician asks, prolonging the inevitable as he fidgets with the edges of his shirt sleeves.

‘Yes,’ Lio replies. ‘She’s upset and has sworn to never speak to you again.’

‘That will last a month.’

‘Oh, give her at least two. Then she’ll go back to sending you three letters a day because she just has so much more to say. I’ll see if Adalei can come for a visit. It might cheer her up.’

‘Or it might make her more upset.’

‘Your sister is, as ever, a quagmire.’

Elician tugs the ribbon from his hair, then starts trying to rake his fingers through the curls. He finds a few knots, but he is determined. He will set it right. He will.

‘Elician, the way you looked at Cat . . .’ Lio says, chastisement already clear in his tone.

‘What?’

‘Oh, nothing. Just . . . I suppose Fredian is going to be so disappointed, that’s all.’

‘ Fuck Fredian. I barely had half a conversation with him before he started making those overtures.’ Elician crosses his arms over his chest. The last thing he cares about is Fredian of all people. Fredian, who, like almost every single other person who has ever offered to share his bed, has always wanted something out of it. Something that has nothing to do with Elician and everything to do with his crown.

‘All right. Fuck Fredian.’ Lio is being too patient about this. Far too patient.

Elician sits down on his bed. He stands up. He tugs his medallion off his neck and throws it onto his pillow, then starts pacing his room. It is too small. After weeks on the road, he yearns for the open space of plains, mountains and forests. He could lose himself in those wilds. Perhaps it would be better if he did.

‘I like him ,’ Elician says finally. ‘Cat.’

‘All right.’

‘ All right? He’s an Alelunen assassin – he killed you !’

‘El, I’m going to ask you something, and you’re not going to like it.’ Lio waits, the pause so dramatic that Elician’s skin crawls with anticipation. ‘Do you like him because of his personality – or do you like him because he’s the first person in your life that isn’t a member of your family or inner circle who knows exactly who and what you are?’

Lio is right. Elician does not enjoy the question. He doesn’t enjoy how it takes the very air from his lungs and leaves him strangled and breathless in a too-small room with too-large windows. He sinks back down to the bed. ‘Can it be both?’ he asks.

His friend, his only friend in all the world, sits at his side. His shoulder is warm against Elician’s, his voice tender and quiet as he gently says, ‘Yes, little brother, it can be both.’ Relief courses through Elician’s body. He shivers at the strength of it. ‘But’ – Lio continues, skewering Elician’s relief just as it is born – ‘he cannot be with you like this. He’s our captive. Even if he eventually does decide to stay here, he doesn’t have much of a choice about anything else in his life. And when you embraced him . . . what you did crossed more than a few Alelunen societal norms. You know this. But then you ran off to avoid dealing with his reaction.’

‘Was he mad?’

‘Stunned stupid is a better term for it,’ he replies. He pats Elician’s knee. Consoling, comforting. ‘Still, even if it were culturally acceptable to hold someone that closely, he’s been kept in a cage for years. And he was literally sent here to kill you. Right now, he’s your prisoner . Whether he’s protected by being in Kreuzfurt or not, he lacks the status to turn you down.’

Of course. Of course. Elician’s shoulders slump. It was even worse than the standard warnings he had received growing up, whenever he had dared to even look at the other children in the palace. He was a prince, and they were not. They had to do anything he asked, and so it was best not to speak with them at all rather than invite the kind of trouble one wrong word might bring. He had to be separate, always, or risk consequences he had not anticipated, or relationships he could not escape.

Lio taps his chin. ‘Hey. Listen to me. I’m not telling you to stop talking to him until the end of time. Talk to him, be yourself around him. Be his friend. But it can’t be anything more than that until he is free. Until he truly has the freedom to choose if he wants to stay in Soleb and can pursue the life he genuinely wants. He can’t feel that his ability to return to his people, nor his ability to even live a decent life in general, is dependent on his relationship with you.’

There is no point in arguing that Elician would never hold that threat above Cat’s head. The point is made, the terms set and understood. Elician agrees. Lio clasps the back of his neck. Presses a kiss to his forehead in a way Cat would likely find intensely taboo and unacceptable.

‘I’m sorry,’ Lio says, resting his brow against Elician’s in sympathy. ‘I truly am. You have no idea how good it was to see you enjoy yourself with another person.’

‘You missed a few late-night chats, it’s true,’ Elician confesses.

‘I didn’t. I just didn’t interrupt.’ Panic and shame fight for dominance in Elician’s chest. ‘There was no point in saying anything until it needed to be said. And you obviously didn’t want me to know.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t be. But one last thing, all right? I know you and your intentions. I don’t know his. Just be careful.’

‘It’s not like he can hurt me.’

Lio scowls and turns away. ‘He can. Just not physically,’ he says. Standing, he stretches his back and rotates his shoulders absently. ‘You’ve just never had the opportunity to learn how to manage relationships. You make friends easily, El, you always have. But save for me and possibly your sister, you have never allowed them to mean anything substantial. And because of that . . . you don’t know what kind of pain that can bring. Or what joy.’

‘So, stay away?’

‘No. Just be careful. That’s all. Just be careful.’

So, stay away, Elician decides as Lio leaves for his own room. Staying away would be best. And luckily, he has plenty of practice doing just that.

In the morning, Elician finally commits himself to the task his uncle had given him. He finds Marina and asks for the Hall of Remembrance to be cleared so he can read out four hundred and fifty-two names. These are the dead that have accumulated over the past several weeks of fighting. Notices are sent to Kreuzfurt’s residents, and its guests are informed of the ceremony about to take place. They are invited to add names to the litany, and his list grows by several dozen additions.

The parents of little Leitja, the girl Fen had failed to save, are still in the city. He makes time to meet with them too, to sit and listen to them tell stories of their child. He makes no apologies for his sister, but joins them in their grief.

For her part, Fen keeps to her threatened isolation. He sees her only once that day, and she very promptly walks in the opposite direction the moment their eyes meet. He has no interest in chasing her down and so he keeps to his business. He avoids meal hour at the House of the Wanting and passes his time with the Reapers instead. They are a smaller bunch, only a few dozen compared to Kreuzfurt’s near two hundred Givers.

Cat is there, of course, sitting next to Fransen and Marina. He does not speak with the others, seeming to prefer watching them silently as he quickly eats any food placed in front of him. He eats so fast that Elician wonders if he even has a preference. But he does not ask, choosing to pass bowls along the table entirely without comment.

Elician thinks about apologizing. He probably should. But Cat catches him watching him at dinner, and the thought dissipates in an instant. Shame should have taken its place, but instead all he is left with is a genuine desire to ask Cat how he is doing. He leaves before he makes things worse.

On the day of the ceremony, Elician does not eat. He arrives early in a purple tunic and golden cloak. He walks through the Hall of Remembrance to make sure that everything is exactly where it needs to be, that each station has the appropriate list of names and that the timing of their individual tasks is marked down.

At the start of the ceremony, the hall will be dark. Only candles will illuminate the circular room. There are no windows, only one very carefully constructed glass aperture at the top of the ceiling, which collects light via a series of mirrors. This is funnelled into a single beam that can illuminate the chamber beneath. But a dark cloth will block that light source until Elician reads the one hundredth name on his list. Then the cloth is gradually drawn back, and as Elician reads on, the light will bounce from mirror to mirror, aided by strategic candlelight where necessary, until the hall appears to bask in the sun’s great glory at the exact moment he reads the final name.

The Reapers are never seen at this ceremony. Yet their work is felt throughout, as they adjust mirrors and prisms from secret passageways. Death catering to Life, as Life recalls their dead.

Elician climbs the dais in the centre of the room and sets his list on the prepared lectern. The doors open, and one by one the listeners fill the space. The grieving, the aggrieved, the citizens there to give support. He cannot make out all their faces in the pre-ceremony gloom; they simply meld together as a homogenous presence all focused on him and him alone.

At the back, a lantern is held up. His signal to start.

He does.

There is no introduction, no entreaty, no explanation. To speak any words except for the names is to draw attention from those names. The names are the point and purpose. He reads, and he reads well. He could not save these men and women. He could not grant them life. But here, he can grant them immortality in hearts and minds. Never to be forgotten.

He does not look up. He does not meet the eyes of his people, nor react as the mirrors are employed to fill the room with glistening splendour. His feet ache, his fingers are tight and stiff. Three hundred names. He turns more pages. All before him are silent. Four hundred names.

Someone coughs. The light gets brighter. He reads, even as his mouth feels dry and his attention starts to waver. He transitions from the list of the dead soldiers to the list of the newly deceased. Then one name more remains: ‘Leitja Vas Aranas.’

The mirrors shift and they are suddenly bathed in a light so blinding and pure that for a moment, Elician cannot see. The faces of the listeners are blurry, but there at the back he sees a harsh black outline. Cat stands as close to the doors as he possibly can, easily capable of disappearing outside the moment the crowd starts shifting to leave.

Elician wets his lips, breathes deep and finishes his task. ‘To all who have died, we will remember you for eternity.’ He bows low and deep at the names arrayed before him.

When he looks up, Cat is gone. Elician wishes that he had stayed.