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CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Cat

C at lingers at the end of the feast, watching as Fen blushes and simpers before a collection of teenage boys and girls. He had thought Elician had been lonely when Fen had described his childhood, but he supposes Fen must have been isolated in a different way. She was older when she discovered she was a Giver, and she’d never needed to hide that part of herself since everyone always knew. But there are no other children her age in Kreuzfurt. Not amongst the exalted at least. Here . . . she glows amidst her peers, hopeful and desperate for a kind word and a sign of affection. She has never spoken of them before. But now they flock to her, Rodans most eagerly of all, but with various girls and boys from good families also at his side. All of them apologizing for not properly keeping in touch. And all seemingly very interested in what Fen’s future at court will be. Fen cannot inherit the throne herself, but that does not mean she is without power.

‘You look upset,’ Marina says as she presses a glass of water into his hand. He takes it from her but does not drink. Fen laughs at something, a little too loudly and a little too inappropriately considering the occasion.

‘Solebens think to die is the worst thing that can happen to them,’ Cat murmurs. ‘They eat these . . . meals and create rituals around remembering someone exactly as they were, reading names from lists just so they can never be forgotten. But then they seem perfectly happy to forget the dead just as quickly.’

‘Oh, this isn’t a Soleben problem,’ Marina says. ‘It’s a royal problem. Elician is dead and Adalei is heir presumptive after Anslian. With Lio gone, whoever can win Adalei’s heart will be the next prince consort of Soleb. And Adalei has always been fond of dear little adopted cousin Fenlia. So, Fen has the honour of being a royal who cannot inherit – but who can grant access to our future ruler. Anywhere else? This disrespectful mess, at the funeral ceremony no less, would have stopped immediately. But here? This is just politics.’

Rodans touches Fen’s arm and Cat scowls. ‘So, he does not like her, he just wants to use her?’

‘He liked her perfectly well when she was a potential heir in her own right, but after she became a Giver and was knocked from the line of succession? Well, let’s just say Fenlia never did receive much mail from the capital that didn’t come from her family directly,’ Marina says. ‘Then again, she was always an odd case. Many of the noble families never quite knew whether Aliamon intended for her to be in the line of succession after he adopted her, or if it was just a general act of kindness. They certainly never encouraged their children to interact, and her companions were often quite limited as a result. When she developed her powers, I’d say more than a few of them were relieved that they no longer had to worry about her ambiguous status. But who am I to say if Rodans likes her or not? I do think he has a vested interest in where she’ll end up one day, and always has, but what that means for his sincerity?’ She shrugs.

‘And Solebens think we’re manipulative,’ Cat mutters quietly.

Marina snorts. ‘Well, you can’t exactly say we aren’t.’

‘It’s just hypocritical, that’s all. For Solebens to feel they are better than us.’

‘Yes.’ She takes a long sip from her own water glass. Then she switches to Lunae, lowering her voice for only him to hear. ‘Fenlia aside, you’ve been upset since you met with the King.’

He glances at her from the corner of his eye. Then he glances at the room around them. With each passing second, it empties of people, but it still feels far too full. He presses his lips closed, and she nods once. She takes his glass, then sets both his and hers on the table. She flicks her wrist, a summoning gesture, and he falls into step at her side. They walk along the long halls of the palace until there is no one left to listen.

‘I don’t like your king,’ Cat says.

‘You don’t have to,’ Marina says.

‘Why did you swear to him?’

‘It was expected of me, and I didn’t feel like causing a fuss,’ she replies. ‘I told you why Kreuzfurt was built. And at the time, considering everything else that had happened, I had accepted the decision for what it was. That plague . . . When our god unleashed her fury on Soleb, it seemed absolute. I agreed to Kreuzfurt because I thought it could do well. And I swore to every king afterwards because I feared what would happen if one of us attempted to influence too much control over the world.’

‘But you don’t worry about Elician? You don’t fear he’ll be another Shawshank?’

‘No. I’ve watched him all his life, from the moment he was born. If there was going to be someone who could change it . . . I’d trust him.’

‘He said, once, that Kreuzfurt is a cage with invisible bars. He wanted to destroy it.’

‘Perhaps he’s on to something.’ Marina shrugs. ‘There must be some line drawn between the segregation of Givers and Reapers while demanding their forced labour and risking our god’s wrath. Perhaps it’s time to find where that middle ground lies.’ Her hand falls to her sword. She is the only Reaper he has ever seen who carries a weapon, and she does it constantly. Every day, without fail, she dons the blade as if it were the bell on her wrist.

‘Why do you have that?’ he asks, gesturing to the weapon at her side. ‘You can kill anyone around you without it.’

‘We wear our black robes to keep the people around us safe from harm. They are afraid of what would happen if we touched them. But how can we protect ourselves, when using our powers against others would see us hanged or worse? By using a sword and knowing how to fight, then even dressed as I am, I can protect myself and those I care for. And while I could kill someone accidentally by touching them with my skin, there is no doubt that if I use this sword – I have chosen to end someone’s life.’

Cat looks at it. The pommel is a shiny gold, the scabbard as black as her uniform. She draws it, holds it out to him. He takes it.

‘You would have learned how to use it before you died, no?’ she asks, watching him handle it with familiarity.

‘Yes.’ He does not remember his lessons well, but the routine he knows. Waking up with the dawn, eating a quick meal, then it was sword work until lunch. His father had been there. His father’s seneschal, barking orders and instructions. He strains to remember the man’s name. It has been so long since he tried to place it. It comes just as he remembers a particular exercise that he had drilled time and again, and the way his arms had ached after each successive strike of his blade against the training dummy. Partho. Partho had been his teacher. And he had been good at it too. ‘Every boy is trained for the army,’ Cat says quietly, heart aching at the sudden reminder of how fond he had once been of a man he has never seen again.

‘Many girls too. I fought in the River Wars when I was much, much younger.’ He cannot imagine what the world would have been like that long ago, but he assumes the fighting had been much the same. And he is grateful for the distraction.

‘Why did you come to Soleb?’

‘I died. I died and became a Reaper – and when I did, I realized that staying in Alelune would not be in my or my family’s interest. I left and never regretted leaving. I did regret that, in the years that followed, the Reaper cells were created and no one else had the opportunity to flee. That . . . I had not expected.’ Cat swings the sword once. Twice. ‘Aliamon’s suggestion . . . the Alelunen rite of passage. What do you know of it?’

‘Only that we’re always trained to fight.’

She nods her head slowly. ‘That’s all you’re meant to know of it,’ she tells him. ‘Until it happens.’

‘Training me to fight could be training me to fight against Soleb one day.’

‘Would you, though, truly?’

He tries to imagine it. Tries to see himself standing on a battlefield, sword raised, leading an army to attack a Soleben force on the banks of the Bask. He sees Elician, in his bright gold armour, impossible to miss amongst all the others. He tries to muster the desire to actually swing a blade and hope to kill. ‘No,’ he confesses. ‘Probably not. But your king couldn’t know that.’

‘That man . . . I have found it best not to question him. He plans for futures that he designs with a craftsman’s patience. I rarely like or agree with his decisions, but I know better than to question the ones I approve of. You should learn. He is right. It might come up. And you should know enough to know how to respond when the time comes. But what about you, do you want to learn?’

He loved training. Once. Loved the thrill of it. The movement. He used to try to repeat the steps in his cage before he grew too tall to manage. My father would have wanted me to learn, he thinks, suddenly, realizing with a pang how sorry a thought that is. That his father and Elician’s father actually agreed on something. ‘I don’t trust your king.’

‘You don’t have to. Do you want to learn?’

‘Yes,’ he confesses. ‘I do.’

Marina nods. ‘Then we’ll start at dawn.’ He grins, the familiarity of the routine swirling happily in his gut as he hands her back her sword. ‘And Cat? Perhaps you should think about who and what exactly you’d want to cut down with this sword. Because being a Reaper and using this to kill mean different things. Not just to the people you fight, but to you as well.’

‘What do you mean?’

She slides her blade back into her scabbard. Then, gently, she cups the back of his neck and presses her brow to his. A faint echo of energy, the pull of a magnet, shivers down his spine. ‘To kill someone using your sword is an active choice you are making. It is not an accident, nor a brush of your hand against an unsuspecting party. It is a wilful, intentional and difficult task. And to others, it is a signal of your commitment to that bitter end. Prepare yourself in advance, Alest, because one day . . . I truly believe that you will need this sword more than you think. And when you use it, you should always feel certain that it was worth it.’