Page 5

CHAPTER FIVE

Fenlia

A sparrow crashes into the glass wall of the House of the Wanting and falls into the red snapper bushes at the base of the tower. Fen flinches at the tell-tale thunk , the noise startling her out of her crying fit. She wipes her eyes, twisting to see where the bird fell. She had thought she would be safe here, hidden amongst the brambles and twigs, to cry with no witnesses or interruptions. But Death likes to take things whenever the opportunity arises. And sometimes that includes little sparrows who do not know better than to fly towards glass towers.

Slowly, turning so her skirt hem comes untucked from beneath her and her knees do not get caught, she rolls to the side and reaches through the prickers and thorns of the shrubbery. Her skin is scratched, but it heals quickly. Ruby-red lines vanish over her sun-darkened flesh. Her fingers wrap around the broken bird’s body. She pulls it closer, cupping it to her chest.

Its neck had broken when it hit the windowpane. She turns it between her fingers, remembering her anatomy lessons well. She smooths out its wings, moving each feather gently back into place. Birds are fragile creatures, small and tremulous and weak. Sparrows especially. They die so easily over the smallest of things.

Leaning down, Fen presses her lips to the sparrow’s burgundy crown. Come back, she wishes. It takes a moment. Then the sparrow’s heartbeat flutters within its chest. Its legs start to twitch, its wings shift. She uncups her hands and holds her palm out in front of her, watching as the sparrow gets its bearings. It looks up at her. It chirps.

There is some seed in her pocket. She likes to bring it with her in case she can tempt any of the birds of Kreuzfurt to sit and stay for a while. If it stays, she will feed it some and consider it a new friend. But the sparrow hops on her palm once, twice, then flaps its wings and flies away. She watches until it is out of sight, chirping bright and happy, and oblivious of its recent demise. She wishes it would take her with it next time. Anything would be better than this.

‘Still practising on animals?’ a voice asks. Fen wipes the remains of her tears from her eyes. She sniffs loudly, indelicately, and wipes again. Then she leans her head back and stares up at the tall, dark-skinned woman walking towards her. Zinnitzia has been the lead cleric of Kreuzfurt’s Givers for over a thousand years. She is a humourless woman who suffers no indignities and despises all complaints.

‘At least I could bring that back to life,’ Fen says, crossing her arms over her chest and staying there in the dirt. She has no interest in standing, bowing or showing any sign of decorum. She wants to be left alone.

‘Resurrection is not a trifle to be played with,’ Zinnitzia tells her. She has told Fen this before. Perhaps she believes saying it over and over again will have a different effect in the end; perhaps there is a magic number of possibilities and one day Fen will have heard her condemnation enough times to finally believe it. If so, Fen imagines there are several centuries’ worth of lectures yet to be had between them.

‘It was just a bird,’ she murmurs. She stares at her knees. Her dress is filthy, the pure white folds of fabric crusted with dust and soil. A streak of green slides across one particular section from where she must have rubbed up against the grass too hard as she crawled into position. She cannot find it in herself to care.

‘I’m not talking about the bird,’ Zinnitzia informs her.

Fen closes her eyes. She is a Giver. And Givers are meant to heal the sick, tend to the wounded, restore health to those in need and prolong the lives of those desperate for salvation. She is a bad Giver. ‘I tried,’ she whispers. Her voice cracks. Her fingers tighten around her arms. ‘I tried to save her.’

For three weeks, Fen had been working to heal a young girl at the House of the Wanting. She had kept her hands on the child’s body. She had held her arm, her face, her shoulders. She had whispered prayers to Life, had begged and pleaded and cried. She had sat there, under the increasingly despairing eyes of the child’s parents. And nothing had changed.

‘We cannot save every person who comes to us,’ Zinnitzia says.

‘No one ever dies under your care,’ Fen snaps back. ‘Or under Ava’s, or Lorelei’s, or—’

‘Yes, you can name the whole House, I’m sure.’ Zinnitzia removes a fine linen cloth from the folds of her dress. She dabs the sweat from her brow and then tucks the cloth back into hiding.

‘Any of you could have saved that girl,’ Fen says.

‘She was not given to us to heal,’ Zinnitzia replies. ‘She was your charge. It was your responsibility.’

‘And I failed.’ She always fails. In the three years since she first arrived in Kreuzfurt, she has not healed a single person. Not a skinned knee, not a bloody nose, not a cold. Nothing. And now someone has died. A little girl has died.

‘And you failed.’

Fen’s eyes burn. She blinks hard, desperate to keep the tears back.

‘I could have brought her back,’ Fen says. ‘I could have brought her back and she could have gone home and—’

‘We do not resurrect the dead here,’ Zinnitzia says. ‘All things die in the end. If our god wills it then that is what is to be. We prolong life , Fen. We do not stop Death from taking her due.’

Death takes more than her due. Time and time again, Death slips in between the cracks of everything, yanking away all those who least expect it. For all the pilgrims who make their way to Kreuzfurt looking for a chance to live at the House of the Wanting, there are equally those who go to Kreuzfurt’s other tower: its second House, the House of the Unwanting. And those individuals never come back.

Fen is no Reaper. She does not kill with a touch, nor does she yearn for the possibility. But if she cannot save anyone, and an ill child is left in her care, then she is no better than a Reaper if they still die as a result. The child should have gone to the other House rather than be cursed to suffer and languish for three weeks because of Fen. No one should be forced to die and stay dead in the House of the Wanting. Not when Fen could bring them back, could give them a new life.

‘The only people that it’s truly illegal to resurrect are members of the royal family.’ No one wants an immortal on the throne ruling for ever. ‘But that child wasn’t a royal. If I can bring someone back, why shouldn’t I?’ Fen asks quietly.

‘You should read your history more carefully,’ Zinnitzia replies. ‘Kreuzfurt’s own founder, Shawshank, played the game you’re playing. And it ended in chaos ! Cities overrun by a never-receding population, resource shortages that led to continued suffering, illness, plague and—’

‘It’s one person, not a whole city.’

‘It starts with one person, and it ends with a whole city.’ Zinnitzia waves her hand, motioning for Fen to get up. ‘You and your brother are unique. Resurrecting human beings, pulling their souls back from Death, it comes easily to you. But it isn’t the goal a Giver should aspire to; it is something many will never learn. Healing is more beneficial and useful than resurrection ever will be. There are possibilities you have not even considered yet, because you spend your time wallowing about your failures in the dirt.’

‘What other possibilities are there? I’ve never been able to fix things.’

‘Just because you’ve never done something before doesn’t mean it’s impossible to do so. And just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should . There is much about being a Giver you know nothing about. There are more possibilities than you can imagine, and this —’ She waves her hand judiciously. ‘This will get you nowhere.’

The tears burn hotter in Fen’s eyes. She swats at them one final time, then stands. She pats her filthy dress uselessly, tilting her chin up at her mentor in defiance. ‘Leitja died four hours ago,’ she says. ‘She was six years old and was mine to fix and I failed. And I’m not going to apologize for being upset !’

‘Don’t,’ Zinnitzia replies. ‘But do apologize for being sorry for yourself and not bothering to do better. Be upset. Get upset. Move on.’

‘It’s only been four hours !’

‘There are one hundred and seventy-eight Givers in Kreuzfurt, Fenlia. Believe what you like, but all of us have lost someone before. We have lost many people before. But we live here, work here, in service to the crown and Life himself. All we do is for the betterment of this kingdom, its people and our god. It’s an honour, a great responsibility that—’

‘I don’t want it.’ It hurts too much.

Zinnitzia sighs loudly. She shakes her head, then flicks her wrist, physically casting off her arguments. ‘Your brother sent a letter,’ she says, reaching back into the folds of her dress and pulling out a small roll of paper. She holds it out between them, and Fen takes it. She unrolls it and reads the lines. ‘He’s coming,’ Zinnitzia informs her, even as Fen memorizes the information. ‘Dry your tears, change your clothes, and be prepared to receive him. He should arrive by nightfall.’

She stares at the paper and her words tumble out. ‘Is he . . . because of this?’

‘Don’t be stupid,’ Zinnitzia says. ‘It takes weeks to get to the border from here. He has no idea what you have or have not been doing. He’s not coming for you , but he is coming. So, go. Get ready.’

‘Is the war over?’

‘Doubtful. Ask him when he comes.’ Zinnitzia takes a step back, then frowns. Her lips purse. Her nose scrunches. ‘Fenlia . . . people die. Leitja’s death wasn’t your fault. It’s what our god wanted, that’s all.’

Fen’s fingers curl into fists. Her brother’s letter crinkles in her palm. She spits out a curse and says, ‘Then you should have given her to a Reaper and put her out of her misery when she first arrived,’ before turning and walking to the residential quarters. Zinnitzia says nothing as she departs. Fen is grateful for the reprieve.

It is late by the time Elician reaches Kreuzfurt. Late enough that Fen had nearly fallen asleep at her bedroom window waiting for him. But as the moon rises high in the sky, the great wooden gate to Kreuzfurt’s temple opens and two riders slowly lead their horses in. There are no banners, no horns, no announcements, but it does not matter. No one is permitted into the compound this late. No one, except for a royal retinue.

Even with the stress and anxiety of the day, glee bubbles up at the notion of seeing Elician. Fen quickly adjusts her gown and hair. The dress is one her cousin Adalei had sent her from the capital. All Kreuzfurt Givers must wear white, but the style is left to their discretion. Fen’s gown has a bold cut down her front that her other gowns had not dared to attempt. Her arms are bare, allowing her to burn sun patterns onto her skin every few weeks. And best of all, a golden ‘v’ of embroidery dips down from her hips so her torso seems longer. She feels like a woman in this gown, an adult who cannot be chastised or talked down to by anyone. Not even Zinnitzia.

The hem is slightly too long, a problem that should be resolved in a few months, and one that’s easily managed by delicately holding the skirt up in one hand as she walks. She uses both hands to hold it tonight, rushing a bit faster than usual so she can meet her brother at the courtyard below. Glow bugs light her way through the fruit trees and the lemongrass.

Elician and Lio are both standing by Kreuzfurt’s entrance. The gates are closed and locked behind them. A stable hand is seeing to their horses. She is the last to arrive. Zinnitzia is already there, as is Marina.

Marina is taller than most women. She wears the standard attire of every Reaper in Soleb: every inch of her skin, besides her face, is hidden behind layers of thick black fabric. Even her hands are shielded with gloves. And she has a hood, sewn to the back of her uniform, that comes up and over her face should she need an extra layer of protection. She rarely does. Marina has lived for two thousand years. She knows how to interact with a world she cannot touch directly.

She bows to Elician. One hand is pressed to her heart in a closed fist, and a small silver ball-bell around her wrist jingles as she bends towards him. All Reapers wear such bells to ensure they can be identified from a long way away and warn all who hear them not to approach. Elician ignores its tinkling entirely, mirroring Marina’s bow and leaning in close to say something Fen cannot hear. They rise in unison, and when they do, Elician motions to someone Fen had not seen at first. A young man wearing ill-fitting clothes, trousers rolled up at his ankles and a tunic hanging comically large about his body. He even wears a pair of gloves that seem too large for his hands, and his wrists are bound by a thick coil of rope. A prisoner? Fen wonders. Here?

‘Little eyes and ears should announce themselves if they’re going to snoop,’ Lio says suddenly, loudly. Fen winces as everyone turns to look at her.

‘I am not so little anymore, Wilion,’ Fen says, drawing herself up to her full height before meeting her brother’s eyes and dipping into a customary bow.

Elician grins and opens his arms wide. ‘No, you most certainly aren’t. Look at you!’ She hurries to him, throwing her arms around his neck. He leans back, picking her up and swinging her through the air. She laughs against his throat, pressing her cheek to his skin. ‘I swear to the gods, you’re going to be taller than me one day!’

‘That’s the plan!’ she tells him as he settles her back to her feet. He laughs and pats her head, messing up her braid as a few strands slip loose. But as he steps back, his eyes fall towards her neckline and his smile falters.

‘What are you wearing ?’

‘Adalei gave it to me,’ she snaps, cheeks burning. Her stomach twists. If he’s going to come all this way just to make fun of me—

Lio steps forward, nearly stomping on Elician’s toes, and bows. ‘She has wonderful taste,’ he says. ‘You look lovely, Princess.’ She waits for a similar compliment from her brother, but his lips are too pursed to possibly offer such a thing.

She turns towards the stranger loitering at Elician’s elbow. No introduction has been provided; he does not greet her himself either. ‘Who’s this, then?’ she asks, tilting her chin up and waiting for a proper explanation.

‘Can’t you tell?’ her brother asks. ‘It’s a nightcat.’ It is most certainly not a nightcat. She says as much too.

But before she can argue further, Marina intervenes. ‘If we’re going to do this,’ she says in a deep alto that reverberates in the still night air, ‘we’re going to do it inside.’

‘Do what?’ Fen asks, but the party is already in motion. Elician puts an arm around the prisoner’s shoulders and leans down to whisper something in his ear. Catching the side of her skirt in her hand, Fen hurries after them.

She expects them to turn towards the House of the Wanting; that is where every royal guest or visitor is brought to. But they do not. Instead, they turn towards the Reaper’s tower: the House of the Un wanting, with all its unsavoury possibilities within. Fen’s mouth dries. She calls her brother’s name, but he does not reply.

‘Keep going, little princess,’ Lio tells her quietly.

‘But . . .’ Only the dead enter here. The dead or slowly dying.

‘Keep going,’ he repeats.

Fen shivers and nods. She swallows thickly as they cross the threshold. The House of the Unwanting is cold and dreary, dark and lifeless. It is structurally the same as the House of the Wanting: all the floors match, the glass walls and mirrored decorations all glisten and shine to the same effect as its sister tower. Yet the torches do not seem to shine quite as bright. The shadows they cast feel longer. And, worse: an unpleasant sensation lurks in the air here. A sickly, unnatural otherness prickles at the back of her neck, encouraging her to try to fix what cannot be fixed. What, as Zinnitzia has imparted on her time and time again, she is not allowed to fix.

She would much rather take Elician back to the residential quarters, or even the House of the Wanting if they have to be in one of the towers. But Marina seems determined on this path, and no one argues with her. The bell on her wrist chimes delicately as she moves, guiding them to a grand room. It matches the gallery where guests wait to be seen in the House of the Wanting.

Fen tries to imagine what such a room could be used for here. Executions, perhaps. Or sacrifices. Whatever it is that people with a natural inclination to kill anything they touch do when they’re not meandering Kreuzfurt like a pack of ghouls all in black. Not that she’s ever seen it for herself. As a Giver she has never needed to enter this House. As anyone with any kind of sense, she has never wanted to. The farther she can keep herself from the Reapers, the better.

There is a strange smell in the air. She cannot identify it, but it is bitter and sour, like mushrooms growing in the dark crevasse of a cave. Her stomach churns.

She glances at the prisoner walking entirely unbothered at Elician’s side. She has never seen an execution before – she has always been forbidden from attending. She has heard stories though. Gruesome stories. What did he do? It has to have been something bad. Something truly bad. After all, nothing short of true wickedness deserves this place.

They stop walking, right in the centre of the room. Elician unbinds his prisoner’s wrists, and Marina turns to stand in front of them both. She reaches for the prisoner’s face, bell ringing at her wrist. He flinches, but she ignores it, encircling the jut of his chin with her gloved fingers, silently daring him to complain.

‘Were any of your men touched?’ she asks as she tilts the prisoner’s head this way and that with motions smooth as silk. Her limbs are fluid and agile, and she guides her hand with a painter’s flourish, each action precise. As she turns his face, Fen sees a large black scar on one of his cheeks. She had been standing to his left and had not seen it before.

‘No,’ Elician says, though Fen can no longer remember the question. ‘He killed Lio when we first found him, but Lio checked with the physicians before we left. There didn’t seem to be anyone who died from a Reaper; all the bodies we collected were obviously killed during the melee proper.’

‘He’s a Reaper ?’ Fen asks, even as Zinnitzia issues a stinging rebuke at Elician for resurrecting Lio once again. The prisoner flinches at Fen’s question. He tries to pull his chin free from Marina’s grip, but she is holding on too tight. She does not let him go, merely hisses something under her breath that seems to force him to stillness. Fen dares a step closer, curiosity winning out. ‘Did he get made on the battlefield?’ Reapers only find out they are Reapers after they die for the first time. Waking up in the middle of combat would be a horrifying experience.

‘No,’ Marina replies. ‘No, he’s still young, but he’s been a Reaper for about eleven or twelve years now.’ She says something then in Lunae, the language of their enemy. The vowels slip off her tongue like water in a spring. The prisoner nods, and Marina releases his chin. She pets his hair in response.

‘That new?’ Elician asks, startled. ‘That would mean he . . . would have been a child when he first died.’

‘How old are you?’ Lio asks.

‘Twenty,’ Marina answers for him, seemingly confident in her assessment. Fen can’t see how she could be so certain, but the prisoner doesn’t deny the assumption. He offers a vague gesture in agreement and Fen shakes her head.

‘But he can’t be twenty,’ Fen says. ‘He’s so little !’ Fen will be fifteen in four months, and she is already half a hand taller than the prisoner. He barely comes up to Elician’s shoulder and Elician is twenty-three. Every Reaper and Giver who is turned young will continue ageing until they reach full maturity, then their age is locked in place until the gods deem it is time for them to die once more. If he is still this short despite being older . . . he is never going to get any taller. What a horrible fate.

Lio snorts loudly, covering his mouth with his hand. He says, ‘Size isn’t everything,’ around a giggle that has Elician snapping at him to be quiet and Zinnitzia rolling her eyes at the ceiling.

‘He’s slight, malnourished, and used to making himself look small,’ Marina says, a hint of exasperation in her tone. ‘But with this . . .’ She rubs her thumb against the scar. ‘I’m certain. It’s a shame. If he had died later, he might have had some sort of childhood at least.’ She says it with so little emotion, Fen doubts it really is a shame to Marina.

‘But how can you tell ?’ Fen asks. ‘And why is his face all messed up? Shouldn’t he have healed that already?’

‘Usually, yes. But this . . . In Alelune they burn the face of a Reaper with the bones of the dead. Those coals infiltrate the skin, and the carbon becomes stained and frozen in their bodies.’

Fen stares, stunned by the news. Her eyes fall to the scar and stay there. Nausea burns in her throat.

‘It’s a barbaric tradition,’ Elician murmurs.

‘Fresh skin cells will eventually grow and push it out,’ Marina continues, ‘but it’s a very slow process. Slower than usual. Alelune needs to redo the brand every few years to make sure it stays this dark. It’s how I guessed his age, and how new a Reaper he is. The circle is not perfect. It’s been redone at least five times, but if he had been any older, I’m not sure I would have been able to tell one way or another.’ She looks at the Reaper as if she expects him to comment, but he doesn’t. He stays as quiet as he had been from the outset.

‘Can he understand us?’ Fen asks.

Lio rolls his eyes with such profound irritation that Fen is startled at the display of impropriety. Usually, he is more polite when in public. ‘Oh, he can understand us just fine. And he talks too. But only when he wants to.’

‘Don’t be jealous,’ Elician teases.

Fen doesn’t understand. ‘Why would he be jealous?’

‘They didn’t get a chance to speak much on the road, that’s all,’ Elician replies.

‘An honour reserved for our prince,’ Lio adds with an air of affected disappointment.

‘You spoke?’ Marina cuts in. All three men turn towards her in unison. ‘I have heard stories of the conditions in the Reaper cells. Speaking at all, in any language, was highly discouraged. To the point where the ability to do so any longer was often . . . well, uncertain.’

‘How would they stop anyone from speaking?’ Fen blurts out before her imagination comes up with several possibilities, some more gruesome than the others. She hopes Marina will provide a far less violent option, but instead she asks the Reaper something in Lunae. Fen has never been good at the language, avoiding her lessons where she can. She has never seen much of a point in the endless hours of conjugation tables and diphthong practice when there are other things to work on. She catches a few of the words, but not the sentence as a whole.

The Alelunen has no such problem, replying with a simple, ‘More or less,’ that Fen learned very early on in her required lessons. His accent is just slightly different from Marina’s, and it helps that he speaks slowly, giving her time to identify and translate the words, even without additional context. Still, she wonders what Marina had asked in the first place.

Lio, though, seems to have understood far better than her. ‘That’s barbaric,’ he repeats in Soleben, all but grinding out each word.

The Reaper glances at him, head tilting as he asks, ‘Do you care?’ in slow but perfect Soleben.

‘I wasn’t advocating for your torture either, you know,’ Lio responds. ‘I didn’t like our options, but I still brought you here too.’

‘Yes,’ he agrees. ‘You did.’

‘And why did you?’ Marina asks, cutting to the heart of the problem Fen wants to know the answer to as well.

‘He would be a liability on a battlefield,’ Elician replies, unflappable and calm. ‘It’s not like I can just send him off back to Alelune now, can I?’ He lifts one hand and settles it at the midpoint of his prisoner’s spine. ‘He never offered a name, and so we have been calling him Cat.’

Marina shakes her head. ‘This is not a Reaper from Soleb, Your Highness, he’s an Alelunen Reaper. His loyalties and his life have been dedicated to serving Alelune. Letting him loose in Kreuzfurt is asking for trouble.’

‘Are you saying you cannot manage one Reaper?’ Elician asks.

‘I got rid of you when you became problematic too, Your Highness.’

Fen gasps at the sarcasm, but Elician laughs.

‘The crown got rid of me for you, if I remember correctly,’ Elician says. ‘Besides, maybe you can help endear him to our country. You were Alelunen once, something convinced you to stay . . . besides Zinnitzia’s charming company, of course.’

‘The world was very different when I came to Soleb for the first time,’ she says. ‘And I had very different reasons for doing so.’ Reasons she rarely discusses. For the longest lived of any Reaper Fen knows of, Marina shows remarkably little interest in talking about her history or why Death has seen fit to let her continue onwards with no end in sight.

‘You still chose to stay, and as we’ve already discussed: sending him back to Alelune may not be in his best interests at this point either.’

‘Is he a prisoner or a refugee, Prince?’ Zinnitzia asks.

‘Both, either. To be decided later,’ he replies. ‘A choice not yet finalized, and not mine to make in full.’

It is a response that neither Marina nor Zinnitzia looks entirely pleased about. Fen doesn’t blame them; she wouldn’t want anything to do with this decision either. Her brother may be willing to consider all possibilities, but as far as Fen can tell, there is no benefit or value in being so lax with Cat . He is a Reaper. Reapers do not belong in any type of society in the first place, but to be an Alelunen Reaper is far worse than that. He does not belong in Soleb. It is against everything their country has stood for since the moment the River Wars began.

And yet, Marina confers silently with Zinnitzia, and they both bow their heads in assent. The matter is settled, and Marina says, ‘He can stay,’ as if letting in a violent murderer from their country’s greatest enemy is perfectly acceptable.

‘If nothing else,’ Zinnitzia goes on, ‘perhaps he can give Fen something to practise on.’

Fen stares, uncomprehending. ‘What do I—’

‘You can’t seem to figure out how to heal a living body. Perhaps trying to heal that scar might give you some insight into how healing things works. Reapers are dead as far as our god is concerned, so healing him would be something like a resurrection . . . one that isn’t going to get you cast out as a heretic the more you practise. We don’t do that here, and we haven’t in centuries.’

That nausea comes back up again. Fen shakes her head. ‘No, that’s—’

‘She can start tomorrow. Marina can assess what Cat here knows, and how to fit him into the House of the Unwanting, and Fen can join their lessons.’

‘No!’ Fen is going to be sick. She presses a hand to her mouth and looks at Cat. He meets her eyes, and she is certain there is nothing there. No spark of life, no consciousness or intelligence. He may as well be a puppet dancing on Death’s strings.

It is that look more than anything else that makes her lose her battle with her stomach. She knows Zinnitzia. Zinnitzia will make her touch that face. Feel it beneath her fingertips so her hands are coated in death and decay. She will call it healing, and Fen will fail him like she failed the six-year-old girl that had been left in her care. She will fail. And she throws up, staining the hem of her pretty dress, as the realization washes over her.

He should have stayed dead. He should have stayed in Alelune. But now he is here. Her responsibility. And she’s never wanted any responsibility less.