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CHAPTER EIGHT

Elician

‘S tupid,’ Elician curses under his breath. ‘Fucking stupid.’ He rounds a corner and sees a group of supplicants hurrying on their way towards the House of the Wanting. He rapidly changes direction, shuffling his feet across the cobblestones as deftly as he can to avoid attracting attention. He finds a different path, one far less busy than the first, leading to Kreuzfurt’s second tower, and he takes it.

Elician has never liked Kreuzfurt. When Fenlia had first written to him about her loathing of the place, and why living here causes her such unhappiness, he had thought he understood her reasoning. Their thought processes could not have been more different. Fen hates Kreuzfurt because it houses and even gently caters to those chosen by Death. Elician’s displeasure stems from a far more personal source.

He marches forward, head down, ignoring the meticulously cared for gardens and trees and pathways. He ignores the dark red sandstone walls, built thick, sturdy and strong. He ignores the glittering glass of the Houses, and the reflected sunbeams that strike the path beneath his feet.

A long time ago, Marina had told him that the Houses had been built and rebuilt several times to ensure the reflections were angled to avoid harm to residents. Rumour had it that one window was particularly lethal; its panes reflected sunbeams that could light fires and even burn the flesh of anyone who accidentally crossed its path. Elician had spent the rest of that visit terrified of stepping in sunbeams and begging Lio to stay inside lest they tempt fate.

Now Elician marches across each bright beam, ignoring the heat and the warnings from years past. He ignores them all.

He is good at ignoring things. He has had many, many years of practice doing just that. It is a skill his sister should learn. It is a skill she should learn quickly.

Elician gazes up at the twin domineering monstrosities of glass, stone and steel. The metal was forged in Altasian furnaces and designed by curious architects, fused into a thick stone base. Each member of the planning team had taken on the seemingly impossible challenge of joining glass and metal in a way no other architect had ever managed before. And this was the result. The Houses are the ugliest buildings in all of Soleb and it is simply too much hassle to knock them down and start again. They stand as testaments to time. He can’t wait for the day they shatter.

Taking a deep breath, he enters the House of the Unwanting. A Reaper at the entrance startles when he sees Elician, bowing awkwardly with the wrong hand going to his heart and the wrong foot stepping backwards in a half-kneel. Not enough members of the royal family come to visit the House these days, and the etiquette for greeting them clearly isn’t well known. Funny, that. Only a decade ago it would not have been surprising to see one of them here at all times. Elician returns the gesture with a well-practised dip of his head, right fist pressed to his chest. ‘Do you know if there’s a patient in room seventy-three?’ he asks.

‘A patient? No, we haven’t had one in years,’ the Reaper replies, still gaping at him with a kind of stupefied wonder.

‘Thank you,’ Elician replies, then turns towards the great spiral staircase. It is a long way up. There is a lift powered by weights and pullies and occasionally by blue stones if the need for speed justifies the waste. But that is only to be used for those incapable of managing the climb.

Burning blue stones would create an endless stream of energy that could operate the lift without manual labour. But they are mined exclusively in the northernmost territory of Alelune – and their hostile neighbour will do anything to keep the stones out of enemy hands. When Alelune controls Altas, the city acquires the stones by the hundred. And whenever Soleb reclaims the city, it strips it of those much-valued resources to disseminate them throughout the rest of Soleb. But since the Marias Compromise, there has been no access to them at all. Alelune occasionally does business with other countries, but they maintain a provision in all trade agreements that no foreign entity may sell the stones to Soleb. Not even Elician’s mother being a Glaikan princess has been enough to convince that nation to break those terms, a fact that has infuriated Elician’s father for years.

Elician’s legs burn as he climbs flight after flight. He reaches the seventh level, takes a few seconds to catch his breath, then wanders down the curved hall until he finds the right door. It is unlocked, as are most rooms in the Houses. There are no secrets here. The curtains along the back wall are closed, keeping the room in darkness. He walks towards them, deftly drawing them back and turning to look at the room once more. When he turns, a startled curse leaves his lips, one hand rising to cover his mouth.

Cat is here.

Why is Cat here? Elician has purposefully come here to avoid—

No matter. ‘I’m sorry,’ he says. ‘I thought the room was empty. I should have knocked.’

Cat sits on the floor near the bed, one shoulder leaning against the mattress. He wears the harsh black uniform of a Reaper. The silver bell at his wrist jingles with obnoxious gaiety as he unfolds his lean limbs.

‘You still apologize too much,’ Cat chastises in a tone that seems more excusing than accusing. ‘I am still your prisoner.’

‘And you still deserve courtesy. I—’ Elician shakes his head. He looks around the room. Perfectly clean and in good order. ‘Marina, she gave you this room to stay in? It’s yours now?’

Cat responds with a simple shrug.

He stands there, still and silent. For the first time since they met, Elician almost wishes Cat was gone. He does not say such a thing. He is, after all, very good at ignoring all that bothers him. He practises every day. ‘I’m sorry for disturbing you. This . . . was my cousin’s room, once. Adalei’s. I just wanted to see it.’

‘Why?’

Elician smiles, makes a dismissive gesture, changes the subject. ‘You know, Lio is upset you never bothered to speak much to him.’

‘I know.’

‘ Why didn’t you speak to him?’

‘I had nothing to say to him.’

‘But you do to me?’

‘Why did you want to see the room?’

His smile fades. It is harder to look at Cat like this – dressed in a Reaper’s garb. Harder still to respond. ‘To remind myself she’s no longer in it, I suppose.’ He can easily imagine his sweet cousin lying in this bed. Her cheeks hollow, skin a sickly yellow wherever it was not marked with bruises that seemed to form at the slightest provocation. He shakes his head to clear the image from his mind, looking at Cat’s face instead. It is a far more pleasing sight. ‘Adalei was sick, as a child. She stayed here, off and on, for years.’ He points to the corner. ‘I’d visit every few months, and my parents would make me sit there, while she lay in bed, to make sure I never touched her and accidentally saved her life.’

‘Is it so easy to do?’ Cat asks. ‘To heal someone like that?’

‘It can be. Much like killing something is for you. A touch of skin and all manner of injuries or impurities get resolved. The whole reason I helped Kassandra when she fell back at Great Dawn Pass was because we touched . . . and I had started healing her before I could stop it. And then, when I realized her child . . .’ He sighs, pressing a hand to his face. ‘Years of never touching any member of the opposite sex, for fear I’d spontaneously encourage a pregnancy, and now I’ve wilfully helped one along.’

‘You didn’t impregnate her,’ Cat says slowly. Elician drops his hand to his side.

‘I all but guaranteed that child will be born. And if any other Giver bothers to investigate further, they’ll likely sense I had something to do with it. We leave a kind of . . . interference marker on those we’ve touched. Have you ever noticed?’

‘The people I touch die.’

Elician winces. ‘True.’ He’d never thought to see if someone killed by a Reaper had the same marker. The same unconscious sensation of divine interference that was unique to each individual wielding their powers. He doubts he will get an opportunity to find out any time soon. There are few good ways to test the theory, after all.

‘You’ve never touched a woman before then?’ Cat asks suddenly.

Elician flushes. ‘I wore gloves, much like you. Marina was my guard in Himmelsheim. My parents told everyone I wore the gloves for my own protection from her. Just to be safe. My clothes were modified to make sure I never showed any excess skin. And . . . every interaction was scrutinized.’

‘Why? Why hide your gift at all?’

‘Because a Giver cannot ascend to the throne,’ Elician replies dully. ‘If I am to be king, I can only reveal what I am after I wear the crown. And so all my life is spent pretending to be what I am not.’

‘It sounds lonely.’

‘It is.’ He smiles, though, forcing levity to his tone. ‘Lio is the only one who knows outside my family, Marina and Zinnitzia. And so he was the only one that I was allowed to play with as a child. They never trusted that I wouldn’t make a mistake . . . or just try to heal her quickly when they couldn’t see. And while I sat here in this corner, he was able to sit with my cousin. Hold her hand. Give her comfort when I could not.’ It hadn’t surprised him when Lio had mentioned his growing affection for Adalei. If anything, Elician had had years of observation dedicated to watching Lio’s fondness grow. He would never begrudge his friend any form of happiness.

But sometimes, Elician wonders if there is any chance that he will be able to find something so sweet with another person in his own lifetime. It is a yearning better left dead and buried.

‘Why did no other Giver help her, though?’ Cat asks. ‘Your people seem to use them for everything else.’

‘No member of the royal family may be healed or resurrected by a Giver,’ Elician recites. ‘As the ruling family, our lives cannot be extended “artificially”. If we are meant to die, then we will die, and our successors will reign in our stead. When Adalei fell sick, her father chose to send her here so at least if she died, she would do so in the presence of the gods.’

‘The gods are everywhere.’

‘It’s the excuse we told people, anyway,’ Elician concedes easily. ‘Uncle Anslian arranged for people who were trained in Alelunen medicine to help her. Physicians and scientists . . . Reapers too, of course, if they had learned the trade. Not nearly as taboo as letting a Giver heal her, but not exactly something our family wanted advertised either. It sends the wrong message.’ Something about his phrasing makes Cat’s face scrunch up. It is perhaps the most expressive Cat has been in weeks.

He asks, with a tone that veers between incredulous and genuinely baffled, ‘You don’t have medicine in Soleb?’ and Elician can do nothing but wave a hand towards the room around them. Towards the walled city just beyond the glass tower walls.

‘Givers heal the sick,’ Elician spits out. ‘There is no need for anything else. Unless you are born royal, of course. We must die because that must be the gods’ will.’ Cat’s expression ricochets from baffled to displeased and then back again. ‘Say it,’ Elician encourages, almost laughing. ‘You see the flaw, don’t you? Say it.’

He does. Slowly, quietly, as if he wants to be perfectly certain his translation is correct but still cannot bring himself to believe what it is he is saying. ‘Kreuzfurt is too far from most of your people to be of use to them.’

‘It is,’ Elician agrees. ‘And the extent of that use changes too. In Alelune you have physicians and surgeons and specific professions dedicated to the medical arts. They treat illnesses, injuries, pain. You have . . . methods. Options. Alternatives. In Soleb, each man, woman and child is taught which herbs do what and how to care for basic injuries. But for anything substantive, they must go to Kreuzfurt – or make do with a Travelling Giver, who moves from city to city on the King’s permit.’

‘It is . . . inefficient.’

‘It is. And there are plenty of problems that can arise as a result. The whole mess with Kassandra and her child came about because of a Travelling Giver. But whenever one is simply not available, healthcare matters are left to the community to do their best. On the battlefield, each member of our army knows how to handle injuries. We are not dependent on five or six practitioners to care for hundreds. Any of us can stitch a wound, fix or mend a broken bone and address the majority of complications.’

‘Everyone except you, who may not touch your soldiers.’

‘What type of king would I be if I didn’t try to help my people?’ he asks sardonically. ‘I just wear gloves and work the same as the rest of them. So long as no one touches my skin, then everyone can be happy.’

‘Everyone except you.’

‘Well, that was never up for debate, was it?’

‘Why did they let you go to war? They would not let you near your sick cousin, but on a battlefield, there would be a far greater chance of discovery.’

‘Because a war started, and I’m meant to be king. What other choice was there? Look, I . . . I had an argument with my sister, and I was not expecting company. I just wanted to see the room and be alone for a while. I should go.’

Go where, though? The gates are now open, and the grounds filling with visitors. Givers and Reapers are hurrying this way and that. The chances of making it out of the House of the Unwanting without running into anyone seem slim. It would be worth it if there was somewhere, anywhere, he could rest without interruption. Yet the walk to the main residential quarters would expose him to any number of people.

Eventually Lio will find him. Then, Elician will need to explain what happened. He doesn’t want to. He doesn’t want to think about his sister’s perspective or debate the theological or historical implications of her desires. ‘I just want silence. A bit of peace for a while . . . and I don’t know where to get it.’

‘Here,’ Cat murmurs. Elician’s breath hitches. Cat gestures grandly to the open space of the room around them. ‘Stay,’ he says next, as if Elician had not understood his offer. ‘I am very good at being quiet.’ Then, settling more comfortably on the floor beside the mattress, Cat adds, ‘Who would I even tell?’

Elician should not do this. Lio had warned him about befriending Cat. Zinnitzia had also been wholly unimpressed by the fledging friendship that has formed. His sister clearly loathed the mere idea of it. Fuck her, he thinks. He walks across the room and sits on the floor next to the man who tried to kill him.

He closes his eyes and leans his head back against the stone wall. The sounds of life echo outside the windows, along the halls of the House of the Unwanting. He breathes in, then out, and finds himself perfectly at peace in the halls of the dead.