Page 9

CHAPTER NINE

Cat

O f all the assassins my queen has ever utilized, Cat thinks as the late-afternoon sun transitions from too bright to too oppressive, I may be the worst yet. Elician is asleep. His head rests lightly against Cat’s shoulder, his arm pressing gently against Cat’s own. Warmth radiates off the prince, enough so that the uncomfortable room temperature becomes, suddenly, sweltering.

The black fabric that makes up the Reaper uniform is thick and heavy, and it traps the summer heat. While the exterior seems dry enough, beneath the many layers sweat beads and pools. Marina and Fransen had shown him a way to stave off the heat that morning. They had led him to a room where all the Reapers of Kreuzfurt gather for the morning ablutions – and application of a heat-defying salve. Taking part had been both terrifying and obscene. Never in his life had he been touched as intimately as in those moments and, like Elician, he had very much wished only for a moment of silence and seclusion.

Frustratingly, the lotion does work. The more he sweats the more his skin responds with icy chillness. He shivers on occasion, head swimming from the conflicting sensations. And Elician only makes it worse. Elician leans into Cat’s body and Cat’s skin tickles in response, making him shiver in a way that cannot possibly be comfortable for the sleeping prince. Yet Elician continues to doze. Unbothered. Unaware.

He’s lucky I can’t actually kill him, Cat thinks. Elician’s right hand is curled in a fist at his side. It twitches, flexing and clenching. As on their journey to Kreuzfurt, Soleb’s dear sun-blessed prince sleeps, but not well.

Touch is a rarity in the Reaper cells. The distance between the cages has always been just far enough to make clasping hands impossible at worst, or uncomfortable at best. But before then, before he had been sent there, Cat remembers a time when touch had very much been a part of his life. For all that Solebens believe Alelunens to be stiff, formal and unaffectionate, Cat knows with certainty that those observations are mere hearsay.

Why should anyone in Alelune show affection to a loved one when observed by the enemy? Why should anyone in Alelune reveal the depths of their ardour, when such things are treasures beyond compare? Alelunens are perfectly affectionate with those they care for. But that is the point. It is reserved for those they hold dear.

As for sleeping next to someone, curling against them, seeking protection – Elician may as well be asking for his hand in marriage. Cat doubts his queen would approve of that particular turn of fate. Though the look on her face would be almost worth the shock of such a proposal. I must humbly beg your pardon, Your Grace. You see, he just wouldn’t die. No, that sounds strangely like something Lio would say. Inappropriate and unacceptable. Like this whole mission.

Brielle would laugh though, if she were to hear that. In the cold dark of the Reaper cells, hers had been the cell next to his, and she had always encouraged him to explore or enjoy being belligerent when it was safe to do so. Never to the guards, or his brother, or any of the people who had power over him. But in the dark, when no one could hear their illicit whispers, she encouraged him to speak his anger into the air. You have a right to be angry, she insisted.

Elician’s hand spasms again. His head turns against Cat’s arm. Cat rests his own hand over Elician’s. Through his gloves, he cannot feel Elician’s skin, but he knows it is flawless and smooth. Elician has no scars, and few calluses. Despite years of swinging that sword back and forth, Elician’s hands are softer than ceremonial silk. It must hurt each time he does it, his hand rubbed raw hour after agonizing hour again and again. He has a right to be angry too.

Someone knocks on the door.

Elician jerks awake, his hand sliding free from Cat’s. He blinks rapidly, useless apologies falling from his tender lips. ‘No need,’ Cat murmurs. He stands slowly, stepping around the prince. ‘Stay,’ he says, as if he has any authority to command him. Elician sits, huddled up against the wall, out of view of the door.

Cat has not opened his own door in years. That privilege has always belonged to another. But he opens this one. The young but elderly Reaper Fransen stands on the other side. ‘It seems your lessons have been cancelled for the day,’ Fransen informs him simply. ‘I thought you might like a more extended tour of the grounds than what was originally planned instead. If you have nothing else you’d rather do?’

‘No,’ Cat murmurs. ‘Nothing else to do.’ He will leave Elician to his peace and quiet. He hopes he can finally sleep well and dream better dreams. He deserves better dreams.

Fransen nods and starts to slowly turn away. Cat makes to follow when that fool prince calls out, ‘Wait!’

Cat had not thought a man of Fransen’s fragility could move as fast as he does, but the other Reaper spins perfectly on the heel of his foot to stare at Elician slowly emerging from Cat’s room with all the self-preservation of a moth to a flame.

‘Sir,’ Elician says, ‘would you mind terribly if I joined you both?’

‘Your Highness,’ Fransen says, seeming to search for the appropriate response and not quite knowing what that should be. ‘I could hardly deny you.’

‘Thank you,’ Elician says stiffly. He runs a hand over his curls, grimacing at what he finds. But he removes a ribbon from the pouch on his belt, and within moments has the entire mess tied back in some semblance of order.

‘It won’t be quiet,’ Cat reminds him.

‘Yes,’ Elician agrees. ‘I know.’ He gestures with his hand, and Cat wordlessly follows Fransen once again.

The worst assassin on the continent, he thinks again. The worst by far.

Somehow, the order of their little procession is shuffled.

Fransen trails behind Elician and Cat as they walk along the great wall. Once they leave the main centre of the city and step onto the perimeter walk that encircles the farmlands, there is far less head-turning and spying from both the residents and guests of Kreuzfurt. To the few who summon the courage to talk to Elician, he gives the same scripted civil responses. He is here in Kreuzfurt to read names into remembrance, and he is working with Cat and Fransen to prepare for that ceremony. So sorry. He has to go now. May the sun bless their days.

Cat memorizes the way he speaks, the way he holds himself. He carries himself differently from the Queen of Alelune. With her, there is no denying she is a ruler, proud and strong. She walks as if the very ground owes its allegiance to her, and she speaks in a tone that invites no argument. Elician does not possess the sheer power of her presence. None of the courtiers of Alerae would dare to approach her as she traversed the city. These people: they rush to him. They touch him, even. His gloved hands, his arm. One even dares to touch the sun pendant around his neck as if it confers a blessing on its own. He smiles at them all, he charms. He is ruthlessly kind, despite how exhaustion and anxiety has occupied his morning.

‘Why do you let them talk to you like that?’ Cat asks after they have escaped the crowds.

‘If they are here, they are here because they are facing the worst days of their lives. The least I can be is kind.’

‘And this . . . ceremony you’re doing?’

‘Whenever someone dies, their name is added to the Scroll of the Lived and read aloud to confirm it has been recorded appropriately. Then, in the last month of the year, the Reapers of Kreuzfurt will reread all the names on the Scroll in remembrance of all who came before.’

‘ All of the names?’ Cat asks. ‘From . . . how long ago?’

‘From the moment the Scroll was first made.’ He gestures around them. ‘Since King Shawshank made Kreuzfurt and gave Reapers the task of maintaining our dead.’

‘That’s . . .’

‘Millions of names. It takes most of the month. Soon it will take some of the second month too. This will be faster. I’m just reading the new ones that have accumulated so far. It should take less than an hour.’

‘But at the main ceremony, they just . . . read the names, one after another, until it is done?’

Elician nods his assent. ‘Usually, a member of the royal family oversees the proceedings. When Adalei was here for treatment, she volunteered for the task. She has requested the honour every year since. You’ll get to meet her when she comes at the end of the year. She’s lovely.’

So everyone has said. He cannot picture her. He tries to imagine Anslian’s harsh features cast in the gentler guise of a woman but finds that the image fails to take proper form. He has never been good at imagining things, though. Far better to see reality than to fantasize over what might never come to pass. He could never have imagined Elician as he really is. ‘Why is she not Soleb’s heir?’ he asks instead. ‘She is older than you are, and a woman.’ Even as he says it, though, he’s relatively certain he’s made a mistake. It’s been a long time since someone explained Soleben succession to him, and Elician is already shaking his head.

‘My father is older than her father, and I am his son. Should I die’ – he shares a grin with Cat at that – ‘then my uncle Anslian will take my place as heir, and Adalei after him. The right goes to the firstborn regardless of their sex, so even though she’s older and a woman – which would matter more in Alelune – here it does not matter. My father is older, and so I take precedence.’ He pauses, considering, then asks, ‘Why do only women inherit in Alelune?’

‘It is only for the monarchy,’ Cat corrects. ‘And that is to retain the bloodline of the Queen. There can be no question over lineage if a child comes from the Queen’s own body. Death chose her line, and so the queens must maintain it.’

‘There have been stellos in the past, though.’

‘Certainly, but they rarely ever rise to king, and the few times they have – their reigns were always short. A more fitting heir is always found, eventually, to replace them.’ Usually at the end of a sword. Alelunens are not shy about ensuring Death’s line stays utterly intact. ‘There is no way to prove that the King’s child is truly their offspring. With a woman, there is no doubt regarding the legitimacy of the child she gives birth to.’

‘There’s not much trust regarding the fidelity of the King’s wife then, I see,’ Elician comments wryly.

‘Fidelity has little to do with it,’ Cat replies. ‘She could be the most loyal woman in all of Alelune, and, through no fault of her own, the child still might not be the King’s.’ The prince winces, grimacing at the insinuation. ‘Years ago, there had been suggestions for a change. Talk of keeping a woman in confinement and under constant observation to ensure that only the King’s seed quickened.’

‘That’s awful.’

‘Yes. The Queen and her court refused it. I don’t think they’ve come up with any alternatives since.’

‘Queen Alenée will have trouble with that then,’ Elician says. ‘Gillage is also a male heir.’

‘Gillage will have a problem, not my queen,’ Cat refutes. ‘He is the one whose authority and succession will be challenged.’

‘Poor boy.’ He sounds sincere. Truly sincere.

‘No one in all of Alelune would think that of Gillage,’ Cat tells him quietly.

‘Maybe someone should.’

Behind them, Fransen says something that Cat misses. He turns back. Lio is there, sweaty and out of breath. He must have run after them. He makes no move to keep pace with Elician or Cat, though, offering his arm to Fransen instead. He meets Cat’s eyes and jerks his chin upwards in a gesture Cat doesn’t understand. If Elician is aware of any of this, he does not show it. He just continues moving forward, and Cat does too.

They walk and keep walking. Cat sees the farms and small huts of Givers and Reapers who have no desire to live and work within their Houses. Their path runs along a wall that provides welcoming shade on their return trip but offers no discernible escape route. Not that Cat is actively looking for one.

Each time his eyes wander for longer than a few seconds in either direction, Elician says something. Often, it is not even something important. He speaks, and Cat loses time just listening. Just responding, quietly, uselessly. Rarely with much to even add to the conversation in general. The tour seems to be becoming less of a tour and more of an opportunity to simply spend time with each other. Elician must realize it too, but he makes no effort to curtail it.

As the city proper comes into view, Cat finds his pace slowing. ‘For Fransen,’ he offers when Elician notices. He is awarded with a smile, lovely and somehow more distracting than the past few hours of conversation. Fond and sweet and perhaps the most beautiful thing Cat has ever seen.

If his queen were to stand before him now and demand Elician’s death, if she had found a way to ensure it could be done, he is not sure he could actually carry it through.

‘I don’t like killing people I know,’ Cat says suddenly. Elician stops walking. Behind them, Fransen and Lio, still doing a passable job of pretending they aren’t listening, stop too.

‘Do you find it easier to kill people you don’t know?’ Elician asks.

The method is indeed easy, regardless of how well he knows his victims. He ran into his father’s arms and killed him with a hug. He executed criminals accused of high treason with simply a glancing trace of his fingers along the top of their heads. He killed a horse, and then its rider – simply by touching that horse’s neck – as they raced desperately towards a border neither would ever cross. Killing is simple for him. It has always been since the day he died and learned exactly what he had become.

‘No,’ he murmurs. ‘I don’t like it either way. But when I know someone . . .’ His father. Ranio. Now Elician. Lio, even. Poor, disgruntled Lio, who had huffed and sighed and complained for most of their trip, but who had also cooked food that tasted good and teased Elician out of his fits of melancholy. He’d never once begrudged Cat extra servings of their meals, despite the need to plan around such things. ‘I’m a terrible assassin.’

‘Yes. Though I’ll tell you a secret.’ Elician leans in close. His breath sends a shivering wave across Cat’s skin. ‘I’m a terrible guard.’ It is true. He is hopeless at it. ‘But . . . had you been anyone else, I might have actually needed to step up my duties as a jailor. So . . . thank you for being you.’

He could have ended up in the river. The cell in Altas. Locked in endless torture or endless isolation. The thought terrifies him. ‘ Could you have done it?’ Cat asks quietly.

‘I don’t know,’ Elician admits. ‘But I am grateful I have not had to find out.’ He holds out his hand.

Cat takes it and, before he can understand the trajectory of the motion, he finds himself pulled in for a hug. He’s held there, pressed against Elician’s chest. Cat closes his eyes. Elician’s body is warm and solid, his clothing soft where it presses against Cat’s cheek. His arm is a tight, supporting brace. Cat breathes in the prince’s scent, familiar from their journey, and relaxes into the sensation. He dares to lean into the embrace, to relish it, and even, slowly, brings his other hand up to deepen the hold. But then, too soon, it is over. He’s released, his back slapped twice lightly in parting. Then Elician turns and continues on his way, oblivious of the devastation left in his wake.