The Beasts We Bury (The Broken Citadel #1)

7. Prospective Seconde Mancella Amaryllis Cliff

7

P ROSPECTIVE S ECONDE M ANCELLA A MARYLLIS C LIFF

|10 DAYS UNTIL THE ASSURANCE|

When I decided to commit arguable treason, I anticipated some kind of dramatic result in fairly short order. Immediately, if I’m honest. As soon as I left the Lonely Tower, I expected someone to jump out and tell me that it was all a test and I’d failed, and the Assurance was therefore canceled. When that didn’t happen, I was sure I’d be caught and then disowned and/or beheaded. And then, after a couple days passed and no punishment manifested, my imagination swung the other way. I pictured Azele showing up with tears in her eyes ready to form an alliance because my letter had moved her so deeply. I envisioned myself receiving her with grace and gratitude, and the two of us heralding a new era of peace between our realms.

But that didn’t happen either.

Nothing has happened.

I find and badger Silver nearly every day, and although he assures me he’s checking with appropriate diligence, there has been no response. So eventually I have to entertain another theory.

Which is that my words just don’t matter.

I worry over this as I make my way to the infirmary, bracing to have my stitches removed. By now, the skin around them has stopped feeling so raw, turning pink and white instead of an angry red.

When I arrive, Mara is already there, stretched out on a cot. I frown at her.

“Are you hurt?” I ask.

“Nah,” she says, folding her arms behind her head. “I faked an injury so I could hang out with you during your big hand unstitching. You know the healers won’t let anyone in unless they’re a legitimate patient.”

I narrow my eyes, wondering if I’m the one she’s really lying to.

“What did you fake?” I ask.

Instead of answering, she props herself up on her elbows and studies my face. “You looked upset when you walked in here. Something bothering you?”

I wince, casting around for a response.

Fortunately, at that moment a healer bustles in, saving us both from any further inquiry. With a last glance at Mara, I plop down on a cot and stick out my hand.

As I do my best to hold still, the nurse methodically extracts the black threads, leaving only a jagged white gash lined with puckered spots across the center of my hand. Already the pain is barely there, more of an itch than a stab. I watch her work with a kind of melancholic detachment.

“I wish the magic didn’t heal me so quickly,” I murmur. “It should hurt more. What I did.”

“Don’t worry,” Mara says, picking something from under her nails. “You’re hurting yourself plenty over it.”

The nurse dabs some alcohol on the wound and then flicks the gauze into the bowl with the sutures and declares me finished.

She tells Mara she’ll need to stay a bit, though, and Mara makes a sour face. I ask if she wants me to stay, too, but she waves me off.

I hover for a moment anyway, toying with the idea of lingering long enough to see what the healers think they’re treating. But if my sister really does have a wound and she doesn’t want to talk about it, then it’s probably best I let it be. Mara always has her reasons for keeping secrets. Besides, I don’t have anything scheduled until this afternoon, and I’ve been waiting for a window of time like this.

Because even if my letter didn’t do anything, that doesn’t mean I have to give up.

It just means I need to push somewhere else. Eventually, something has to give.

And I know where I want to push next.

The Academy stands below the castle, but above most of the rest of the town. I’ve passed by it many times, but today I feel a strange, uncertain dread as I remember the look in Silver’s eyes when he talked about this place.

The giant black gates are embedded with so many jagged chunks of glass that they look like they’re iced over. Constantly surrounded by glass garnishment as I am, I never questioned it before. But the shards are not smoothed down and ornamental. They’re sharp as blades. It doesn’t seem appropriate on a school for children.

I summon a snake, because I’ve been experimenting with keeping an animal or two out when my emotions start to overwhelm me. It relieves the pressure somewhat. She wraps herself around my arms, flicking her tongue at the gates, and the feeling of her cool, smooth skin sliding against mine makes me feel a little stronger.

I’ve never been inside the Academy before. I half expect them to turn me away at the gate, but it seems less likely with a snake around my neck.

I pull the rope to ring the bell, and a slat slams open next to it, just big enough for a pair of squinting eyes to peer through.

“Can I help you?”

“I… I’m the Prospective Seconde,” I say. Maybe unnecessarily.

“Yes, I’m aware,” he says carefully. “Did your father send you?”

At this, I square my shoulders and my snake raises her head as though shaken awake. “I don’t believe I need my father’s permission to make an appearance at one of the facilities my family funds and maintains. Do you?”

There’s a weighty pause, and then the slat slides shut and the gate swings open. I have to step back hastily to avoid being impaled on its glittering shards. Behind it stands a muscular man with close-cropped, graying hair. He looks down at me like I’m the last thing he wants to deal with today, but when he speaks his tone is formal.

“What can I do for you?” he asks.

I sniff and cross my arms, surveying the stocky building behind him, and the dirt grounds that surround it.

“I’d like to look around,” I say. “Right now.”

He leans back and his jaw flexes, like he’s doing his best to think of a reason to turn me down. But he must not be able to, because finally he gives a series of short whistles. A kid, probably only a little younger than I am, jogs up, then assumes a military posture with his arms folded behind his back, waiting for instructions.

“This is the Prospective Seconde,” the man says. “Show her around. Answer her questions.”

The boy’s eyes flash with something like panic, even as he says, “Yes, sir.”

The two of them lock eyes for a brief moment, and though I can’t see the man’s face, whatever his gaze communicates causes the boy to look down quickly.

My snake flicks her tongue and I shift uncomfortably from one foot to the other.

“Shall we go, then?” I ask finally, when it doesn’t seem like either of them will say anything else.

The boy turns on his heel and marches toward the building, so I follow.

I feel the man’s gaze on my back until we’re out of sight.

Inside, the furniture is decidedly utilitarian. Stone and metal. The tables are bolted down, and they each have six stone circles attached to them by metal arms to serve as seats. They don’t look comfortable. Or movable. Glass lines the walls as well, in a way that makes the room feel like it could close in on itself and crush everyone inside at any moment.

A line of children walking single file weaves through the tables past us, and when we enter, their eyes all snap to me. I expect them to start whispering, but their arms stay locked in place behind their backs and their mouths stay shut, which is somehow even more unnerving. The silence is heavy, broken only by an odd scraping noise that I can’t place at first. It’s not until I look down that I realize many of the children have rocks tied to their ankles, which they are dragging across the floor. Some have only a few, but others seem to have a small mountain clattering behind them.

“What are those stones for?” I ask my guide.

He assumes the military posture again and responds with an immediacy that feels practiced. “We need to remember the power of the cliffs and how fortunate we are to be a part of them,” he says. “When we commit an infraction, a piece of the cliffs is tied to our feet so that every step reminds us of our shame and strengthens us against future mistakes.”

My snake slithers across my collarbone, unable to settle as I look back at the children. Some of them have so many rocks tied to their feet that they’re straining to move. I see a boy who looks about eight walking as though he’s wading through molasses, his face pinched in distress as he tries to keep pace with the others.

No one tries to help him.

“What sorts of infractions?” I ask.

“Disrespect, talking out of turn, taking more food than your portion, failing to follow any given command, failing to keep up in training, speaking ill of the Prime—”

“That’s enough,” I say, feeling queasy. “Who administers this punishment?”

“Instructors,” he says. “And older students who have earned the privilege of participating in communal discipline.”

I don’t like the sound of that.

“What if the child denies the infraction?” I ask.

“Then they are given a second rock for lying.”

“And if they aren’t lying?”

My guide seems uncomfortable with the question. He casts me a brief, guarded glance, and I suddenly remember the way the man outside seemed to give him a warning, and I hastily tell him to forget I asked.

As the trail of children comes to an end, I fall into step behind them, my guide shadowing.

They wind outside and I pause in the doorway to watch them, not wanting to make my presence known to their waiting instructor. She’s a grim-faced woman who lines them up on a track painted into the dust. When she whistles they break into a run, and she jogs beside them, setting a minimum pace.

But no one removed the rocks before the children started running, and this quickly divides the race into tiers. The ones with no rocks surge ahead, not even sparing a glance back for their companions. The ones with only a few rocks are slower but still able to stay ahead of the instructor, although their expressions are strained as the rocks bounce behind them, biting into the backs of their legs. However, the ones who are the most burdened, including the boy I was watching earlier, strain to keep up.

Instead of helping, the instructor berates them, calling them vile names and cruelly mocking their inability to keep pace, all while threatening to add more rocks if they can’t catch up by the end of the race.

At one point, the young boy falls and struggles to rise, now openly weeping. His ankles are rubbed raw by the rope, and his legs are bruised and bleeding. The instructor screams at him, accusing him of faking his infirmity to get sympathy, and assuring him he won’t get it, not from her.

The boy vomits into the dirt.

Nearly choking with rage, I take a step through the door, meaning to get the rocks off the boy’s legs if I have to rip them free myself.

“If you help him,” my guide says in a low voice. “He’ll be punished worse after you leave.”

I stop in place, feeling sick to my stomach, and look back at him. His eyes are straight ahead, as though he isn’t talking to me, but there’s tension in his posture.

I turn back to the runners in the front, the ones who run silently and never glance back. Their gazes are as fixed as his, but I see the same kind of tension in their postures, now that I’m looking for it.

“Punished how?” I ask.

He turns and continues down the hallway, but it’s only when the young boy pulls himself up and starts limping forward again that I’m able to follow, my snake’s tail rattling against my stomach.

My guide takes several turns, leading me past rooms crammed with unornamented bunk beds and classrooms where learning is a fast-paced, call-and-response experience that sounds more like thinly veiled propaganda than actual curriculum.

When we get near to the back of the building, I start to hear screaming.

It’s raw and hoarse, like the person has been doing it for hours, but also muffled somehow. I can’t make out any words, only stark, guttural noises that I didn’t know a human could make. My guide keeps his head down and drops behind me, probably so it doesn’t look like he led me here, and that’s fine with me. I surge ahead.

When I turn the corner, there is a row of doors, each with a small window. The screaming is coming from behind the first door, where a girl is held in a chair. Her arms and legs are strapped down and there’s a gag in her mouth and a blindfold across her eyes. Around her ankles is a halo of rocks, so numerous that they look like a small battlement. Her hair is greasy and matted. Her cheeks are tracked with tears. She’s thrashing against the bonds like she’s a wild animal, and the snake in my shoulder bares its fangs, flexing against my neck like it’s poised to strike.

“How long has she been in there?” I ask my guide.

“They put her in yesterday.” He’s behind me, but he’s speaking in a low voice, glancing frequently down the hallway behind us.

“For?”

“She attacked an instructor. That’s why they’re using the chair. The longer you’re restrained, the more it hurts your body. And the more your mind rebels against its inability to move. And it just keeps going. It makes you—”

He’s cut off by another scream that’s near snarl, and he merely gestures at the door as if the cry finished his sentence better than he could anyway.

It’s then I hear weeping coming from farther down the hallway, and I move past him, my snake slithering restlessly across my body.

As I look in each door, most of the rooms are filled. They’re tiny, each barely bigger than a closet. Most of the children inside aren’t restrained, but they look despondent, their eyes sunken and their clothes hanging loosely off their bodies, making me wonder how often they’re fed. One child is humming a broken tune. One is crying. One appears to be staring at nothing. Each has a small mountain range of rocks around them, weighing down their every movement.

I feel nauseous.

“How long have these other kids been here?” I ask.

“Couple weeks. Some a couple months.”

“ Months ? When do they let them out?”

“When they have… learned their lesson,” my guide says hesitantly.

“Meaning what?”

He looks at me with dark eyes.

“Please,” I say. “The truth. You won’t get in trouble, I promise.”

He looks back down the hallway again and then leans toward me, his voice an urgent whisper. “Meaning when we act like good soldiers again. And after you’ve been alone for long enough… you’ll say anything. Whatever they want to hear. Then once you’re out, you’ll do anything not to be back. Even punish other kids. Even commit yourself to the army, where you know you’ll either kill or be killed. You’ll obey any order you’re given. Just as long as you don’t have to go back to that chair or that room.”

His haunted expression makes it clear he’s speaking from firsthand experience.

There are footsteps behind us, and my guide’s back goes ramrod straight again, as his eyes go distant.

It’s the man from the gate, and fortunately he doesn’t seem to have heard our conversation.

“You’ve been in here quite a while,” he says, addressing me, “and I’m afraid your guide needs to report for training now. Is there anything else I can do for you before you go?”

I don’t miss the attempt at shooing me out the door, but I refuse to be cowed by it.

“As a matter of fact, there is,” I say. “Could you send a message to my father? I’d like him to meet me here as soon as he’s able.”

After some discussion they reluctantly set me up to wait in what is essentially a storage room, where all the books and curricula the school used before the war were packed into boxes and presumably abandoned.

Through the small window, I can see the students running through yet another round of drills, the third of the day. And it’s not even lunchtime. I picture Silver there, going through the exercises in time with everyone else, and I understand a little better the bitterness in his voice when he spoke of this place. I wonder if he was one of the kids with rocks around his ankles or one of those who silently looked away.

I might as well make use of the time waiting, so I roll up my sleeves. There are shelves. And there are books. I think of the refuge my own library was at home and decide I can make at least one nice room in this monstrous place. Not that I can fix the deeper issues here with a single reading room, but it’s something.

By the time my father deigns to arrive, I have three of the standing bookshelves sorted, first by subject matter and then by title.

I expect my father to be angry, but he just regards me with the kind of bemusement one might use to look upon a dog circling his bed three times and then lying down exactly where he started. And I understand how silly this must look to him, in the midst of a facility devoted to training for war.

“When’s the last time you came to this school?” I ask him.

“I visit regularly.”

“Oh, you do?” I say sharply. “So you’re aware that it’s essentially a prison? That children are tortured until they agree to die for you?”

He shakes his head at me with infuriating indulgence. “Children grow strong here,” he says, voice deceptively patient. “Strong and obedient, the two most important traits in a soldier. And soldiers are desperately needed to protect this realm, no matter how much you would prefer to believe otherwise.”

“Only,” I shoot back, “if you keep entering wars with high casualties.” My snake gives her tail a warning shake, the rattle underscoring my words.

My father exhales a small puff of air through his nose, and sits in the lone, dusty armchair, regarding me.

I rip the tape off another box and keep sorting.

“This place needs reform,” I tell him. “It needs better facilities, a more diverse curriculum, a system of discipline that is actually humane , and it needs to provide real options after graduation. As in more than one.”

He strokes his chin, considering. “All right. If it’s that important to you, I’ll give you a budget and you can propose some changes. After all, you will be Seconde soon. I’m pleased to see you taking the role seriously. If there are things you want to implement, then of course we should discuss them.”

I sift through the contents of the box in front of me, waiting. Certain it can’t be that easy. My snake’s tail vibrates again, punctuating the pause.

“But there’s something I’d like to talk to you about first,” he continues. “And, actually, this is a fortuitous location for the conversation I’d like to have.”

I knew it.

I run my fingers on the spine of a bright yellow textbook before sliding it in with the other sciences.

“What conversation is that?” I ask.

He gets up and pulls the book I just shelved. It’s a text on biology with a drawing of an ape on the cover.

“Do you remember going over material similar to this with your tutors?”

I lean against the shelves and cross my arms over my chest. “It wasn’t my favorite subject, but I remember the basics, why?”

“What is the class and order of our species?” he asks.

His voice has taken on the same lecturing tone that my tutors often had, so I answer automatically. “Humans belong to the mammalia class. We are in the order of primates.”

“And our kingdom?” he asks.

“Animalia,” I say, not sure where he’s going with this.

“So humans are a subtype of animal, correct?”

“Yes?”

He replaces the book and turns toward me fully. “What do you think would happen if you killed a human?”

I open my mouth to respond because I was expecting another rote question with a straightforward response, but then what he’s actually said hits me, and any words I might have offered evaporate in my throat.

I feel cold. Numb. My snake must feel it, too, because she slithers up my leg and curls around my torso seeking warmth.

“How could you ask me that?” I rasp.

“It might be the same as your usual process,” he continues, as if I’d never spoken, “or it might be different. After all, humans have higher cognitive abilities than animals do. They dream, they love, they reason. They have deeper relationships, longer memories, and more complex plans. Perhaps they are so different that it would not work at all… but perhaps it would work even better. Perhaps you could truly command them, or communicate with them, or—”

“I guess we’ll never know,” I say firmly, cutting him off.

“For the sake of discussion—”

“But it isn’t !” I cry, and my serpent’s rattle rumbles against my ear. “It isn’t just for the sake of discussion. Is it?” I start pacing, weaving a haphazard path through abandoned tomes in beaten boxes as my snake weaves around my shoulders. “I don’t understand. How could a thought like this even occur to you?”

He returns to the armchair, steepling his hands, calm as he traces my frantic zigzag through the room with distant eyes.

“Look out the window,” he says.

“I know what’s there,” I retort, not breaking stride. “Children who lost their parents in a war being trained to fight in some future one.”

“Exactly,” he says. “And you could stop the whole cycle.”

I stumble to a stop and the rattle stills. “How’s that?”

“If a war broke out, many of our soldiers would die,” he explains, in the tone he might use to explain one of the basic math concepts in these textbooks. “They would leave children behind, and their loss would create a need for more soldiers. And on and on it goes. But what if we never had to send them out? What if you could summon an army, and every time they were killed, you had only to summon them again? No one would dare challenge us!” He spreads his arms wide, as if revealing a delightful surprise.

“You want me to kill a whole army?” I breathe. My skin feels clammy all of a sudden, and I pull my cloak tighter around me as my snake coils closer underneath it.

He waves his hands to dismiss the thought, but it’s far, far too late. “Don’t worry about that right now,” he says. “Let’s just try one and see how it goes.”

Just… try one?

Just try one.

Like I’m trying on a dress. Or a hat.

Just try murdering another human being with my bare hands one time.

And see how it goes.

I feel faint, a dreadful, potent stirring in the pit of my gut. I press my lips together, genuinely afraid that if I open my mouth too wide I might throw up.

“You’re right,” he says. “This isn’t a hypothetical. You will be Seconde soon, and when I present you to the people of this realm, I want you to be as strong as you can be. The ceremony is called an Assurance not only because it assures your place in the succession, but also because it assures the people that they will be taken care of when I die. Beyond that”—he hesitates briefly, but then carries on—“there have been developments in our relations with the other realms that are extremely concerning to me. Another war may be imminent.”

A part of me processes that information, enough that it makes my ears ring in alarm, but most of me is focused on the more immediate issue.

“I killed just last week,” I remind him fiercely. “And we had an agreement. I was supposed to have a year before—”

“You were a child when we made that agreement,” he snaps. “Now you’re nearly an adult. Nearly a Seconde. You came here today, lectured me about classrooms and curriculums, because you recognize that you should be doing more for your realm. I applaud you. But you’re thinking too small. If we develop it properly, your magic could fix the root cause of a lot of suffering. You could enact real, systemic change. It’s time to rise to the occasion.” I lift my eyes to his, waiting for the gut punch. And he gives it. “I’d like you to choose one of the students at this Academy to test my hypothesis on by the end of the week.”

My snake clenches around my stomach and I feel goose bumps erupt on my skin. “You can’t be serious,” I say, but my tone comes out more pleading than incredulous. “You mean… one of the children?”

“Many of them are competent soldiers already,” he tells me, as though that was my concern.

“But they’re—”

“Children without futures, without family, eager to make a name for themselves. I think you may find more volunteers than you anticipate.”

I think about my guide telling me that a person would do anything to avoid ending up in the rooms at the back of the building, and I wonder if that extends to laying down their very lives. If the alternative was continuing to live in a place like this, then maybe they would. But not for the sake of glory, like my father seems to think.

“What if no one volunteers?” I press.

“Then the hundreds of lives to be saved is worth the cost of one unwilling sacrifice. Pick one by the end of the week, or I will pick one for you.”

“And if I refuse entirely?” I demand, raising my voice.

“Then I will kill one a week in the public square until you relent. I hope it doesn’t come to that.”

I reel back, crashing into the bookcase and sending science textbooks toppling. “You’re bluffing,” I say. “You wouldn’t do that. Your methods may be brutal, but even you wouldn’t go that far.”

Would he?

He doesn’t answer, but he doesn’t break our gaze either. I push off the shelves and make a dash for the door, thinking desperate, impractical thoughts. I’m seconds away from bursting out into the side yard and screaming at all the children to run for the mountains and never look back, to find what escape they can from the horrible proclamation my father has just made.

But then he grabs my hand.

And in an instant his magic surges through me, locking me into place.

It starts with my skin. Suddenly it feels as hard as armor, like a shell around my body. My mouth is stuck in the precursor to a scream, half agape, and my breath is shallow. I make a low noise in the back of my throat, like the yowl of an angry cat, but I can’t form words. And no matter how hard I try to wrench my jaws open wider or take a step forward or just move my pinkie the tiniest bit, I can’t.

I’m frozen.

My snake rears up, hissing, her tongue flicking dangerously.

“Don’t walk away from me,” my father says.

I can barely hear him over the rushing in my ears.

My muscles lock up next, making me feel like my whole body is tensed. Like I’m just about to fight, but without the subsequent relief of landing a swing. My snake lunges toward my father, fangs bared, but he bats her away with his free hand, then presses one boot into her side when she hits the ground, pinning her down.

Please , I want to say. Please let go . He usually does by now. He usually only wants to stop me in place, not hurt me. Does he want to hurt me?

If I could cry, I would, but I can’t even blink. My eyes feel like sandpaper.

Please, I beg through silent lips. Please, please, please stop!

But he doesn’t. Not this time.

And the next thing to freeze is my lungs.

My mouth goes dry as the air within it stagnates. I try to work my throat, try to draw more air in, but I can’t move anything. I can’t breathe. I can’t even struggle, because my every muscle is trapped in place. I can’t scream, because my vocal cords are immobile. I can only stand there as my lungs burn and black spots begin to enter my vision.

At my feet, my snake writhes, twisting into herself and arcing away from the ground in frantic, jerky movements. She lashes against my father, but her fangs can’t penetrate his steel-plated boots. Within me, the rest of my animals mirror her desperation, contorting in desperate, anguished terror, raging against the underside of my skin.

Because he still hasn’t let go. If he doesn’t soon, I’ll pass out. I can already feel the grim dizziness creeping up on me. And if he keeps holding on after that, after my mind shuts down even as my body remains locked in place, the last thing to stop will be my heart.

He releases me and I collapse to the ground, gasping and choking. My mouth floods with saliva, and snot runs from my nose as my shoulders shake with my rasping, miserable sobs. Everything burns as my internal organs stutter back to life.

“I hope you see now,” my father says, “that I will do what needs to be done. You have one week.”

Then he crushes my snake’s skull with the heel of his boot and walks out the door.

And as I lie on the floor, still gasping for breath, the corpse in front of me disappears, and my snake revives within me, twisting in the deepest pits of my stomach.

As furious as I am.