34. Death Does You Well
DESDEMONA
Surma, the first child of Amun and Eira, was the greatest warrior Elysia had ever seen. He made a glorious career of slaying corenths, which was honorable in their time eons ago. But Elsyina, Eira’s younger sister, wanted that title for her first son. Elysina manipulated a fatta scorpion, using the creature to kill Surma and decimate his soul. Eira took her son to Sulva, begging the goddess to put Surma in the sky so he could live on. Now, we have a cluster of stars in his name.
— CONSTELLATIONS FOR KIDS BY ARTHFURD HARREIGHS
I’ve finally succumbed to Leiholan’s incessant whining about vesi. Besides, the cold sweats, vomiting, and night terrors aren’t pretty. I’m sure every healer in the infirmary agrees with me.
The man just lost his leg, and the best I can offer him are the three bottles of vesi I carry. Two under my arms, one in my hand.
Light-brown hair grabs my attention, shining in the small amount of moonlight that enters the halls. No one is supposed to be out of their rooms, though I haven’t even been in my room since the lockdown either.
The curly hair is replaced by a familiar face. “Desdemona?” the girl calls. Eleanora. Why would Eleanora be talking to me?
“Yeah?”
“It’s you?” She takes a step closer, and two more people step out of the shadows.
“Why?” I ask wearily. Do I really have to do this again?
“You’re hard to find!” she exclaims, laughing. “Why ever are you so hard to find?”
“You know the school is in lockdown, right?” When there’s no response and I feel the phantom of fear sweeping over me, I turn the other way. I can just walk around the school.
There’s a hand on my shoulder, turning me, and I’m met by red eyes. My fingers dip to the sheathe at my side. “Come with us and we won’t do any more damage,” her voice is deeper now. Toneless the way Wendy’s was with the prophecy. Eleanora’s mouth smiles, but not the rest of her.
In one movement, I pull out my knife and shove it into Eleanora’s shoulder. The bottles of vesi shatter beneath my feet, and I’m careful not to slip when I push her away and run. But my feet fall asleep. Not the tickly kind that you can shake your way out of, but the kind where you’re scared you’ll never feel your foot again. For all I know, my feet aren’t even there.
I begin to fall.
Eleanora’s in front of me again and the others come behind me, four hands on my body holding me up. She pulls the knife from her body, blood spraying on my neck. She doesn’t even seem to be in pain.
The tip of my bloodied knife comes in contact with my face, grazing from my forehead to underneath my chin, pricking the skin and pulling blood while she pulls my face up, forcing me to meet her red eyes.
“Do you prefer pain?” Her soft and feminine voice is back. “From here, it seems it. Everywhere you go, you institute it.”
I grab the wrist of the hand that’s holding my knife and I twist as hard as I can, all the way around in a circle until her hand is facing the opposite direction than it should be. The knife falls to the floor. Still, there’s no sign that she is registering the pain.
My feet are still missing and I know I’m in a sore position for combat. With her wrist still in my grasp, I bite my free hand as hard as I can until the metallic taste of blood finds my tongue. Pain ripples through me like fire, and I shove my hand in her face.
This time, she screams, and it’s music to my ears. The pungent smell of burning flesh fills my nose, but I don’t move, even when I feel the cold steel of a knife to my throat, I keep forcing every ounce of heat in me into her.
Then my hand goes numb, just as my feet have, and I worry I’m going to be getting three amputations at the end of this fight. My penance for Jermoine.
Eleanora’s body is shaking while some kind of shadow pushes out from her skin. Like it’s trying to force its way out of her.
“Bacstair, Eaman!” she screams while her body seizes like an austec. The two behind me fall to the floor, and I fall on top of them.
I don’t feel them breathing.
Even though Eleanora is quite literally seizing, she falls next to me and manages to meet me in the eyes. “Power, dear meachair, is not your saving grace.”
Reality hits me with a stunning ease. “You’re an Arcane.” It’s not a question. Eleanora smiles, but it doesn’t feel like I’m looking at Eleanora anymore. Her face is burnt to nothing but boils and raw, red skin. “What do you know of my power?”
“What your mother never told you,” shehisses.
“I’ll go with you.” I hold out my hand, but she doesn’t take it, so I grab Eleanora’s. “Take me. I’ll go.”
“Can’t you see it’s too late for me, meachair?” Eleanora’s hand shrugs out of mine. “I happen to be the most benevolent of us. In death I will tell you. When you come, as we know you shall, you will be forgotten. But not by your mother. Now, finish me for my kindness.”
“Finish you?”
“Killme. I no longer wish to reside in this wretched body.”
I blink, taking a deep, shaking breath.
“Do not worry of the Folk,” Eleanora’s strained voice says. “It is rare to survive possession.”
I freeze. I’m being asked to murder. I don’t know how.
I don’t want to know how.
It is not Eleanora’s voice that roars, “Do it!” And I am not sure if it is fear or power that compels me to think of her burning the way the other man with red eyes did, the orange and gray shadow that fell out of him in death, and to decide to do the same to her. White hot fire fills my body and I feel my feet again, my hands, as I watch what has to be some small part of Eleanora’s eyes go wide with the realization that she, too, is going to die.
The dark orange shadow falls from her body, becoming solid when it rolls on top of me. I wiggle out of its dead weight and look down at the massacre.
My massacre.
Eleanora’s face might be badly burnt, unrecognizable. There may have been an Arcane within her body. But in the end, I killed her. I wonder if I’m responsible for the deaths of the two students I was just lying on top of. I feel for their pulses, just in case. Nothing.
Four bodies in front of me.
Eight in total. The equivalent of what could’ve been two families. What about their families? I see their parents crying over a letter, insincerely written by the headmistress, letting them know that their child is dead. Is that what happened to Breck’s parents? His siblings and friends?
Who am I? I told myself I would never do what I did in my dreams, but every day I come closer to her. I surpass her in barbarity.
Is this what it means to hold my survival above theirs?
Is this what it means to be human?
And yet, with all this guilt, I’m also wondering if this could look like a corenth attack because I worry about cleaning these bodies and getting back to Leiholan.
This could’ve been Leiholan yesterday. How would I feel if I cared about these people? Because there are people who care about them, and I’m responsible for their pain. If I could, would I bear it for them?
I don’t think I would. The pain I have is too much, but here I am delivering it to others a thousand times over.
One by one, I pull each body out into the mastick, save the burnt, disheveled one for last. I give each of their faces one last good look, committing them to memory, promising to carry them. Because that’s the price I pay for every death, isn’t it? Killing is a promise that I will hold them, for the rest of my life, because what else could it be?
Luckily, I’m not far from the training room, so I go grab Leiholan three more bottles, using one to douse the dead. I strike one of the headmistresses’ matches and throw it atop the pile of bodies I’ve gathered.
I sit a foot from them, forcing myself to smell the putrid smoke that comes from their burning flesh. It’s what I have to do—it’s what killing entails.
Punishment.