Chapter Eight Elician #3
Cat is frozen in place, his eyes locked on the box.
Marina has brought it to him, but Elician knows what it is to hold a loved one’s head in his arms. ‘Do not give it to him,’ he shouts.
Marina recoils at the command, eyes flicking from him to Cat.
Cat had been reaching for the box. To take it, to hold it.
A child desperate for his mother’s embrace one final time, but it is not comfort he will find among the edges of harsh wood and broken dreams. ‘Don’t do it, Cat.
Believe me. Please. Do not take it.’ He reaches for Cat’s hands, his shoulders.
He doesn’t know where to touch. There are too many eyes on them both, but he wants to pull the smaller man to his chest, to hold him and to never let him go.
‘We’ll bury her, we’ll give her every honour in the world.
But please. Don’t do this. Don’t do this to yourself. ’
‘I don’t understand,’ Fen says, her voice as fragile as a dove. ‘What’s in the box?’
‘A head,’ Cat replies, not looking at anything save that box. The lid. The potential of seeing the face inside one more time.
‘Anslian’s?’
‘No.’ There are tears in Cat’s eyes. His shoulders shake.
‘Her name was Brielle.’ Fen doesn’t know the name.
She has heard no stories. She has felt none of Cat’s sorrow.
He says, ‘She was like a mother to me.’ But that is not all she was.
Teacher, friend and home. Brielle stayed by Cat’s side from the moment he was put in a cage next to hers until the moment he left Alerae for good.
She taught him language and science. She took a terrified boy in the dark and guided him into a man with a heart so kind that when given the opportunity, his first reaction was not to make the entire world burn.
He says, ‘I want to be alone,’ and pulls away from Elician, Marina – all of them.
He leaves Marina with the head and its management, and Elician does not listen to him at all.
He pauses only to confirm Adalei and Lio will be all right. His cousin nods, firm and resolute. His friend cannot meet his eyes.
Then Elician follows his husband so that he will not be alone in his grief even if that is what he asked for. For he knows it is not truly what he wants.
What he wants is for Brielle to still be alive.
And she never will be again.
Celebrate the time we had
Celebrate the time you’ll have
From all that was good and bad
From all that was joy and sad
Change now to a well-loved form
Take shape and know we will not mourn
Be that which you longed to be And know I loved you, verily
I will celebrate the time we had
And celebrate the time you’ll have
I will celebrate what you’ll become
Until one day I too succumb.
‘I was going to save her,’ Cat whispers, voice hoarse from hours of singing the same song over and over again.
Hours of sitting in their place beside their bed, knees drawn to his chest, head in his hands.
He didn’t cry. He didn’t weep. Elician did both, and Cat begged him to stop.
To stop or leave him be, and he swallowed back each tear until Cat’s litany ended.
Then and only then did Cat let himself be pulled to Elician’s chest. To be held close and shielded from all the world.
‘She suffered so…It was her time. She did what she needed to do. She raised me. She helped Lio survive. She…she ensured I would go back. No matter what.’ It is certain now.
Even if it comes to war. There will be no stopping the flow of progress.
Elician will not stop until those cells are emptied, and Cat will lead that charge.
‘She deserved more than anyone to be free from that place. She deserved her change.’ Elician braces Cat’s head to his chest. He has no words to say.
No words to make it better. He threads his fingers through Cat’s hair.
‘I wish I could have given her the sun. I wish I could have given her the freedom she deserved.’
‘We’ll give it to the others,’ Elician swears. ‘Every last one of them.’
‘I took too long,’ Cat grieves. They partied. They celebrated. They had a coronation and good food and relaxation. Adalei insisted they needed the time to heal. He agreed. They took that time. And Brielle is dead.
Elician cannot say if that was a mistake. He just holds Cat to him. ‘It will never happen again,’ he swears. ‘You will go back to Alerae. You’ll face Death in judgement. And your people will be free.’
‘How are we even going to get there?’
Anger coils through Elician. Sharp and putrid and filled with all the burning fires of vengeance. ‘One step at a time, stopping anyone who stands in our way.’
‘I can’t slaughter a country to free only a few.’
‘You’re a better man than most,’ Elician replies.
‘But it won’t come to that. I will find a way.
If I have to parlay for every Reaper in Alelune to be traded to Soleb and relinquish control of all of Altas for ever more to see it done – your people will be free.
’ Cat jerks back. He braces himself against Elician’s shoulders, staring at him with an expression of stunned wonder.
‘You’d relinquish Altas and the Bask for my Reapers?’
‘If I cannot give you a crown, I promise you this: one way or another, Alest, your people will be free.’ Elician presses his lips to Cat’s brow.
Searing his promise into Cat’s skin. Then he pulls Cat back to his chest and tries to summon up thoughts of proposals and counterproposals.
He fails spectacularly, no plans lingering for more than seconds at a time.
Because all his attention is on Cat. Holding him close and making sure he knows that he meant what he said on the day they made their vows.
Now and ever more: Cat will not be facing these horrors alone.
The door to their chambers is thrown open. It slams hard against the stone wall, noise shattering through the room. Cat flinches back, flying from where he’d been curled against Elician’s chest – safe and warm and free from fear or judgement. Elician whirls about, vile words on his tongue.
It is not Fen, who so often barges in to get their attention. It’s Zinnitzia. The words stay locked into place as she rushes towards them. ‘A messenger has arrived from Altas,’ Zinnitzia says. She holds out a hand and jerks Elician up to his feet. Cat is already rising. ‘He said the city fell.’
That’s impossible.
He has just made his promise.
‘We’ve held that city for nearly two decades,’ he says, senseless as she steps back and hurries them towards the door.
They run.
They run back to the throne room. Lio, Adalei and Fen meet them in the hall. Fen tries to call out to Cat but he doesn’t answer her. They enter together; Marina is already inside. The boxes and Brielle’s head are gone, and in their place is a man drenched in sweat.
Someone has procured him a glass of water, but it stays undrunk in his trembling hands.
Dirt stains his armour and skin. His black hair is wild in the dim light of day.
‘Y-Your Majesty—’ He tries to bow, but he is holding the glass.
It splashes as his hand comes swiftly to his chest, spreading liquid all down his front.
Cat, still barely emerged from the grief of his own horror, asks Marina: ‘May we get him a chair?’ She nods curtly and barks an order at a servant.
‘No – no, I don’t need it,’ the man sputters. The glass slips from his hand. It shatters but he hardly notices. ‘It’s Altas. Altas, sir, Your Majesty, sire, it—’
A chair has been produced. It’s placed behind him; he pays it no mind.
He keeps blinking, mouth floundering as nonsense words slip between his teeth.
Cat presses his gloved hand to the man’s shoulder and gently pushes him down.
As soon as he sits, the messenger’s face clears, his attention steadies.
Elician recognizes the reaction. Cat did something similar to him once.
Forcing him into a steady state of calm when anxiety and terror were too much by killing off the hormones that were causing the reaction to begin with.
Fen must recognize it too; she leans towards him, whispering: ‘You didn’t need to do that!’
But Cat replies, ‘Yes, I did,’ and Elician has no time to consider the morality of the deed.
‘Tell us about Altas,’ Elician beseeches.
‘They came at night. Dozens of them. Hundreds!‘ his voice breaks off in a hysteric screech. He gasps for breath before babbling out only a few more words. ‘The army fell in moments. Then…the city.’
‘Hundreds?’ Elician asks, far more sedate, as if to calm the situation by his voice alone. ‘How did the army fall to only a few hundred people?’
‘It was the dead, sir,’ the messenger says. ‘They sent the dead!’
‘Reapers,’ Marina translates. The messenger looks right at her. His wide eyes glisten brightly. ‘Alelune sent Reapers into Altas?’
‘There…there were so many of them.’ the messenger says. ‘It didn’t matter what anyone did. They kept coming. They kept coming.’
I just made that promise, Elician thinks wildly. That’s not possible. That’s not what I wanted.
Cat’s head snaps about to look at him; Elician can’t meet his eyes.
Lio speaks for him. ‘It’s against the law of combat. Reapers and Givers have no place on the battlefield. And why would any Reaper follow Gillage?’
‘For a chance to see the sky,’ Cat says. But Elician hears something else. The same broken statement that had been born of desperation and grief.
I took too long, Cat had said.
But it wasn’t just him. Elician’s promise had come too late. They had taken too long. ‘How many?’ Elician asks the messenger, outmanoeuvred by a teenager who took the time Elician squandered to make sure Elician would have no piece left to play. ‘How many people are dead?’
‘All of them,’ the messenger replies. ‘The city is full of the dead. Not even the civilians were spared. There’s no one left alive.’