Chapter Twenty-Two Elician #2
Cat’s back is to him. Did he know?
No. He couldn’t have known. He would have said something.
He would have mentioned it. Cat stands frozen in a stunned stillness, and Elician can feel his sudden, sharp panic in the air.
They have planned for failure: for returning home to Soleb, heads down and defeat understood.
But this…The throne is not worth Cat’s life.
‘This is the only legitimate way to ascend, isn’t it?’ Cat asks.
‘It is,’ General Leferge allows.
But who made it that way? Elician wants to ask. For it seems very much to him like a path with only a predetermined outcome.
‘Then I will ask Death to decide,’ Cat repeats. Elician’s chest aches, his eyes burn.
Leferge stands in a rigid form of stunned fascination. Then she nods once. She steps back with her left leg and bows low at the waist. ‘Stello,’ she greets. ‘Tell me how to heal my army…and I will teach you how to wield that sword before you die.’
He bows back, ignorant of the way it makes his Blue Guard jump to offer salutes in turn. Then he has the audacity to straighten and thank her as if he didn’t just sign his life away to earn a crown and she does not know that is exactly what he’s done.
Of the near two thousand soldiers in Leferge’s army, only three hundred or so have begun to show signs of illness.
They are young and old, girls and boys who managed to tilt into adulthood just in time to join the army, men and women with scars lining their limbs and horrors echoed in their eyes.
Elician recognizes some, even. A dark-haired woman lies at the end of one row of pallets, her cheeks purpling with excess blood.
Her dull eyes roll in his direction, and he remembers sparing her life once, at the end of a battle when the horns had blared and there was no need to kill.
If they succeed today, it will be the second time he has saved her.
He wonders if she would ever return the favour.
It doesn’t matter if she would. He will help her anyway.
The head of Leferge’s medical corps meets them outside the carefully sectioned-off area of the camp.
She describes the symptoms of the plague exactly as Cat and Elician witnessed in Altas and then discusses the treatment they’ve been able to provide.
Excess of blood is drained; food and water are forced into the patients to keep them stable.
It isn’t anything close to a comfortable or quality form of life, but so far… only five people have died.
The physicians work swiftly, and with keen dedication.
Going from patient to patient, addressing every ailment with practised hands.
They wear gloves, masks, and Cat is wide-eyed as he asks questions about their methods.
He is fascinated by the practitioners, and though they are wary of his presence, they equally seem fascinated by him as he answers their own questions about the science and precision of his ability.
Leferge watches the exchange with a pinched expression; Elician stays out of the practitioners’ way. He catches sight of a woman slicing a pustule to drain the excess fluid and he flinches in sympathy, hand going to the same spot on his own arm. Eline had cut him there…far more than once.
‘When did you first notice people were falling ill?’ Elician asks the general, turning away from the rows and rows of beds.
‘A few days after we retreated from Altas,’ she replies.
It leads him to another question, one he wanted to ask long ago. ‘Why didn’t you take part in the siege?’
‘That band of fools that arrived with those Reapers had orders from our king to slaughter the city,’ Leferge replies shortly.
‘They had the audacity to presume that meant that I would direct our army to support their task. But orders or not, I will never order my troops to conduct such an act of depravity. Those that stayed with me are those who were unwilling to follow a command to march into a city and kill its every inhabitant.’
‘And those that didn’t remain with you?’
‘Any soldier of mine who decided to lay waste to civilians, against our established rules of combat, will be punished by me the moment they return. We are a country of laws, and regardless of the commands of a monarch – moral law supersedes monarchical authority.’
‘You will have your chance to punish them, then,’ Elician swears. ‘They’re all alive. As are the people of Altas. We brought them back.’
Leferge’s nostrils flare. ‘And what of the people of Endura?’
‘Death killed them,’ Cat replies, looking up from where he’d been examining one of the sick soldiers. ‘They cannot be brought back.’ Elician didn’t think Cat had been listening. He presumed his husband had been too engrossed in his inspections to notice.
‘You’ll never be able to prove that,’ Leferge says.
‘And yet, it’s the truth.’ Cat stands. He thanks the physicians who catered to his questions.
He makes his way closer to Elician and Leferge.
‘I asked about the timing on our way here. Death came to Endura the same day the Reapers assaulted Altas. She…slaughtered the city in retribution for what was done to Altas. There is nothing Elician or any Giver can do to fix what happened. Altas was saved because those people were never meant to die in the first place…Reapers were never meant to be used in battle, for a slaughter. And despite the timing and the wait…Death refused to accept their souls; she let them be reclaimed and their bodies be reformed. Endura couldn’t be saved because…
Death wanted the city to die. She wanted Alelune to feel the consequence of its actions.
If Gillage had not sent those Reapers to Altas, Endura would still be alive. ’
‘And we would not need to break our own taboos and allow a Giver to heal any of us,’ Leferge agrees. ‘Especially not a Soleben one.’
You are welcome to try to survive it on your own, Elician thinks, smiling as politely as he can. He says, ‘None of this is ideal,’ and leaves it at that.
‘Can you actually do it?’ Leferge asks.
‘With your permission?’ Cat asks in turn. ‘Would you mind stepping away, please?’ he asks of the physicians. They wait for Leferge’s sharp nod then do as they’re bid. Cat holds his hand out to Elician. Elician interlaces their fingers. He closes his eyes and breathes in. Breathes out.
Without Fen there, it takes Elician a moment longer to map and trace exactly what he needs to do.
But then…it is there. As simple as wading into a river, he feels everything.
Beating hearts, shuddering lungs. The frantic energy of quickly multiplying cells, excess and surplus pulsing across his consciousness.
And Cat, at his side, perfect and whole and utterly in balance.
Cat breathes in, Elician matches his pace.
They breathe out together. They pull life and death between them, cutting here, culling there, rebuilding that which was broken and lost. Cat kills the excess, Elician guides the return back to health.
He hears gasps. Shocked voices. Footsteps. He loses time, chasing after Cat, wrapping around his power and smoothing out each broken edge. Life, but death. Death, but life. There cannot be one without the other and they are there to ensure both can thrive in exactly the way they must.
By the time the last person is healed, Elician’s hand aches. Cat’s fingers are still so tight around his palm. His eyes flutter open. It is well after nightfall. Partho and Leferge are sitting together on a bench nearby. Cat sways and Elician shifts, bracing his shoulder. ‘All right?’ he murmurs.
‘All right,’ Cat murmurs back.
Partho stands. He offers them a chance to sit. They take it. ‘I’ve never seen a Giver heal before,’ he says. ‘It’s…unlike anything I would have imagined.’
‘It’s a lot faster usually,’ Elician tells him. ‘This…this is complicated. And I can’t do it without him.’
‘But everyone…all of your kind, you can heal that quickly? Without even touching anyone or anything?’
‘No,’ Elician replies. ‘No, usually you need to touch someone. But…’ He can’t explain it.
He remembers wanting to heal Lio, more than anything in the world.
And he had been willing to do anything he could to reach across all the great distance between them and cling to Lio’s soul with both hands.
‘If you want something bad enough, then I suppose you don’t need to touch it.
’ Cat huffs to his left. He leans more solidly against Elician’s shoulder, and Partho sputters, says they should get them to their tent to rest properly.
It’s inappropriate, to be so familiar with someone. Here, where anyone can see.
‘Sometimes you do need to touch someone,’ Cat whispers in Soleben as Partho runs off to summon some assistance.
Leferge clears her throat. Elician winces. He’d forgotten she was still there. Still watching. ‘You said you were here to help,’ Leferge says in Lunae.
‘Yes,’ Cat agrees in his mother tongue.
‘You intend to heal your way across this country, all the way to Alerae?’
‘And save any I can.’
The general peers down her nose at him. ‘I will provide you an escort,’ she says. ‘And my men will follow any word I give them. But you will need to convince the people to allow you to heal them. In that, I will not interfere.’
‘Thank you,’ Cat says.
She casts one look at the sick beds, where her soldiers no longer suffer in agony, curled on their sides in despair. ‘Let us hope that this was a risk worth taking. And that this too does not bring down the wrath of the gods.’
‘I hope so too.’ It is all they can hope for. But Leferge seems to accept it. And for now, tonight, their task is over.