Chapter Twenty-Four Fenlia #2
‘How do you know there haven’t been? In any case, why do you think Reapers are not allowed on battlefields, Fenlia?
’ she asks. ‘Why do you think the gods have forbidden it? Actions always have consequences. We’ll learn about theirs one day, I’m sure.
In the meantime, we can count ourselves lucky for now because we do know how to reverse this plague.
But make no mistake: we won’t be able to save everyone.
And every death that occurs? They would not have died if Elician had not given Alelune the means to use his powers in the first place, and if he had not seen fit to resurrect an entire city from the dead.
Even without the pendants…one way or another, this plague was coming, and it is his fault. ’
‘He didn’t cause this on purpose,’ Fen whispers. ‘I don’t know how they made those pendants – but he wouldn’t have let them if he knew what would happen or if he could have stopped it. I know he made the best choices that he could, and—’
‘Your loyalty to him is charming, but it does not matter whether it was on purpose or not. Or if, in hindsight, he would have done something differently. And it isn’t going to mean a damn thing once the people realize how this truly started.
And make no mistake, there have always been those who want more direct control over the throne than they have now.
He has just given them a perfect reason why their cause is right, especially since he is once again in absentia.
’ Fen’s hands curl into fists. Zinnitzia stares right back at her, unflinching and uncompromising.
‘You haven’t asked yet about what ended the last plague.
Why we haven’t just snapped our fingers and made things right like we must have done way back when. ’
‘What ended the last plague?’ she asks bitterly.
Zinnitzia is slow in responding, choosing her words very carefully.
‘The god did,’ she says, pausing between each word.
‘Marina and I made a pact with our deity. We promised balance, and the plague was lifted in response. We will not be listened to a second time, as we have clearly failed in maintaining that which we were meant to protect. But that is what is needed. Balance. And if you’re truly going to try for inoculation, Elena…
perhaps finding a way to manage that would be best.’
‘You…you’ve spoken to Life?’ Fen asks. She has never heard of anyone speaking to Life. Cat swears he has seen and spoken with Death, but Life?
‘It hardly matters now. If you want this plague to be over, all we can do is work to regain the gods’ trust in us. Trust that we will agree to balance. But trust is fast to break and hard to rebuild. This plague is going to get worse before it gets better. The only thing we can do is move forward.’
‘And hope that somehow the gods trust we’ve found balance?’ Fen hisses.
‘Yes. And for that to happen…Fen, I’m elevating you to a cleric of Kreuzfurt. I want you to be responsible for teaching the Reapers and Givers here how to overcome this plague.’
‘What?‘ She cannot be serious. She simply cannot. ‘Are you insane?’ The Reapers and Givers of Kreuzfurt hate her; she isn’t too fond of them either, for that matter. And if any of the Alelunen Reapers come to help here – she knows she will not be able to do much better by them in turn.
Zinnitzia sighs. She pinches the bridge of her nose, then asks: ‘Elena…Cieli…may we have the room?’ It is phrased as a question, but Fen’s companions comply as though it’s an order.
They step out like chickens rushing for the shelter of their coop, foxes already seen lurking in the distance.
Fen’s temper flares once more. Her fists clench and unclench.
The door clicks shut, and Fen opens her mouth to speak, but Zinnitzia always needs to get the first word in.
‘Do you remember the day you came to Kreuzfurt?’
It is not the question Fen was expecting, and it catches her off guard.
She finds herself stumbling on the script she had formed, the one decrying Zinnitzia for everything that has led them to this moment in time.
The one that furiously screeched: Why are you doing this now?
She says, ‘Yes,’ but before she can say more, Zinnitzia continues.
‘I thought you would be the first one since Marina and me to figure it out. You were so close so many times.’
It’s as if Zinnitzia is having a different conversation than Fen. ‘Figure what out? What does this have to do with me teaching your precious Givers?’
‘Everything,’ Zinnitzia sighs. ‘Do you know why I pushed you so hard, Fen?’
‘Because you’re a sadist?’
Zinnitzia laughs. It barks out of her mouth as she tosses her head back.
She leans further against the desk and shakes her head, even though she is smiling at Fen with something that disturbingly seems like fondness.
‘No,’ she replies. ‘I took no pleasure in tormenting you. It’s hard to enjoy tormenting an idiot, after all. ’
Fen snarls at her. ‘You cannot call me that. I’m—’
‘Exactly what you were when you were eleven years old and first stepped into Kreuzfurt,’ Zinnitzia informs her, utterly impassive.
‘You have a talent, Fen, an ability that is so unique and so extraordinary that you cannot see past your own idiocy to realize it. You spend so much time looking at what everyone else can do on instinct that you don’t look at what you can do. ’
‘I don’t know what I can do.’
‘Yes, you do. You did it all the way to Himmelsheim. So, explain it to me,’ Zinnitzia beseeches.
‘Explain it to me like you’ll be explaining it to them, because the Reapers and Givers that are here now, in this city, are going to have to listen to you.
You’re one of the only people who knows how to fix it.
So, you’re going to have to explain it.’
She does not want to explain. She has questions of her own. ‘Why didn’t you combine the Reaper and Giver Houses to begin with? You fought this plague once before. Why would you keep us separate if we might have to work together one day?’
‘I don’t think you fully appreciate just how much politics is involved in the operation of the Kreuzfurt conclave.
If you think Marina and I had any say in how it operated, you’re sorely mistaken.
We were installed at Kreuzfurt to clean up the mess left behind after the first plague ransacked its way through Soleb.
We were put there to make sure that Reapers and Givers only used their abilities when sanctioned by the crown, and the Houses were designed to ensure that no one school took dominance over another.
Every part of Kreuzfurt’s function is to stop another plague from starting, not prepare for a second one.
A second one was never considered. And for hundreds of years, it worked. Now, tell me how your gift works, Fen.’
‘It doesn’t,’ she snaps back.
‘How can you possibly say that after everything you’ve done? Everything you’ve seen?’
‘I can’t heal like Elician or you!’
‘I don’t care about how we heal; how do you heal?’
‘But that’s what you’ve always cared about! All you’ve ever wanted me to do is heal like you!’
‘All I’ve ever wanted is for you to understand the answer to a question I wasn’t allowed to ask you—’
‘What are you even talking about?’
‘—But you’ve worked with Elena; you’ve gone to battle. You’ve healed patients right outside these walls. Tell me how you do it.’
Fen thinks of fire bursting into life, molecules and atoms and movement.
She thinks of speeding up things that have long since gone still, of friction and energy and electricity that scampers from one electron to another, charging it and motivating it.
She thinks of the way death feels beneath her skin: a gaping openness waiting to be filled.
She thinks of doorways and keyholes and metaphors, and she stares at Zinnitzia and knows none of it is what Zinnitzia is looking for.
‘I don’t know what you want from me,’ she tells her. ‘I have never understood what you wanted from me.’
Zinnitzia’s shoulders sag. She sighs, long and disappointed.
Fen has a history of disappointing her. But once again, seeing her failures reflected on Zinnitzia’s features sends a flicker of despair through Fen’s body.
She crosses her arms, trying desperately to keep from showing the pain that has made its home deep in her heart.
It is a familiar pain. For years she tried every day to receive Zinnitzia’s approval, and every day she failed.
Eventually, not trying became as important to her as trying.
At least then it was her choices, and not her failures, that lost Zinnitzia’s faith in her.
‘Givers don’t start with raising the dead,’ Zinnitzia says. Fen knows this; she’s heard it time and time again. ‘Why did you?’
‘I don’t know. I’m stupid. I’m a freak.’
‘What do you think of when you touch the dead?’ Zinnitzia asks.
Her hand reaches out and Fen flinches, expecting a strike.
It does not land. Instead, she gently pulls Fen’s hand towards her, ignoring how Fen’s fingers quiver with uncertainty at the touch.
‘When you touch things that are dead, what do you feel?’
‘I feel…possibility.’
Zinnitzia smiles. ‘And why can’t you heal injuries? Why can you only raise the dead or mitigate possibilities?’
‘Because I’m broken! And stupid! And I never figured it out! But you seem to know. You seem to know everything, so why don’t you tell me? Why am I never good enough? Well? Tell me.‘