Chapter Thirty Cat #2
He finds Elician, Leferge and Partho and is prepared to tell them he’s ready to leave, when he sees Leonde with them as well. Elician steps to one side, welcoming him into the conversation with ease. ‘Madame?’ Cat says slowly, drawing near.
‘Stello.’ She bows. ‘We’ve decided to accompany you.’ He blinks at her, not certain what she means. ‘We have food and supplies with us that we can donate to the army’s supply train, and if you are serious about overthrowing Gillage, you will need support. We will give that to you.’
‘Madame…if we arrive at Alerae with an army and half the country besides, it will appear as if we mean to sack the city,’ Cat says. ‘I came here to heal the sick, and once I reach Gillage…I’ve only ever intended to go to him and issue my challenge before Death. I don’t wish to fight my brother.’
‘Then it will be in his best incentive to open the gates to Alerae and let you in,’ Leonde informs him primly. ‘We would still be suffering without you, and so we will help you to help all those who might question you on your way.’
He is not sure he understands. He looks to Leferge, who simply says, ‘Your people want to help you, Stello. Will you deny them their desire?’
‘My people,’ he echoes. Not his Reapers, who trust him because of what he is to them, but his people. The ones he was born to lead but has never once been permitted the opportunity to do so. No, that is not true.
Once, when he was a child, he held a flag. He looks up at the top of Leonde’s inn and watches his country’s banner flying proudly in a strong south wind. ‘May I carry your flag, Madame?’ he asks her.
Her eyes widen and her back straightens. ‘Yes, my stello. It would be my honour.’
Leferge lets the army know. Their march is now an escort, and all the able-bodied people of Ines will join them on their quest.
Elician helps Cat into his saddle while a boy attaches a flag-boot to his stirrup. When they leave Ines, fifty villagers come with them. They travel west to Alerae one slow and careful step at a time.
Why? Cat asks each of them individually throughout their journey north to the capital. Why come with me?
To see if it’s possible to change, they tell him. To see if a Reaper truly is our king.
And the answer he likes best of all: To believe.
They march through the country, stopping at each city, town and village, one right after another.
There are scores dead from the plague, but still communities are doing their very best to hold on – physicians tending to every person in the only way they can.
Treating symptoms, providing relief and hoping they can keep their patients alive as long as possible.
When the army and its followers approach these villages, Madame Leonde takes it upon herself to speak to the townspeople first. A herald, old and wise, and one of the people first and foremost.
Stories, Cat learns, are the currency of Alelune, not gold or coin or material goods.
Cieli whetted the people’s appetite in the months before their march.
Pamphlets have eased their way too. All have heard of their Reaper prince, it seems, of the boy cast into the cells and forgotten about until now.
And when combined with the mythic status of the Blue Guard and the stone that marks him as heir, when backed by an army that speaks of genocide and murder and betrayal by those in power, when the faces and voices of a clamouring crowd of civilians rise up to say they march only because they believe they must: the stories gain weight. Now they are too weighty to ignore.
The physicians ask if he can really help. They step aside when they realize he and Elician can.
From place to place, people to people, the stories become bolder.
Stronger. Dozens saved, then hundreds, thousands.
They speak of Cat’s eloquence as he passed his initiation test against General Leferge herself, wilfully accepting her battle prowess and setting aside his pride for the sake of his people.
They speak of his efforts, of the whole cities saved by him and the Soleben king he has sworn to his service, who bows and bends and accepts that their people too deserve to live.
The stories grow, and Elician and Cat continue to work, exhausting themselves past the point of consciousness at times.
Midway through purifying one city or another, Cat realizes he cannot tell where his power ends and Elician’s begins.
Death and Life spiral between them, a helix of twisting possibility, a coin spinning endlessly and never stopping.
‘What happens if you cut the coin in half?’ Cat mumbles to Elician when they have saved the last dregs of a beleaguered city by their will alone, their minds blurring from the possibility of it all, their energy flagging.
They curl against each other the moment they find a place to sleep, and Elician holds him like he is the only thing in the world worth cherishing.
‘Hrm?’ Elician grunts against Cat’s neck.
‘Life and Death are two sides of a coin,’ Cat says. ‘What if…we cut right down the thin edge, make the back the front. Is the back still Death? Is it Life now?’
‘Go to sleep,’ Elician grumbles. He kisses Cat’s neck. Cat’s eyes flutter. He lets himself lie boneless and still in Elician’s arms, feels how Elician’s lips just linger there, unintentionally alluring as Elician dozes against his skin.
There is a potted plant in their room for the evening.
Cat reaches for it and watches it die instantly, just with a thought.
It shrivels, water seeping from it. All it would need to do is go back to where it belongs…
water serving as a vehicle for giving all things life.
‘You’re thinking too loud,’ Elician grumbles.
‘Sorry.’ Cat closes his eyes. He yawns. He goes to sleep, and dreams of making flowers bloom.