Chapter Thirty-Three Fenlia #2
She steps out into the hall. Zinnitzia is waiting with Kassandra. ‘You brought her back?’ Hamad howls.
And, as she did for Aniya, Fen lies: ‘Yes. So she may speak testimony at all your many trials yet to come.’ Hiding her from view was the most difficult part.
Fen kept her unconscious, ensured she stayed in that horrible, lingering state, a living soul in a body that may as well have been dead.
Her body was carted out with all the others, but there – in a graveyard of ash and bone, with no witnesses save those who knew what Fen was hoping to achieve, Kassandra was finally, properly healed.
The young woman looks tired and worn beyond measure.
But her eyes tear up when she sees her daughter, and Fen passes Aniya back into her care as gently as she’s able.
Kassandra sobs brokenly, loudly, curling around her beloved child and clinging to her like she will never again let go.
‘Ma?’ Aniya’s sleepy voice calls, and Kassandra wails her daughter’s name.
She kisses her cheeks, her hair, her eyes, her nose, her lips.
She snuggles her child and cries harder when Aniya mirrors those wails in turn.
Zinnitzia’s hand touches Fen’s shoulder. ‘Lio, if we may have the room back?’ she asks.
Hamad hurls an insult at Lio as Lio binds his hands and shoves him violently down the hall. ‘Give me a reason,’ he tells Hamad. ‘I only need one.’
Kassandra needs less than one. When she lifts her head from her daughter’s hair, rage propels her forward.
She punches Hamad in the face so hard that his head snaps back against the hallway wall.
Lio doesn’t bother to catch him, and the lord falls to his bottom as blood spurts down his face.
‘I will cheer at your hanging,’ Kassandra seethes.
Zinnitzia guides Fen back, though, away from the conflict and escalating drama.
She guides her into her room, and Fen watches as Lio yanks Hamad up to his feet and shoves him out for transport.
They will take him to Himmelsheim if he’s lucky.
If he’s not, then he will rot in a Crowen prison until Elician returns to claim him.
Fen doubts the man is very lucky. He was foiled by her, after all.
Fen’s hands tremble. Zinnitzia sits beside her. She holds her steady, supporting her. Kind. All things Fen has never once associated with her former mentor that she so desperately needs in this moment more than anything else. ‘You’ll need to carry that lie for as long as they live,’ Zinnitzia says.
‘I’ll do it,’ Fen replies. ‘There are worse lies to keep.’
‘Perhaps,’ Zinnitzia agrees. ‘I take it, then, you may have come to a realization?’
‘Yes.’ Fen curls forward, presses the heels of her palms to her eyes. ‘You told me from the beginning, a god ended the plague. A god made your efforts in vain. You never used the plural.’
‘There are rules,’ Zinnitzia says. ‘Things that I can say, things that I can’t. I swore an oath on those rules, and so I must follow them. But there are caveats. There are loopholes. I tried to tell you where I could.’
Fen looks down at her hands. ‘We are called Exalted,’ she whispers. ‘Both Giver and Reaper in one name. For we have always been the same.’
‘Every Giver has the capacity to be a Reaper. Every Reaper can be a Giver. They can do so because the gods are also made this way.’
‘Life and Death were never separate. They were always the same god. So, it was always the same power. I could command Kassandra’s body to fail…to make it seem like she was dead. I could give Aniya a plague that would kill her, and I could reverse all those actions as well.’
‘The answer is simple if you think about it,’ Zinnitzia murmurs.
‘The sun shines on the moon, but the moon doesn’t provide its own light.
The moon reflects the sun. And so, the light we see is always the sun.
The power is always the sun. The power is always real.
It’s always true. It’s always yours to take and use however you need to use it. ’
‘All things must die,’ Fen says softly, the phrase so familiar and true. ‘And so, all things must live.’
‘Because living is to dying as dying is to living. They feed into each other now and for ever. They always will.’
‘I could have truly done it, then?’ Fen asks. If Fen thinks hard enough, she can summon the phantom sensation of Kassandra’s hand around her palm, of holding it tight and looking at Kassandra’s face and willing her pain to stop. ‘I could have just killed them outright. Like a Reaper.’
‘A touch of the skin,’ Zinnitzia agrees. She slips one hand into the long pocket of her dress. She withdraws an apple. A little dented, a little bruised. She holds it out, and Fen takes it. Just like the game she and Cat used to play. Only here, now, in her hands – she commands the apple to die.
And it does.
‘You and Marina were the ones who stopped the first plague,’ Fen murmurs, willing the fruit to return to full freshness only to stop it, kill it, and do it again.
‘We realized the truth together, and once we understood…we were able to help those around us, together or apart, healing and killing and making right the world. When the god came before us, they thanked us. They made us swear not to pass on what we knew.’
‘Why?’
‘Because it’s a test, Fen. One all Givers and Reapers must face. You must be willing to look inside yourself, understand yourself, and understand what your own existence is and means in your own way. And the only way to reach your answer is to take the journey to get there.’
‘What happens if you fail the test?’ she asks.
‘There is no failing,’ Zinnitzia says. ‘Because there is no end. When we die, we return to the earth. The water takes us and brings us a new form, a new life, and from there, we can try again. It’s been over a thousand years.
You’re the first Giver I’ve seen find the answer on her own.
The others didn’t fail their tests, they just found other answers that were more meaningful to them. That’s all it means.’
‘Are you going to live for ever?’ Fen asks. ‘Am I?’
‘No,’ Zinnitzia says. ‘Not for ever.’ She reaches out a hand and very gently cups Fen’s cheek.
‘You will live until you no longer wish to do so any longer, until you feel you have no more to give to this world. Then you will lie down and ask the earth to take you back, and Death will come for you like she comes for everyone else. It’s your choice to go on, Fen. That, too, is another test.’
‘How many tests are there?’
‘A limitless amount. That is what it means to exist. You will be tested, same as everyone else in this world, for all the rest of your long life. Sometimes, they will even take the shape of a strong-willed girl who is so close to understanding the truth but who you can never properly speak to or guide.’ Zinnitzia lets her hand fall to her lap.
‘I’m sorry I was so cruel to you, Fen. Much of what I said and did, you did not deserve. ’
‘Some of it I did,’ Fen allows. Zinnitzia smiles. Nods.
‘Some of it you did, but much…you did not.’
‘One day, if I meet a kid like me…I’ll know what not to do, at least,’ Fen offers charitably.
Zinnitzia laughs. It’s a nice sound. She rests her head on Zinnitzia’s shoulder, and Zinnitzia holds her close.
So much time has been wasted on Hamad and his games, his coup and his attempt at regency, and all of it, in the end, would not have stopped upon Elician’s return.
Someone like Hamad didn’t plan that hard, for that long, to then bow to another man.
Maybe it would have taken time, a few more years, perhaps, but eventually, Hamad would have made it so Elician would lose his seat too, turning a whole nation against their king who apparently fled while illness plagued them.
‘Have we heard anything from Alelune yet?’ Fen asks.
‘Not yet,’ Zinnitzia replies. ‘Not yet.’
Fen closes her eyes and wills herself to believe: not yet, but soon.