Chapter Thirty-Five Elician
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Elician
Alest descends to the underground cells himself.
The cages were opened at his word, but the same woman who gave the order returned to say the Reapers had not left.
It is exactly as Brielle said, all those months ago.
Even if the cages are open, where would they go?
And so, Alest goes to them. He walks down into the darkness of his childhood, and when the faces of his people see him, the sound they make is in perfect, aligned harmony.
It is a great cacophony of noise bursting out from the nothingness, echoing from one cage to the next.
Alest steps forward and reaches into one cell, then the next.
He never makes it to the third. They all emerge on their own by then.
They scramble forth, hissing and reaching.
He hisses and reaches back. They touch him, embrace him.
Elician stands by, silent and watching. It is not his place to interfere.
He memorizes it anyway. It is beautiful.
Rows and rows of emaciated bodies crawl forth and draw in close behind Alest. They stumble but never fall.
Hands and arms and bodies that have always yearned for touch but have never been granted the relief catch each trembling form and keep themselves steady and unified as they leave the dark behind.
Alest leads them to rooms where dignitaries usually stay, where noblemen frolic in their luxury.
Many choose to remain in groups, some seven or eight to a room, not interested in much more than the joy and contact of a family they have known by sight and sound alone.
And once the Reapers are given sanctuary in his palace, Alest orders the gates to be opened for the rest of his people to be escorted into the city.
And from there, the city is drowned in noise.
City bells chime with endless dedication.
Cheers and cries and exclamations echo from one building to the next.
Fires are lit and instruments sound. Singing commences and they all scream Alest’s name.
They call for him to stand before them and he does.
For each servant and courtier and layman who ask for him, he goes, and he does his duty.
By the time the first dawn rises, neither Elician nor Alest has slept.
There is still so much more that needs to be done.
‘You need to rest,’ Elician murmurs in between people clamouring for Alest’s attention.
He nods at once, seeming genuinely relieved at the mere thought of the idea.
Elician reaches for him, and Alest reaches back.
He gives final orders and commands, then he leads Elician away.
They walk in silence down halls and up stairs.
They loop around the palace until they come to a solitary tower with only one entrance leading up.
Old torches line the spiral stairs, having been unlit for some time.
Alest lights them himself, a tired squint of his eyes all it takes before they’re dancing at his will.
He sags hard against Elician, but Elician catches him.
Elician will always catch him. He shifts, securing one arm around Alest’s waist to hold him steady.
‘No more,’ Elician murmurs to him in the cold dark of the stairs. ‘You need to rest,’ he says again.
‘Mm tired,’ Alest slurs, and Elician nods. He adjusts his hold and leads them on. They do not need to see. Not now. It is an easy climb, and it doesn’t take them long. They walk until they reach another door, and this one Elician opens.
The bedroom inside is almost perfectly preserved.
Despite the torches on the stairs, the room hasn’t been left to deteriorate or rot.
The furniture is neat and orderly, the bedding made.
‘It was my room, once,’ Alest murmurs as they stumble towards the bed.
‘My mother…let me stay here after executions sometimes. And once a year…on Tomestange, I came here and spent the day at her side.’
‘How kind,’ Elician says. It’s as generous as he can be.
He guides Alest back so he can lie properly on the bed.
He tugs at Alest’s boots, his belt. They undress just enough to be comfortable.
‘Did you draw pictures of me under your bed too?’ Elician asks him, just to see him smile.
He does, gentle and fond. He reaches out with his eyes closed and Elician brings him to his chest. ‘Sleep, love,’ Elician encourages. ‘Just sleep.’
Together, they do.
And still the chaos rages.
Whole days are spent just trying to understand the state of the country. Alest asks for reports on the plague, and couriers go out immediately to fetch him intelligence. He asks where the other Reapers of Alelune are being kept. He starts making lists on where to go next and who to liberate first.
Elician writes an update to be sent back to Soleb.
Leferge leads her army out of the city in search of news regarding the plague and calls for help.
Partho takes control of the palace staff proper while Madame Leonde becomes their go-between, transmitting news directly to the people of Alerae as they work desperately to find some kind of balance or peace in any of it.
And eventually, in the end, Alest arranges a meeting with his little brother.
Even with the consequences of resurrection having been so keenly felt across their continent, Elician isn’t surprised that Alest brought his brother back.
Perhaps the only real surprise was in realizing he could, and that, despite having claimed him – Death had agreed to let Gillage go.
But Alest is a kind man. A kinder man than Elician is, in truth.
Elician wouldn’t have tried to do the same, and he certainly wouldn’t have deigned to hear what Gillage had to say when it was over.
But when Alest rallies himself at the door of his brother’s room, he does so with Elician at his side.
For even if Elician doesn’t agree, he also will not begrudge Alest his choices.
They walk inside the room and find all that remains of a twisted boy king that had been nothing but vicious and cruel his whole life.
He’s curled up on his bed, covers up to his shoulders, with tear stains on his cheeks.
He sits up when they enter, hissing ‘I don’t want to see you,’ as he slaps the evidence of his weeping from his face.
‘I don’t care,’ Alest replies. ‘Come here,’ he commands. Elician doubts Gillage will listen, but the boy does. He throws his covers off and stalks across the floor. He stands before them in his night clothes, curly hair akimbo.
‘Come to gloat, brother?’ Gillage asks.
‘No,’ Alest replies.
‘She killed me,’ Gillage says. His voice trembles a little. ‘Death killed me, and you defied her!’
‘If she truly wanted you to stay dead, I would not have been able to bring you back,’ Alest replies. His voice is calm and steady. His gaze does not waver from his brother’s face.
‘I should have died there!’
‘You did,’ Alest says. ‘And now you live again.’
‘To suffer your agonies?’
‘To change, in this life, into something else. Something, perhaps, deserving of forgiveness.’
‘If you think I will ever bow to a thing like you—’
‘You already have.’ Alest is patience personified. He doesn’t rise to the boy’s anger, doesn’t answer a shout with a shout. He just looks and speaks and stands still as water on a windless day.
‘I’ll kill myself before I listen to you, you freak.’
Elician is not patience personified. Agitation boils in his blood and he steps towards Gillage with his arms crossed. ‘Mind your tongue, little boy,’ he grinds out. ‘Or maybe we stop being nice.’
Gillage scowls, turning on him, preparing to spew more vitriol.
Alest interrupts. ‘Our mother was awful to you,’ he says.
Gillage’s mouth snaps shut. ‘When I died, you should have been treated as the next heir. She should have taught you better. Raised you better. She was wrong, Gillage. But it wasn’t my fault. ’
‘You don’t know anything.’
‘I know enough,’ Alest says. ‘She was wrong to treat you the way she did. She was wrong to allow Nured so much time and space around you, wrong to have never curbed him or his inclinations. Perhaps if she had been a better mother, things wouldn’t have turned out this way.
But here we are. I’m the King of Alelune, and things will change as a result.
You will never wear a crown, Gillage. You will never be permitted to hurt people the way you hurt me.
But you have a chance to change. That is why Death let you return.
That is the bargain struck for your new life.
To change, and be something better than you were before. ’
‘I don’t want something better. I want to be king!’
‘You were a king. You led your people to their deaths. You were not a good king. It is time for something else.’ There is a breakfast table in Gillage’s room.
Two chairs only. Alest glances at Elician, but Elician has no intention of sitting anywhere near Gillage.
He easily leans against the wall at one end of the room as Alest settles into the closest chair.
‘Sit,’ he commands his brother once more.
Gillage sits. For all his bluff and bluster, he is still, surprisingly, just a child.
A child who has lost everything he held dear and is now stranded at the mercy of those he tormented.
Elician doesn’t envy him. He hopes that one day he will not even have to think of him.
He never wants to see Gillage again if he can avoid it.
Sooner or later, he knows that’s exactly what will happen.
They will outlive him. Eventually, they will move on.