Chapter Thirty-Five Elician #2
Alest asks Gillage questions of state, things that a king should know but Alest has never been able to learn.
Farming, taxation, important ports of trade and commerce.
He asks about the plague and Gillage scowls and does his best to obfuscate.
‘Where is Eline de Carsay?’ he asks as well.
Elician’s fingers dig into the tender skin of his crossed arms. He glares down his nose at Gillage and waits for the answer.
They have searched all of Alerae. They found her office, clean and neat and tidy with no evidence of either the pendants or Elician’s time under her care.
They found her assigned rooms, empty and free of all her belongings.
‘Glaika,’ Gillage replies. ‘She wanted to consult some researcher in the south. She left months ago.’
‘Months…around when Altas was attacked, then?’ Alest asks.
‘What does it matter? Call her back if you care that much about her.’ Elician has rarely had an opportunity to speak with anyone from his mother’s homeland. Adalei served as an ambassador there for several years, though. He can make use of contacts to conduct a search.
It will take time, but, ‘We’ll find her,’ he swears to Alest. He will find her and hold her accountable for everything she caused. One way or another.
‘Why did she even make those pendants?’ Alest asks Gillage.
‘Mother told her to,’ Gillage mutters mutinously.
‘Mother? Not you?’
‘Since when did anyone listen to me? Even when I had the crown…’ Gillage huffs, crossing his arms. ‘Mother thought if no one could die to Reapers then no one would fear you for being the freak you are.’
It almost sounds like the kind of twisted logic that would emerge from that woman, Elician thinks as he watches Alest nodding slowly, taking in the information with a pinched expression.
Gillage likely embellished the reasoning, his bias and hatred slipping into the crevices where perhaps Alenée would have demonstrated if not love then decorum.
But when Alest speaks next, it is not to follow up on Gillage’s declaration.
Rather, to ask: ‘What do you want done with Nured?’, and that catches Elician off guard.
Nured, as far as Elician knows, has been remanded to his quarters.
Neither of them wants to see the man milling about.
Elician was perfectly content with the idea of tossing Nured into the empty Reaper cells and leaving him to die.
Clearly that isn’t something Alest has any interest in pursuing. But to ask Gillage? Now, like this?
Gillage stares at Alest dumbly, then flicks his wrist. ‘Whatever you want. He’s your attack dog now, isn’t he? Aren’t they all? King?’
‘No,’ Alest says. ‘I won’t use him for that.
’ He’s watching his brother with such an intense focus, Elician feels as though he’s missed something pivotal here.
It’s not the time or place to ask, but he wants to, badly.
‘I intend to have him executed,’ Alest continues. ‘But if you want him to stay with you—’
‘Kill him. What do I care?’ Gillage snaps. He slumps down in his chair as if utterly unbothered by the suggestion. But there is something more there. Elician reaches out with his senses, feels Gillage’s accelerated heartbeat in his mind, the flush of hormones that translate to emotions of relief.
‘All right,’ Alest murmurs. ‘I will.’ Then, finally, with great solemnity, Alest asks, ‘Why did you send the Reapers to slaughter Altas?’ Gillage shrugs his shoulders. ‘No, tell me. Tell me plainly. Why did you send those Reapers to slaughter Altas?’
‘Can’t be a war if everybody’s dead,’ Gillage mumbles. ‘With those pendants…none of our people would die and we could win, then we never would have had to fight again. And everyone would be happy.’
‘Except everyone in Soleb.’
‘But they’re the bad guys. Who cares if a whole city of theirs ends up dead?’
Oh. Alest’s lips part, his eyes widen, and Elician sees the exact moment Alest realizes he will need to break this news to a boy too na?ve to know better. Alest is quiet, gentle. He doesn’t want to cause pain.
‘Have you heard about the city of Endura?’ Alest asks.
Gillage frowns, nose scrunching on his elfin face.
‘Death came to Endura after Altas was destroyed. And she killed everyone there.’
Gillage recoils. He presses his spine against the back of his chair. The blood leaches from his face until he is as white as the marble of Death’s statue.
He shakes his head. Tears bead in his eyes. ‘That’s…that’s not my fault.’
‘A city of your own people for a city of theirs. That was the balance created.’
‘But…but that’s not fair. That’s not…no, I didn’t…’ He thrusts a finger at Elician. ‘You brought Altas back, so it’s not fair!’
‘You were willing to let my people die for nothing,’ Elician replies savagely. ‘Now yours have. Because of you.’
‘That’s not fair!’
‘It isn’t,’ Alest agrees quietly. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘It’s not on me. You can’t…you can’t say that that’s my fault.’
Elician wants to take this boy and shake him until reason enters his mind, until the totality of his actions slips past denial and enters into full understanding.
He wants to strike his face and shock the sense into him.
But Alest wouldn’t approve of that. ‘He can say it, and he did,’ Elician snaps.
‘Because this is your burden to bear. You wanted a city dead, and now you have one. Your own people. The ones you were so desperate to protect and be loved by. You killed them. And now you must live with it.’
Gillage throws himself at Alest then, bare hands reaching for Alest’s face.
Alest catches his hands with his gloved fingers before they make contact.
He holds his jerking and desperate wrists, gasping as the boy shouts and flails and screams, ‘I hate you, I hate you, I hate you! Why couldn’t you just let me die? ’
Elician catches him by the waist and throws him back. Gillage crashes to the ground, sobbing loudly, hands pressed to his face. ‘I’m sorry,’ Alest whispers. ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘Everything would have been fine if you had just stayed in your cell like you were supposed to!’ Gillage shouts. ‘If you had just died and—’
‘We should go,’ Elician says. He takes Alest by the arm, but Alest doesn’t let Elician lead him away. He steps past his husband, kneeling at Gillage’s side.
‘You have so much to make up for,’ Alest tells the boy. ‘But I believe you will.’
‘Why would you believe that? How can you possibly believe that?’
‘Because you have our mother’s determination. And she would have been proud to see you make it right.’
‘I don’t care what she thinks.’
‘Yes,’ Alest murmurs. ‘You do.’
Finally, Alest nods to Elician and makes for the door. It has not come a moment too soon. ‘Elician,’ Gillage calls just before they leave. He turns. The boy rubs his still damp cheeks.
‘King Elician,’ he corrects.
‘King,’ Gillage bites back. ‘Your uncle was buried in a pauper’s grave.
’ Elician commits this boy’s face to memory.
He burns the sunken eyes and sharp cheeks into his mind.
His husband has a soft heart, but Elician is not nearly so forgiving.
He ensures that there will never be a moment in his life where he forgets the cruelty and madness of this child.
‘With,’ Gillage goes on, somewhat more subdued, ‘what was left of that woman you cared for.’ He says the rest to his brother.
Alest freezes at the words, trapped in place and memory. Brielle. Her body.
‘Thank you,’ Alest says. ‘Goodbye, Gillage.’
They leave without another word exchanged.
The pace they keep is brisk and sharp, walking down stairs and twisting about corners.
Elician realizes some of their journey is even familiar.
‘This is how Morsen helped me escape – we went through here,’ he murmurs.
Alest doesn’t reply. He keeps going, faster and faster until he is right at the edge of running.
He doesn’t make the final transition but continues to move swiftly until they reach a door that leads outside.
Elician breathes in the crisp morning air as it slices across his lungs.
He looks out at the massive graveyard that had been his only source of relief in this city.
There are no fresh plots. Elician casts his mind into the dirt and feels nothing but bones.
There are no souls here. Elician recognizes certain markers though.
He walks slowly and quietly, at odds with their rush to arrive.
Alest trails at his side, eyes going from plot to plot as if he can see the very place where their family has been cast.
They stop over one strip of dirt. ‘It’s where they put Lio when they killed him,’ Elician murmurs. ‘He dug himself out of this grave, delirious and weak.’
‘There’s no one left to bring back here.’
‘No,’ Elician agrees. ‘The water’s moved on.
’ He kneels before the patch anyway. His hand sinks into the dirt.
His eyes close. He cannot identify one body from another.
Some have been stacked up and some are solitary, but there is no way to sift through the bones of this place and know who is who.
‘I knew they would kill him,’ Elician says.
‘Laure even said so. And yet…’ Only Brielle’s head was given to them, and perhaps there had been the smallest bit of hope that maybe that meant Gillage wanted to keep torturing Anslian.
He hadn’t dwelled on it, but knowing Anslian’s body has been interred in a place he can never hope to identify feels like hearing he is truly dead again for the first time.
‘It’s better that they are gone, truly, than to have been hurt all this time on our behalf,’ Alest whispers. ‘It’s the only decent thing I think Gillage has ever done.’
‘Funny how death can be a peace, isn’t it?’ Elician says in turn. He scoops up a handful of the dark dirt. He lets it drain from his palm. ‘Anslian wanted to be with my father and Adalei’s mother. He wanted to die, in the end.’
‘I hope he has a good life in his next form,’ Alest offers.
‘Brielle too,’ Elician adds.
‘Brielle too.’ Alest’s head angles downwards. He breathes in slowly and lets it out. Elician stands, tossing the last bit of dirt in his hand back onto the patch. He wipes his palm off onto his knee.
‘Death’s plague…it started because of resurrection. And yet…you brought Gillage back.’
‘Yes,’ Alest agrees. ‘I did.’
‘Why? When there could be consequences?’
‘There are always consequences. Every action inspires a reaction. He tried to kill me; that is why he died. I brought him back because I forgave him. And because, before he becomes something new – he must learn what it means to be alive. That is what Death wants. And so she allowed him to return.’
‘And if someone dies as a result of this?’
‘Then I will bear that guilt, just as you already do.’
Elician flinches and looks away. Here, Lio had crawled from his grave because Elician had raised him from the dead. Here, the origins of the plague truly began. ‘I would never wish that guilt upon you.’
‘And yet, I would take it still. We are not gods, who are free to exist without reprisal. The guilt will guide us. Change us, and one day – make us into something new. It is how we learn.’
Elician reaches out. He drapes one arm around Alest’s shoulders, pulling the smaller man to his side.
Alest goes willingly, tucking his head in a familiar position just beneath Elician’s chin.
It takes only a small shift to press his lips to Alest’s dark hair.
To inhale deep and fill his lungs with the scent of the man he loves.
‘I hate it here, in the palace,’ Alest confesses. ‘I can’t live here…not for ever. Not in this building where so many horrors transpired and each day serves as a reminder of all the wrongs committed on this land.’
‘You don’t have to stay here,’ Elician tells him.
‘Fen asked me what I would do when I took my throne. Where would I go. I told her I couldn’t answer her then because I didn’t even know if we’d succeed. But now, here we are, and I don’t know the answer. I cannot stay in Himmelsheim. My people will not tolerate that.’
No, they wouldn’t. Nor should they. Soleb didn’t conquer Alelune; her people didn’t fall in battle to their neighbours.
They are not one country. Their borders have not been erased.
They are two distinct cultures and people bound by a shared but fragile desire for harmony and nothing more.
Having Alest in Soleb, so far removed from his own people, would not endear anyone to this union.
Stories and perspectives are what matter to the Alelunen people.
Their god’s will – they need to see it live. They need to see it thrive.
‘We’ll make a new palace,’ Elician says. ‘We’ll build a place where the memories don’t hurt.’
‘Where?’ Alest asks him. He still looks so tired and worn down and exhausted by every part of their journey. Realizing he could both give life and take it away was only one drain on Alest’s ability to function. Being a king has taken up all that remained of his energy.
‘Altas. Let’s build a shared home on the Bask, right where we met.
A shared commitment, a place we will never fight over.
A palace that crosses both borders with a new capital city that’s shared between our countries.
You don’t have to stay here a moment longer than you want to,’ Elician swears to him.
‘I will never force you to live behind these walls. If Death is seeking a change, then let us give her one. And build our new future full of life.’
‘Thank you,’ Alest whispers. He wraps his arms around Elician’s back. He holds him, like if he lets him go he will fall into a deep abyss never to return. ‘Thank you,’ he says again.
Elician kisses his hair one more time. There is nothing more to say.