Chapter 1 - Kernels #2
I snap my head up to her bare, bony chest, where a tiny burn has appeared, to her hair pooling around her like a dark hole ready to swallow her, to her curved posture as if the weight of the lives she’s taken is crushing her down.
“I promise it won’t hurt—” I dash, holding the vial over my head like a knife.
The last thing I register is her mouth open in a silent scream, her eyes wide with a mixture of fear and relief.
I hug her with my left arm while I push the tip of the vial between her breasts, sliding it in as it turns warm in my hand.
Whatever is left of her soul resists my call, and I push the vial further in, until her last kernel slowly wraps around my fingers.
Elation runs through my body as my thirsty vial drinks the soul’s shimmering tendrils.
In a matter of seconds, the woman will begin to shake. They all do. It’s their souls desperately clinging to life.
“We do what we must. We all do,” I whisper in her ear, even if she can no longer hear me.
To the eyes of a stranger, I’m sure we look like lovers stealing a forbidden embrace in the shy light of the new morning. A last shiver of the folly of two souls whose only desire is to feel more.
I wait for the tremor, but it never comes. She lets out a deep sigh, followed by a shorter one, before folding heavily in my arms. Her chest stops moving as the vial vibrates and hums to me.
“Three. Two…”
As always happens, the lungs slowly start pumping air in and out with an unnatural, steady rhythm.
What about stolen?
I swat her words away and gently lower her onto the rain-wet pavement, resting her back against the wall.
She will wake up soon and will not remember any of her surroundings.
Not the narrow street stretching towards the market square, not the buildings slowly waking up for the day.
Her skin will no longer feel the wind or the sun.
I could cut her arm, and she wouldn’t flinch.
But her eyes…Her eyes will turn milky-blue, and she will see the shimmer of every soul walking too close to her. Craving a new soul, her body will roam Horigos, leaving behind only death and half-consumed bodies until her muscles will atrophy.
The purple kernel in my vial beats fast, trying to break the glass and return to its owner.
I stare at it as it quickly forgets where it belonged and turns into the weak, flickering memory of a soul.
“You had an entire life in front of you,” I whisper to the life-size doll at my feet. My words are trapped by the wind and fly away.
The sky behind the buildings of Cleryce’s market square is quickly turning brighter, but the temperature is still that of a stormy night.
With the vial safe in the pocket of my trousers, I take off my jacket and gently place it on the woman’s back.
“You’re getting soft.”
I glance over my shoulder as Galen approaches between two rows of market stalls to my left. As he strides between them, the symmetrical lines of street lamps die one by one. A tall walking shadow in all black chased by the first rays of sunshine.
“You know they can’t tell the difference between hot and cold. I doubt she will complain to the other Nistarei in the Fields.”
As the adrenaline leaves my body, the icy morning breeze smacks me, and I shiver a little.
“She may have lost her soul, but nobody ever told us to deny their last strands of dignity. What’s left of her dress doesn’t leave much to the imagination.” I say before pulling off my gloves with my mouth.
With both gloves between my teeth, I give Galen a side look and twist my hair up into a messy braid to stop it from dripping inside the collar of my already-soaked top.
“Dignity?” His laugh is low and sad. “She should’ve thought about that when she accepted—”
I snap the gloves out of my mouth, glaring at him, “She was just nineteen, for fuck’s sake. Did you know that?”
I look away, biting my tongue before I can say anything worse. He’s still my leader, even if we’ve been friends since he was seven and I was five.
Something rustles onto my right.
“Here.” Galen steps behind me, covering my shoulders with his thick leather jacket. “You don’t think straight when you’re uncomfortable, cold and hungry.”
We’re not allowed to consume solid food twenty-four hours before a mission. They say it dulls our senses and makes it difficult to sense a Nistares. We may accidentally harvest the wrong soul or let the right one go without even noticing.
The jacket is three sizes bigger than mine, but Galen’s body heat still lingers inside.
“I’m sorry. It’s just…Roden didn’t tell me she was so young. I didn’t think it was possible. It’s easier when they’re…”
“Older?”
“Hopeless.”
Galen steps closer, and his left arm brushes my shoulder. “Who told you she wasn’t?”
Our shadows stretch before us. Galen’s, longer than mine, reaches the spot on the kerb where the Nistares sits, shading her completely. As if sensing his presence and what it entails, her body twitches slightly.
“She had a light in her eyes. She was not afraid. And she despised me.”
“They all do, Sof. Nobody likes a Reaper. If you wish to be loved and needed by them, you should have listened to Popplewish and become a Donatore.” He nudges me gently.
I wrap his jacket tighter around me, staring at the woman, her head lolling over her chest.
“And miss the fun of working with you?” I offer an uncertain smile. “Never. But don’t call me that again. You know I don’t like that name.”
The sun, creeping onto the horizon, ignites Galen’s curls with a rich tinge of chocolate while the ends naturally fade to a dark caramel shade.
I step into his shade to avoid being blinded by the light and study his face. “How long have you been spying on me?” I ask, sizing him up.
“What…How?” I enjoy the defeat in his voice as he opens his arms, only to let them fall right after.
I wave a hand in his face, tilting my head back to look him straight in the eyes. “Your hair is soaking wet,” I quickly point at his boots, “And there’s fresh mud on your shoes. There is no way you’ve just landed. You were taking a stroll, waiting for me to be done here, or…”
Galen stares at me for a moment, trying to keep a straight face, but a smirk flashes on his lips.
“Or… I was admiring your talent and how great I am at being your mentor, July.” His voice drags over the version of my name he knows I prefer.
“You were,” I retort, elbowing his side. “Remember, I graduated one year after you. We’re equal; you only have the privilege of calling yourself senior and having a bigger accommodation. And…” I poke him in the chest, “A bigger ego.”
Initially, he seems puzzled, but then bursts into a roaring, contagious laugh. “If Popplewish could hear you now, she would send you back to training without a second thought.”
For a moment, I set aside who we are and what I’ve just done and laugh with Galen, but my mind soon travels back to the woman sitting on the cold stones of the alley.
The building where she opened her shop wasn’t there until a year ago.
None of the surrounding buildings were. Hundreds of years ago, Cleryce was home to small townhouses with square open roofs, crowded with miniature lemon trees and oleanders, a few shops, and a little market used mainly by the nearby villages.
Nobody wanted to live on The Fields’ outskirts. But recently, the north-western province of Horigos has seemed to attract myriads of desperate Nistarei.
“I’d better go,” I blurt out. I need to go back to Libera and for Galen to take this body away from me before more questions start to tickle my brain.
I make to give him back his jacket, but he adjusts it on my shoulders. “You know you could have more than this. Be more than a Reaper…” His unsaid thoughts linger between us.
We’ve had this conversation many times, but my answer is always the same. “I don’t need to see what happens to them after I’ve done my job. Knowing the theory is already too much.”
I shrug his jacket off before he can say anything else, but he stops me.
“I’ll bring yours back to Libera. Keep mine and go home without catching a cold.
You know how Popplewish loves a report straight after a mission before the Deleteri clean your mind of upsetting details.
” He tilts his head to one side, his hands lingering on my shoulders.
Tiny droplets hang from the locks of hair plastered on his forehead until one finally decides to slide over the bridge of his straight nose.
He follows its path, crossing his eyes until I give up and huff a laugh. “You’re such a child.”
It takes only a blink of my eyes for his expression to change.
His eyes, the left one brown specked with silver, and the right one pale blue, narrow, muting all the light reflected in them, turning almost charcoal as Galen pulls me against his chest and slowly leans forward, nuzzling the curve of my neck.
“You know very well I’m not.” His lips graze my ear. His words are only for me, even if we’re the only people in the street.
I lift my hands to his shoulders and gently push him away, staring at the tips of my boots. As I mumble something nonsensical, I eventually look up with a forced serious expression, and find him biting at his lower lip, one eyebrow arched.
A long second stretches between us.
We both shake our heads at the same time. Galen scratches his head, clearing his throat, and I step away, catching my breath.
Many Reapers like me, and Deleteri like Galen, find relief from the rush of adrenaline by sharing a bed for a night or two after a mission.
No promises. No bonds. Galen and I fell into that deep of easy release and pleasure once, but there is something binding our wills that stops us from exploring the after.
When the moment has passed, I turn my face to check on the empty body I left behind, but his voice gently pulls me out of my reverie.
“Did something happen?” His hand is comforting on my shoulder.
“She wasn’t like the others. She didn’t cry, didn’t try to run away.” I take a deep breath to steady my hammering heart. “Her eyes were on me the entire time as if she didn’t want to miss any detail of her last moments…”
“Sof—July…I…” Galen steps back, searching my face for the right words to say.
I run my hands over my face and through my hair, letting it come undone again. My eyes find Galen’s. “She told me she would have done it again.”
Instinctively, I touch the pocket where I tucked the glass vial. “I need to recover my bag before someone finds it and gets too curious about all the weird glowing shit in there.”
Galen stretches out a hand, but I put more space between us as he asks, “Would you like me to go with you?”
Yes. “No, I’m okay. I…need to reset.”
Reset—this is what they do to us after every harvest. They wipe our memory clean of any unpleasant details. Tomorrow, the young woman who didn’t look away will only be a Nistares in a pretty emerald dress.
Galen breathes a half-smile, “I’ll see you back in Libera, I guess.” His voice is heavy with unasked questions.
I nod and turn to be on my way, but before we’re too far from each other, I glance over my shoulder. “She referred to Nistarei’s souls as stolen.”
There are ways to bend the rules and remember what we want after a mission. Galen and I have a secret code to tell each other, ‘This is what I want to keep.’ We always have a way to mark our very last words, a final message that must be kept safe because it has a special meaning.
I see him ready to follow me in the corner of my eye, but I hold a hand up, behind me, to silence him. Make me remember.
When I turn the corner, I’m glad nobody is in the alley, rummaging on the table and in my bag, so I’m free to collect my harvesting tools and disappear. The back door of the woman’s shop is still shut, but the exit signal has stopped flickering.
I pull Galen’s hood up, fish the vial out of my pocket, and nearly drop it.
The soul inside glows red like a flame, not purple like the others I collected last night.
And by this time tomorrow, this detail will have been wiped out of my mind.