Chapter 22 #2
Arias takes them to his quarters, which are more comfortable than Theren’s.
There’s a table in the middle of the room where he and Arias have sat, going over Gylle’s list of suspects, trying to find something of value in Theren’s memories.
He’s had more success recently than he did at first, but it’s still just bits and pieces—-an approximation of when a person met with Rava, a moment of the conversation he overheard, maybe.
And always, nagging at the back of his mind, is that gap—-the memory he lost. Rava is up to something, and he needs to find out what it is, even if he has to rip it out of his own head.
Elegy sits at the table, and Arias takes a shirt out of his cabinet, sniffs it to make sure it’s clean, then changes.
“Hey, whoa,” Elegy says. “I didn’t agree to nudity.”
“You literally cut pants off my body with a knife once.”
“You were bleeding.”
“I was still naked.”
Theren leans against the door. The room is in disarray, clothes piled on the unmade bed, a collection of water glasses on the nightstand, a dog--eared book resting on the pillow.
Arias sits across from Elegy, and props his feet up—-still in boots—-on the edge of his bed.
“So what’s making you look so grim?” he says.
Theren cringes a little. He knows the answer—-Elegy is in Theren’s presence, which makes grief and anger well up inside her like blood from a fresh wound.
“Nothing,” Elegy says. “Nothing new, anyway.”
Arias looks from her to Theren and back again. “I’m missing something. Did you guys have a fight?”
“No,” Theren says, and he shifts his focus to Elegy. “You have news, Your Grace?”
“I spoke to Julia Martin about helping you with your memory gap,” she says to him. “She agreed to help you, but she had one condition. It was that you perform a Talusar ritual with her. Ring any bells?”
A weight settles in his stomach. He nods. “Erczet.”
“So you’ve heard of it. She said it was a mourning ritual.”
“It’s a memory--sharing ritual,” Theren says. “When there’s no body to bury, but there’s a witness to the death, the witness agrees to share memories with the family of the deceased, so they can . . . process.”
“You can share memories?” Arias says.
“I can’t. But one of the other exiles—-Fenn’s father—-can project them from my mind.”
Arias scratches behind his ear. “What if the person died in some horrific way? The family really wants to see that?”
“They think having closure, at last, is worth watching their loved ones die.”
“Then they have no idea what it is to watch someone you love die,” Elegy says tersely.
“Most of them have watched a loved one die,” Theren says. “The Fever kills half of them before they reach adulthood.”
“That’s their choice.”
“Is it?” he says. “Cedre would be so very welcoming to any Talusar who prefer their children remain uninfected, would it?”
Elegy doesn’t answer.
“But what about you, during this ritual?” Arias says. “You’d have to watch these deaths, too.”
“I’ve already seen them,” Theren says. “That’s the whole point.”
“Yeah, but . . .” Arias frowns. “Seeing them again would be painful.”
Theren looks at his feet. He’s known since he spoke to Julia after the interrogation that she would ask for this. That’s why she asked him if he was a witness to Maeve’s death.
“This is the sole condition of Julia’s cooperation,” Elegy says, sharp. “If you want your buried memory, the one that could help us understand what Rava Vidar is planning . . . this is what you have to do to get it.”
“Ahn, you can’t ask him to do this,” Arias says. “This sounds brutal, and he’s already having enough trouble—-”
“Arias, stop,” Theren says quietly, keeping his eyes on Elegy’s. “She’s not asking. She’s ordering.”
Outside, the wind is blowing hard. Flecks of earth hit the window.
She looks away.
He says, “When?”
“They agreed to board a shuttle tomorrow morning.” She clears her throat, and sounds more like herself again. “I wanted Arias here because I think someone who isn’t an exile has to attend, to make sure you aren’t exchanging sensitive information, and I assumed you’d be most comfortable with him.”
She’s correct about that, at least—-he doesn’t really want anyone in his memories, but if he has no choice in the matter, Arias’s patient presence is the one he would prefer. It’s a shame he can’t agree to it.
Instead he says, “I think it should be you.”
“You can’t seriously be claiming to—-”
“Be comfortable with you seeing into my mind?” He laughs a little. “No.”
She’s staring at him, and he wishes she wouldn’t. He loses track of himself when she does. There’s just always something new about her, every time he looks at her.
“But if you join me in this ritual,” he goes on, “you’ll be able to meet Rava as I meet her, with the Fever. You’ll know her in a way that she’ll never know you.”
Before he recognized Elegy in Rava’s interrogation room, he felt her.
He was used to other people’s anger feeling like heat, like burning deep in the belly.
An agitated, unstable force. But hers . .
. hers wasn’t like that. It felt like an anchor settling cold and stable in his body, rooting him to the spot.
A metal chain pulling taut, everything going still.
The chain pulls taut again now. Elegy nods.
“Fine,” she says. “Tomorrow, then.”