Chapter 24 #4
“Then you will prepare yourself,” Rava says. “They die at sunset.”
“No,” Theren says, and he lifts his eyes to Fenn’s. “Not him.”
Rava looks amused. “Not him? And why not?”
Fenn shakes his head, but Theren is already speaking.
“Because he’s an epocha,” he says. “And it’s forbidden to kill him.”
Fenn looks stricken. Theren closes his eyes.
The crackle of a fire. A plush, dark blue rug. Pale, bare feet walk across it to her, and she can’t look up, because her head aches, her jaw aches—-
“Look at me,” Rava Vidar says, poisonous.
Despite the pain, Elegy’s head lifts, as Theren’s head lifts. He looks older, his cheeks sallow, his hair curling at the ears. They are years later, again. Both tattoos on his hands. Exhaustion in every part of his body.
Rava touches his chin, and her thumb comes to rest on his lower lip—-
“Your friend Fenn is dead,” she says.
Theren, sitting in the chair in the library with Tor Kovek’s hands on his head, lets out a soft moan, and brings his fist up to his mouth, biting down hard—-
Somewhere above them is the clamor of a crowd.
Shuffling feet and the collective volume of hundreds of voices.
Elegy leans against a stone wall, and Theren is beside her, his forehead against it.
His hand bears two black bars, but the other one is blank.
He’s not thin and drawn, which means they must have gone backward again, back to the Crucible.
She looks intently at his face. How his breaths come in bursts. How, as the door opens to admit Orda, he opens his eyes to stare at the wall like he’s trying to stare through it.
His eyes are beautiful, she thinks. A dark, rich color—-chestnut. She’s noticed it before, but not like this, standing so close to him.
“They tested Fenn,” Orda says. “And they’re taking him to the monastery now.”
Theren nods, the rock scraping his forehead.
“He’ll never forgive me,” he says.
“You saved his life.”
“He preferred death.” Theren pulls away from the wall. “I don’t want to feel your pity right now, Selio.”
“I’m sorry about that,” Orda says. “But I came to help.”
Theren lets out a laugh that borders on the hysterical. “I’m about to execute a friend of mine in front of a fucking crowd. You want to help?”
“Yes.” Orda stands by the door, his arms folded. He seems to be keeping his distance. “I assume you want to offer her a merciful end. Fast and as painless as possible. What you don’t want is to make it worse than it has to be.”
Orda takes a wooden dagger from his back pocket, and crosses the room to touch two fingertips to Theren’s throat, right beside his esophagus, beneath his jaw.
“Bypass the esophagus,” Orda says. “Push in at an angle.” He replaces his fingertips with the point of the wooden knife, to show Theren the angle. “Twist. Commit to the movement, because it’ll be much worse if you don’t. Understand?”
Theren nods. Orda flips the knife in his hand, so he’s holding the blunted blade, and offers it to Theren.
“Show me.”
Theren takes the knife, and holds it to Orda’s throat.
“You’ve done this?” Theren says softly.
Orda nods. “That’s why I’m in here. A friend was very ill, and asked me for mercy. But she wasn’t someone Rava was content to lose.” He clears his throat. “It will feel worst tonight, when you try to sleep. It would be better if you weren’t alone.”
“I have no one left.”
“You have me,” Orda says, and he puts his hand on the back of Theren’s neck. “I’m your friend. I always will be.”
Theren bows his head.
Orda goes on: “Remember that this violence is a kindness. Maeve doesn’t want to die alone. You bearing the horror of it for her—-it’s a profound gift.”
Behind them, another door opens. Through this one, Elegy can see the arena floor—-a larger, grander arena than she’s seen in the Crucible before. The clamor of the crowd is louder now. A guard in febra armor stands waiting. Orda releases Theren’s neck, and takes the wooden dagger from him.
Theren turns, and walks through the doorway. Elegy follows him past the guard and onto the polished wooden floor. She feels intense pressure from every side, the force of a thousand people bearing down on her through the Fever.
Standing in the center of it all is Maeve, dressed in a black shift, barefoot, her hair still wet from bathing. Whatever grand pronouncements of her guilt undoubtedly accompanied this occasion, Elegy thinks they’ve already been made, without Theren to hear them.
Guards flank Theren as he walks across the floor to Maeve. The crowd around them roars, but Elegy hears it as if through water. Theren reaches for Maeve, and she puts her hands in his. Terror fills Elegy, jagged and electric.
“I’m so sorry,” Maeve says, in a rush of whispered English. “I needed to speak to you again and this was the only way, I’m so—-”
“It’s all right,” he says, and maybe he would have said more, but Rava Vidar is walking toward them, surrounded by her own guards—-Satka and Ranos among them. She’s in full febra regalia, her yellow hair in a crown of braids, her eyes smudged dark.
“The condemned has requested a dagger,” she says. The entire arena goes quiet at the sound of her voice. Elegy can’t help but marvel a little. No one commands an audience quite like Rava Vidar.
One of the guards steps forward, and offers the dagger to Theren, handle first. It’s a simple weapon, with a black handle, a short guard, and a straight blade. He takes it, and as he does, Elegy watches the guards behind him fan out in a semicircle, weapons drawn.
She wonders what he’ll say—-wonders what there is to say, in a moment like this.
“I changed my mind,” Maeve says quietly, and she touches Theren’s face. She leans in close to speak right against his ear. Elegy moves in close, too, so that she can hear.
“I want you to forget our plan. Survive instead,” she whispers. “Please. Live, so you can go home.”
She reaches for his hand, the one that holds the dagger. She lifts it up by the wrist, positions it over her throat. “Do it now. Before I lose my nerve and start begging.”
“Maeve,” he says, “you never lose your nerve.”
He wraps his free arm around her waist, and presses the point of the knife to the side of her throat, just beneath her jaw. Their eyes lock together. He pushes the blade in and twists, in one strong motion, as committed as Orda commanded him to be.
He doesn’t look away as she dies. Elegy wants to close her eyes, but that’s not an option here, in this place—-he saw it, so she has to see it, the blood gushing from Maeve’s neck.
Has to hear the cheering crowd that accompanies Maeve’s end.
Has to watch Theren sinking to the ground with Maeve still in his arms.
Has to feel it, in her own body, as the other woman dies.