39. 38
Two graves sat side-by-side. One, adorned with flowers and all the hats that Fella owned, which was a frankly alarming number.
I hadn’t realised one person could be so into tricornes and have no known affiliation with seafaring.
The other grave was empty, the fresh earth the only thing differentiating it from the yard around.
We hadn’t organised a headstone for him yet. No one in the House could agree if his Leadership of the House should be acknowledged on the stone or left blank. Another week had passed, though, and we could avoid the burial no longer, so for now he was buried with nothing to mark him.
There was a chill in the air that day, the first hint of autumn. I pulled my cloak against the wind as Davian cleared his throat. He commenced his speech by introducing who had died, in the traditional way.
After that, he said nothing more about Camriel again. All his words were for Fella. An ode to an old friend, with stories I had never heard.
I didn’t cry. I glanced around the group of half a dozen faces, wondering if they had noticed my lack of tears, and were judging me for it. Then I looked down at the grass beyond my boots, overwhelmed with how selfish the thought was, and the guilt about all of it made my eyes prickle.
It wasn’t enough. I hated the idea that I was indicating some ambivalence about her death by not summoning the tears, but I felt too exhausted to cry.
The tears had flown so freely over the last few weeks that I wondered if they would ever flow again.
My throat was tight, and my chest hurt, and there was a fatigue to every part of me that made it hard to concentrate on Davian’s words.
But he was nearly done, and I watched his lip tremble with a deep sadness.
“Most of all,” he said, and cleared his throat.
“Most of all, I will miss her pushing her hair out of her face as she chases after Carnage for the thousandth time. I’ll miss seeing Whip napping on her bed.
If I trusted him not to run off, I’d bring him here. ”
Davian looked at me, then, and I nodded at him.
“I know that without knowing where she was, without any understanding of death, he would curl up just here beside me. He would lie on her lap. That’s how I want to remember her.
That’s how I will remember her. She was a bright spark, the strongest of us all, and a star in the endless night.
I hope you all remember how she shined.”
His voice cracked on the last word, and his eyes shadowed as he looked around the gathered group. He returned to my side, and I clapped heartily.
“Did you see our extra guest?”
I swivelled instantly, and Davian grabbed my hand. It was far too late, I had already turned without thinking.
Aseem, the Leader of the House of the Sun, stood under a tree twenty feet back.
The day was overcast and there was no shade, but he seemed to be taking shelter nonetheless.
At least he had the sense to wear mourning clothes, though I couldn’t imagine he was upset about the death of his daughter’s murderer, and a woman he had not even known.
I turned back. “What is he doing here?”
“No idea,” Davian replied. He sounded as exhausted as I felt. We both knew there was nothing left of Seera to bury. She wouldn’t find the same rest as her killer.
Once the funeral was over, Davian and I waited behind. Aseem approached from his tree as soon as the last mourner had disappeared down the hill.
We faced him as a team, hand in hand.
Aseem stopped three steps away, and nodded in my direction before turning to Davian. I tensed. Then, he bowed to Davian.
I managed not to react. Davian’s hand squeezed mine, and that was the only demonstration of his own surprise. He bowed back, barely more than an incline of his head.
“Leader Davian,” Aseem started. “May we speak?”
“I have not taken on that title.”
Aseem tilted his head. “Oh. I expected you would.”
“What is it that you want?”
Aseem showed no surprise at Davian’s tone. “First, I wanted to apologise for accusing you of murdering Seera.”
Davian did flinch now.
“I now know that you played no part in that,” he continued.
“A late discovery," Davian replied.
“All the same,” he said, and his stare was level and emotionless. “Please accept my apologies.”
Davian said nothing, and I stifled the urge to snap. This wasn’t about me.
Aseem glanced over Davian’s shoulder, and checked behind him. “I wanted to ask you for a favour.”
Davian coughed to cover up his shock. “Repeat that.”
Aseem’s eyes narrowed, and then he forced himself to relax. Whatever he was asking for, whatever he had the delusion to believe he could ask for, it was clearly worth losing pride over. A steep price for any Leader. “I want a favour from you.”
“What favour would I ever do for you?” Davian asked.
Aseem sighed. “End it.”
A beat.
“End what?” Davian asked.
“We have hidden the truth of what Camriel was working towards from the public,” he said. “Just as I hid it from everyone after Juven’s first attempt.”
“You knew the whole time?” I asked.
Aseem glanced towards me. “Theolis brought the theory to our council of Leaders as a point of concern. That’s why he wasn’t executed. We thought he might point us to others who would seek to continue his work.”
I nodded. It made sense, but did nothing to settle the horrible feeling in my stomach. I had a guess for what he might ask, though I had to believe he wouldn’t request it. It was unfathomable, unthinkable. Let alone to speak it into being.
“The public don’t know what they were doing with the deaths,” he explained again. “But there are enough people that do. People within my House. Your House. Likely, Wisdom’s House. The Leaders, of course. People who know how little is needed to finish the work.”
I was going to be sick.
Davian knew, too. His face was expressionless, but his voice held venom I rarely heard on his lips. “Say it, Aseem.”
“If you don’t end it, someone else will,” Aseem said. “Someone from Wisdom has to die.”
I took a step forward. “Then we should destroy the circles. Destroy the painting.”
Aseem looked at me blankly. “And lose any chance of their return? Condemn another group of devotees to die?”
I narrowed my eyes as Davian pulled me back.
Aseem raised his hands. “I only ask you to consider it. My daughter is dead, but her soul stands in that space between nothingness and the eternal garden. Burned to ash. Your wife has no rest.”
“She’s my wife now, is she?” Davian said, his voice barely a whisper.
Aseem flinched. “Your friend, too. And the Leader’s son.”
“I know who died.”
There was another moment of silence, as Aseem shifted his weight and the wind filtered through the branches and picked up dead leaves in tiny swirling tornados.
“He said they would all come back,” Aseem continued, watching the same dead leaves. “That once it was complete, Ragnifort would bring them all back whole. We don’t know if that is true, but we do know he will try again.”
“You want me to be the last sacrifice,” Davian finished. “You weren’t maintaining the circle for evidence. You were maintaining it for Seera.”
Aseem took a step back and lifted his eyes to Davian.
The rigid composure fell off of his shoulders.
He looked older, sunken. “I know it is far, far, too much for me to ask of you. Of anyone. But I want Seera back, and I want the deaths to stop. Ragnifort will find someone else to end this. It is only a question of when. If someone from Wisdom has to die for a chance to bring them back, I would rather it be someone strong. Someone who will fight in that nothingness to bring them back. Someone with as much to lose as me.”
“Plus,” Davian said. “You don’t like me much anyway.”
Aseem shook his head. “This was a mistake.”
The Leader turned to leave.
“I will consider it,” Davian said.
I froze, the wind pulling at my cloak.
It wasn’t even his comment. It was his tone. He already had considered this, I realised. Enough for Aseem’s apology to be the only true surprise.
Aseem turned. “You will?”
“Guard my mother’s House,” he said. “If Wisdom is at risk, we should defend it.”
Aseem nodded. “I’ve had guards stationed there since the trial.”
“Good.” Davian stared down the Leader. “If any of her devotees die, I’m holding you personally responsible. If anything happens to Theolis, I will kill you.”
Aseem returned the stare. There was a knowing look there. “I do not doubt it, son.”
Davian tensed, his hand squeezing mine. Somehow, Aseem knew about Davian’s father. We both felt it.
The Leader held Davian’s gaze, and then he left. He walked slowly, his hands limp at his sides. The sun broke free of the clouds, and cast him under the uneven light of the twisting branches and flowery boughs overhead.
My stomach flipped, and I dropped Davian’s hand to catch myself on the trunk behind. My heel slipped on a root and I fell back another step, holding myself against the tree.
“Annie.”
I took several deep breaths. “You didn’t tell me.”
I heard a twig snap as Davian shifted, but he had the sense not to touch me.
He didn’t correct me, he didn’t say anything.
“You can’t die,” I said, still staring at the tree. I hated the pause that followed my words.
“Should someone else die in my place?” he asked, softly. “Should someone else be killed in cold blood?”
“No. No one should.”
Even as I said it, I knew it was impossible. I knew Aseem’s words were accurate. Someone would die to end this.
“What about Renovid, the person Camriel wanted to use?” I asked, a frantic edge to my words. “You told me he was old. Maybe he would volunteer.”
“We can’t ask him to do that,” he replied.
“Aseem just asked you to do the same.”
He shrugged. “It is personal for me. It should be me.”
I shook my head. I wouldn’t let him do this. “We should ask Wisdom.”
“I cannot have another die instead of me,” he said.
“Why not?” I asked. “You weren’t supposed to die in that room, Davian. No one should have died there at all. This isn’t your burden.”