30 #3
“She’d long had her suspicions about me,” Slade continues, affecting nonchalance.
“As a Regiment scholar, my mother was deeply committed to the Savior, so she tried to instill those same values in Gabriel and myself. We had a very strict upbringing—Gabriel conformed, and I rebelled. Given my behavior, I should have shown evidence of the Bloodrot quite early. By the time I was a teenager, my mother was convinced I had the devil in me.” Wicked amusement passes over his features.
“There were visits with chaplains. Trips to various temples. It was bearable, though, because I had my brother on my side.”
The music swells as we draw closer to the quartet. It takes me a moment to digest Slade’s words. “Do you mean Gabriel?”
“Of course I mean Gabriel. We were close as children. In many ways, he was my only friend, and I adored him. But he was also close to our mother, and she groomed him for Regiment employment from the beginning.
“One day, when I was eighteen, I overheard their whispered conversation. My mother was clearly anxious. She kept saying she wasn’t sure if she could do it—whatever it was—and Gabriel kept assuring her she’d be fine.
” Slade’s voice takes on a bitter slant.
“Though I didn’t know it then, they were talking about killing me.
My mother wasn’t afraid she wouldn’t be able to do it; she was afraid only of how the sin might affect her. ”
Nausea unfurls in my stomach, my mouth going dry. I don’t know what to say. I’m not sure I want to hear the rest of Slade’s story, and yet I find myself hanging on every word.
“That very night,” he says, “she set me on fire in my bed.”
I nearly trip over my own feet. “What?”
“My mother knew what I was, you see, and she was terrified of the Regiment finding out. She and Gabriel decided it would be best if I died before I could taint the Markovich name. After all, losing a child gets you sympathy, but harboring a diabolist gets you arrested. So, while I was sleeping, she poured gasoline on me and set me alight.”
My jaw is slack. I can’t seem to close it. I think of the burn scars on his chest, his back, and suddenly all the pieces fit together.
Slade swallows. His jaw is soldered tight, his cheekbones skeletal.
“I leaped for her before I even bothered to stop the burning. Grabbed her even as I felt my skin melting and mending, over and over again. I only extinguished myself when I knew for certain she was dead. And then I hated her all the more for being so easy to kill.”
Part of me is glad that the story ends this way. With retribution and a savage sort of justice. At the same time, though, I understand his frustration. I know what it is to resent someone for dying when you still wanted to fight.
“Don’t,” Slade snaps, and I become aware that he’s glaring at me, the ice in his gaze lethal. “Don’t pity the boy I was.”
“I’m not—”
“Do you know why I’m telling you this, little sinner?” We’ve reached the other side of the room now, and he brings us to a halt. In the flickering candlelight surrounding the string quartet, he looks otherworldly.
I attempt a wry smile but falter. “So you can convince me to confess to you in return, I expect.”
“No. I’m telling you so that you understand who I am.
So you know that when I say I could kill you, I mean it.
After the deal I struck with my brother, I spent years in the Trench, watching him weave a tale of my glorious defeat.
If my upbringing taught me anything, it’s patience.
” Slade’s nostrils flare. “That’s what my mother didn’t understand: You can’t breed a lamb for slaughter but raise it on flesh.
If you do, it develops a taste for violence. ”
“So Gabriel betrayed you. They both did.” And now he’s afraid I’ll do the same thing.
“I was the very first person he manipulated into trusting him. I revered him long before he became the Prophet, and in return he convinced our mother to take my life.”
I nod slowly. Slade is wrong about me pitying him, but I’m not afraid of him either. I understand him. I understand his reasons for doing the things he does, and I hate the way he keeps humanizing himself. I shouldn’t want to make sense of him the way I do.
And I definitely shouldn’t be wishing I believed in hell, so that his mother might burn the way she tried to burn him.
“I’m glad you told me,” I say. It’s the truth, but it also sounds just detached enough, which I instinctively know is what he needs right now. I drop my voice as Slade guides me past a group of men at the perimeter of the room. “Slade?”
“Yes, Talin?”
“You’re not going to die in the Prophet’s Sanctum.”
Although I speak softly, it aligns perfectly with the moment the quartet ceases playing.
Slade is frowning, perplexed, and I clamp my lips together as my breath catches.
It’s too late—the young man nearest us turns around, interest sparking in his wide-set gaze.
He ducks his chin conspiratorially, peering at us from beneath his lashes.
“I couldn’t help overhearing. Are you looking for the Prophet’s Sanctum?”