Chapter Eighteen #2
Most of the people below were smiling, greeting one another and chatting merrily, but a few were more reserved.
They stood among the crowd, as still as stone, with their arms crossed and eyes fixed into a firm glare at a point ahead of them.
I followed their gazes to find some large ceremonial arch the priests had dragged out into the square from one of their back alley shrines.
The white-robed men milled around beneath it now, chattering excitedly with one another.
I turned away from them, looking through the crowd for anyone familiar enough to ask about what was occurring.
Though I knew that if it was something the priests were this excited about, it was likely something that wouldn’t be pleasant.
I found a familiar woman in textiles burgundy a few moments later. She stood on the outskirts of the crowd herself, leaning against a pillar of the administrative building and glaring at the priests assembled near their arch before the apartments.
“What’s going on?” I asked as I approached her.
She turned only long enough to give me a quick glance before returning to staring at the arch.
“A Culling,” Zya practically growled.
I stopped in my tracks, gaze whipping back to the arch in horror.
“Again?” I asked, stunned.
“Every year,” she huffed in annoyance.
Of course. Every year.
I glanced around at the crowd before us, craning their necks to get a view of the arch, chattering and laughing happily as though this was something to celebrate.
“They look…happy,” I noted, my surprise evident in my tone.
“To them, this is a celebration,” she told me.
“A little ritual to welcome the newcomers to their population. They’ll give them a little gift and whisk them off to be assigned to one of their levels, paying no attention to the fact that they’ve just been pulled away from their homes, their families, and everything they’ve ever known. ”
The bitterness in her tone was so cool, so precise, I couldn’t help but look back at her and remember that Zya had gone through this herself. The same year as Darius, Zya had been pulled out of Sanctuary as well and dropped here, alone.
“I’m not watching this,” I muttered, letting my disgust show clearly as I whirled around and began to make my way back through the growing crowd.
“Where are you going?” Zya asked from behind me a moment later, following.
“Somewhere you shouldn’t go with me.”
“Cryptic.”
I stopped at the edge of the crowd and turned to face her.
“I mean it, Zya,” I said. “I’m going alone.”
She watched me for a second, head cocked to the side.
“You did it, didn’t you?” she asked after a moment.
There was wonder in her tone but not surprise, not shock like Roxy.
“I wondered if you would. I couldn’t do it.
The barrier prevented me from getting all the way there.
But you’re Fallen. You’ve got your Blessings, your abilities, you’re practically gods-chosen. If anyone could—”
“You tried to get back?” I asked, gaping at her.
Her brows furrowed in confusion.
“Of course I did,” she bristled. “You think you’re the only one who wants to go home?”
I shook my head.
“No,” I answered. “I don’t think that.”
She watched me for a moment. I watched her. Then I sighed and whirled back around.
“Fine,” I replied. “Come with me. But you can’t tell anyone about this.”
“Me?” she snorted. “You’re the supervisor.”
I couldn’t help but smile as I shook my head and led the way to the elevators.
They were packed but the crowd thinned out as more and more people from the lower levels emptied out onto the first. A bell chimed behind us and one of the priests began their soliloquy.
I did my best to ignore the cruel ritual taking place behind me as I shoved my way into a newly abandoned elevator, Zya hot on my heels.
I led us down to the tunnel in silence. It was even darker than usual, everyone having abandoned the levels below either to attend the Culling above or to return to their homes after an early release from their shifts.
Zya followed diligently, even when it became nearly too dark for her to do so.
With my enhanced vision, I called out to her a time or two to watch for a fallen rock or crack as she walked behind me.
She never said a word in return, just obeyed my instructions and stuck as close to me as she dared.
“I’ve never been to this one before,” she confessed. “Where does it lead?”
“The eighth,” I told her.
“And you can go all the way through?”
“Not without a few tricks courtesy of the Geist themselves.”
She nodded, not even surprised.
“I suspected as much,” she said. “Well, I would say I’m eager to see you do it but I can’t see a damn thing down here so I’ll wait wherever it drops you off to be here for your return.”
I nodded.
“Anyone you want to know about?” I asked. “I can’t guarantee I’ll have time to make it up to the Second Ring but if there’s someone specific and you can tell me where to find them—”
“My sister,” she said at once. “House of Chasina. She’s always in the garden tending her roses.
She’d be fourteen now. She has long black hair and dark eyes.
She’ll be wearing lilac. She always wore lilac.
And she probably has flowers in her hair.
A whole crown of them if the season has been kind to her blooms.”
It was the gentlest tone of voice I’d ever heard from Zya. I nodded in return even though I knew she couldn’t see me in the dark.
“I'll try to find her,” I promised. “If not this time, then next.”
Zya nodded as well and took a step back to allow me my leave. I gave her a curt nod and turned away, already making my way down the dark tunnel toward Sanctuary.
The walk was the same as ever. I’d memorized the exact spot I needed to phase out of existence in order to cross the border without being tossed back into the tunnel. I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and phased, stepping through the border a moment later.
I’d forgotten about the Culling.
The first sound that hit me was the wailing of the Deckers.
I turned toward the twelfth and hesitated.
This wasn’t my intention. I'd come here to avoid the Culling, not to attend it.
But the crying was growing louder, more intense than I could ever remember having heard from a Culling before, and my curiosity had me stepping forward before I could stop myself.
I remembered Darius’ Culling, every moment of it.
The way the First Ringers stepped forward to make their vows before disappearing into that swirling black vortex below the twelfth tunnel opening, the way Zya stepped through, silent and defiant, and how Darius went in after.
There was crying then but it was muffled, emanating from families huddled together, whispering goodbyes that weren’t meant to be shared with anyone but themselves.
Not this wailing despair, not this loud crying out in anguish.
Something was wrong. I could feel it in my bones. Something had happened.
I was running now, my nonexistent feet padding against the cobblestone of the Deck as I made my way to the twelfth. But I skidded to a stop the moment I rounded the corner of the western wall and the twelfth tunnel became visible.
There were no families huddled together, no friends gripping their loved one’s hands tightly, urging them forward into the void. This was no somber affair attended only by the grieving.
I saw Cosmo first. Myrine stood directly behind him, staring down vacantly at the headless body at her feet.
It belonged to a boy, no older than fifteen.
Blood poured from his neck, staining the roots of his hair where his head had rolled a few feet away.
His eyes were still open, staring at the sky as an older woman screamed nearby.
Officers held her down on her knees as she cried, reaching out for the dead boy and pleading with the Vipers for a life that no longer existed.
My gut roiled as I turned to take in the rest of the scene.
The priests I remembered from Darius’ Culling stood nearby, the ones who'd performed the ceremony they deemed necessary for the gods. They were all narrow-eyed and solemn-faced as they stared at the assembly of young men and women before them, all marked with the black bar in the center of their foreheads. One of the boys’ chests was heaving as his gaze remained fixed upon the dead boy on the other end of the square.
Tears streamed down his cheeks as his knees shook.
I wondered how much longer he would remain standing.
“Enough,” someone shouted and the voice was so familiar it dragged my gaze away to the stairs.
“Milo,” I whispered to no one.
He was storming down the steps now, more wrath upon his expression than I'd ever seen before. He wore a suit of shining silver and powdery blue, more ornate than anything I’d seen him in before.
His grandmother followed after him far more slowly, shrewd old eyes taking in the scene they'd encountered. Behind them was a man I knew I’d seen before but couldn’t name, one of Milo’s cousins perhaps, and Olympia as well.
Then another set of feet pounded down the stairs at their backs and my brows furrowed in confusion.
“Harrison?” I asked aloud.
“What is the meaning of this, Cosmo?” Nascha asked as serenely as one might when inquiring about the weather.
Her gaze passed over the headless boy bleeding on the ground and the weeping woman who could only be his mother before flicking back to the patriarch of House Viper, brows raised as she waited for an explanation.
“The priests informed me that the Lower Ringers had determined they weren’t going willingly to their Culling this year,” Cosmo answered, voice dripping with that disinterested disdain I remembered so well. “An example had to be made.”
“You murdered a Culled?” she gasped.
“No. I made an example of his brother.”