Chapter 1
Five years later
The dawn bells of the Golden Tower of the Perpetual Morning were loud enough to make the ears ring, loud enough to wake the dead. They had to be, since it was vitally important that every Sleepless currently inhabiting the monastery was absolutely, thoroughly awake.
And, all at once, Artair was.
He awoke as he always did, sitting upright in a chair in front of the small, barred window of his cell, with no memory of sitting there or even moving the chair.
The other one had done that. The clay cup that Artair used to drink water and tea had been smashed, shards lying on the floor.
From the damp patch on the plaster wall, he guessed the other one had thrown it in one of his wild moments of rage.
Grimacing at the familiar ache in his back—just once, he’d like for the other one to have spent the night in the narrow bed instead of pacing the room or sitting in the chair—Artair stood up, stretched, and washed his face in the basin of cold water.
He’d been waking at dawn since he was a child, and he was used to the punishing schedule of the Golden Tower.
Even so, he glanced longingly at the bed with its undisturbed blankets and pillow.
Perhaps he could just lay down for a few moments, resting until Brother Benzin came to do the morning checks…
But laying down and resting was forbidden to the Sleepless outside of authorized hours.
There was always a chance, after all, that he would forget himself and start to doze, and then the other one would come forward.
If that happened, there was no predicting what he might do.
Never very far away, a dark memory flickered in the back of his mind: the choking smell of smoke, the taste of burning flesh in the air… Artair splashed more cold water on his face to banish the thoughts.
‘The foundation of the tower is vigilance,’ he murmured.
There was a tiny mirror over the water basin, warped by the years and slightly discoloured in one corner.
Artair looked into it, searching his face for signs of the Other, as he did most mornings.
It seemed impossible that just moments ago someone else had been looking out of his brown eyes—that some other intelligence had moved his mouth and made it smile, or frown, or shout.
His face remained familiar: long straight nose, sharp jawline, the narrow slash of a scar that cut through his right eyebrow—not the result of the other one’s violence, that, but an accident with the wooden staffs the novices trained with each afternoon.
Brown eyes looked back at him, full of their usual uneasy combination of curiosity and determination.
His dark hair was wild and tangled, as though the Other had spent the night tugging his hands through it, but that could be fixed with a comb and a brush.
At least the Other hadn’t been pulling it out, as he had on other occasions.
‘Morning, Artair!’ Brother Benzin’s face appeared at the small aperture in the door. He was a gentle, florid man with a grey beard, the white robes of his order always marked with grass stains. When possible, Benzin preferred to be working in the gardens. ‘Are you with us?’
Artair presented himself in front of the door to recite that day’s line of poetry. Every day they were given a new one, so that the brothers and sisters of the monastery could be sure of who they were dealing with.
‘The silver fish flits where it will. The badger digs deep under the hill.’
‘Yes, yes, fine.’ There was a rattle at the door as Benzin unlocked it with the keys he kept on a ring at his belt.
‘A little simplistic for my tastes, but Sister Rosea has ordered in a new book of poems from a shop in Addersport and I’m afraid she’s quite taken with it.
’ The door swung open, and Brother Benzin stood to one side.
‘Brace yourself for many more stirring uses of cat and bat , or, the Twelve save us, river and slither . Goodness, look at the state of your hair. I assume we had a rough night?’
Artair knew it wasn’t a real question. After all, how could he know what the Other got up to? But he felt his cheeks flush anyway.
‘Was there any noise from my cell?’
Brother Benzin shrugged, then patted Artair on the shoulder fondly. ‘There is noise from every cell every night, my young friend. Don’t let it play on your mind. After your morning meditations and exercises, I will want your help out in the orchards. Is that alright?’
When Benzin had left to continue his circuit of all the cells in the tower, Artair ducked back into his chamber, wet his comb, and spent some minutes trying to tame his hair.
There was a shadow of stubble on his jaw, but not enough yet to go to Sister Rosea for a shave—sharp blades were expressly forbidden in the cells of the Sleepless.
When he’d done all he could to make himself presentable, he paused to sweep up the remains of the broken cup, depositing the shards on the small wooden table in the corner of the room.
It was only then that he saw that one of the sharp pieces of clay had been used to carve a message into the tabletop.
The words were jagged and rough, as though the author had had only minutes to carve it and not an entire night.
LET ME OUT
‘Never,’ he said. He rubbed his fingers across the carved words, thinking: my hands did this . ‘I’ll never let you out.’