Chapter 3 #2
The Red Gate was one of the oldest structures in the monastery, dating from before the order of the Perpetual Morning had moved in.
It was made of iron, the scarlet coating of paint that gave it its name now mostly flaked off, and it had a row of wicked points running along the top.
It would be locked—the gates of the Golden Tower almost always were—and it stood a good ten feet in height.
That wouldn’t discourage an evil spirit intent on escape, though.
Artair began to run.
‘Chessun!’
On either side of the Red Gate were two small towers. Artair glanced at them as he ran, and what he saw made his stomach turn over. There were monks at the battlements, already notching arrows to their longbows.
No one could be allowed to escape the compound.
‘Chessun, stop!’
The rogue novice had reached the bottom of the Red Gate, and was running his hands over the pitted surface, looking for handholds.
One of the monks, Brother Elthem, had reached Chessun and tried to pull him away, but as Artair watched, his friend struck the monk in the face with one big fist, instantly breaking the man’s nose and sending him to his knees before returning his attention to the gate.
The other monks were looking at each other, grim expressions on their faces.
‘They’ll shoot you, Chessun!’
The rogue novice spared him a glance over his shoulder.
‘Go back to your cell, you little fool, or I’ll break your face too.’
Artair didn’t have a clear plan in his head, only a vague idea that if he were next to Chessun, blocking the archer’s line of sight, they might not fire on them both.
Still running at full pelt, he crashed into his friend and threw them both against the Red Gate, which made a deep, discordant clang and shed a flurry of paint flakes and rust.
‘Get away from there!’ Artair recognized Sister Rosea’s harsh voice. ‘Artair, come away this instant, there’s nothing you can do.’
Face to face now, Artair grabbed his friend by the shoulders.
‘Chessun, wake up! Come back!’
The thing that was inhabiting Chessun grinned slowly. Blood from the graze on his forehead had smeared across his face so that he looked fresh from some terrible battlefield.
‘There’s no Chessun here,’ he said. ‘I’ve consumed him. And now I’m going out there, and the first person I meet I’ll tear into pieces.’ He raised his voice, shouting hoarsely. ‘Do you hear that, you bastard monks? All this blood will be on your hands— ’
Artair shook him, his arms aching with the effort of it. ‘They’ll kill you, you idiot!’
The creature inside of Chessun met his eyes, and something passed through them that shocked Artair. Was that sadness? Resignation?
‘Better that than a slow death looking at the same four walls for the rest of your pointless life.’ Artair thought of how he had woken up that morning, his eyes on the single tiny window of his cell. ‘The one inside you, he knows.’
Artair opened his mouth to reply, not sure what he was going to say, when Chessun jerked violently in his arms. A long wooden shaft had sprouted from the young man’s neck, the fletching feathers pointing up to the blue sky.
‘No…’
The rogue novice sank to the ground. Around them the monks drew closer, talking in low voices, although Artair couldn’t hear what any of them were saying. His eyes were locked with Chessun’s, who looked like he was trying to speak.
‘What is it?’ asked Artair. He thought that the young man’s eyes had changed again, becoming more familiar. ‘Are you there, Chessun?’
His friend opened his mouth, and said nothing. The blood that had been pumping from his neck slowed to a trickle as his heart stopped.
That night, when Brother Benzin led him back to his cell, Artair paused in the doorway. The evening had been an especially solemn affair. Before the Sleepless had eaten dinner together, the monks had buried Chessun’s body in the far north of the garden, in the place reserved for their charges.
‘They could have hit me.’
Benzin carried on trying to find the correct key, fussing with his belt.
‘What’s that, dear boy?’
‘The arrow.’ Artair waited for the monk to look up at him. ‘It was very close. They could have killed us both.’
‘Nonsense.’ Brother Benzin shook his head. ‘They spend hours training with those bows. Months. You were never in any real danger, Artair.’
Later, when the moon had risen high over the sea and Artair had slipped from the waking world, another presence filled his body and opened his eyes.
The being that was not Artair rose from the bed, fetched the chair from its place by the table, and set it down in front of the window, where he sat, his eyes trained on the tiny patch of starry sky.
It was his habit to look at the sky at night, to imagine what distant lands the starlight fell on.
The Twelve knew there was very little else to do in this gods-forsaken cell.
The anger began, as it always did, as a hard knot inside his chest, a feeling of constriction that pulsed and grew, fed by the panic of containment. These four walls, this prison—it was all wrong .
His hands, where they lay on his lap, curled into fists.
He knew three things for certain. That his name was Lucian.
That the face he saw when he looked into the tiny, scratched mirror was not his own.
And that something had been done to him, some monstrous injustice, and when he finally got out of this prison, he was going to tear his captors to pieces, he was going to burn the world down, he would force the gods themselves to do his bidding, he…
Lucian found that he was standing, rage trickling through his body like sour wine.
There was very little he could do in this cramped cell to express his anger—smashing the cups or tearing the bedding became boring after a while—and if he injured this body, he would only have to suffer the pain himself.
But perhaps, tonight, the mirror. It wouldn’t be easy to break with his bare hands, but it might be worth it.
For one night at least, he wouldn’t have to look at the face of a stranger.
He crossed the room in a few steps, desperate to break a precious thing, anything to alleviate the fury, when the sense of something new flooded the room.
A flush of warmth, as though he’d moved into a patch of sunlight; a sharp, familiar scent that made his heart beat faster.
The empty landscape of his memory seemed to shimmer and quake.
He knew this sensation. He had felt it before, once, another lifetime ago.
And it was dangerous.
His fury banked down to embers, Lucian sat back down on the chair, a rare grin on his face.
Something is coming , he thought. And I will use it.