Tithe

by Claire Vale

  16

  WE’RE AGAIN GATHERED in the gym by order of the Alders. It’s a little before the appointed hour of five-thirty. They came for Daniel a half hour ago and he was still all cock and bluster about his grave crime and punishment. I guess we all have a repressed rebellion somewhere inside us that’s just waiting for a spark to shake it loose.

  I don’t realize how much I’ve bought into Daniel’s cavalier attitude until they bring him in. March him in, a guard on his left, a guard on his right. His back is shirtless. His face is bleached to an ash gray.

  My composure starts to slide, loosening the tendons behind my knees. I slip my arm in Gabe’s for support.

  His fingers twine with mine and squeeze gently. “You don’t have to look.”

  I know I don’t. But his voice is strained, as thin as paper, his eyes glazed to the proceedings. Gabe won’t let his friend go through this alone, and I can’t let him go through this alone.

  So I watch the guards march Daniel to the whipping post that takes center stage on the polished floorboards where only this morning we were dodging balls and laughing like silly kids. I watch them hook his wrists into the cuffs dangling from the short crossbars and I watch his body hug the thick, wooden post.

  My stomach hollows.

  This is a barbaric practice.

  It’s only five lashes, Daniel scoffed, I’ll barely feel it. You’re not a man, he laughed, until you’ve kissed the post. It’s all fucking bullshit anyway, he muttered more than once while we waited down the hours, those bastards seriously think they can break me.

  I’m surrounded by my Tithe year, but it feels like it’s only me and Gabe and Daniel…and then suddenly there’s Kane. He walks in behind the other Alders, takes his position with them right beside the whipping post. I study him, searching for signs of distress, anything to let me know he’s not okay with this.

  He stands straight, feet planted a foot apart, hands clasped in front of him, loose limbed and at ease. His eyes are hooded, his features dark and austere, and there it is…that eternal boredom brooding in his expression.

  His gaze lifts and catches my stare.

  I don’t blink away.

  I stare daggers at him until the gravel textured tone of Alderman Keelan’s voice draws my attention.

  “Our treaty with the wall is sacred,” the oxen man lectures, his eyes pinning words as and where they fall on each one of us as he looks over the room. “What is there to keep the beasts on their side of the wall if we do not keep to ours?”

  He steps out of the formation of his peers into the space cleared for Daniel and the whipping post. “Some of you may have fooled yourself into thinking the wall itself is shaky ground, but I assure you it absolutely is not. Ask yourself this: how should we react if we were to come across a beast prowling the wall?”

  He likes his pregnant pauses, and he leaves this one to stew. Long enough for me to ask myself. The answer isn’t pretty.

  “We would consider it a breach of the treaty,” he states soberly. “Daniel Miller, you are duly judged and convicted of breaching The Treaty of the Tithe. As this is a first offense and occurred when you were still a minor, we the Alders have determined a reduced sentence as befits the circumstances. You are hereby sentenced to five strokes by public whipping in the presence of Ironcross.”

  The whole of Ironcross isn’t here to bear witness, just us and the Alders and a handful of guards—including the one who steps forward with a long whip coiled in his hand. The sight is like a call to arms for a battle between cool reason and heated sentiment inside me.

  We’re taught from an early age that the wall is off limits, that to go near it is considered a breach of our treaty. But I’ve never before heard it the way Alderman Keelan put it. If I saw a beast prowling the wall, my entire world would shift, the safety net yanked out from beneath my feet.

  Still, it’s not fair for Daniel to bear the brunt of this lesson. The Alders must know that if he’s done it, so have plenty of us. We were young, too arrogant to know better. Does Daniel not deserve some credit, some leniency, for being the only one brave enough to step up?

  Gabe’s grip tightens around my fingers as the guard prepares for the first strike, arm raised, the length of the whip uncoiling. There’s an intake of air all around me, a collected inhale that sucks the oxygen from the room and starves my lungs. I’m waiting for it, bracing myself, and still I flinch as the leather bites across Daniel’s back. His entire body jerks in silent pain, magnifying the crack of that whip and the slicing slap across his skin. The saliva in my mouth sours.

  The guard’s arm rises and falls, again and again. On the fourth stroke, Daniel breaks, a grunt of raw anguish. My knees buckle out from under me. My hold on Gabe is all that keeps me upright.

  My vision blurs and the next thing I know, Gabe is trying to un-claw my fingers from his. “I have to…”

  I don’t feel ready to stand on my own, but I see the guards uncuffing Daniel and Chris is already pushing through to his side, so I relax my grip to release Gabe. “Go.”

  I stagger back a step, another step, then thankfully I hit the wall and sag against it. I have to concentrate on breathing to control my gag reflex. Some bile still makes it to my mouth.

  The Alders have departed, but Kane stands there, watching as Daniel’s two friends close rank around him. I taste the bile on my tongue and hate that Kane is still here, that he didn’t scurry out on the tail of the Alders, that he can stand there and casually observe without acid regurgitating up his throat.

  Jessie joins me up against the wall. “I’ve been to a few of these, but this is bad. Before, it was never anyone I knew.”

  “I’ve been on the wall,” I say quietly.

  “Seriously?”

  I give a nod, some steel slowly seeping into my bones. “But here I am, and Daniel’s…” my eyes follow Gabe and Chris walking him out the door “…over there.”

  “Don’t worry,” Jessie mutters. “Our turn’s coming.”

  “That actually makes me feel slightly better.” A dry laugh snorts out of me. “Who knew? I’m weirdly pleased about being sentenced to hard labor at the mines.”

  “That’s the guilt talking.” She shoots a look at Harry. “You know what? I’m weirdly pleased about it, too.”

  When she turns back to me, there’s a hard twist to her mouth. I sense a gulf forming, a divide between us and them. Them being the ones who confessed to nothing. Georga, Harry, Jacob, Grace, Lacey…the list goes on, thirteen all in all. The sensible ones who kept their heads and didn’t bow to Alderman Keelan’s pressure. But I don’t regret my decision anymore.

  The hall starts emptying out and I tell Jessie to go on ahead without me. “I need some alone time.”

  “You sure?”

  “Positive.”

  That’s not strictly true. What I really need is some Gabe time, but I reckon Daniel needs him more.

  Once everyone is gone, I wander over to the bench press and lie flat on my back, close my eyes and pray to God this is the last worst day of my life.

  My eyeballs prick.

  My lids flutter open and I find myself staring up into Kane’s stone-baked eyes. My pulse slows. His raven hair falls across his face, scraping the hollow in his bristled jaw and my fingers tingle with the urge to brush it back, to linger… What? What on earth are you doing, Senna? I close my eyes tight. “I saw you leave.”

  “I came back.”

  “Why?”

  “I saw you stay behind.” He goes down on the floor near my feet, his back against the bench, knees pulled up. “You and Daniel are friends. I know this must be tough.”

  Against my better judgment (I spend a whole handful of seconds attempting to resist), I roll onto my side so I can look at him looking into the distance. In profile, he is all harsh angles and aggressive hollows. The hook in his nose is prominent. There’s a kink in his hair that dips into his collar. The imperfect parts of him that make an enigmatic, captivating whole.

>   I don’t hate him. I just hate some of the aspects of his character that make him who he is.

  How does that make sense?

  It’s a little like the awareness he stirs in me, phantom traces of attraction that don’t mean anything.

  “Did you even try to stop it?” I ask. “Or did they have your uncontested vote.”

  There’s a slight hesitation before he responds. “I don’t have a vote. I don’t even have a seat at the table yet. But to answer your question…” He swings his knees around my way, his gaze slowly hooking into mine. “They would have had my vote, yes.”

  “I get it.” I really do. “You can’t have people ignoring Alder law without consequences. But why the public spectacle?”

  “For maximum effect.”

  “Well that sure worked out for you then,” I say, my voice sharpened with disdain. I can’t help it. I’m trying to be cordial, respectful, but Kane’s just pushed the wrong button. “Daniel spent the afternoon building up his bravado and whoosh, it’s gone. You already punished him. Then you took his pride.”

  “You’re thinking like a child.”

  “And you’re thinking like a damn Alder.”

  He arches a brow at me. “You’re distraught, so I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that.”

  I open my mouth to tell him not to bother. What comes out is a scratchy laugh. “You know what’s really funny? I was trying so hard to think of some minor infraction I could confess to and it was staring me in the face the whole time. I should just have mentioned these little interactions of ours. I could be sitting through two cozy hours of dissident behavior training with Emily and Chase tomorrow instead of doing hard labor.”

  “It’s only one day in the mines,” he says, deliberately skipping over my real point. “You won’t come to any harm.”

  “Because a little blood, sweat and tears never killed anyone, right?”

  “Sweat and tears, maybe.” A grin plucks the corner of his mouth. “And maybe some grime.”

  How the hell did this turn into humorous banter?

  “I’m not amused.” I roll onto my back again so he can’t see the storm clouds evaporating from my mood.

  “Why did you confess?” he says after a beat.

  “I felt honor bound to do the right thing,” I retort. “Why do you care?”

  He says nothing.

  The seconds tick on by.

  I sigh. “I didn’t feel honor bound to confess to anything. I was scared someone else would drop the names of everyone at the party and then the Alders would know.”

  I hear him shuffle to his feet.

  I don’t look to watch him walk away. I stare up at the ceiling, thinking about how I’ve just ruined any chance of a lasting friendship.

  I’m not sure why I care.

  With everything that’s happened today, Gabe and I never paid Lt. Palmer a visit so he could lodge our pairing. I do sleep in his arms that night. In a bean bag in the rec room.

  A little before eleven, he wakes me. “Come on, I need to get you back to your dorm before curfew.”

  I’m still bleary-eyed and cotton-brained from sleep as I curl out from under his arm. That’s my excuse for picking at threads without considering how far they might unravel. “What is the point?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Earlier, when I asked if you felt forced into marrying me, you said that’s not the point.” I shuffle onto my knees, half on and off the bag. “So what is the point?”

  His gaze lowers from mine as he thinks that through. “It just feels like things got real today.”

  “I know.” Which is why I need Gabe anchoring me, not pushing me farther and farther adrift. “Why aren’t you answering the question?”

  His eyes flash to me. “What do you want me to say?”

  He throws the words at me like an accusation. It stings. But I don’t want to hit back. I don’t know why I started this.

  “Nothing,” I realize. “I don’t want to fight, Gabe.”

  It takes a moment, but his gaze softens into me. “We’re not fighting.” He reaches over to tuck a strand of hair behind my ear. His touch lingers on my cheek. “I love you.”

  My heart swells. I lean into him, wrapping my arms around his neck. “I love you, too, Gabe Winter.”

  His lips brush mine, the ghost of a kiss that captures my breath and flutters my pulse. I want to deepen the kiss until it consumes us. I want to press my body close, lose the memory of this day in the whitewash of spent desire. I want… I want…

  Gabe pulls away first, but the way he looks at me tells me he wants to lose himself in me just as much.

  It’s enough for now.

  It has to be. We’re in enough trouble without adding curfew to our list of crimes.

  17

  THE SIREN GOES OFF at five-thirty the following morning. It feels like the dead of night. I stumble out of bed, carefully making my way to the light switch. Not carefully enough. I yelp as my toe snubs on a hard corner, possibly the steel frame of the other bunk.

  Shit. Shit. “Ow!” I hit the switch and light floods the room.

  “Are you okay?” June clambers down from the top bunk. “What happened?”

  Pressing against the wall, I bend my knee so I can grab my throbbing toe. “I stubbed my damn toe,” I mutter.

  “Go tell the wall,” Georga groans, pulling a pillow over her head. “I need my beauty sleep.”

  “For what?” Rose peels herself out of bed and reaches up to pluck the pillow away. “I thought you weren’t interested in pairing.”

  “Maybe I changed my mind.” Georga snatches the pillow back and rolls out of her reach.

  A loud rap comes at the door, followed by Mac’s muffled, “Outside in twenty.”

  I glance at my watch, then at June. “I thought we had to be ready for six?”

  June shrugs. “I’m not going to argue ten minutes with her.”

  We gather our toiletry bags and shuffle out.

  “Lights!” Georga shouts after us.

  I pause with a hand on the doorknob.

  Rose catches my eye and I guess there’s a first time for everything. We’re in total agreement. I slam the door closed on the brightly lit room. I don’t really resent Georga for her choices, but would it kill her to show a little sympathy for ours?

  “I knew she was full of bullshit the other day, pretending to be above us,” Rose snorts. “I wonder who she has her eye on.”

  “Kane, I think.” It just slips out my mouth. To Rose of all people. I blame it on this unnatural camaraderie that’s developed between us and them, and in the cold dark of pre-dawn, Georga is definitely them.

  June gasps, turning wide eyes on me. “Kane?”

  “I think,” I stress, feeling a little bad now. “Just something she mentioned. I’m not sure she was being serious. You know Georga, she likes to drop bombshells and watch them explode.”

  Rose goes quiet, striding ahead to the bathroom.

  I bite my lip. “I hope she’s not going to spread rumors.”

  June laughs. “Rose doesn’t spread rumors, she starts them.”

  I give her a look. “Not helping.”

  “You worry too much,” she says. “Georga doesn’t care what people say about her. In fact, I think she likes it. The more scandalous, the better.”

  June’s not wrong.

  I sigh and let it go.

  At precisely ten minutes before six, we’re lined up outside the dorm beneath a grey sky. Me, Jessie, Rose, June, and the other two girls sentenced to hard labor at the mines with us, Mai and Hannah. My skin is coated in goosebumps but I decide against fetching my thin sweater. There’s already a pinkish glow on the horizon and it won’t be long before the heat of the sun breaks through.

  Mac walks the line in front, scrutinizing each one of us. When she gets to Jessie, she points at her open-toed sandals. “You’re not going on a picnic. Change into suitable footwear.”

  Jessie scowls down at her feet. “But they�
��re flat.”

  “That wasn’t a suggestion,” Mac barks. “It’s an order. Go!”

  Jessie startles at the bark. We all do. Mac’s no-nonsense approach usually comes with a light touch. Jessie hurries off and I clasp my hands together, nerves knitting my stomach.

  “That’s harsh,” Rose mutters.

  Mac looks at her. “Did you say something?”

  Rose juts her chin high, looks Mac in the eye. “This just all seems rather excessive and harsh. Half the girls are still asleep in bed while we’re being punished for our honesty.”

  “The standard sentence for disobeying Alder law is anything from three weeks to three months hard labor, depending on the severity of the crime.” Mac’s hard gaze widens to include all of us. “You got one day. That’s not punishment, it’s a friendly warning. I suggest you show appreciation for the Alders’ leniency and stop feeling sorry for yourselves.”

  The pep talk falls way short of the mark. I don’t have it in me to show appreciation for the Alders, not after what they did to Daniel yesterday. And of all the things I’m feeling, self-pity isn’t one of them.

  Jessie rejoins us, wearing the running shoes issued to her for FT. From the mutinous set of her jaw, she’s not happy about it.

  Across the quad, the boys file out of their dorm. Their guard (who insists on being addressed as Sir or Staff Sergeant Williams), stands to attention at the head of their line.

  My eyes connect with Gabe and my palm cups the cross at my throat. He gives me a mock two-finger salute and I find a smile at the return of his natural good humor.

  Yesterday is behind us.

  The welts on Daniel’s back will fade and his cocky pride will heal.

  We will all get through this day unharmed, just like Kane promised. Sunrise to sunset. I can endure anything for one day, especially with Gabe at my side.

  The hour of six comes and goes. Our feet shuffle. I glance at my watch again.

  Jessie’s stomach rumbles. “I hope they intend to serve breakfast at this mine,” she mutters.