Tithe

by Claire Vale

  “I don’t think that’s what the Alders are looking for,” Jessie says. “Red earned his punishment, but he served his sentence and didn’t escape. He took responsibility for his crimes. I’m pretty sure the Alders would want us to believe we’d get rewarded for that.” She looks at me. “What do you think?”

  I think I know why that perfect ending feels so wrong. “They should both get sent back to prison.”

  “What?”

  “No.”

  “That’s harsh.”

  Only Georga and Jacob stay silent, willing to hear me out.

  “I know Andy was wrongly accused, innocent of the crime he was sentenced for,” I explain. “But he broke the law when he tunneled out of the prison and escaped. He broke it again when he stole that money.”

  “The money was already stolen,” Jessie protests.

  “It doesn’t matter if you steal from the good guys or from thieves,” I say. “Stealing is unlawful. Red is his accomplice. The guards would hunt them down and send them back to prison. That is the proper ending.”

  “I agree,” Jacob says quietly.

  Grace nibbles on her pencil again, a frown worrying her brow.

  Jessie gives me a concerned look. “Is that what you really want to happen, or what you think the Alders want to hear?”

  “It’s just the truth of what would happen if this wasn’t a film,” I tell her, and it feels like the truth, a home truth that has finally landed on my thick skull. “I don’t want their ending to be like that, but anything else is a stupid fantasy, a dream. Life isn’t fair. Bad things happen to innocent people. That doesn’t mean they get some magical free pass to break the law and get away with it. That’s not real.”

  There’s more stewing inside me that I don’t say. Happy endings are not real. My spirit is at an all-time low.

  The conversation around me goes on. My opinion is not a popular choice and they eventually go with Grace’s answer.

  Grace trots off to hand in the folder.

  Jacob drifts off in his quiet manner.

  And Kadin’s looking at me again, as if he desperately wants to say something.

  Resisting the urge to bark, ‘What!, instead I ask him, “Everything okay?”

  “Um, yeah…” He wets his lips. “I was just…” He looks at Jessie, Georga, back to me. “Never mind,” he says and jumps to his feet, scurrying off as if I’m hurling stones at his back.

  “What on earth was that about?” I mutter.

  “The vultures have heard a rumor you might be available,” Georga comments.

  My shoulders tense. “I’m not.”

  A smile twists her mouth. “You kind of are.”

  “It wouldn’t hurt to get to know the other guys a little,” Jessie says hesitantly. “Just in case, you know.”

  “I’ll spare you the trouble,” Georga says. “Kadin is…well, you’ve seen, more mouse than man, which may be your thing.” She shrugs, casting her gaze about the quad. “There’s Olly—”

  “Olly hates me,” I mutter.

  She makes no attempt to contradict me. “Moving on...there’s Devon, he’s a cute package and isn’t too boring. Sweats like a pig when he gets nervous, but that’s an easy fix.”

  “How so?”

  She shoots me a grin. “Don’t make him nervous.”

  I remember what Rose said about Devon apprenticing at the mines. A shudder passes through me. I know it’s different, the miners aren’t prisoners, but I can’t imagine a bearable life anywhere near that place.

  “Okay, so…where…” She looks around, shrugs. “I don’t see Jake, but, ah, there is Chase …” She cocks her head, considering the rake-thin boy with the narrow face and squirrely eyes. “Don’t forget, you’ll have to make babies with it.”

  “That’s cruel,” Jessie snaps. “Even for you.”

  It is. But it’s also a painful reminder. My gaze bounces between the meager choices—I won’t just be sharing the rest of my life with them, I’ll be sharing a bed.

  I don’t think I can do it.

  I can’t.

  “Why did you say no to Chris?” I ask Georga. I ask myself. “He’s a decent guy. He has a good heart.”

  I expect a typical Georga dismissive remark, but she looks at me a long, long moment and then she says, “Because he’s a good, decent guy. He’d do his best to make sure I’m happy and I’d probably be content.”

  “So you’re a masochist?” Jessie snorts.

  Georga doesn’t take offense. “I don’t want to be content. That’s a half-life, living for the sake of breathing air. I want to rage. I want to love so hard it feels like suffering.” Her gaze slides to Jessie. “I’d rather fly into the sun and burn than be too afraid to lift off from the ground.”

  “You’re going to get yourself Tithed and die,” Jessie warns, unimpressed.

  “Get myself Tithed, almost certainly,” Georga says. “I’m not so sure about the dying part.” She pushes up from the grass, smiling at us. “But you know what? If I do die, I’ll take the greatest secret of Ironcross with me to the grave. You’ll live your entire life never knowing what exactly becomes of the Tithed.”

  We watch her walk off.

  I fall silent, deep in thought. I want to love so hard it feels like suffering. That’s what loving Gabe has felt like these last few days. Suffering. Love is hard. I think about what Kane said, about not wanting it for himself, about being better off without it. I think about how he may be right and whether true love ever actually gives you a choice. Was there a crossroad somewhere I missed, a conscious point where I chose to fall this hard for Gabe?

  The wall.

  That moment of clarity is a fist clenching around my heart.

  His gaze sinking into me, his thumb feathering the line of my jaw. Him leaning in, bringing his earthy scent and boyish heat and blue, blue eyes into a kiss that stroked my bones.

  I remember it now, so very clearly, the if that didn’t really feel like a choice. If I do this, everything changes and there’s no going back.

  But if it was a choice, I didn’t make it alone.

  I love you.

  That’s a strong word.

  It’s a strong emotion.

  Senna Rhys, will you marry me.

  Gabe promised me we’d be together, always.

  My hand goes to the Celtic cross at my throat, my thumb tracing the intricate silver patterns. My other hand goes to my mouth, my thumb tracing my bottom lip as my thoughts churn to Kane and the whisper of an almost kiss.

  You keep asking me why I care. I wasn’t asking, not in a care care way, it was just obnoxious retorts.

  But the way he said it. You keep asking me why I care. His gaze burning into me. That wasn’t any retort. That was real. This is chemistry. Damn good chemistry.

  Is it enough?

  For a guy like Kane, a guy who thinks urges and desires are stronger and more important than love, I think it might be.

  27

  Kane is not pleased when I ambush him after FT again. Seems he only has time for me when it’s on his terms.

  He’s even less pleased fifteen minutes, once he’s dragged me into a training room and heard what I’ve come to say. We’re on our feet, facing each other off across the table. My arms are folded across my chest like a protective barrier.

  He’s leaning forward with his knuckles pressed to the table, poised like a piece of flint preparing to strike and watch me burn. “No.”

  “If you won’t lodge our pairing, I’ll be Tithed.” I stand my ground, hold on to what he said at the pool that day—the steel and grit in his voice when he said it— you will pair with any damn guy here who will take you. “You don’t want that. I know you don’t.”

  His face darkens to a thunder cloud.

  “Do not presume to blackmail me,” he says, he commands in a voice that is deathly quiet, his eyes stone cold.

  I can practically hear him biting down on his back teeth. The strain at his jaw carves additional glaciers into his
icy expression.

  My throat parches to sand, my saliva turning to dust beneath his frigid stare. I wet my lips, struggle to swallow. I came here expecting resistance, maybe even anger, but not this force of unleashed fury. I’m not holding a blade to his throat.

  “This isn’t blackmail,” I say coolly, somehow managing to stay strong, to give the appearance of control. “This is my last option.”

  “You have plenty of options.”

  “I won’t pair with anyone else,” I tell him. “You may never understand it, but know this. I can’t and I never will.”

  A simple statement that he doesn’t challenge. His stare roots into me. He is cold fury, unwavering. The seconds tick by and I realize what a fool I’ve been, how far I’ve misjudged this thing between us

  “No,” he says again.

  All that’s kept me upright is nerves and tension bound around a flimsy ray of hope. Now it’s gone. I reach out, steady myself with a hand on the back of a chair as I search his eyes, but it’s no use, he is closed to me, a blank page with no answers, no explanation.

  He doesn’t owe me anything.

  “Okay…” I say, more to myself than him. My chin nudges up a notch, my shoulders braced.

  I won’t be this weak.

  My eyes flare into his, defiant and blazing, then I turn abruptly and my step is firm, my legs knotted at the knees as I march for the door.

  “Senna…!” A brusque command.

  I don’t stop.

  My hand is on the doorknob

  “Yes,” he growls, a distant rumble of thunder, so far away, I’m not sure I heard correctly.

  Everything within me stills as I glance over my shoulder, my eyes sliding into his frosted glare.

  He stands there, fingers pushed into his silken hair, the whole of him bathed in the wrath of a hundred fallen angels. There’s a crack in his steel-edged voice, an angel with a broken wing, as he growls, “I said yes, goddammit.”

  Relief flows through me.

  I don’t show it.

  I notch my chin a fraction higher and look him in those blade sharp silver eyes. “Thank you, Kane. You won’t regret this.”

  “I damn well better not.”

  My chin tilts, a small nod of reassurance and confidence as I leave the room. He will not regret this. There is no space inside me for doubt. There is no space for any sense of victory either.

  I have won, and I am shattered.

  I know what I have done is unforgivable.

  28

  One day bleeds into another, broken only by meals I don’t really taste and fitful bouts of sleep and that one last interaction with Gabe so he’d stop pressurizing me and leave me to my misery.

  Where I looked him in the eyes and said, “Kane lodged our pairing this morning.”

  Jessie is there as well. She chokes on the news. Literally chokes even though she’s got nothing in her mouth.

  I give her a few hard slaps on the back. “There, there, it’s not that impossible.”

  I’m walking a line in time and space I don’t recognize. I’m a stranger in my own skin. Disconnected. Maybe I really did shatter and I’m just particles drifting around aimlessly. That’s what it feels like.

  Gabe’s expression remains neutral. “You and Kane? That’s…well…” He shrugs. “I didn’t realize…Yeah, okay, that’s good, I guess.”

  I look into his blue, blue eyes, stare for long moments while I forget to breathe, while I try to understand how we got here. I can’t. I never will. “Do you even care?”

  “That’s not fair, Senna.”

  My gaze falls, breaks the connection, and I’m just random particles again.

  Jessie rounds on me. “How did it happen? How on earth—”

  “—I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “You can’t be—”

  “Jessie, seriously.” I give them both a look. “And please don’t spread the word. I don’t want to talk about it and I don’t want everyone else talking about. I don’t even want to think about it.”

  “Of course not,” Jessie says. “Kane being Kane, and an Alder, I get how this will blow up. My lips are sealed, I swear.”

  Gabe doesn’t promise his silence but I’m pretty sure I have it.

  After that, I spend most of my time alone, thinking about my dad and the farm and me and Gabe and the way things were. That’s the only way I seem to be able to ground myself. The moment my thoughts start edging toward the future, that’s when I start shattering again.

  My stomach is a constant mess of knots.

  I’m not the only one. Everyone is subdued, self-absorbed or self-obsessing about the Tithe and then it’s upon us—we’re gathered in the auditorium as the minutes count down, the air thick and shocked with silent tension, as if we’ve all been caught off guard, as if none of us saw this coming.

  Lt. Palmer is here. So is Kane. They’re seated in the lowest row instead of up front where only four chairs have been placed. We’re all packed to the right of the aisle—we were told to leave the left hand side empty.

  The Alders file in through the bottom door.

  I wipe my clammy palms over my jeans. Cast a quick glance around Chris, who squeezes back into his chair when he realizes my eyes are searching for Gabe. He’s not seated beside me. We haven’t spoken a complete sentence to each other in days.

  He meets my searching gaze now, holds it. His smile is warm and sad. His eyes brim with love and sorrow.

  I’m sorry, he mouths.

  So am I.

  While the other Alders take their seats, Alderman Harken steps forward. The lectern has been pushed all the way across to the left, and he doesn’t go to stand behind it. He’s carrying the parchment scroll inscribed with our intended pairs.

  There’s a subtle, shuffling sound that draws my attention to the door behind us. Eight guards file inside. Four move into the upper row on our left, the other four continue down to take seats in the lowest row. I can’t think why they’re needed here. The Tithed aren’t going to run. There’s nowhere to run to.

  Alderman Harken begins with, “Our young are precious, each and every one of you.”

  His gaze sweeps across us. “The Tithe is not a sacrifice, it is an exclamation of life. The chosen are revered, honored, loved.” His voice deepens with that charismatic emotion he’s so good at. “Some people put on this earth live long, some live short, you will live on forever.”

  We hang onto his words as if they can save us.

  “Life is a circle, and as sure as we must say goodbye to our Tithed, we welcome our new pairs to take their rightful place in society.” He holds the parchment scroll up high, brandishing it like a victor’s flag. “Ironcross is only as strong as the foundation it is built on and you are the foundation for our future generations. Through you, Ironcross will prosper and survive.”

  The conviction in his voice as he ends his introduction flows into the room. I feel its strength, but my own conviction is too slippery and it doesn’t stick. I already know I’m going to be a flaky foundation.

  He hands the scroll off to Alderman Brisken and takes his seat while the white-haired Alder moves to stand behind the lectern. He takes his time un-scrolling the parchment, then produces a flamboyant looking pen from the inside pocket of his jacket.

  Only then does his gaze lift to us. “When I call out your pair, step down to sign your name, and then…” He clears his throat as he waves a hand across the empty half of the auditorium. “Please take a seat while the proceedings continue.”

  My stomach dips.

  Jessie catches my eye and smiles.

  I can’t smile back.

  “Grace Panney,” Alderman Brisken calls out in his scratchy voice.

  She’s seated in the middle row and glances around with a serene smile as she rises to her feet. She doesn’t even look at Jacob, who’s sitting right beside her. When his name is called, Jacob stands. There’s a pause, then Grace gives him a nudge to get him shuffling along the row of occupi
ed seats to the aisle.

  My foot starts to tap-tap-tap. I uncross my legs to put both feet flat on the floor. Nerves bundle in my neck, in my shoulders, in my stomach, as I watch them walk up to the lectern.

  Alderman Brisken offers the pen to Grace first, then to Jacob, as they sign the parchment to bind their pair. The marriage ceremonies will take place in the following days for celebration with family and friends, but this is the signing that makes your pair officially binding. After this, only the Alders can break a pair, if they absolutely must, for the Tithe.

  Hannah and Luke are called up. Then Jessie and Harry.

  Jessie gives my hand a squeeze, whispering as she stands, “See you on the other side.”

  I try to give Jessie my full attention as she and Harry sign. I want to remember this moment for them, for myself. This is what a truly happy pair looks like.

  The next pair is called, then the next. I can’t make any rhyme or reason of the order. My palms get sweatier with every name.

  Chris and Rose.

  Emily and Luke.

  “Senna Rhys,” Alderman Brisken calls out.

  My stomach cramps.

  I’m going to be sick.

  Kane shifts in his seat, angling himself to cast a dark look up the rows to me. I promised him he wouldn’t regret this. He has the same look in his eyes as he did then. You’d damn well better not.

  My legs tremble as I push to my feet. I don’t share Kane’s concerns. What I’m afraid of, desperately afraid of, is what comes after. The rest of my life. I have made a bed of hate and betrayal and I will have to sleep in it. That is not a fear, it’s a certainty.

  Alderman Brisken clears his throat and calls my pair.

  “Gabriel Winter.”

  My gaze falls on Gabe.

  I don’t know how I manage to stay on my feet as I watch understanding wash the color from his face, shave the depths of warmth from his eyes. I want to speak. I want to explain. When I looked you in the eye and told you Kane had lodged our pairing, I didn’t lie. I meant our pairing, yours and mine.

  My mouth cannot shape the words.

  We both know he misunderstood.