The Diminished

by Kaitlyn Sage Patterson

  Bo sat back, looking stunned, and the shards of pain—again, not my own—pricked at my brain. I glared. He wasn’t telling me the whole truth. How could I possibly trust him if he started out with lies?

  “Vi, think sense, just for a minute,” Quill said. “If you walk up to Phineas with a handful of cash and demand to be allowed to buy out the rest of your contract—” He put up a hand to stop the protests burbling up in my throat. “Don’t say you’ll be subtler about it. You’re about as subtle as a pod of whales. If he didn’t have you arrested for stealing, he’d laugh you out of his office. Best case. You need help.”

  “What if I don’t want to go? What if I’m fine where I am? I did choose this, after all,” I snapped.

  “Oh, certainly,” Bo said, voice dripping sarcasm. “As though you would’ve done this if you had any choice at all. Stop being so damned stubborn.”

  I glared, but part of me knew he was right. This was a way out of the hell I’d bought for myself, a way to live what was left of my life—

  I stopped myself. I didn’t believe for a gods’-damned minute that the man standing in front of me was my half brother. He was my twin. I knew it in my bones. And he was offering me a way to live the rest of what could be a long life—a fact that took my breath away—however I wanted. I could find the rebels. Help them. I could do something important, something useful with all the anger and grief I’d locked away for so long. I could see Phineas pay for what he’d done.

  I turned to Quill. “Then you do it. You take his money and buy out the remainder of my contract.”

  The agonized look Quill gave me sliced into me like a knife. “Vi. That would ruin me. Ruin the business I’ve just started to build. If we’re to do this, we need to do it with great finesse—and like it or not, you need your half brother’s hoity-toity manners and piles of cash. No offense, bully,” he said to Bo.

  Swinton nodded his agreement. “Your contract is to be a present to the mistress of the house, right?”

  “He’s going to give me to her at her birthday celebration,” I said. I gritted my teeth and avoided Bo’s eyes. If he wasn’t interested in telling me the whole truth, I wasn’t interested in him at all.

  “It’ll be a lot easier to get this done before Phineas makes a spectacle of Vi,” Quill said.

  Bo looked at Swinton, and I could feel the desperate grasping for reassurance that radiated from his questioning eyes.

  “We’ll be back in time, Bo. I’ll make sure of it.”

  There was a brief knock at the door, and Mal padded in a moment later. His broad smile wavered and faded as he took in the tension-filled room.

  “Introductions go well, then?” he asked.

  Quill shook his head at his twin, an uneasy twitch of a smile hiding in the corners of his mouth. “How’d it go with Phineas?”

  “Well. He’s taking most of the wine we brought, and wants us to try and find a few more things for the party. He asked if we could lay hands on fireworks. Can you?”

  Quill grinned, anxiety melting away at the prospect of a challenge. “You know me. Anything for a customer.”

  Mal quirked an eyebrow at Bo, but refused to meet my eyes. “If you’re planning to be back in time for this party, you should get on the road this afternoon. We’d best be going. I’ll get the horses hitched.” Mal jerked his chin at Swinton. “Ready?”

  Swinton nodded and followed him to the door. When he reached it, he turned to me with a last discerning stare that seemed to see straight to my bones. “We’ll be seeing each other again soon, bully. You take care, now. Try not to get into too much trouble.”

  I stood and walked past Bo, who sat as still as one of the statues in the garden, and went to Quill, head spinning. He wrapped his arms around me. I reveled in the stillness of his embrace, breathing in his scent, my own heartbeat slowing to match his.

  “I wanted more time with you,” I whispered.

  “There’ll be time enough soon,” he said, bending to kiss my cheek. “If I give you a minute alone with your brother, will you promise me you won’t gut him?”

  I scoffed and tried to pull away from Quill, but he held on. “Don’t pretend like it’s not crossed your mind. You looked about ready to go for a knife when you first saw him.”

  “I did not!”

  “You did, and you know it. Promise you won’t hurt the poor boy. He’d never be able to hold his own against an imp like you.”

  Righteous indignation welled up in my throat, but I pushed it down. I stole a quick glance over my shoulder and saw Bo, standing rigid, jaw clenched. I smothered the urge to smirk.

  “All right. I won’t do anything to him,” I said, squeezing Quill’s hand.

  Quill’s expression was serious as he released me and moved to leave. “You’ll be able to start a whole new life soon, Vi. Be thinking about how you want that to look.”

  The moment the door clicked closed behind him, Bo started talking. “I’ll have to go out there soon, so please hear me out. I’m not your half brother. I’m your twin. I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you before. It’s got to stay a secret, for both our sakes.”

  I stared at him. “I knew you were lying. I could feel it. I can feel everything you feel. Can you...?”

  “Yes. Look, I’m so sorry about the lies. I promise I’ll tell you everything as soon as we get you out of here. Will you trust me for now?”

  “How can I? I’ve only known you for half an hour, and all you’ve done is lie to me. How can I possibly trust you? I thought...” I stopped, embarrassed. “I thought my twin was a girl.”

  “I thought I was alone. All these years, I thought I was all alone.” There was pleading in his eyes, and his hurt swirled around me. “Everything I said was as true as I could manage. Please, Vi. Being around you... I feel like I’ve found a part of myself I didn’t know I was missing. I wanted this to be a happy meeting, and I’ve gone and bungled the whole thing.”

  The door squeaked open, and Quill’s voice shouted in. “Let’s go already! Time’s wasting. I’ll look for you at the party, Vi!”

  Bo took my hands. “Be careful, Vi. Promise me. There are people looking for you, and they mustn’t, under any circumstances, learn who you really are. I’ll be back for you. I’ll prove myself to you, I promise, but please, please be careful in the meantime,” Bo said, and the ache in his heart was as real to me as the pain in my own.

  I looked at him and bit my lip. I’d spent my whole life battered and bruised by the word that followed me around: dimmy. How had he been allowed to skate through life so whole, so unscathed? Tears welled in my eyes, and I turned away from him, silent. I refused to open myself to his pain when my own was as deep and vast as the ocean.

  The door closed a moment later, and I couldn’t tell the difference between his sadness and my own. I hadn’t asked anything about him. Not why he’d thought he was alone, not why he’d finally come to find me after all these years. Nothing. I hadn’t even asked which of us was older.

  I sank to the floor, my back against the cool, stone wall, and I wept for everything I didn’t know and for everything I did.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  BO

  At dusk, we set up camp in a clearing carpeted with dense, springy grass. I looked after the horses while Swinton set about making a fire. Not for heat—that was oppressive enough—but to keep the animals away. When the fire was crackling and the horses were hobbled and munching contentedly on their grain, Swinton and I unrolled our blankets and stretched out, our heads propped on our saddles, bottles of cider at our sides.

  It had been hard not to give up as we rode away from Plumleen and Vi. She’d as much as said she had no interest in my help, in knowing me, in learning what it was to be twins. She’d ripped my heart right out of my chest when she’d turned away from me, her words and thoughts full of venom. But as the door had closed behind me, I’d fe
lt the rending in her own heart and the sadness that welled from deep within her. If not for that strange, miraculous connection of our twinness, I would have gotten on the first ship back to Alskad.

  It would take time to make this right. Time, and stubbornness—if nothing else, it seemed we had enough stubbornness between us to deny the moon had ever split whilst gazing up at its halves in the night sky.

  I spotted those halves of the moon, mere slivers in the sky through the tree branches, and sighed deeply.

  “A question, little lord,” Swinton said. “Why do you pretend that you’re a clerk?”

  “I am a clerk,” I lied, fighting the teasing tone that threatened to creep into my voice. “Whatever gives you the impression that I’m not?”

  “Oddly enough, I’m fair perceptive. Among a host of other clues, you’ve a terrible head for figures and haven’t got the foggiest idea what anything ought to cost a person who’s not dripping with drott. We needn’t even touch on the ‘half sister’ who’s as like you as a girl could possibly be. Plus there’s that cuff on your wrist.”

  I blanched. He hadn’t mentioned the cuff since Quill pointed it out. I had hoped that he had forgotten it. “Don’t be ridiculous,” I protested, trying to hide the panic in my voice.

  “How much did our supplies cost?” Swinton asked. I’d bought the necessary food and drink for our journey in Williford while Swinton exchanged the horses we’d borrowed from his aunt for sturdier, faster mounts. We needed to ride quickly to Southill, with a brief stop to rest at the land my mother had bought halfway between the two cities on the way there and back.

  “Four ovstri.”

  He cackled wickedly. “If you paid four ovstri for this lot, you’ve paid that merchant’s bribe to the temple for the year.”

  “Weedy, boil-brained flap-dragons,” I cursed. It had seemed like such a reasonable price.

  “You curse like a lord, too. And walk like one, and eat like one. I’ve never seen a man take such delicate bites as you. Tell me, what’s the truth in your story?”

  I chewed on my lip. I wanted to trust him with every secret I’d ever kept. I wanted to lay my head in his lap and pour my every hope and happiness and fear and anxiety into his arms and offer myself—in all my wretched imperfection—to him. In truth, I didn’t just want to tell someone—I wanted to tell him particularly. I wanted to share the burden of his secrets along with my own, even though I knew that I shouldn’t tell anyone in Ilor about the crown I would someday wear. Couldn’t, really. I hadn’t even told Vi.

  Instead, I said, “Tell me about your twin, and we’ll see.”

  I waited, listening to the howls of monkeys, the rasping screams of cicadas and the raucous quiet of the jungle, until Swinton finally cleared his throat.

  “Taeb was the good son. My parents didn’t stay together long after they made us. Mama’s a fighter, and Papa, well, he’d rather do about anything than yell. Nevertheless, they were cordial after the split, and each did their part in raising us, though it was clear from day one which son they favored. Taeb was sweet and thoughtful, always bringing Mama flowers, helping Papa in his shop.

  “The gods and goddesses of the Alskad Empire hadn’t quite caught on here when we were coming up. Most of the folks who’d settled Ilor were adventuring types who didn’t have time for worship. The temple folk didn’t start coming until folks like my grandparents had tamed the land a bit. But when we were ten, an anchorite moved to town and began to build himself a haven hall, one stone at a time. Curious brats that we were, we followed him around for a while, asking questions. He told us tales of the power of the goddesses and gods and tried to convince us to open our hearts to them.”

  Swinton took a long drink from his cider and stared into the fire for a bit before continuing. “Having little patience for being preached to by teachers or anchorites, I wandered off right quick and found something else to occupy my time. Taeb, though. Taeb fell in love with that young anchorite’s stories, started following him around, waiting for the next word to drop out of that man’s mouth. By the time we were thirteen, the anchorite’s little haven hall was finished, and more had come to join him. Taeb came home one night and declared to me and Mama that he had decided to join the anchorites. He’d be moving into the temple the next day and would have to take a vow of silence until he was fully inducted into the fold, so anything we had to say to him, we’d have to say it right then.”

  “Was your mother happy?” I asked.

  “Happier than I thought she should be. She cried a bit, of course, but then she started telling him how proud she was. She even dragged Papa out of his shop to tell him the news. Got to the point that I couldn’t bear to watch them congratulate him any longer. I couldn’t fathom why they were so proud. It wasn’t as though he was studying to be a merchant or a builder or something that could actually earn some money. Taeb had decided to join a religion they didn’t practice, one that would condemn them to eternal darkness as nonbelievers.”

  I whistled. I’d never thought of it that way. Growing up with the temple so much a part of our lives, I had always assumed that the only nonbelievers were people in the outer reaches of the Alskad Empire, too stubborn or too stupid to see the truth taught by the anchorites. It had never occurred to me that there might be intelligent people who had simply chosen not to follow the temple.

  “What did you do?” I asked.

  “I kept quiet as long as I could. Like I said, Taeb was the good son. He’d always kept me out of trouble—stopped some of my more harebrained schemes from crashing down on my head. But eventually, I couldn’t stand it anymore. I raged at him, called him an idiot, told him he was betraying me and worse. He sat, listening and nodding until I ran out of curses to yell at him. Then he took my hands in his and told me that he would always be my brother first.”

  Swinton went quiet for a moment and sipped his cider again. I poked the fire and added another chunk of wood. I wanted to go to him, to pull him into my arms, but I was frozen by my own fear that my comfort would be unwelcome. That I would be unwelcome.

  “I spat on him. I said he was no brother of mine and stormed out of the house,” Swinton said, tears glimmering in his eyes in the light of the fire. “Those were the last words I ever spoke to him. He was dead before we turned fifteen. The anchorites claimed he’d caught a summer flu when they brought Mama his ashes.” He seemed to deflate, as if this intensely personal story had rushed out of him and stolen his form in the process.

  “I’m so sorry,” I whispered.

  “So am I. Sorrier than I can ever say. He’s been dead these four years, and no amount of wishing can take those words back.”

  “Are you scared?” I asked, thinking of Vi.

  “Of being a dimmy?” Swinton sighed and rolled away from the fire. “There’s not much that could be worse than the waiting, knowing I may hurt someone I love. But as hard as that is, there’s naught to be done about it.” He yawned. “Best get some shut-eye, little lord. Don’t forget, you owe me a story now.”

  I reached out and found his hand, sliding my fingers between his. His hand tightened around mine, and we fell asleep like that, fingers intertwined.

  * * *

  The next morning, the fog burned away from the tops of the trees, and the sunlight reached the jungle floor. After riding and sleeping damp from a rain that swung from miserable drizzle to perilous, lightning-studded downpour with hardly a moment’s notice, the sight of the sun was a relief. Just as the trees gave way to fields of blossoms, we spotted a wooden sign carved with the name Gyllen—my name. We’d found the right place.

  The red-dirt road carved a curving path in front of us, bordered on either side by rolling hills carpeted in bushes heavily laden with cream-colored flowers. The bushes were planted in neat rows, close enough to one another that their glossy emerald leaves reached across the rows to caress each other. Two big, black birds circled o
ver the fields, the only part of the scene before us that was less than idyllic.

  “Do you smell that?” I asked. A blanket of perfumed air fell over us as soon as we left the canopy of trees.

  Swinton scowled, his mood suddenly dark. “As you can see, I do have a nose.”

  “I’ve never seen plants like this, but the scent’s familiar. Do you know what they are?”

  “They’re philomenas, though I’ve no idea why a body would plant so damn many of them.”

  I sniffed the air and closed my eyes, trying to conjure the scent in my memory. It came to me like a bolt of lightning, and a wave of grief along with it. “It smells like the perfume my cousin Penelope wore.”

  “Tell me more about this Penelope of yours,” Swinton said, his voice full of mischief. He hadn’t given up trying to pull the truth of my heritage from me any more than I’d given up trying to glean what it meant that he was one of the diminished. I’d yet to see any wildness, any violence in him. If anything, he was more cautious than I tended to be.

  Dogs barked in the distance, and my dun mare’s ears twitched. “Did you hear that?”

  The barking was getting closer by the moment, and suddenly a pair of horses, their riders carrying rifles, crested the hill before us at a brisk trot.

  “I think we may’ve stumbled upon our destination, little lord.”

  I reined my horse to a stop and said, “Please, Swinton. Try to remember that I’m a clerk, not a lord.”

  He winked. “Whatever you say, your lordship.”

  The riders, a man and a woman with the same wan complexions, gangly limbs and mousy hair, came to a stop directly in front of us, tipping the broad brims of their hats up and leveling their rifles at us. A pack of enormous, wiry-haired hounds circled our mounts, sniffing and snarling.

  “State your business,” the woman said, her high, thin voice cutting through the morning stillness like a knife.

  I raised my hands so that they could see I held nothing but my reins and shot a glance at Swinton, hoping he’d do the same. He lounged in his saddle, hands on the pommel, an indolent expression of disinterest on his face. I grimaced.