by Devin Madson
I shook my head. The field was spinning and I felt sick, bile pooling in my throat. ‘No,’ I said. ‘No.’
‘Why did you do it, Endymion?’ he asked again, gripping me by the shoulders and shaking so hard my teeth snapped together. ‘What makes you angry? What drives you? You can’t beat it if you don’t know.’
‘They deserved it.’ The words came out of my lips without thought, a mouse’s whisper with a meaning that cut deep.
‘Say it again.’
‘They deserved it.’
‘Louder.’
‘They deserved it!’
The words echoed over the field, the morning suddenly quiet. Sweat dripped down my cheek. It might have been tears, I couldn’t tell, could only look into that beautiful face and wish it would not smile.
‘They should not have ambushed us,’ I said, desperate to fill the silence. ‘Those men in Shimai should never have hurt Jian. Or me.’ I swallowed hard. ‘They treated me like a monster, a freak. They never gave a thought to how it would feel on the other side of the bars, to be afraid, to be taunted with such cruelty. No one understands! No one cares! No one knows how it feels! I never asked to be born this way!’
At least we schooled our anger. The whisper came unbidden from Darius’s head. We learned to make it do what we wanted. So many journeys down the hill to Esvar in search of victims. Experimentation became practice, and practice became sport. He is too strong too fast, and it isn’t going to stop.
‘Justice,’ he said. ‘You want justice.’
‘Yes.’ The power thrilled through me. ‘And I can get it.’
‘No.’
‘What?’
Darius took my face between his trembling hands. ‘You have to let it go, Endymion. You have to fight what makes you angry. You have to stop caring. Don’t pretend you haven’t a heart, don’t have one at all. Your compassion will kill you.’
‘But–’
‘No buts. We are at war, yes? Let the children become orphans. Let the women be raped. Let the men die. Do you understand?’
If you don’t, you will kill them all.
One million, three hundred and twenty thousand, eight hundred and seventy.
‘Do you trust me, Endymion?’
I stared into those violet eyes. Fear. Anger.
‘Yes.’
‘Good.’
Only a fool trusts a Laroth.
Chapter 15
Endymion hunched over the cracked ceramic basin and retched. A trickle of rusty bile dribbled from his lip, the last of it hanging there by a string of saliva. Pushing his hair back with trembling fingers, he spat, a deep breath shuddering out of his lungs.
It was happening fast.
‘Darius–’
Leaning forward, he retched again, his hair falling around his face like a short curtain. I took the thin linen towel from my shoulder and dipped one end into the water bucket. The fabric darkened as it sucked in moisture, crinkling as I squeezed it out again. ‘Here,’ I said, holding it so it hung within Endymion’s sight. ‘You’ll feel better.’
‘Really?’
‘No, but it won’t hurt.’
He sat back, letting out a groan and taking the towel. ‘What’s wrong with me?’
‘It’s the Empathy fighting back. Don’t worry, it gets easier.’
‘You said that earlier.’
‘Yes, and it’s still true.’
There had been no one to hand me a damp towel. I hardly knew how long it had been before I ceased to retch after every breath. Alone, I had curled up in a dark corner, barely aware of my surroundings. Malice had filled my thoughts. As though in a fevered dream we had talked and laughed together, hands touching. Hunting, testing, loving, his soul had always been within reach, so close he became an extension of my own skin.
The damp towel beaded moisture over Endymion’s pale face.
I had come close to death in those early days, so heavy had been the guilt I carried. Hatred fuelled the Void and full of wretched self-pity, I had hovered on the edge of letting go.
But the Sight wanted to be used. It would not let me die and yet I would not let it live. And so I had overcome the pain, grown used to it gnawing on my bones.
‘Water.’
Endymion held out his hand. A scoop was hooked over the side of the bucket, and I drew half a cup. He took it, his shaking fingers sending water slopping onto the floor and down his robe. Only the final dregs made it to his mouth.
The scoop clattered on the ground as he lunged for the bowl, bringing the water back up.
‘Did this happen to you?’ he asked when his stomach stopped convulsing.
‘Yes.’
‘Really?’
‘Really. Do you doubt me?’
‘Only because I can’t imagine you being sick.’
I sat on the floor beside him. Moss was growing in cracks along the floor and the room had the same musty smell as the rest of the house. I wanted to leave, but I set my head against the rotting wood. ‘I’ve told you before that I am not the fragile doll you think me.’
‘A storm nearly killed you.’
‘Funny. Yes, I was a sickly child until my maturation, but not thereafter.’
Everything had changed that night. Power had flooded through me and I knew myself invincible. The maze had burned and there amid the smoke had stood Malice, awkward and unsure despite the fine robe he had found for the occasion. There, the first and last time he had spoken his real name.
Endymion sat back on his heels, wiping his mouth with his filthy sleeve. ‘When did Malice have his maturation?’
‘That isn’t my story to tell,’ I said.
‘He won’t tell me.’
‘Then you must accept that you will never know the answer.’
Narrowed eyes scanned my face with the same ferocity his Empathy had once scanned my thoughts. ‘Why do you keep his secrets?’
‘Because I do.’
‘Because you love him.’
‘You need to make up your mind, Endymion. Only yesterday you told me it was Kimiko I loved.’
‘Are men only capable of loving once?’
‘I am sure Normals are capable of great feats of weakness, but Empaths cannot love.’
His Empathy came at me like reaching fingers, its gentle touch increasing in strength as he hunted. I swatted the air as though to brush it away. ‘That isn’t control, Endymion,’ I snapped. ‘Turn it in and keep it in.’
The change was instantaneous and Endymion gripped the foul smelling bowl. He retched air, nothing coming up, not even bile. But his body kept fighting, kept trying to rid itself of the plague, the Void, that inhabited his skin.
I watched. There was nothing I could do to help. It would either work or it wouldn’t, and though it was too early to be sure, I had my doubts. He was too strong.
‘What will you do when Malice comes?’ he asked, sitting up again and continuing the conversation as though it had never stopped.
‘I don’t know yet,’ I replied.
Again that sharp gaze roamed my face. ‘You’re staying because you want to. You want him to come.’
‘You have a very active imagination.’
‘So do you.’
Pushing away from the wall, I got to my feet. ‘I think I will leave you with your bowl,’ I said. ‘I’ll come and see how you are later. Try to sleep.’
‘Funny.’
‘No, I mean it,’ I said. ‘It will help. I’ve been there.’
‘And will you be here again?’
I didn’t answer, but went to the door. ‘Sleep. I’ll be back later.’
Endymion retched again as I slid the door closed, the battered frame doing little to muffle the sound. Paused outsi
de his door, I looked along the hallway. At the far end light shone through paper panes and Kimiko’s shadow flitted past. She was waiting for me, but I turned my back on the reaching light. The other end of the passage ended in darkness. The house was always dark, even during the day; its permanent desolation enough to scare away the townsfolk who dared one another to approach our gates. But I knew the ghosts of old, and every passage was carved into my mind like the lines of my own palm.
Needing no lantern, I walked on through the servants’ wing, knowing every door by its old inhabitant's name. One by one they had moved on until only Avarice remained, and what little glory the house had left, faded to dust. Now there was only me, me and the ghosts of my ancestors left to haunt these walls, leaving their mark on the house as they had left their mark upon me.
In the old dayroom I found an Errant board and knelt to count the pieces, each a smooth wooden disc. They were all accounted for, even the two kings with their painted crowns shining in a bolt of stray moonlight. Dropping them back into their box, I gathered up the board and continued on my way, never a doubt of my destination.
Gaping windows welcomed me, each one incandescent with moonlight. They ran the length of the gallery, letting in the warm night air thick with the scent of jasmine. I walked the row under my ancestors’ watchful eyes, the click of my sandals loud in the silence. The painted faces scowled their displeasure. I let my heels drop onto the floor with an even sharper rap, no lips owning a voice to complain.
I knew the faces. My grandfather. My grandmother. I caught their haughty expressions, glancing at them only to know when to look away. Down at my feet. And from their places, eyes watched me still. My mother. My father. Even as a child I had never come here unless forced. Now I needed to be with my blood.
At the end of the line I looked up at my younger self: un-maturated, weak. The same eyes, the same face, but a lifetime stood between us.
Kneeling on the dusty floor, I set the Errant board in front of me. The pieces fell from their box to scatter across the board, black and crimson. My hands glowed in the moonlight, skeletal fingers setting pieces like the click of bones, and two kings stood waiting to play at war.
When the board was set I sat back, looking up at the strange little smile the painter had given my younger self.
‘You wanted me to come,’ I said. ‘Talk.’
The painting did not move, did not speak, but the sound of my inner voice chuckled mirthlessly. You’re a fool, Darius.
My fists tightened on my knees. ‘That is no surprise. I come from a long line of fools.’
Moonlight sliced the worn Errant board, lighting paths across the field. Lifting a piece, I moved it forward a square, and placed it back down on the chipped paint.
‘Endymion isn’t going to get it.’
You can’t know that for sure. The voice came back to me, an echo of my thoughts.
‘No,’ I agreed out loud, running the tip of my finger around the edge of another piece. ‘But he’s too strong. There is no middle ground anymore. It is justice he wants and it is justice he will get, unless he kills himself trying to break it.’
I let the darkness speak. That would solve a big problem, yes?
An opposing piece snuck forward a space. Endymion, the problem I hadn’t bargained for. But he was the least of my troubles.
Another piece was moved forward with a sharp snap.
Are you just going to sit there and play your game?
A piece advanced from the other side of the board, lifted by unsteady fingers.
Look at your ancestors.
Click. Click.
Darius.
I took another piece, concentrating on the pattern already forming. It was easy to switch off, to focus entirely upon the game as I had often done as a Normal, sitting beside Kin with a board balanced on the arm of the Crimson Throne.
Look at you. You’re a stinking coward, just like your father.
They were my own words, but my inner voice spat them with such hatred that I looked up, stung.
This is why you came here. Look at them. At us.
It had been stupid to come. The room deserved to be set alight, its emotions lost as smoke billowed into the sky, setting memories free.
Dropping the piece, I got to my feet and walked back along the line. A whole family of eyes returned my stare. Every one of these men had carried the mark upon his wrist and the Sight in his heart, and every one of them had lived and died beneath this roof. For six generations sons had succeeded fathers in an unbroken line, the Laroth name passed on through male blood. My father had shown me the family tree as a boy. It went back before we were the Counts of Esvar, back to a time when a Laroth was merely a lord, then a merchant, then nothing. And yet all the way, father to son, the blood carried on. That had been a source of pride for him; pride in our name, our lineage, but I had seen the same thing as countless Laroth sons had doubtless seen before me.
There were no daughters. No sisters. No girls at all.
I passed a group of wives, increasingly youthful. The Third Count of Esvar had married seven times. Was that a worried crease between the seventh’s painted brows? She had survived, I knew, outliving her lord. Her predecessors had all died in childbirth. My own mother had gone the same way.
Empaths cannot love.
Endymion hadn’t believed me, hadn’t listened. But I had not explained. It was easier to leave him in ignorance than see his expression turn to horror as the truth weighed upon him.
No daughters.
He would have asked why and I would have had to admit I did not know. I had asked my father the same question and he had repeated what the midwives had said at my sister’s birth. She did not want to live.
‘How can a baby know whether it wants to live or not if it’s never tried?’ I had asked.
For a long time my father had just stared at me. Then, letting out a long-suffering sigh, he had said: ‘Perhaps it is not choice. Women are too weak to carry the Sight. And so they die before they are born.’
The arrogant gaze of Ma’Li Laroth, the First Count, stared back at me. You’re a fool, I felt him say. Empaths cannot love.
And back in Avarice’s old room Kimiko was waiting for me. I needed her, my moral compass, reminding me every moment of every day that I was a monster. I had urges, needs, but as long as the desire for mastery could be repressed, I could live another day free of the guilt that had so nearly killed me five years earlier. I could not send her away. But neither could I keep her.
Fool! You know better and you fall for a pretty face.
‘It’s your fault!’ I snapped. ‘Your blood is poison.’
I made you a god.
‘You made me a monster!’ I gripped the thick parchment and tore it from the wall, splitting magnolia flowers. His eyes continued to mock me as they parted company, the portrait ripping down the centre, shredding his throat and his heart. The two halves curled up on the floor.
You’re weak!
How can you call yourself a Laroth?
We’re better than them.
We’re gods.
The next portrait went the same way, its two halves curling fearfully upon themselves. I snatched the next off the wall with a growl and flung the pieces toward the open window, the fragments snapping as they flew across the room.
One after another I ripped each scroll, tearing the arrogant faces of my ancestors. Shreds of parchment fluttered about my feet, coloured with watercolour skies and sprays of green foliage, with pink silk and purple sashes and all those knowing eyes laughing back from their tatters.
Fathers, sons, wives, none escaped my wrath, each responsible for passing on the blood, for continuing the Sight generation to generation. And I had promised. I had knelt at my mother’s grave and sworn never to let a child rip l
ife from another woman in the name of the Sight.
A guttural growl tore from my throat and I snatched my grandfather from the wall, crushing the parchment in my hands. I gripped my grandmother’s face and squeezed. The paper ripped, shredding her skin. And then there was my father, stony and proud, his dark eyes owning no emotion. This man had given me his name, his title, his fortune, and his Sight. He had made me everything I was and then tried to take it from me. He had tricked me with love and stolen any hope of satisfaction.
This man had killed my mother.
‘You knew!’ My fingernails cut into the thin paper and I ripped, slashing his torso, ruining the purple sash he had once been so proud of. ‘You knew and you did it anyway!’
Another slash and the painting fluttered free from the wall. I caught it, crushing what was left of his face. ‘You did it anyway.’
So are you, Darius.
From the next portrait my mother watched me, her calm violet eyes unblinking. I seethed, breath hissing out of my nose, but meeting her gaze I let out a groan. Her eyes, that smile, the way she had looked up at me as she breathed her last, clutching a dead child in her arms. And beside her the portrait of my younger self. He was innocent of all my crimes.
I kicked the Errant board and it skidded away, pieces scattering. ‘What can I do?’
There was no answer.
Keep her. Send her away. Run. Stay. Malice would come and Endymion would live or die, and every moment Kimiko remained with me I was cursing her.
My fingers clawed at my hair, every breath coming faster than the last until I could not stop. ‘Whatever I do I’m damned!’
I slammed my head against the wall, gritting my teeth as tears slid down my cheeks. Kimiko, with her riotous curls and her stubborn pout, alternately wild and graceful, serene and chaotic, her claws cutting my skin, her eyes laughing, those lips turning into a smile that loved and mocked with equal measure. And I wanted her. More than ever my body yearned for hers, because in those moments of passion she trusted me with her whole being, open, complete, every part of her soul mine to taste. Her joy, her pain, her love, her hate – my Empathy devouring whatever my hands could not touch.