Zero

by Claire Stevens

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Like a good patient, I lay in bed for the rest of the day, trying to ignore the fiery itch of my flesh knitting together, waiting for enough hours to pass before the healer deemed me well enough to discharge. And Oriel waited with me.

  I picked up a book from the stack Oriel had brought back with him on his last scavenging run, a water-damaged copy of Bleak House. I skimmed over a few pages before I realised that I hadn’t taken any of it in and put the book back down again. I looked out to where the sun was finally starting to set and through the open window the sound of a clock chiming drifted through. Nine o’clock. Only a few hours of night time to get through before I could get out of here.

  I reached over to the pile of books again. There were a couple of crime novels in there, the sort that get left in hotels on holiday, and ordinarily I might have taken a look at them, but I knew I’d never be able to settle to reading while I felt so hotchy in my own skin. I let my arm fall back to the bed with a sigh. Oriel looked at me mildly over the top of the paperback he was reading. For someone who was constantly moving and fidgeting, he seemed to be able to relax and be still really easily when he wanted to. ‘It’s not long to go now,’ he said consolingly. ‘Why don’t you try and get some sleep? It’ll make the time go quicker.’

  ‘I can’t sleep,’ I groaned, throwing my head back on my pillow. ‘I’ve been sleeping for three days. I just want to be out of here.’

  He closed his book, dog-earing the page, and threw it onto the bed. ‘Speaking of which, we should think about where you want to stay once you’re discharged.’

  ‘Um, okay?’

  ‘They have some spare beds in the Protectorate barracks. You’d be sharing, but it’s pretty comfy and the girls there are nice.’ He frowned, contemplating. ‘A bit shrieky, but nice.’ He picked his book up again and started riffling through the pages distractedly. ‘Or, if you didn’t want to share, the apartment next to mine is free. You could have that. You know, if you wanted.’ He spoke with studied indifference, not quite meeting my eye.

  ‘The apartment next to yours sounds good,’ I said, feeling inexplicably shy.

  ‘Yeah?’ he said, pleased. ‘Okay then, I’ll get it fixed up for you. Oh, the two apartments share a bathroom, but then you’d have to do that in the barracks anyway.’

  ‘Do you hog?’

  ‘Yeah, really badly,’ he said apologetically. ‘We’ll have to get a system worked out so that we both manage to get ready in the mornings.’ He caught my pained look and laughed. ‘It’s only for a few months until you’ve finished your training.’

  The breath I was taking seemed to get stuck in my throat and I swallowed uncomfortably. ‘Um, about that. After I’ve finished my training...’ I began. He looked at me expectantly. ‘Am I supposed to join the Protectorate?’

  If my question surprised him, only the book tumbling out of his hands showed it. He frowned and picked it up off of his lap. ‘You’re not supposed to do anything. The training is being offered by the Protectorate with no expectation of payment or service in return.’ He frowned. ‘Didn’t we have this conversation at Rivermead?’

  ‘But what about you? What do you think I should do?’

  ‘I think you should do whatever you want to do. Whatever’s going to make you happy,’ he said evenly.

  I looked at him expectantly, waiting for him to go on. He didn’t answer for a minute and I started to think he wasn’t going to, before he gave in. ‘What do you want me to say, Roanne? Do I want you to join the Protectorate? Hell, yes. I want it like you wouldn’t believe. If you joined up, we...’ He trailed off and gazed out the window before pulling his attention back to me. His green eyes bored into me with an intensity that made me shiver. ‘We’d be unstoppable.’

  He picked up his book again but didn’t open it. ‘But I only want it if it’s what you want. Like, if it’s what you want more than anything, because you’d be of no use whatsoever if you joined because you thought you ought to, or that it’s the right thing to do. You can’t do it half-heartedly, or with one eye on the door. It doesn’t work that way. You join because you can’t not. Because the thought of demons breaking through from their shithole dimension to try and take what’s ours makes you want to hit something. Because even when you sleep, you dream about hunting them down, and when you wake up you can still smell them and it makes you want to go out and do it all over again. That’s why we join up.’

  I swallowed as I thought of the demons I’d killed, about the wild rush of euphoria and rage I’d felt, how primal it felt. How I couldn’t wait to do it again.

  And I thought about how much Oriel had done for me, bringing me here, setting up training for me so that I wouldn’t, you know, die and I wished I could do more for him. I wished I could give him what he wanted - a Psion who was desperate to join the Protectorate, to fight.

  I closed my eyes and an instant later felt lurch in my stomach, like a car braking way too hard. I was sitting on a stuffed chair by the fire in the Protectorate common room, the one I’d run through with Oriel. On the chair next to me Coralin sat, her hands folded neatly in her lap.

  My stomach rolled over again, although more with dread this time. A demigod was visiting me in my dreams. Again. I squared my shoulders, preparing to receive a lecture for letting Molly get away, for nearly getting myself killed.

  Coralin stared at me impassively, her lashless eyes boring into mine. Just when I wanted to scream with the tension, her mouth twitched into a translucent smile. 'Well done, Roanne,' she said. 'Well done. You have surpassed my wildest expectations.’ I looked at her sharply to see if she was being sarcastic, but her face gave nothing away.

  'Hardly,' I choked. 'Molly’s on the loose. Kallista and I got captured. My wrist's bust and I had a knife stuck in my guts. Bloody brilliant.’ I injected my voice with a shot of aggression in an attempt to keep the tears away.

  She waved her head from side to side, considering. 'Perhaps things did not go as smoothly as I would have hoped, but you have achieved exactly what I wanted you to. Owen is safe, and you have weakened Baeroth. Severely. The next time you meet him, you will be in a far stronger position.’

  ‘The next time?’ I laughed slightly hysterically. ‘Are you on crack? There isn’t going to be a next time. I’m staying as far away from him as I can get.’ Then something else occurred to me. ‘Wait, the vision you showed me...you told me that Baeroth’s plan was to use Owen for the ritual. But he didn’t. It was me he wanted.’

  Coralin raised her pale eyebrows delicately. Wait, hang on, what was it she’d said? ‘I never said that was Baeroth’s intention,’ she said, a small smile on her face. ‘The vision I showed you was of the world if Baeroth used Owen for the ritual. You never asked me whether that was what he was actually planning to do.’

  I gritted my teeth with the effort of not telling her to stuff her visions up her god-bum. My hands balled automatically into fists, sending an electric dart through my healing wrist. The pain made me suck in a breath which in turn made the wound in my abdomen fire up again. With a great effort I unclenched my entire body. 'Jesus. You could have told me,' I bit out.

  She laughed quietly. 'Why would I tell you? Do you share all of your knowledge and plans with your arrows? Your knives? You are my weapon, Roanne, and you have served me well but you are still my weapon. An instrument that I am using in order to best my opponent.’ I glowered and briefly considered telling her that out of everything I’d done, none of it had been for her. The last few weeks had exhausted me and she could believe what she wanted to.

  ‘Can I ask you one more question?’

  ‘You can,’ she mused. ‘Whether I answer or not depends on what you ask.’

  I bit back a retort. ‘Are my parents my real parents?’ My voice came out smaller and weaker than I wanted it to. ‘Baeroth... He said something about me having foster parents, and...I just want to know. Are Kate and Richard my biological parents?’ Had I created them like I created
my sister? Was I really some inter-dimensional orphan? Was anything in my life real?

  Her pause was infinitesimal; if I hadn’t been hanging on her answer I probably wouldn’t have noticed it. ‘Yes.’

  ‘You’re lying,’ I breathed.

  ‘Deities do not lie, child,’ she said sharply.

  ‘Except you clearly are!’ Tears of frustration were pricking my eyes. Would no one in this bloody place just give me a simple, straight answer?

  ‘Deities do not lie because we cannot lie,’ she ground out.

  ‘Which is exactly what a lying demigod would say.’

  Coralin ignored my outburst and to my surprise she carried on. ‘Kate and Richard Harper are your biological parents. Seventeen years ago, Richard Harper impregnated Kate Harper.’ Gross. Thanks. ‘Nine months later, she gave birth to you. They are the reason you have brown hair and grey eyes. They are the reason you are tall, the reason you love books but are bad at maths.’

  I felt my lips go white as realisation dawned on me. ‘But they’re not the reason I’m Blessed. Are they?’ I pressed.

  Coralin bit her teeth together and stared blankly at the fireplace. She didn’t need to say anything; the answer was obvious.

  ‘We need to talk about your future,’ she said, re-folding her hands and straightening her back to indicate that the previous topic of conversation was over. ‘Do you remember me telling you about how important it is that you complete your training and gain control over your Blessings?’

  I remembered the vision she’d shown me of my own funeral, and a great pit seemed to yawn open in my stomach. It seemed there was just no getting used to the idea that you’ve only got eighteen months to live.

  ‘Good,’ she said, looking at me seriously for a moment. ‘There is a war coming. Your Guardian friends may think that the recent run-in with Baeroth is over now, but I can assure you it isn’t. It was a battle, a skirmish. War is as certain as the sun rising, and the Protectorate needs all the strength it can muster in order to win. The Protectorate needs you, Roanne.’

  I laughed. ‘Okay, you’re joking, aren’t you? I’m not getting involved in a war. I’ll do the training Oriel has set up for me, but after that I’m going straight back home.’

  ‘Don’t be too hasty to make your mind up, little weapon,’ she said. She got up from her seat, her skirts flowing around her ankles. ‘Let me show you something.’

  ‘Great. Is this going to be another vision of my imminent death?’ I asked leaning back in my chair and folding my arms. ‘Or maybe a nice post-apocalyptic scene?’

  ‘Let’s call it...a career option.’ She waved her arm in a broad arc and the air behind her shimmered. Colours swirled in a hazy jumble, before coming into focus.

  The scene showed a group of people, some standing, some on horseback, on the rough, scrubby ground at the edge of a forest. It was a bright, sunny day and the light glinted off their armour and weapons.

  I was older, but not by much. My face was unlined and the impression of age came mostly from the calm, confident look in my eyes, the look of a woman who knows she is exactly where she ought to be in the world. I was wearing the dark green leather armour of a Protectorate Psion, as if I’d worn it a thousand times before and expected to wear it many thousands of times again. I was looking into the distance and pointing at something unseen, further than the edge of Coralin’s picture.

  Standing next to me was Oriel. He was in uniform as well, but instead of leather armour, he wore dark green burnished chainmail, Tempest strapped across his back. His gaze was fixed not at the point in the distance I was gesturing at, but at me, and it took my breath away. It was the look of someone who has seen a god perform a miracle.

  I swallowed noisily. ‘Is this the future?’ I asked, moving closer to the picture to study it better.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I could see her watching me like a snake watches a mouse. ‘It is one possible future that is dependent on a number of mitigating factors.’

  ‘What factors?’

  Coralin chuckled. ‘Surely you know better than to ask me that.’

  My heart thumped in my chest and I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the picture. I knew that if I closed my eyes I would be able to hear the clash of steel and the scream of a dying demon. I felt my power gathering, prickling at the back of my neck and in my chest, waiting for me to expel it. I could smell the sharp scent of decay and it made the blood run faster in my veins with the urge, the need, to destroy it. To destroy them all.

  I turned back to Coralin, swaying slightly on my feet. ‘So what happens now?’

  Coralin smirked slightly at my response to what she’d shown me. ‘Now you need to wake up, because I rather think you’re doing something you oughtn’t and your poor Guardian is trying very hard to get your attention.’ She clapped her hands smartly and I woke up.