“He’ll live.”
CHAPTER SEVENTY
The sun, once so bright, had fallen behind the horizon. Its red tendrils retreated in a slow drip from the clouds above. The drying blood itched on his hands. Jem didn’t care, his thoughts were elsewhere.
Once again, he had sabotaged himself. Trin hated Taehrn, but not in that way. She would never condone Jem’s actions. As soon as she found out, their friendship would end. But he had to tell her. He had promised to help her, and so he had, even if she wouldn’t see it that way. She wouldn’t have been safe if Taehrn had lived. As Trin had hinted at long ago, she was here because of Taehrn. He had put her in this danger, put both of them in this danger. And yet, she would not forgive Jem. Was it possible that he’d done the wrong thing and the right thing, both?
Jem tied the tent strings before leaving. He wasn’t sure why. Again, it seemed to be habit. Acklin was quiet inside. He didn’t call after him, begging for help or release. Jem could still hear his strangled breathing. A twisted piece of Jem wondered if he should have killed the assassin.
A cool breeze drifted in from the east, trailing in the wake of the setting sun. The neat little rows of tents, flanked by those old familiar banners, were quiet for once. There were no accusing eyes in the black orbs of the Legion’s insignia, indeed, there was no feeling at all really. They rocked gently in the breeze, peaceful but sad. Like the soldiers in the field, the banners would not be here tomorrow. None of them would.
Surprisingly, there was no vindication in knowing the Legion would fall because of him. Something had shifted in Jem. He no longer blamed the Legion for what it had done to his father, for it was difficult to hate that which Jem had helped create. The Legion was corrupt. It often made bad decisions and those decisions ruined lives. But here he was, a simple scribe, who by acting only in his own regard, had damned soldiers and conscripts alike, guilty and innocent strewn throughout both groups. It was easy to see how an entity, which acted upon the whims of a jaded few, could make so many mistakes. All it had taken Jem was the theft of a letter. What simple mistakes could others have made to create the Legion’s sordid past?
Besides, Taehrn was dead, and though his cruelty and ambition had not been ‘simple mistakes,’ it no longer mattered. Dead was dead, and the man could do no more harm.
As Jem walked, the blood settled into his hands and arms. The Well found a peaceful hum, a soft, singing vibration which coursed through his chest and limbs. It seemed fulfilled but not content, and each time Jem looked behind him to the First’s tent, the Well watched with covetous eyes. Each step lulled him, until again, Jem found himself in that soothing trance.
His hands rock in the chill dark, swaying in line with his steps, in line with the magic’s hum. Once it has written a dirge, but today it writes a song of a different type. He has often spoken of the Well as a poison, one that eats away at love and hope, and for many years it was, but not because of it. Because of him. He has held onto an idea that is more excuse than fact. Once the idea was small, but it has built upon itself, day after day, year after year.
‘He is not guilty,’ it says. ‘The fault rests with others.’ But it isn’t true. The lash falls long after Liv. The lash fell long before. It was his nature. In a way, Jem had lied to Trin, and as he’d done it, he’d known himself for a liar. The Legion did not corrupt his father. His father was corrupt already, for corruption finds corrupt places. Liars find places to lie. Killers find ways to kill. His father had sought out the Legion because the man had known the opportunities it would provide his nature.
Jem had let the feeling build. For five years, he had let it build, had let it hate, had let it excuse his father, but that feeling, that justification, it was a lie.
He called himself a poisoned Well, a victim of the outside world, but the world was never there. It does not throw pebbles. It does not expect. It does not consider. He sees. He excuses. He expects. Even packed with bodies, a Well is just a Well. It has no influence. It has no sway. His denial was ever the only poison, and he has let it spread.
Yet, that too is false. The denial implies the idea, but the idea was never bad. It is him that harms. Him that acts. Him that will not let it go. It is the road that follows the river. It is the beaten, tired path. The easy excuse.
But tonight, the Well sings a different tune. It is one which strips away. It casts aside the excuses, strips away the blame. It compares them all, the Legion to his father, his father to him, him to the Legion, and it no longer cares. There is peace in the soft whispering. It has taken Trin’s advice, and found acceptance. He still hates himself, but there is acceptance.
The oil lantern on the bedside table, with its shade partially drawn, casts a dull, flickering light onto the pale canvas walls. She sits on her cot with eyes intent, watching as he enters; waiting for him. There is certainty in her gaze, a certainty which makes him wonder. Does she know? Has she seen the truth of what I’ve done?
Her arms hang limp at her side, they dangle hopeless, and in her hand, a knife, her grip relaxed to the point it cannot be called a grip. The knife sits there, atop her palm, the fingers loose. Unfeeling. She does know. And the knowledge has broken her. It is in her features. In her lilting mouth, open only a fraction. In her bent shoulders. Her shaking fingers. It is in her tired eyes. In the gaze which moves as if mechanical. As if autonomous. She is not behind them.
He opens his mouth to explain. She does so first.
“You’re a killer, Jem.”
It is the same accusation. The same accusation he has lived with for weeks.
“Yes,” Jem agreed.
Her jaw closes in a firm vise. Her smile is resigned – he has confirmed only what she already knew. Her gaze drifts down and away as she slowly nods.
“How many?” Trin asked. “Besides your father, how many?”
For a moment, he fumbles with the numbers. He is not sure which to include. Though they are not yet dead, does he count the Legion? Though he did not plunge the blade into Acklin’s chest, by walking away, the man is as good as dead, should he include him too? He decides on the basics.
“Three,” he said. “An old man, my father, and… one other.” He cannot say Taehrn’s name, but he makes no effort to hide his bloody hands.
Her eyes turn back to him, her bottom lids are dark and glistening, but there are no tears in her eyes, no tears on her cheeks. If she has been crying, she has hidden it well. He wonders why she asks this now, and not before? What has changed?
Again, she nods.
“I guess I knew,” she sighed. “Even before he said it, I guess I knew. I saw it the very first time I looked into your eyes, when I looked into your eyes and they were empty. But it makes sense, doesn’t it? Fate has touched everything else in my life, why not you?”
Her eyes wander to the knife in her hand. Still, her grip is loose. It doesn’t share the determination in her gaze. Jem wonders if the blade is for him. It would not be a bad end. She had promised to help him, and if this is her way, that might be the best course. If it is, he won’t fight it. As he had done in killing Taehrn, he will let her do as she must.
He has these thoughts, yet still he wonders what to say. What can he say? He is guilty. There is no reason to mount a defense. He could say goodbye, or could urge her on, but why make it harder? His forgiveness would not ease her burden, it would increase her guilt. It would make her second guess when she has no reason. Jem is guilty. He deserves this.
“I keep asking myself what I should do,” Trin said. “But each time the answer’s the same. It has to be done, Jem. If it’s not, it will just get worse. Each time, you think it’ll help, but instead, it just makes things worse, and no matter what you try, the world is left a poorer place.”
The emotion she holds back cannot be held. Her voice cracks. It quickens as it grows louder. “Three butchering times, Jem. I know it’s what must be done, but three butchering times I’ve tried, and I can’t do it.” She shakes her head, and when it stops
, there are tears. Her gaze moves in spurts, from object to object. It looks everywhere and nowhere. “I don’t know what to do anymore, Jem. I thought I could butchering help.”
He can’t agree more. There is no reason to blame anyone else. Everything Jem has done, he has done by choice. Elyse was no better for his father’s death, and neither is Jem. These weeks have been a futile effort. He cannot change what he is, and when he tries, his touch despoils. Ever he reverts to his natural state.
He doesn’t know what to say, so instead he agrees.
“I know, Trin.”
What he has to say is meaningless. It is the explanation she already has.
“No, you butchering don’t. You just butchering don’t. You know why? Because each time, although I know what I have to do, I just don’t butchering want to. I don’t want to. What is wrong with me, Jem? I keep making excuses, but that’s all it is. Despite everything, I’m happy. I love life. I don’t think I can do it, Jem. I know I have to, but I can’t. I’ve been running it through my head again and again, and each time I do, I see there’s no way around it, because each time I think, ‘What about Jem? If I’ve done this to him, what about the others? What about the other lives I’ve touched? What if there are more like him?’
“And then I ask you a question like that. I ask you how butchering many. And you know my first thought when you answered, Jem? You know what it was? It was ‘Well, that’s not so bad,’ but it is, Jem. Even one is too much. It’s too much death and it doesn’t matter that it’s not my hand, because even so, it all comes back to me, every single one. And you know what that means? It means Fate has won. It means despite all the precautions I’ve taken, all the good deeds I’ve accomplished in an effort to beat her, it means that she had her hands in each of them. She was there, twisting what good I did and turning it to harm. I can’t let her do that, Jem. I can’t let her win like that.”
She lifts her hand, and with her thumb crooked around her jaw, she bites her knuckle. With her other hand, she holds the knife by its blade and thrusts the hilt toward him.
“I need you to do it,” Trin said. “I can’t, but you can. Please, Jem, you’ve got to.”
Jem breathed in a slow rhythm. He made no move to accept the knife; he simply watched the hilt with a wary eye, the hair on his arms prickling. His gaze followed the course from the knife, to her arm, then to her eyes. In them, he saw what he had on their first meeting. The fear was back, the fear he’d related to so well, the fearful resolve that had stopped him from killing her.
“Got to what?” Jem asked.
Trin pushed him back onto his cot, dropped the knife in his lap, and threw up her hands. “Come on, Jem. Don’t pretend like you don’t know what I’m asking. I told you everything, everything I knew. You know what I am. You know what I do to people. How Fate uses me to kill them. How she’s making me into Death.” She paced away, toward a wall of empty canvas. When she turned, her cheeks were wet. “Please, Jem. I’m begging you. You have to help me stop it.”
Picking up the knife with a finger and thumb, Jem let it dangle in a wary grip as he studied the metal. There was dried blood smeared on both the blade and hilt. “What did you do, Trin?”
She misunderstood. “Everything.” The word came with all the fear behind her eyes, all the sorrow on her cheeks. “Every butchering thing, Jem. It was all my fault. It was ever my fault. From the minute I put you into his arms! That’s why you have to stop it. You have to kill me.”
Jem dropped the knife and slid away from it. It landed soundlessly on the fancy, woven rug the Grand had gifted to Trin.
“I have to what?”
She met his gaze with a level stare. “You heard me,” she said. She reached for his shoulder, and he jumped back, onto his feet. The motion knocked over his cot, leaving it between them.
“Absolutely not,” Jem said.
“You have to.” Her voice was calm, so calm he knew she must be joking.
He laughed awkwardly, a single short scoff which ended, when once again, he saw that look in her eye.
“I’d ask Bell, but I know he never would. He doesn’t believe me, not the way you do. He’ll never understand, because he’s never dealt with a real god. He doesn’t know how they play with us.”
Jem tried to question it, but when he opened his mouth to speak, nothing came.
She stepped over the cot, grabbed his wrist, and held him where he stood. “This has been coming for a long time, Jem. I tried to hide from it because it’s not what I want to do, but I know it must be done. You made a promise to do everything you could to help me, well this is it. You read that page and you know it says that only death can stop my fate. I’m keeping my end of the bargain, now you’ve got to keep yours.” She cried without sobbing, the tears welling slowly till they trickled to the floor one by one.
“But… but…”
“You know what I told you, don’t you? You remember what we talked about before you left?”
“Of course, but-”
“I’m not a bad person, Jem. But if I don’t do this, I will be. Fate has used me, but I can stop it, and this is how. I’ve got to do it. I will not let that butchering witch use me. I’ve got to beat her, Jem. I can’t let her make me into the god of Death.”
“But how? How do you know this will help? What if I do what you ask and nothing happens? What if it turns out you were wrong? That none of it was re-”
Her grip on his wrist became tight. As she stared into his eyes, her lip quivered. “Don’t you fucking say it,” she warned. “Don’t you fucking say that. I’m not crazy, Jem. I know this is real. I know what Fate has done to me.”
“But what if-”
“What if what? What if I’m wrong? Well, then I’m dead, Jem. Then I’m gone, but does that really matter? Even if I’m wrong, there’s the chance I’m right, and I can’t live with that. I could be wrong, but even if I am, you know what happens if I do nothing? Then I live with it. I live the rest of my life thinking I’m some kind of monster. I live the rest of my life, wondering what lives I’ll ruin, or who I’ll hurt. Do you know what it’s like to question yourself every time someone dies? To blame yourself for it? It’s butchering torture, Jem. And it isn’t like I’m questioning any longer. I know what she’s turned me into. I know that I’m Death. Who else could take a babe and put him into a murderer’s arms?”
“But-”
“No. No buts, Jem. Did you know I worry every time someone breaks a bone? Every time someone gets hurt, I have to wonder, will this get worse? I’m going to be Death, right? So, I have to wonder, is my aspect going to poison their blood with infection?” She dropped her grip to wipe her eye. The tears flowed freely now; there was no welling, just a steady stream, and a hoarse voice. “Did you know I worry every time I open my mouth? Every time, I ask myself, ‘Will what I say here turn this man into the Butcher? Will my aspect make another tyrant, as it did before?’ Could you live with that? Even if it was all bullshit, even if it was all in your head, could you live with it? Because I butchering can’t!”
Jem glared at her. For several moments, he said nothing. “But…” he finally managed. “But you’re supposed to save me.” His voice was more calm than it had a right to be. He couldn’t hear this. He needed her. She was the only real friend he’d ever made besides Elyse, and he could never face her again. Trin was the only person who understood him, the only person whose company he truly enjoyed, and the only face he was ever glad to see.
“I’m trying,” Trin shouted. “Don’t you get that, Jem? Don’t you see that’s what I’m trying to do? I’ve made you into what you are. Because of Fate, because of the way she’s used me. I did this to you.”
For a moment, Jem was speechless. “What are you saying?”
Head hanging low, Trin stared at the carpet. “That story about the baby. It was you, Jem. I carried you from Lane to Riften, and then I put you into your father’s arms.” Her head rocked side to side.
He wished he could see her ey
es, but he couldn’t. She wouldn’t look at him.
“You see it, don’t you? Fate set it up from the beginning. That courtesan, she was trying to make you into something, but instead, she made a deal with Fate, and Fate sent me to collect you. She used us both. Fate used you to make me what she wanted. Everything that has happened to you, it was my fault, Jem. It is my fate to bring death into the world, and so I have. You think it’s the Legion that drove your father to do what he did? You think it was Taehrn, and Godahn, and Lissahn? Well, it wasn’t. It was me. I’m the one you should blame.”
Jem’s eyes shot to the knife on the carpet, he couldn’t help it. He refused to hurt Trin, but there it was; the truth she’d been hiding. Everyone hid something. It was inevitable because all people were liars, but he’d never thought it would be something like this. He wondered if that fear he’d seen in her was permanent, or if it only surfaced when she looked at him. How long had she known? He didn’t want to believe it.
“How?” Jem asked.
Trin shrugged, her gaze still on the floor. “I gave you that page, didn’t I? It’s the best explanation I’ve got.”
Jem shook his head. “No. I mean how could that be true?”
“Your father owned the refineries, didn’t he?”
“Some of them, but-”
“His initials were D.I.T. And that baby had fine red hair, just like yours. You and I are intertwined. You’ve seen it the same as me. We’re linked, Jem, and this is why. Because of Fate. It’s me that set you on this path, from the moment we met, my fate and yours have been linked. I am the puppet of a god, and through me she controls you.” Trin raised her head; her eyes were red, her cheeks flushed, her brow pale. “As long as I live, she will have a hold on both of us. I can save you, Jem, and this is how. You have to kill me. It’s the only way that I can beat her.”
“Beat her?” Jem asked. “But… is it so important to beat her?”
Trin scowled. “Of course it butchering is! Don’t you understand what it means for her to have a hold over me, Jem? It means that I must question every decision I’ve ever made. It means I have to ask myself, is this my choice, or has Fate led me to this because it will further her goals? I am not free, Jem. I am her puppet, and if that page can be believed, which I do, Jem, then she will make me into Death, and then who knows how she will use me? If she could use me to ruin the life of an innocent babe when I thought I was helping, if she could use me to ruin your life when I thought I was saving you, then what else will she do with me? I can’t let her have that kind of control. There’s no way of telling what she will do with it. I have to stop her. I have to win.”
Death's Merchant: Common Among Gods - Book One Page 121