The Reformation

by Garggie Talukdar

  “It is, and you know it. You know just how far we can reach, and just how lethal that choking hold can be. I can tell you about the four people in your group; what Z’s actual name is; the names of each and every one of Celine’s 6 elder brothers. I know that Fey Downcley was a fighter but she likely died from her rare condition of Itoscolirarius seeing as she wasn’t with the group today. I can tell you the numbers that are written on the front of Stel Hathaway’s criminal record. Those are things that even you don’t know.”

  She could be bluffing, Jax knew the chances. But she sounded so sure. She knew things that Z himself didn’t even know until recently, or things that Celine never told them. Fey died without knowing what the hell she was dying from, but Kessia knew, and she probably knew how to stop it too. And she also knew about Stel’s—

  wait.

  She mentioned nothing about January. She only knew of 4 members, information given to her probably from Arleyene, and Arleyene Crawford had never met Stel. Jax knew that although Arleyene was a top-of-the-class spy, even she couldn’t so frequently contact Elix without drawing suspicion to herself; that’s why the Immortales didn’t suspect anything for while during the bridge of silence between Arleyene’s death, and Stel’s replacement. And when she could contact Elix, Jax figured that she relayed the most important information. Then Kessia likely didn’t know about Jan because Arleyene likely said nothing about him.

  Kessia clearly wanted to know something though, because she looked too assured to actually be completely comfortable with what she knew.

  And then Jax realized that she likely didn’t know that the Elixir was safe, taken to safety before it could perish in the fire. Jax had something on her.

  “You’re not ahead of us all the time,” he told her, voice steady. “Did you expect Stel to take the Elixir? Did you plan for your guards to burn down the palace, and with it, the most valuable thing you have here on Elix?” Kessia’s face went rigid, and Jax knew he touched a sore spot. “I saw the palace, and there is nothing salvageable from the wreckage. You destroyed any chance of getting the Elixir back.”

  “I wouldn’t worry too much. We have the best scientists residing here, working on a new formula as we speak,” she snarled, too defensive.

  “And tell me, Kessia, did your Immortale Queen ever take preventative measures against you the same way you did against Major Parks?” Jax went on, watching as the General grew more and more still. “She trusted you, and you, in turn, sabotaged her and took her position for yourself.”

  Before he could say a word more, Kessia pulled out a drawer, cocking a gun as she pointed it towards him. “How do you know that?”

  Jackpot. He had read enough files regarding the Immortale Queen, and her faithful and close confident, General Van Dyke. After reading Kessia’s signature and getting to know her full name, Jax figured the pieces fit too well to be a coincidence.

  “So, maybe you aren’t always 5 steps ahead of us. What do you have to say for yourself?”

  “Power is power. I killed to get here and will continue to do so if it keeps me here. It was her fault for trusting me in the first place. Just like how trusting each other will be the causes of your precious groups’ end.”

  “Bold words for someone who didn’t even kill their Queen to secure their position. She’s still alive, which is the reason why you are still a General, rather than the most powerful person on this Earth.”

  “She’s nothing now and I—”

  “If she gets released,” Jax forged on, his words growing stronger as hers grew weaker, “you’d be nothing. Executed immediately and made a story to tell children as a warning to behave.”

  “I do not fear death,” she snarled, but Jax could easily see the fear in her blue eyes. Was it always there, or was Jax making progress?

  “You do. Everyone fears death, especially those who have never seen it,” Kessia opened her mouth, but Jax raised a hand to prevent her. “You haven’t seen death in the way that we Eartherners do. The way that I have. The Treaty will bring you naught but arrogance and self-confidence that will kill you and your people.”

  Kessia said nothing, putting the gun away looking livid. Jax simply took a sip of the wine that had long since stayed stagnant in his goblet and picked up the pen. “I hope this brings you nothing but sorrow and agony,” he said politely, signing his name with an ease as he looked up at Kessia, proud of how he rattled her.

  Kessia said nothing to him, instead pressing a button to her left, and within seconds, a man that Jax recognised as the High Consuasor rushed in—the only person in the entire Earth who could pledge allegiance to both sides of mortality, an acting bridge between life and death in a way, sworn to neutrality. “The signing is done, General?” he asked, head high.

  Kessia nodded, and he stepped forward, gently placing the document in a sealed glass container. “I am the witness to this Treaty, and will uphold this truth with my life,” he solemnly swore. “I will be sending a copy to your palace, King Jaxcon.”

  “Thank you, High Consuasor.” With one last bow, the man in sweeping gowns left, leaving Jax and Kessia in an impenetrable silence.

  “You’ll have to show yourself out,” she finally said. “The Citadel is empty as I have dismissed all guards, and all guests and representatives are already in their sleeping chambers in the city.”

  Jax stood, folding the promise of freedom and placing it in his pocket. “Are my things in the boat?” he asked, his tone nice and pleasant, as if he hadn’t cracked the most powerful person on the Earth. She nodded, holding her hand out in a similar fashion as she had earlier that day.

  No matter what had just happened, Jax was still a gentleman, so he pressed a kiss to her gloved hand, the metal biting significantly less than it had before, and the thought even made him smile slightly. “It’s been a pleasure meeting you, General, but I must get back to NNR. Duty calls,”

  “The pleasure was mine. Good luck, Jaxcon. Et si vis pacem, para bellum.”

  If you want peace, prepare for war.

  It oddly didn’t even feel like a threat, but Jax nodded towards her anyway before he walked towards the door, but the heavy wood swung open before he even touched it. And behind it, was the most beautiful sight he had seen all day.

  Stel Hathaway, crimson staining her clothes and hands raw and bloody. “Stel, what the hell—”

  Jax couldn’t even finish because a deafening shot silenced him. “Stel?” he asked weakly, not turning his head, not wanting to see just what happened. “Stel.”

  The girl in question just stayed still, her hands still tightly clutching her gun, her eyes wide.

  “Stel; did you just do that?” Jax asked, a little breathless.

  “Stel! Where are you even goi-” Z’s call was cut short as he drank in the sight before him. “No, Stel.”

  “It had to be done,” the girl said weakly, as the three of them watched as General Kessia, slumped powerless on the ground, bleeding out on her own Citadel floors. “It had to be done. For her,” she whispered, wiping the tear that had started to fall down her cheek away, shoving her gun back into her belt.

  For her. Jax soon realized that someone was missing and that Z’s tearstained cheeks and Stel’s hallowed eyes could only add up to an unbearably ugly, almost unfocusable outcome.

  “Celine’s dead,” Jax said with a finality of a statement. He didn’t know for sure, but he didn’t need to know for sure. He knew that she was gone, because Kessia had already told him earlier, and Stel and Z only confirmed it. Celine Hollingsworth was gone.

  Dead. (god, could that word ever leave him?)

  She had spoken to him only the other day, her presence still comforting in a world past, but she was dead. That couldn’t be, could it? But again, only a few minutes ago, he had made a deal with Kessia, and she was gone too.

  Stel had killed Kessia.

  Celine was dead.

  The Treaty was signed.

  The events of the last day still didn’t sit wel
l with Jax. It all felt so unsatisfying. Shouldn’t Kessia being gone give him more joy? Shouldn’t Kessia’s assassination been a big deal? —a story stored away for generations to come? But in a way, this was the death she deserved. For all of the lives she had claimed, for all the suffering she had inflicted, she died an utterly mundane death.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Z finally whispered, and Jax couldn’t agree more. “Before we choke on all this death.”

  But Jax was already gasping for breath.

  …

  Getting into the boat wasn’t a problem, and with Kessia’s signature, Z and Stel weren’t a problem either.

  It was what Jax was feeling that was the problem. They had calmly walked out of the Citadel and onto their ride home as if they hadn’t either assassinated the General, or witness it happen. As if one of their closest friends wasn’t dead in that building, her body never to return home. As if they hadn’t just permanently altered the course of the future and increased the surety of the future war.

  So he just sat below deck with Z, Stel long since silent and in a world far away from their own.

  Z sat huddled over his lighter, the rhythmic clicking of the flame, on and off, filling the silence. When Jax had first learned about the lighter, he didn’t understand how it could so profoundly help someone. Watching Z’s eyes focus so keenly on the flame, however, cleared any confusion in Jax’s mind.

  “What happened?” Jax finally asked when the sound of the waves crashing into them and the inconsolable sadness in Z’s eyes became unbearable.

  “You left. Jan spotted Immortale guards, and so we sent him into the passageways with the Elixir. Is he..?” Z trailed off, looking at Jax hopefully.

  “Yes. He’s alive. He had passed out due to smoke inhalation, but I got him safely to the hospital. The Elixir is safe as well,” Jax added.

  Z looked back down at his lighter, the flame flickering in and out of existence once more as the mechanic nodded.

  “At least something in the plan worked out then,” he muttered, his voice cracking at the edges. “They searched for the Elixir, or files, or anything to incriminate us, but they couldn’t find anything. They took us 3 instead and set fire to the palace. After that, we were in different cells. Celine and I got tortured in the usual way,” he said dryly, gesturing to his bruised and cut body. “She made an exception with Stel. Played some mind games by making Stel watch as Kessia tortured Celine.”

  “What?” Jax rasped, his chest suddenly too tight to breathe.

  Z’s eyes were downcast, and he kept the wavering flame steady, eyes zoned only one the bright little thing in his hands. “Celine’s heart couldn’t make it, and in the end, Stel broke. She only told Kessia where the Elixir was, and how the palace was burned down. Stel completely blames herself, saying that she failed in both keeping Celine alive and keeping the information out of Immortale hands.”

  “Well, Kessia thought the Elixir was gone. She didn’t know about January, and I convinced her that there was no way that anything made it out of that fire. She’s dead, anyway,” Jax murmured, still not being to process the death of General Kessia. So he didn’t, instead wanting to know about Celine. “Celine’s heart failed, then?”

  The flame went out.

  Z squeezed his eyes shut, holding the lighter tightly in his fist. “No. She stabbed herself, to prevent me or Stel from taking her with us.”

  Suddenly, Jax couldn’t breathe, and his head slumped between his knees. “No.”

  “From there, we found you. Stel was furious and mad with grief with Celine. We both vowed vengeance, but I didn’t think of assassinating Kessia. You signed the Treaty, didn’t you?”

  “I did.”

  “And we broke it after minutes of it being formed, I reckon.”

  “You guys tried-” Jax started, though it was Stel, not Z, who broke him off.

  “But it’s never enough, is it?” she said, quiet enough that the winds above them almost drowned the sound, but both he and Z were anticipating each word to come from her lips. “We always fall short.”

  “Stel,” Jax started gently, standing up wobbly to sit beside her. “Screwed up things happen to everyone, and you don’t have the right to blame yourself because they happen more often to us. It’s not your fault.”

  “Yes, it is!” she cried out, standing up to pace the floor. “It is my fault. Celine deserved more time, and I took that away!”

  “Kessia took that away,” Jax persisted, keeping his voice calm to balance her unsteady breathing. “Not you. Look, Celine surviving Scorchen was a miracle. She lived longer than most would expect. And you know what? —from what I know about Celine Marcheline Hollingsworth, it’s that you probably inspired her, in her last minutes. Don’t grieve for someone that wouldn’t want that.”

  “You’re going to grieve for her,” Stel shakily said, her voice watery.

  “He’s the king of NNR. Hell if anyone tells him what to do,” Z piped up, and Jax let out a small laugh, smiling gratefully at the mechanic, wearing his own exhausted, pained smile.

  And with something like happiness, Jax noticed that Z’s lighter was nowhere in sight, meaning that the mechanic had battled his demons to shore, and even if it was temporary, Jax reveled in the triumph. Small victories.

  “Fey was proud of you too,” Jax heard Z say to her, and Jax finally smiled. “She wrote so in her note; January told me.”

  There was silence, and to Jax, it felt like the gap that Celine and Fey would’ve filled, the spot that Jan had missed in order to protect them all. They would never all be together again, but for this one moment, he could imagine how their faces would look, what they would say. How no matter how at odds everyone was with each other, they’d all share a smile and maybe a laugh.

  March felt like ages ago.

  “We’ll get through this,” said Jax.

  “When do we not?” asked Z.

  “I wish you the best of luck,” informed Stel, and both of the men on board’s heads whirred on her as she said it.

  “What do you mean?” Z cautiously asked.

  “I’m done. I’ve done my part, and I haven’t seen Fallon in ages. She needs me, and I can’t leave her alone. Thank you, for the opportunity, honestly. But I can’t do this anymore,” she said, her voice wavering. Pausing for a second, she quickly fled to the ladder that led above deck. “I’m sorry, but I quit,” she whispered, climbing up.

  And then there were two.

  Jax looked at the ladder curiously, an idea almost drowning out all the voice that were clamouring to be heard in his head. “Jax; I think she wanted her space,” Z informed him.

  “You said it yourself. I’m the king of NNR, and hell if someone tells me what to do. Besides, I’ve always been bad at the whole giving people space thing.”

  And Jax started climbing the ladder, and he swore that he heard a deep chuckle from Z, along with a whispered, ‘since when was I the sensible one?’.

  Jax felt the beginnings of an easy smile pull at his facial muscles, but it immediately dissipated when he saw Stel leaning over the railing, gazing out in the distance, Elix a pinprick in their vision.

  “Stel,” he shouted out as soon as he got near, and even though the girl didn’t turn, Jax knew that she heard him. “Stay for the funeral, at least.”

  “Then you can do whatever you want,” Z added, his face sympathetic. Although Stel didn’t turn to face them, she slightly tilted her face so the dim lighting from the ship highlighted half of it. Jax felt the urge to move over closer to her, though he stayed in place. While he might be bad at giving people their emotional space, he had no qualms about personal space.

  “Jan wanted Celine to speak at Fey’s funeral, you know?” Stel whispered out to the wind.

  Z didn’t hesitate as Jax did, walking up and leaning over the railing right beside Stel. “This sucks,” he said, staring out into the distance.

  Soon, Jax found himself on the other side of Stel, looking beyond the dark waters at the
Citadel, more a figment of his imagination than an actual sight, feeling surprisingly free as the night’s sharp air hit his wet cheeks.

  They didn’t need to say anything else. They all felt each other’s pain, so deep that Jax scarcely knew how he was still breathing. They knew that these types of wounds didn’t leave without a scar.

  The boat rocked them home, cradling them in the ocean, but the pain didn’t dare subside, lest they ever forget what happened.

  Honestly, Jax knew he never could.

  Sixty-Two

  IT all started out like this.

  The young king kneeling in front of 3 graves. But now, it was 5 graves.

  Celine and Fey’s funerals were held together. The best friends that had bonded through being the only girls in the Strategists for so long, got to be sent on their final journey together.

  They even got Stel to stay for a week in the name of the funeral before she left them. Probably for forever.

  The service was short and bittersweet. It was just what remained of The Strategists and the icy wind, reminding them that summer was gone and autumn was settling in. January had informed them that Fey’s family had sold her and that they didn’t deserve to be there, which Jax agreed with immediately. And although he was curious of how January came to be possession of this information, he let it slide. There were bigger things afoot.

  Jax himself had gone to Celine’s home to bear the tragic news of her death. One of her elder brothers had answered the door, and Jax had noticed no halo around his head. Sometimes, on rare occasion when Celine spoke about them, she described her 6 brothers as if they were angels.

  Arelic Hollingsworth had slammed the door in the king’s face when Jax dejectedly told him of the news, Mrs. Hollingsworth’s shining eyes, the same hazel as Celine’s, the last thing he saw. Celine’s mother’s sobs played in his head over and over again in some sort-of a morbid track on repeat—always followed by the guttural gunshot, for the rest of the day.

  January had gone through a choked speech that morning—managing a few minutes out of his wheelchair with faint breaths that Jax knew smoke inhalation was not the cause of—but Jax didn’t even attempt to do such a thing. Z was unusually quiet, withdrawn and closed-off. Stel, on the other hand, was in a different world altogether.