Star Eater

by Kerstin Hall

  I shuddered. How had everything gone so wrong so quickly? I could hear Jesane yelling for help, her voice echoing through the dark, empty rooms. I fumbled with my lace, panic and shock turning it slippery in my grasp. I could detect none of Rhyanon’s power now, and her eyes had drifted closed. It was just Asan and I.

  The Haunt’s scent of decay was heavy in my mouth. I could taste it, dense and metallic, like ancient damp earth, like underground water. The creature still watched me.

  “We aren’t going to last,” said Asan softly. “Not long enough.”

  “Commander?”

  “How much lace do you have left, Raughn?” She edged backwards, so that she stood beside me. “How long could you keep up the binding on your own?”

  “I don’t … I don’t know…”

  “Guess.”

  “A minute? Probably less.”

  Her foot nudged Morwin’s shoulder.

  “Eater forgive me,” she muttered under her breath. She crouched. “Do it now. I’ve only got seconds left.”

  I could hardly breathe.

  “Raughn!”

  My shoulders shook. The Haunt dragged its weight forward like it was wading through mud. Visions scuttled over the walls, over the floor. I wanted to run, but there was no strength in my legs. All I could see were those lamp-yellow eyes, steady and unwaveringly fixed on me.

  I wove together my lace and grasped the threads of Asan’s binding tightly, just as the last of her power sputtered out. The effect was immediate; I felt my lace draining like water into dry sand.

  Asan didn’t bother with further talk. She dropped to a crouch and, with a grunt, flipped Morwin’s body over. The Reverend’s head flopped against her shoulder; her broken neck turning her face to the wall. I saw the knife in Asan’s hand.

  “Oh,” I whispered.

  “Concentrate.” She pulled back Morwin’s sleeve. For an instant the blade wavered. “Don’t watch me, all right? It’s this or we die.”

  I nodded stiffly.

  “It’s this or we die,” she repeated, and for all her brusque confidence, I knew that Asan was trying to convince herself. I clamped my jaw shut.

  The Haunt pushed forward another step. Closing the distance between us.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her make the cuts. Just like the rite: small, precise, bleeding. But we weren’t in the Martyrium; this was nothing sacred. The ground beneath the Haunt’s feet pulsed like organs, like a great breathing creature.

  Asan swallowed the flesh without gagging. She got up. For a second, a terrified, irrational part of my brain believed that she meant to flee and leave me here alone. Instead she dragged Morwin’s body closer to the stairs and out of my immediate line of sight.

  “Do not turn around.” I heard a sharp rip; she was slicing open the Reverend’s robes. “Promise me.”

  “Yes,” I managed.

  How long before my power gave out? How long until Asan could wield hers again? I imagined the Haunt’s talon scything across my throat, the hot spray of blood. My bones shattered, my head tilted. I clutched my lace like a lifeline, and it dwindled within my grasp.

  “I won’t let it hurt you, Raughn. Just keep your eyes forward.”

  “Okay,” I whispered.

  I heard wet sawing. I heard Asan’s breathing turn ragged. My lace stretched like a fraying thread, and half-formed visions danced around me like moths made of shadow. I heard the Commander choke as she tried to swallow. All the while, I stared at the Haunt and it stared back, and we both waited for me to fail.

  Then, like someone lifting a crushing weight off my shoulders, Asan resumed her hold on the binding. I sagged, and a sob escaped my mouth.

  “No need for that,” she said, with unexpected gentleness. “You did well.”

  Then, with power like I had never witnessed before, she raised the Haunt off the ground and swept it backwards through the air. It hissed, but Asan walked forward, pushing it further into the basement and away from us. Her arms and chest were drenched in blood. In her left hand she held the knife, in her right a slick, dark purple lump of muscle and tubes.

  I wanted to leave, but I could not bring myself to look at what Asan had done to Morwin, could not imagine stepping over the body behind me. The Commander walked over to the woodpile and stood above Rhyanon. Her shoulders hunched.

  “Rhy?” she said softly. “Rhy, please answer me.”

  At her voice, Rhyanon stirred. Her eyelids fluttered and she grimaced.

  “Sorry,” she murmured.

  “No, don’t say that.” Asan knelt beside her. “Help is coming, we’ll get you fixed. Just stay with me, all right?”

  Rhyanon produced a pained wheeze; she was trying to laugh.

  “Yes, Commander,” she said.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  IT WOULD BE far more efficient for us to completely devour our mothers following their martyrdoms. A better use of resources. After all, the logistics of maintaining and safeguarding a vast emporium of half-alive women required an entire branch of our government. But two factors made this impossible.

  The first was that, after death, a Sister’s flesh rapidly drained of lace. The extremities first, legs, arms, then working inwards, the head, the abdomen, and finally the internal organs of the torso. The heart lasted the longest. While the power of an ordinary sacrament was lost within a day, a Sister’s heart could retain up to forty percent of its lace a week after death, which made it by far the richest and most powerful organ of the body.

  Even so, this type of consumption—the killing kind—was wasteful. And the Order could not afford waste. Over the centuries, our power had naturally atrophied. Sometimes Sisters died too young: in accidents, in conflict, struck down by disease. A not insignificant number killed themselves, especially before the mandatory counselling program was introduced. And with each death, we lost not just the individual herself, but her bloodline.

  One day, some whispered, the Order would run out of lace entirely. And what then?

  The second factor was that consuming too much flesh too quickly resulted in certain side effects. We called it gorge sickness. When, during past crises in the Order’s history, Sisters forced down more than a few fistfuls of flesh, some of them began to behave erratically. Often violently. Therefore, the practice of gorging was reserved for the most dire of emergencies.

  Asan began to show symptoms during the journey back to the city. I was not in her carriage; I only heard about it later. They said it started with the drumming. Her foot tap-tap-tapping against the side of the cab without any regular rhythm, listless, more like a nervous tic than anything else. It grew louder and more insistent.

  “Afraid of me,” she had muttered. “Everyone saw. All afraid of me now.”

  She kicked the panel so hard that the wood cracked.

  At the time, I was sitting in another cab, answering questions posed by a nurse from Public Health. The Herald was sweet-voiced and matronly, but all I could think was that she was Reverend Morwin’s subordinate. Reverend Morwin, who had tried to push Asan into the Haunt’s reach. Reverend Morwin, whose body followed us back to the city in a carriage shared with Lien, the curtains drawn over the windows.

  I said as little as possible. It was clear that I wasn’t physically hurt. The nurse explained, calmly and quietly, that I was probably just in a state of shock. But with rest, plenty of water, a little food—she patted my knee in a reassuring way—I would be fine. There was nothing to fear now; the Haunts had been taken to the Edge.

  The journey blurred in my mind. I was dropped off outside the dormitory and told not to discuss anything that had happened. The Sisterhood needed time to prepare an official response, and there was sure to be an inquiry process as well. If I did not feel any better by tomorrow, I should ask for assistance at the Sanatorium.

  “Herald Hayder?” I managed to ask, before the carriage pulled away.

  “She will be taken care of,” said the nurse. I took that to mean that she did not know
if Rhyanon was even still alive.

  And then I was alone.

  The sun streaked the rooftops with orange. A small bird sat on the rafters of the building opposite and chirped. Was this all? After the violence and terror, did it just end like this, with me standing on my own in the cool morning air? I felt strangely outside of myself, not angry or scared, but confused, as if something had gone missing or been taken away from me.

  I stood there for a long time, waiting without knowing what I was waiting for. When I grew cold, I turned around and went inside.

  Sleep came easy. I laid my head down, and unconsciousness rose and swallowed me. Until then, I had not even realised how exhausted I felt. No dreams, no thoughts, not even the bustle of the daytime street could disturb me. I opened my eyes again and it was midafternoon.

  I had fallen into bed without undressing, and the bloodstains splattered across my robes had faded to brown. My skin felt sticky. I sat up and rubbed my eyes. Outside my window, I could hear someone whistling, and the stamp of horses’ hooves on the flagstones. Ordinary, unremarkable sounds. I shivered.

  What now?

  I pulled off my robes, bunched them up, and threw them into the corner. To hell with the expense; I would buy a new set. A few meals skipped and a little of my savings—money well spent if it meant I never needed to scrub Morwin’s blood out of my clothes. I got up and walked to the bathroom. If I could just feel clean, then maybe I would be able to think straight. My mother used to tell me to focus on one task at a time, to devote myself to the actions within my control. Well, I could control washing. It was a start.

  It was while I was scrubbing my arms with a wet sponge that I remembered that I had promised to meet with Finn. Guilt weighed on me; of course he would understand, if he knew, but this morning it must simply have felt like I had stood him up. I imagined him standing alone in the graveyard and waiting for me.

  I wouldn’t bother you if this wasn’t important.

  “Damn it,” I muttered.

  There was no point, but I went anyway. In some unfathomable way, it felt like a penance. Or maybe I was just lost and lonely, and the graveyard gave me somewhere else to go. I took a cab, heedless of the expense, and sat quietly as the vehicle rumbled over Pearl Boulevard and into Minor East. I knew Finn would not be there, but the graveyard called to me all the same.

  “Over here is fine,” I said, as the vehicle drew to the end of Rush Street.

  A few people stood over grave markers, laying flowers or bowing their heads in prayer. I took my time reaching the usual spot. Weeds had pushed up through the soil over the untended grave; ugly clusters of spinebrush and nettle.

  I stared at the marker. I wasn’t sure what I had expected. Maybe I had held vague hopes for some kind of message from Finn, but that was stupid—it wasn’t as if he would pin a letter to the ground.

  I shuffled my feet, crossed my arms. He had looked such a mess yesterday, and his behaviour had seemed … off. Something was wrong.

  I spat on the grave, and then hurried back to the carriage.

  “Can you take me to the Candle?” I asked.

  By the time we got there, the sky had grown yellow and pale with the dusk. I did not have enough money for the return trip, so I paid the cab driver and he trundled off in search of new passengers. I would walk back to the dormitories.

  Lucian was sweeping out front. Sweat darkened his shirt, and his lip was fat and split. He was smiling to himself, though, until he saw me. Then his face closed off like a slammed door.

  “I’m looking for Finn,” I said.

  Hatred shone in his eyes, but I returned his glare with perfect blankness. He held my gaze, then snorted and continued sweeping.

  “Not here,” he replied.

  “Will he be, later?”

  Lucian shrugged.

  “What does that mean?”

  He shrugged again. “I don’t keep track of him.”

  “I just want to know if he’s scheduled to perform tonight.”

  “No.”

  “Thank you.” I gestured appreciation with a slack, careless twist of my wrist. “I’ll look elsewhere, then.”

  “What’s your interest in him anyway, Sister?”

  After everything that had happened, I felt worn thin as paper. I did not have the strength for an argument, I did not even want to talk to Lucian—especially since he was likely the person who had punched Finn. Judging by his lip, at least Finn seemed to have returned the favour.

  “If he turns up, tell him I was here,” I said.

  Lucian smirked. “Anything else?”

  “No.” I turned from him.

  A street away, I stopped and rested against the wall. Stupid, for me to let someone like Lucian get under my skin so easily; that wasn’t like me at all. I should go home before I did anything I’d regret in the morning. No doubt Finn was fine, and what did it matter if he was angry with me? I had told him to leave me alone. Maybe now he would.

  I sighed. On the other hand, it wasn’t that far to Answorth Road. Maybe he was at home. I had never been inside his tenement flat—that would have been crossing a dangerous boundary—but I knew where it was. I could just knock, see if he was all right, and then leave.

  The walk took a little longer than I expected, and when I arrived, it was properly dark. The air smelled of cooking oil and smoke. People walked with their heads down.

  I looked up at the tenement, a three-storey building with dirty windows and laundry hanging from the rails of the balconies. A few people lounged around outside, playing dice and laughing. I folded my arms across my chest. What was I going to say to him anyway? This was foolish.

  I climbed the stairs. Two kids almost knocked me over as they raced past. A woman brandishing a ladle pursued them. Finn lived at 12B on the second floor; these were the stairs he used every day. Did he like it here? He complained about the place all the time, but that was probably just a front—when anything was genuinely wrong, Finn clammed up and said nothing. Neighbours chatted in the corridors. Did he enjoy the sense of community, or did he find it claustrophobic? It was not so different from the dormitories, really, only warmer and less clean.

  I stopped outside 12B. I hesitated, then shook my head and knocked. When no one answered, I knocked again, louder.

  “He’s not back yet.” A man wearing a felt cap poked his head out of the door of the neighbouring flat.

  “Sorry to disturb you.”

  “No worries. You are?”

  “Elfreda. Finn’s a friend of mine.” I turned my wrist to conceal my Sisterhood tattoo. “Do you have any idea where he might be?”

  “Afraid not.” He looked me up and down, apparently trying to decide what manner of friend I might be. He scratched his beard. “That boy’s been keeping odd hours these days.”

  “How so?”

  “Moves around a lot during the early hours of the morning.” He tapped the wall. “The sound comes right through.”

  I frowned. “Moves around?”

  “Walking, dropping things, who knows? I don’t think he means to make a noise, but it’s woken me three times this week already. He’s driving half the tenants mad.”

  “Have you spoken to him about it?”

  “Of course. And he’ll settle down for a day or two, but then it’s back to the midnight wanderings. Have a word with him, will you?”

  I nodded. “Sure.”

  The man tipped his cap and retreated back into his flat.

  It would be an interesting conversation when I did track down Finn, I reflected. Hi, sorry that I blew you off—I was being chased by a Haunt. Also, your neighbour lodged a noise complaint with me. Now, what was the important thing you wanted to tell me?

  I trudged back down the stairs. I had tried. There was no point spending the rest of the evening combing the streets for Finn; Ceyrun was just too large, and he could be anywhere. So why couldn’t I just let it go?

  The smell of wood smoke intensified. Across the street from the tenement, a
woman had lit up a coal brazier. She knelt on the ground, where she had spread a large oilcloth, and applied a wicked cleaver to the joints of a pig’s leg. Thunk, once, twice; she moved with practised skill, and the flesh and gristle gave way. Flecks of blood dotted her arms and face.

  Stark, in my mind, Morwin’s chest peeled open like the thick rind of a fruit.

  I quickly looked away. There was a terrible ringing in my ears, and I felt like I was going to be sick. Even from across the road, the iron-sharp smell of the meat reached me.

  “Fresh pork skewers!” she hawked. “Get them hot.”

  Some of the people playing dice wandered over. The woman speared squares of meat and thrust them onto the griddle over the brazier. Fat sizzled and dripped.

  “Most affordable meat in the city,” she said. “Place your orders quick.”

  I crossed the road. The woman noticed me and flashed a greasy smile. “Hungry, hon?”

  “Where did you get pork?” I asked.

  “My friend delivers it weekly. I promise it’s the fresh stuff.”

  “But the Sisterhood has an embargo on meat products. It’s supposed to be seized at the gates.”

  She rotated her skewers. “I guess he doesn’t use the gates, then. You want?”

  I shook my head. “It just strikes me as very risky. With the shortages, if the Order finds out that you are trading without a license—”

  “Aytrium isn’t short on food,” she interrupted. “Some just get more of it than others. I’m evening things out.”

  “The shortages are real,” I insisted.

  The woman eyed me. “Do you have a problem with me?”

  “El!”

  I turned and saw Millie hurrying across the road. Her hair was tangled around her shoulders, and her cheeks were flushed.

  “So good to see you!” she said loudly, as she seized me by the forearm and steered me away from the brazier. She lowered her voice. “What are you doing here? It’s late, you shouldn’t be out alone.”

  “It’s only just past nineteenth bell.” I resisted her; there were further questions I needed to ask the meat seller. “Did you know about this? That people are getting around the embargo?”