Good Blood

by Billy Ketch Allen

  “I should have gotten him blood,” the man said. “Even if I had to burn down the Temple, I should have gotten my son blood.”

  Ara looked at the young boy’s lifeless body. How could it just end like that? How was anyone supposed to survive this world with so fragile a body?

  “But you, you were supposed to help him,” Ara fought back the sickness in his stomach. Sickness and anger. “That’s what you do.”

  Cambria gave him a hard defensive look. “Petar did all he could. We can’t do the impossible.”

  “Prepare a fire,” Petar whispered to Brim. “We’ll have to burn the body.”

  The father sobbed. He moved to his son’s side but Petar held him back with gloved hands. “Take off your shirt,” he said. “Let me get a look at you.”

  The boy lay on the table, lifeless and alone.

  Ara ran out of the suffocating tent, tossing his gloves to the ground. He fled away from the camp and the dead boy. He ran into town, pushing past a crowd of people on the street who stared at him in his tattered rags. Ara turned down a side street and vomited his breakfast into the dirt.

  He had done nothing. Sat back and watched the boy die when he could have helped him, given him a little of his blood. It wouldn’t have mattered to him. He’d had so much taken over the past months just to make Carmine rich. He could have used his blood to save a boy’s life, and instead, he did nothing. Petar and the doctors couldn’t do the impossible, but he could.

  Ara kicked his foot into a wall, over and over.

  This blood is a curse, whether I use it or not.

  He kicked harder, again and again. The bones in his toes broke. He kept kicking, cracking the wood planks.

  “What the hell’s going on back here?” a man stepped around the corner. His face grew red when he saw the hole Ara had made in the wall. “You stupid clot! You’ve wrecked my shop.”

  Ara wiped the tears away from his face and limped away; the front of his foot exploded in pain.

  “Get back here, boy!” the man yelled. “You’re gonna pay for this.”

  A hand struck him on the back. He flew into the dirt.

  “You little brat.”

  The man kicked Ara in the side. The air left him. The shopkeeper raised his boot. Ara didn’t cover up, he just looked at the man with open eyes, waiting for the beating.

  The shopkeeper stopped. He stepped back from Ara.

  “Go on,” Ara said. “I deserve it.”

  The man shook his head. “What’s wrong with you?”

  More voices filled the air. A crowd gathered around the scene. The shopkeeper looked around at the attention. Murmurs went through the crowd as they stared at Ara. So many people looking at him, seeing his face.

  Hands grabbed under his arms and pulled him to his feet. Ara spun around. “You weren’t supposed to draw attention to yourself,” Geyer said.

  Ara pressed himself against Geyer, wrapping his arms around him. The old knight stepped back, but Ara held tight not letting him go.

  “This boy belong to you?” the shopkeeper asked.

  Geyer seemed to think about this for a minute. “What’d he do that required a beating from a grown man?”

  “He smashed my shop,” the man pointed to the broken boards on his wall as justification.

  Geyer pulled a shrine from his pocket and threw it on the ground at the man’s feet. “Be thankful I don’t do the same to you.”

  The man said nothing. Geyer led Ara away through the crowd. Ara’s foot burned with each step, he could barely breathe between the pain in his side and the sobs. But it didn’t really matter. He was a Descendant.

  “I’m sorry, Geyer,” Ara said. “I’m sorry for everything.”

  “Hush now,” Geyer said. “No names. We’re being watched.”

  Briton walked back to the doctor’s camp, excited to show Ara the new clothes he’d bought for him. The boy’s current outfit was so worn he could be considered more naked than clothed. Briton had bought rugged brown pants and a red shirt that would pass Ara off as a farm boy. But Briton’s eagerness wore off when he saw the camp. Though the sun was still two hours from setting, the tents were broken down and being loaded into the wagons.

  “Tell me we’re not being thrown out again,” Aaron groaned by his side. The young man leaned over the wheelbarrow of supplies. “Couldn’t we have just one full day in a city?”

  The mood of the doctors was bleak as they packed up their supplies. Petar nodded to Briton and Aaron.

  “We’re leaving already?” Aaron asked.

  “Yes,” Petar said. “Can you load the supplies and assist Hannah, please.”

  Aaron didn’t argue, perhaps sensing the seriousness in Petar’s voice.

  “And see if you can find where Cambria disappeared to,” Petar called after Aaron.

  “Is everything alright?” Briton asked.

  “It was a hard day, Stone.” Petar said. “We lost someone. A young boy. Ara took it pretty hard.”

  “Where is he now?”

  “Just there in the woods.”

  “I’m sorry, Petar.”

  “There was nothing to be done. The boy was too far along. I’ve been doing this a long time. He’s not the first patient I’ve lost.” Petar picked up a stack of rags hung out to dry in the sun. “Marigold overheard some hostile talk about our presence in town. He advised we leave as soon as possible.”

  Briton nodded. “I’m sorry. I know how much these people need you, whether they know it or not.”

  “We got a good day’s work in. That’s better than in a lot of northern towns.”

  Briton nodded and set his bags down in a wagon, careful not to wrinkle the new clothes. He walked towards the tree line. Geyer stepped out, glancing over Briton’s around to make sure he wasn’t followed.

  “It’s not safe for us here,” Geyer said. “Word is all around the city. The Highfather has put a purse on our heads.”

  “Then we’re endangering the doctors by staying with them.”

  “But it’s safer for us. They’re looking for a boy traveling in a group of three.”

  Briton sighed. He didn’t want to leave the doctors either. As uncomfortable as the rickety wagon was, it was much better than walking. Plus, he’d grown quite fond of Petar and Hannah. But he knew it was not fair to put them in danger unknowingly.

  Briton looked around the wagons. “Where’s Ara?”

  “He feels guilty about what happened,” Geyer said. “Thinks he could have done something for the boy.”

  “I’ll talk to him.”

  “Be quick. We need to leave.” Geyer scanned the nearby streets. There was a look of worry on the knight’s face. More than usual.

  Briton walked through the wood. Light grew dim beneath the thick canopy of leaves. He thought of the lanterns in the Carmine Castle library and reading late into the night. It seemed a lifetime ago.

  Briton found Ara sitting alone on an uprooted tree, absently drawing patterns in the dirt with a stick. He looked up at Briton’s approach and then lowered his head back to the ground.

  Briton sat down beside him. “It’s not your fault what happened to that boy.”

  Ara said nothing. He continued moving his stick in the soft ground.

  “It is a cruel unforgiving world, Ara. You should know that as much as anyone. People die every day.”

  “I could have stopped it,” Ara mumbled.

  “Petar said the boy was past healing.”

  “I could have tried, Briton,” Ara snapped. “But instead I did nothing. I just watched him die—because I was scared. Because I was afraid of being caught.”

  Briton looked at the young boy suffering beside him, wishing there was a way to put some of it on himself. But that’s not how it worked. People only took a Descendant’s strength, not their pain.

  “You have tremendous power,” Briton said. “Power you never asked for. And it has caused you more pain than it has helped you. And as strong as you are, Ara, you’re still just a
boy. It is not your job to save everyone.”

  Ara stabbed the stick into the ground, and it broke to pieces. He turned and looked up at Briton, tears forming in the corner of his eyes. “Whose job is it then?”

  Briton had no answer. He reached out and put his arm around Ara. The boy did not shake it free.

  “Time to go,” Stone said. Ara helped him to his feet, and the two of them walked out of the woods back towards the wagons.

  Cambria stayed crouched in the bushes until they were gone.

  She had been suspicious of these travelers, and this secret meeting confirmed it. Ara had called the old man Briton. He had lied about his name. And they were hiding more than their real names. Were they outlaws? Agents of the Faith?

  And what was this talk about tremendous power? Ara believed he could have saved the town boy when not even Petar could do that. Cambria had suspected there was something unusual about the boy on that second day when she saw how fast he had recovered from his injuries. But what did it mean? She didn’t believe in the northern myths of sorcerers and magic blood. She knew it was the Faith’s way of controlling the population. The only thing that healed people was science. There was no such thing as good and bad blood.

  Cambria snuck back through the woods, a plan forming in her mind. She didn’t know what their game was, but she knew these strangers couldn’t be trusted. She’d have to find out more in order to convince Petar they were dangerous. In the meantime, she’d keep an eye on them.

  And keep her blade ready.

  20

  Vorrel’s experiments had always interested Haemon. He’d seen living Descendants split open, their organs taken out one at a time. He’d seen limbs hacked off to test what would and wouldn’t grow back. Tips of fingers and noses and ears but not whole limbs. Though, if a Descendant had particularly good blood, a severed arm, for instance, could be reattached—the bone fusing together and healing like new. And he’d seen Descendants tortured and killed in as many ways as Vorrel could dream up. Drowned, starved, beaten, burnt, boiled. They were remarkably resilient creatures, but they could be exterminated with just about any method, given enough persistence.

  Vorrel’s experiments on a good blood replicant, however, were not fascinating. Haemon grew bored, watching his head Curor strain and mix and cook, vials of the Descendant boy’s blood as he tried to crack the answer to its power. The table in the center of the hidden lab was filled with vials of failed attempts. They’d already wasted most of the boy’s blood they’d retrieved from Castle Carmine.

  A guard sliced the prisoner across the chest, cutting a fresh wound over the already marked body. The prisoner cried like a mute dog. His tongue had been removed to keep the noise down. Even in the old part of the Temple, there were ears.

  Vorrel lifted a vial of blood to the prisoner’s lips. The liquid was dark red and cloudy. He forced it down the prisoner’s mouth. The room waited in silence. Vorrel’s lips moved as he counted.

  Then the prisoner screamed. As much as he could anyway. The skin around the cut dissolved, opening the wound wider. Dark red blood bubbled out of the wound as if eating away at the prisoner from the inside. The prisoner’s screams grew higher pitched and he convulsed against his chains, the metal breaking him open at the arms and shoulders. The guard stepped back as the bubbles fizzed in the prisoner’s lap, burning his pants. One last whine and the prisoner stopped, his head fell. His chest was open like a hole had been melted through him.

  Vorrel sighed. “Put him with the others.” Two guards unchained the prisoner, careful to avoid the bubbling blood.

  Vorrel shook his head and placed the vial on the table with the others. He scribbled something in his notes. He spoke without meeting Haemon’s eyes. “We are getting closer.”

  “How do you determine that?” Haemon asked. “From what I’ve seen you’ve managed to turn the most precious substance in all of Terene into poison.”

  He tapped his quill against the paper. “We learn from every setback. We’ve identified strains that amplify the blood power, we just need to stabilize it for the human body.”

  “We don’t have time to waste, Vorrel. I need to bring the council something more than melting bodies.”

  “Soon,” Vorrel said. “Hemo will give us the answer.”

  Haemon’s loose teeth grinded against one another. How dare this Curor talk to him of Hemo’s will. It was Haemon’s vision that started this whole project. He would see it through, with or without Vorrel.

  There was a knock on the lab door. Haemon’s muscles tightened and he immediately regretted the effort. He wheezed, trying to settle the knots in his back. The door opened and a guard stepped inside. Haemon exhaled. It was one of his.

  “Father,” the guard said. “We found two guards searching the corridors. We believe they were sent by Father Turney.”

  Edmund. Haemon frowned. The young Father was proving to be a greater problem than he’d anticipated.

  “Did they find anything?”

  “I don’t believe so. I ordered them to the outer sanctuary. Told them they were needed there. But they were reluctant to go.”

  The Highfather nodded. “Send a messenger for Father Turney. I will speak to him in my study.”

  “Yes, Father.” The guard bowed and slipped out of the door, closing it behind him.

  Haemon rubbed at his pointed chin. Some problems required political maneuvering, others you dealt with head-on. He wasn’t yet sure which one Edmund was.

  “Keep working,” Haemon said to Vorrel. “You don’t sleep until I have my blood cure.”

  Then the Highfather strode out of the lab to deal with Father Turney. Gray morning light splintered in through the holes in the stone walls. Their secret lab had been built in the old part of the Temple. A section that still showed the scars of the Blood Wars. The broken ceiling stood as a monument to the last stand. When the people rose up and finally ended the reign of the Royals. To Haemon, it was a reminder of what could happen if the Descendants were allowed too much power.

  It was a long trek across the Temple to the Highfather’s study. Haemon and his two trailing guards reached the open air courtyard in the heart of the Temple and stopped to catch his breath. His two guards gave him space as he sat on the edge of the Fountain of Absolution. Haemon’s lungs burned. He tasted blood in his mouth. His own blood.

  When had he grown so old?

  “Faith be with you, Highfather,” a voice called.

  Father Edmund Turney strolled through the courtyard with a single guard of his own. His lips curled into a crooked smile. It was a knowing smile. Like they were peers who held a shared secret that couldn’t be spoken aloud. For once Haemon was thankful for his old tired body, for he might otherwise have strangled Edmund right there and then.

  “We were supposed to meet in my study,” Haemon said.

  “I thought this would be easier for you. I know walking can be difficult.” Edmund Turney sat down on the fountain’s edge beside the Highfather.

  Haemon gritted his teeth, imagining what Edmund’s panicked face would look like held down beneath the water’s surface.

  “We learn to deal with difficulties, Father Edmund. Nothing is handed to us.” The Highfather’s guards had stepped forward but Haemon waved them back. “Even you, the son of a noble lord, must have faced your share of difficulties. It couldn’t have been easy renouncing your family’s titles to join the Faith.”

  “I answered a higher calling. It’s no more a sacrifice than any Father who takes the vow.”

  “Yes, perhaps it was a bit easier as a second son.”

  Edmund’s smile remained on his lips, but his eyes gave a different response. His lineage was a sensitive subject. A fact to remember.

  “How goes Hemo’s work?” Edmund asked, dusting off his robe at the knee. “The pressure must be a lot to bear. With the Descendant rebels still a threat under your watch.”

  “The watch is all of ours, Father Turney. If you have some insight you believe woul
d remedy Terene’s troubles, I hope you aren’t keeping them for a more opportune time. People’s lives do hang in the balance, after all.”

  Edmund put a hand to his chest. “I mean no disrespect, Highfather. I can only imagine the complexities of your position. I just hope our resources are aimed at the right target, and not focused elsewhere.”

  “And where else would they be focused?” Haemon studied the young Father’s face. He was getting a feel for the boy. Edmund was adept at the veiled threats of politics but how did he respond when confronted head on?

  Edmund did not speak for a moment. He looked past the Highfather to the watching Temple guards. Haemon couldn’t read the Father. That was more dangerous than if he saw open hatred in the man’s eyes.

  “You know, you were the subject of my treatise at Monastery,” Edmund said.

  Haemon’s eyebrows shot up before he could stop himself. “I didn’t now that, Edmund. It’s interesting that you’d choose something so recent. Most Fathers choose to study Hamada or another founding Highfather, or even General Drusas.”

  “The Blood Wars are exciting, of course, but I think to be the best Father I can be, it’s important to understand the world we live in now.”

  Haemon shifted on the fountain’s stone edge. Where is this going?

  “It must have been difficult for you after the sudden death of your mentor, Highfather Archaties. You were still so young when called to fulfill his position.”

  Haemon down, into the still waters of the Fountain of Absolution. The face he saw reflected was that of an old man. Older than Archaties had ever been.

  “It is our duty to serve. If we trust in Hemo and submit ourselves to him, he will give us the strength we need.”

  Father Turney nodded. “And how did you know when you were following his will and not taking matters in your own hands?”

  Haemon sighed. It was a question he’d wrestled with much as Highfather of the Faith. When he was younger, anyway.

  “When you silence your personal thoughts and agendas, Hemo will speak to you,” Haemon said. He held Father Turney’s gaze for a long moment. Then the Highfather pushed himself to his feet; his wobbly legs held up with great effort. But calling to his guards in front of Edmund would be unthinkable. “And, in the end, it always comes down to faith.”