He reached the end of the hallway where a door stopped him. Biting his lip, he eased it open, relief flooding him when it moved quietly on its heavy iron hinges. Stepping into the stairwell, he listened for a moment, wondering if the figure was still here, wondering how he’d ever determine which floor the figure had gone to. He was frozen by his own questions. Then he heard it—the soft pad of bare feet on the stone. The figure was still heading down. Down, down, down, the stairs cut back and forth. Glaen reached the cellar and wondered if he’d gone too far. The darkness was so complete, he felt rather than saw the cavernous space before him. He smelled the food stored in the large space: the chalky oats, the earthy potatoes, the sharpness of onions beginning to rot.
Standing at the doorway, he waited for his eyes to adjust, but the darkness was too complete. Something shifted, or it was just his own mind roaring at the lack of vision and the total stillness? He itched to reach for his talent and send out a little glowing ball of light to defeat the darkness. The very desire made his head ache, as if the tainted that blocked him from using his talent could also hear his wishful thinking. He shivered at the notion.
He didn’t know how long he stood there, peering into the darkness. His thoughts were split; he wondered who was in the cellar, but also feared the unseen tainted and what they could sense in his mind. Would guards be sent to find him?
He turned, heading up the stairs, feet fumbling in the darkness to find the edge of each uneven step. He caught his toe on a particularly high step and staggered, suppressing a curse as pain lanced through him. He went more slowly, fighting down the fear and forcing patience he didn’t think he could afford.
The climb up was harder than he’d expected. His legs started to ache, his lungs feeling empty no matter how deeply he breathed. Returning to his bunk exhausted him, but he still couldn’t sleep. His thoughts flit in and out before he could grasp them. Who was the figure? Why were they down there? Perhaps someone hungry went to help themselves to a bit of food. The sparse fare served three times a day was unsatisfying at best, even if Glaen didn’t much care about eating anymore. Someone who had been here a while, who had built an immunity to the despair that lived here, might find themselves longing for a little more in their bellies. That was a depressing thought—to be here long enough to become numb to it. Were people ever released from the Rift? If you agreed to comply to their smothering laws, would they let you leave? Or once you were sent to the Rift, were you irredeemable? What would Glaen even do if he left? With no Gianna . . .
He didn’t dare finish the thought, pain crushing his chest. Tashué Blackwood’s face came to mind instead. When Glaen had met Hillbraun’s gaze and seen such hatred, he realized why Tashué Blackwood was so loathsome. As a tainted, Glaen was used to hatred. In fact, he expected it, at least from those without talent. But Tashué’s lack of hatred was hard to swallow. He didn’t hate the tainted, but he still thought they needed to be regulated. He still thought that they couldn’t be trusted to make their own decisions. That was so much worse.
As the night dragged on, Glaen expected the other tainted to return. No one came. The birds began to chirp outside the small windows; dawn was on its way. And still the tainted didn’t return. Were they down there still, cornered like an animal, afraid they had been discovered? Should Glaen go back, tell them there was nothing to fear? What purpose would that serve? They would both be caught.
He almost heard Gianna’s voice in his mind at that, patient yet mocking, as if she could see him even now. What purpose? You caused this problem. You need to help in the fixing.
If they were both caught, perhaps Glaen could come up with some believable reason they were out together. He was new, after all. It could be plausible he didn’t know all the rules.
He climbed from his bed again and padded down the hall. Light came in those tiny windows, enough he had begun to see things in more detail. He reached the door leading into the stairwell, but the sound of another door clanking open froze him. His heart began its cowardly gallop, hand shaking on the latch.
Another door opened and the guards left the stairwell. Still, Glaen was frozen in place and it filled him with shame. Tears pricked the corners of his eyes even as he turned away from the door, shaking with fear, stomach flipping over itself.
Don’t be a coward. Whose voice was that? His or Gianna’s?
Taking a deep breath, he turned back to the door—
—and it swung inward, missing his face by a hair’s breadth. And then someone crashed into him, sending them both staggering. The other tainted swore, but Glaen was able to catch them both. The tainted kicked the door shut behind him. By the light of the rising sun, Glaen saw the other tainted was a mere slip of a young man, shortish and slim. He had hair as black as pitch and warm brown eyes. Almost like the amber eyes Tashué Blackwood had, but not quite so startling. By the same light, Glaen saw the young man’s toe oozed blood, the nail smashed.
The sound of guards was louder, closer, the familiar and heavy stomp. They spoke in voices that echoed in the stairwell, muffled but growing in intensity. They were coming to rouse the inmates for their morning chores. The other tainted started down the hall toward the bunks. He walked with a heavy limp, staggering and shuffling and gritting his teeth against the pain. Glaen reached out to him, slipping an arm around his back. Taking the young man’s wrist, he looped it around his neck, moving fast to get past the water closet before the guards arrived.
And arrive they did, the door swinging open so hard it slammed against the wall behind it.
“What in hell’s teeth are you two doing?” The guard’s deep chest released a booming voice that felt like thunder in the enclosed space.
For once, Glaen didn’t hesitate. “He was showing me to the water closet. Smashed up his toe on that edge there, where the stone sticks up.”
“Why wasn’t he wearing his boots?” The other guard’s voice sounded softer, but there was a hard steel edge that made Glaen’s stomach clench.
The young man didn’t hesitate either. “Makes it easier to climb down from the bunks. I can usually find my way alright, but he really had to go.”
Glaen nodded. “Those beans cut right through my guts.”
The first guard sucked through his teeth as they closed the gap. The big man stopped in front of them, blocking their advance, struggling to see the young man’s foot through the weak dawn light. The second guard eased the big one out of the way. She took inventory of the young man’s wound swiftly.
“Is it bleeding much?”
“Plenty.” There was a tremor in the young man’s voice that might not have been only from the pain. But then, he wasn’t shaking.
The guard kicked her foot out. The young man let out a strangled yelp, half-falling as he tried to jerk away. Glaen toppled with him, but the bigger guard grabbed Glaen by the arm and dragged them both back up.
The guard gave a satisfied grunt, smiling to herself. “Seems good and smashed. Think you can get your boots back on?”
“Don’t know. Maybe.”
The guard shrugged at that. “Doesn’t matter much, does it? Time to get up for morning chores anyway. What’s your chore?”
“Gardening.”
“Gardening. Don’t need your toe for gardening, do you?”
“No ma’am.”
“Good. Off you go.”
The young man turned and Glaen turned with him, helping him shuffle down the hallway.
“Forsooth.”
The guard’s voice froze them both.
“I don’t recall you being a gardener.”
“No, ma’am.”
“You don’t need to go downstairs then, do you?
“No, ma’am.”
Shame burning in his chest, Glaen let the young man go on alone. The three of them stood there, watching him limp his way down the hall. By the growing light, Glaen saw the young man left a bloody print on the stone with each step, leg weak and trembling with pain. Glaen could almost feel the young
man’s relief when he made it through the door, pulling it shut behind him.
“Do you have a chore yet, Forsooth?”
Glaen turned slowly to face the guards, wringing his hands together to keep them from shaking. In spite of his fear, he found himself looking into the woman’s eyes. They were a bright and merry blue, so deceptive. Glaen imagined himself asking her what had turned her so cruel. Were you always like this, he would ask. Were you born with this yawning darkness, or did becoming a guard in this terrible place burn all the goodness out of you?
As if she heard his questions, she lashed out, hitting Glaen in the mouth. The punch sent Glaen sprawling. Pain burned like white light behind his eyes—and then another pain rattled through his chest, leaving his lungs empty. He was on the floor. And the woman stood over him, staring down, those eyes merry still as Glaen dabbed at the blood that flowed freely from his split lip.
“You answer me when I ask you a question, Forsooth.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Do you have a chore yet?”
“No, ma’am.”
“You get one today. Return to your bunk and wait for someone to fetch you.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
He scrambled to his feet. The hit to the face had quailed him, stripping any rebellious thoughts away. The guards blocked most of the hallway, forcing him to squeeze past them. He didn’t want any more trouble. Pain throbbed still and he wiped at his face with his sleeve, but the blood wouldn’t stop coming.
He climbed slowly to his bunk, even as the guards stomped into the hall and demanded everyone out. His body ached with fatigue, weariness so deep that even his bones were tired. Despite the pain in his lip, he wrapped himself in his blanket and tumbled quickly into darkness—and the nightmares that waited for him there.
“Forsooth!” Someone kicked the bunks, sending a shiver through the structure. “Forsooth!”
Glaen scrambled out of bed, trying to swing his legs out, but he was tangled in his blankets. Some nightmare clung to the corners of his mind, ugly and filled with pain. It left him feeling more miserable, though it was a shock that it was even possible. “Yes! Yes!”
“I was sent to find you for chores.”
“Yes, sir, I’m coming!”
Finally free of the coarse wool, he swung out and scrambled down. His heart was hammered in his chest, some leftover anxiety from the dream. He struggled to catch his breath. His movements were fast and clumsy and his foot slipped. The sensation of falling sent his stomach flipping, but he caught some ledge. Gritting his teeth against the pain that tore through his hands, he got his feet under him again and made the rest of the descent. Not a guard, Glaen realized, but a prisoner, a fellow tainted. The burly man was staring at him, arms crossed over his chest.
“Nice to get some extra sleep.”
“Yes, sir. I was told to wait here until someone came for me.”
“Let me see your hands.”
Glaen stretched out his hands, palms up. Splinters and scrapes dotted the skin, but the damage wasn’t serious. The man grunted at him and his splinters, scowling.
“Not very strong. You ever kill chickens?”
“What?”
“You’re a city man, then? All your meat comes to you plucked and gutless, as if it was never a living thing?”
“Yes, I suppose.”
Another grunt. “Follow me.”
The man turned and stomped down the stairs. Glaen struggled to keep up, slipping in his ill-fitting boots with their worn leather soles. He could almost imagine Gianna, walking beside him. Perhaps it was the nightmare still clinging to his mind, but he smelled her hair, felt it tickling his cheek. His hands ached, the wounds stinging and hot. He could almost imagine Gianna taking his hands in hers, using her talent to close the wounds. She wasn’t supposed to use her talent except when she was working for the Authority, but even the Authority couldn’t monitor such things fully.
Shaking Gianna’s ghost from the corners of his mind, he picked at the splinters as he followed the man. Some came away easily, jutting out of the flesh so far that he could pinch them between his finger nails. The rest would have to be tended to later, left to ache and rot beneath his skin until he could find some way to remove them.
They emerged below the kitchen into a long and narrow room, scarcely wider than a hallway. Glaen smelled and heard the chickens already, their constant noise rattling around the room. It wasn’t a clucking as he’d imagined it, but more of a long whine that came from deep in their chests. A woman waited for him, standing beside the cage that held them. She was whip lean, her face marked with scars, one eye gone milky with an old injury. The ragged, Rift-supplied clothes hung on her slim frame, making her look like a coat tree instead of a person. She had to turn her head to look at Glaen with her good eye, squinting in the murky half-light. Her hair, a thick mass of curls, was pulled back from her face in a tight ponytail.
“Rezji, this is Forsooth.” The big man’s voice rumbled in the small space and the chickens only got louder in response. “He’s helping you now.”
“Yes, sir.”
The big man thumped back down the hall the way they came.
“You kill chickens before?”
“No.”
Rezji sniffed, wiping her nose with the edge of her sleeve. “You can cut. I’ll catch. Harder to catch.”
Rezji came off the wall and handed Glaen a knife. It was wickedly sharp and curved, the blade about two inches long. The wooden handle was stained and sticky with blood.
“Who are all these chickens for?”
Rezji waved a hand to the building around them.
“I wasn’t aware there was any meat in what they serve us.”
Rezji shrugged, reaching into the long wire cage filled with chickens. With one fast swoop of her hand, she had four of them by the back legs and lifted them out.
“They leave us some. And the bones for broth. Guards get first pick of all goods. Garden, meat.” She shrugged. “Guards are hungry.”
The chickens she had in her hand went quiet, hanging by the back legs. Their wings sprawled at their sides, and they craned their heads to try to keep their wide, blinking eyes on their surroundings. Rezji shuffled her grasp enough to hold one in her left hand, the rest gathered together in her right. She looked at Glaen expectantly.
“You coming?”
“Coming?”
Rezji gestured with her chin to the chickens. “To cut.”
The words hung in the air for a while as Glaen stared at the woman, who only stared back. “I’ve never . . .”
Rezji sighed, shifting all the birds back to the same hand. She stuck out her thumb, the joint curving almost as much as the little knife. She dragged her thumbnail across his throat. “Cut them.”
Glaen was horrified to find that his hands trembled again. Still, he reached for the first chicken. The animal blinked at him a few times, head cocking from side to side, sending the red comb bobbing. He reached out with the knife, but Rezji sniffed again, shifting the chicken to her right hand.
“You hold the head. Yes? Like this.” She cupped her left hand around the chicken’s small head, holding it still. “Hold. Cut. Yes? Look. Over the pot.”
Glaen looked down to see the pot between them, a great clay pot, stained with blood.
“They keep the blood?”
“Yes.”
“For what?” Although Glaen wasn’t certain he wanted to know.
“Gardens. Plant food.”
The relief was only minor. Rezji moved one chicken to her left hand again and gestured at Glaen. Sucking in a deep breath, Glaen cupped the chicken’s head in his hand and reached out, as Rezji had showed him. The chicken flapped ineffectually. It took more force than Glaen would have thought to break the skin, to find the artery. With Rezji’s grunting instructions—deeper, higher, press hard—Glaen made his way through the first four. They all flapped a bit when he started cutting. When he found the artery, the blood came in a bright ru
sh and splattered into the pot. It didn’t matter how quickly Glaen got his hands out of the way, the blood always flowed between his fingers, hot and sticky. His stomach churned and he felt some sense of relief when all four had been bled. But then Rezji opened the cage and Glaen remembered how many birds were left in there. Rezji tossed the four carcasses back into the cage and with another sweep of her hand she had three more.
It was worse, somehow, that the chickens went so placidly. Better they should fight for their lives, forcing Glaen to struggle with them. The iron smell in the air brought the terrible images that plagued his nightmares back with jarring clarity. Gianna, dead and cold and covered in her own blood, her eyes vacant and staring. She leaned in to kiss him and clots of blood slid down her face. He cringed, turned away, but he missed her so much that he changed his mind and leaned in. He tasted her blood on his lips when he kissed her.
He wondered if this was how she smelled when she died. If her blood was as thick and sticky as the chickens’. Had she laid placidly and accepted her fate? He couldn’t imagine Gianna doing anything placidly. He tortured himself wondering where the shot had hit her. She was a healer; she could have saved herself from most wounds. The bullet must have taken her somewhere vital, for it to have killed her so swiftly. Her chest, perhaps, or her head. Or her throat. He’d kissed that beautiful throat so many times when they made love, hoping he could capture some of the life that pulsed there.
Somewhere about a dozen chickens into his chore, he realized he was sobbing, his face wet with tears. Rezji ignored him, holding chickens over the pot one at a time and tossing them back into the cage. Glaen kept cutting, blood pouring over his hands. He could scarcely believe how much blood each chicken kept in its little body and couldn’t help but wonder at the great torrent that must have come from Gianna.
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