Remnants of Atonement (True paths Book 1)

by G. P McKenna

  The troop pushed himself up on his elbows and glared at me before narrowing his eyes at Mercy, “I will lose it anyways if a blood-eyes touches it,” he spat at Mercy’s feet once the slur passed his lips and my hand hovered over his wound, “don’t need it tampering with me. No, Miss, I do not. I’ll tak—YOUCH!” heads everywhere turned towards us as his scream roared through the camp when my finger dug into the wound. Feeling something solid, I hooked my nail around it and pulled back quicker than was perhaps ethical. Doctor Kira would’ve been proud.

  “See this,” I shoved the splinter of bark in the troop’s face, “if you think she’ll do you more harm than this, you’re sorely mistaken.” And he was, withering in the grass while whimpering, but at least he didn’t protest further as I worked.

  Mercy didn’t touch him, and I couldn’t blame her. She appeared content to simply sit and watch her elders circle Ilya, who looked more than a little bit upset. Somebody had fetched him a proper mask, but I could still see the distress in his eyes clear as day, a fact which made me inexplicably warm inside. It wasn’t like I could help Ilya in that moment, despite it not being his fault as much as it was mine. I couldn’t decipher what was happening, even as the melodic voices grew louder and increasingly demanding. It took me an embarrassingly long time to realize that just because I couldn’t understand what was being said couldn’t mean Mercy didn’t.

  I opened my mouth to ask, but before I could, Mercy’s hand slipped from her knee and grazed my patient’s side. He shrieked as if scolded before lashing out with his foot, striking Mercy’s jaw. She sat back, bringing a hand to her masked mouth before standing up and disappearing into the crowd before without a word. Scowling, I stuck my finger back into the wound, and the troop released another agonized scream. Served him right. Would’ve served him more so had Mercy not returned several minutes later to push a bundle into my hands with a simple, “here.”

  Bandages and other medical goodies. More than he deserved, but I smiled anyway, “thanks.”

  Mercy nodded and sat down, wrapping her arms around her knees so there were no more chances of accidental touches. Shame, I would’ve enjoyed one final probing, but a good dousing of antiseptic would have to do, “Doctor Kira has opened a makeshift infirmary up by the maze,” Mercy said as my patient’s moans quietened. That certainly sounded like something Kira would do. With any luck, she would still be there when I returned home to the infirmary, “I informed her that you were still alive. She didn’t appear very happy.”

  “I’m sure she isn’t,” I said and withdrew a bandage. I’d deal with my mother later, but not that night. Not when Ilya was alive and breathing, and I had made it happen. Mercy said something that my brain couldn’t comprehend, and I glanced up to find Ilya standing beside me. I hadn’t even heard him approach. He nodded to me once before turning to Mercy and finished speaking as I tied off the bandage. Mercy poked me in the side and waved before walking off towards the stiff faced elders, leaving me alone with Ilya. That was how I liked it, so why were my palms beginning to sweat?

  “Are you finished?” Ilya asked as he crouched to poke the troop’s cheek.

  The git must’ve passed out at one point because his eyes were closed, his breathing shallow. Shame, I would’ve liked to have witnessed the resulting face scrubbing. Despite his disastrous judgement that troop had been fun, in his own way. Laughing under my breath, I adjusted the pins, “almost. Why?”

  Ilya rocked back on his heels and hummed as if thinking, though his eyes betrayed him. Death had sent him headfirst into reality, and now all things I’d seen all along in him appeared different, lost to a dazed tiredness that sleep wouldn’t fix. He reached for my wrist and pulled it away from the troop, “will you come with me?”

  “To where?”

  “Just…come.”

  Not even the impenetrable canopy of leaves could prevent the silver lace of moonlight from dancing through the ruined thatch. Why Ilya had wanted to return there of all places was a mystery, for I could’ve gone the rest of my days trying to forget the quiet atrocity that had taken place in that room, yet he’d taken my hand and led me through the crowd. Somewhere along the way, the wails and cries had stilled, blocked out by a thick hedge and the soothing sounds of a natural night. The rest of my world had changed with the flutter of a lid, yet everything there remained the same. The churning stench of sweat, bile and mildew that was once so disgusting suddenly seemed sweet in its familiarity. And there was Ilya at the centre: the biggest, brightest, only beautiful part. So why in that hut of ghosts did I miss him most?

  The smell didn’t appear to bother him as he took the soiled bucket off the workbench to glance inside before kicking it away with a grunt. He pushed himself up to sit, picking absentmindedly at his nails as the moonlight made shadows across his pale skin. Deities, he was so soft and the world was so cruel that not even the mask could disguise the aura of unhappiness spewing from his every pore, and far from the first time that night I asked, “are you alright?”

  He shrugged, “I need a drink.”

  He needed a lot more than that, but I walked to the shadowy corner where I had abandoned my bag and ruffled inside it for a flask, “here.”

  Our eyes met in the silver light as he took it with a whispered “Thank you.”

  I nodded but didn’t move, watching intently as he lowered that material to drink. The soft rise and fall of his chest, the bobble of his Adam’s apple, the glistening of full lips. All signs of life, everything that mattered. Not the fairy tales and dreams of heroes and battles. They weren’t real, not like he was. Yet if he learned what I had done it would be over in an instant, and so it appears our endings are always self-made. Ilya tapped my arm and held out the flask, but I shook my head and sat upon the bench thinking that maybe, just maybe, if I came clean something resembling friendship could still be salvaged, and so I took a deep breath, “there’s something I need to tell you. Something about what Pogue and I did.”

  “Don’t,” Ilya said while capping the flask, “I know already.”

  My breath whistled in my throat, but I coughed it away, “you do?”

  He nodded, fiddling with the folds of his mask. Not a good sign, “I don’t want to talk about it right now, though. I’m processing it in my own way.”

  “Okay, but out of curiosity, how do you know?”

  “Erebus told me.”

  That stupid sword spirit! It had been present that night, but it never occurred to me that it could’ve been watching. My heart throbbed painfully in my throat at the very thought. I didn’t want anybody to know, least alone having watched. Ratatoskr was bad enough, but Erebus. If I was a crying girl I would’ve burst into tears, I wanted to burst into tears, but my emotional well had long since dried and so all I could do was cover my eyes with a groan, “Right. Well, are there any questions you want answered?”

  “I’m not sure what else you could say about it,” Ilya shrugged, “It is what it is, and I don’t have the right to be upset about it. I’ve died once, and of course there must be consequences for that, but I wish he’d never told me. It makes me uncomfortably aware of my mortality.”

  Death. Mortality. Never told. What? I blinked at him, “Sorry, what did Erebus tell you exactly?” I frowned as the words reached my ears, “when did he tell you?”

  “While we were in the maze,” Ilya said while twirling his bangs around his fingers, “I wish you would’ve told me, perhaps then I wouldn’t have been so upset. Still, I’m sorry for taking it out on both you and Pogue, but you should’ve told me. I thought I had lost my mind.”

  “Yeah, whatever. Sorry, and you’re forgiven. Now, back to Erebus-” Hopefully Erebus will calm him. Pierous’ words hit me like a rogue wave at the beach and had I not been sitting I might’ve stumbled under their weight. Stupid, stupid…, “can you hear Erebus in your head?”

  “Not only in my head.”

  “Can he hear us?”

  Ilya frowned, but nodded, “in all likelihood.”
Huh. Disembodied voices certainly qualified as unexpected consequences. I was suddenly overjoyed that my initial plan to tether my soul to his had been outcasted. I struggled enough with living in my own head, I didn’t need to be in his too. Ilya’s frown increased as he turned to look deeper into my eyes, “you seem surprised.”

  “That’s only because you seem calm for somebody who has just woken up for the first time with somebody else’s voice inside their head,” I retorted. Ilya jolted back around, his hand reaching to massage the circular scar above his collarbone, identical to the one that plagued my wrist. It was my turn to frown as a sudden realization flooded in, “unless this isn’t the first time you’ve awoken to a voice inside your head. Sedna possessed you, didn’t they?”

  “No, never possessed,” Ilya said quickly, his voice breaking slightly on the vowels. I stared at him blankly, and he sighed. He leaned back onto the bench to stare up at the moon, “the bite allowed them to probe my mind from a distance. They whispered horrible things, manipulated my dreams into grotesque nightmares which made it difficult to sleep. After their presence for so long, Erebus is almost a comfort.”

  That I could understand. How lonely life would be if not haunted by something. I reclined back. The bench rocked but held steady, the combined weight of our underdeveloped bodies not enough to break it even as I leaned towards him like a plant towards the sun to press my lips against his pale cheek, “you’re an odd one.” We laid there in silence, a pleasantly warm breeze caressing our cheeks from the broken roof. If I could’ve stayed there forever, I would’ve.

  Right there, forever.

  “I do have some concerns, though.”

  I turned my head to look, but his pale beauty in the moonlight was so overwhelming that I had to turn away before ugly envy emblazoned my chest once more, “like what?”

  He shifted, fingers still twisted around his bangs, pulling tightly, “there are certain things in life that are only intended for those directly involved to witness.”

  “Like sex?” I asked.

  “Yes,” he replied too quickly, “like…that.”

  Oh, the irony. Smacking my lips, I turned onto my side to look down upon him. My shadow blocked the light of the moon enough that he didn’t glow. I took his hand and pulled it away from his hair, “have you and the Shield ever-”

  “No,” he cut me off sharply.

  “Do you know how it works?”

  He rolled his eyes, but their redness only made his cheeks appear brighter, “I may be a virgin, but I’m a virgin who can read. I have a general idea, yes.”

  “Mm,” I brushed the hair from his eyes, “books aren’t always the most reliable source when it comes to that. They try to convince you that it’s something pleasant, something enjoyable, when in actuality-” my mouth snapped shut. The conversation was straying too close to a confession that I wasn’t sure I still dared to make, “if you’re concerned, you could always ask Erebus to look away.”

  “Can he do that?” Ilya asked.

  I shrugged, “dunno, but if I was stuck inside your head, I would go nuts having to watch you all day. He must do something. Surely he isn’t going to watch you bathe, or sleep for twelve hours straight.”

  “I hope not,” Ilya sighed, “it doesn’t matter though. Pogue will never speak to me again.”

  “Are all Ilvarjo this dramatic or is it a personal problem?” I asked.

  “Don’t mock,” Ilya said as he sat up to glare down at me, “I hit him.”

  Personal problem. “You were angry.”

  “That’s no excuse,” Ilya said, “I was angry with you but refrained from striking out. I released all my frustration onto him. It’s unforgivable.”

  “All things considered, I think he’ll be willing to forgive you this once,” I swung my legs around so I too was staring at the dusty wall, “but for that to happen you need to talk with him.”

  “I intend to, but I must first decide what to say,” the smallest shimmer of a smile graced his lips, “I cannot even imagine what you both endured to revive me.”

  Technically it was Pierous who brought him back but damn if that scrotebag was getting Ilya’s praise over me. I shrugged with a smile of my own. “It was no walk in the park.”

  “And I am grateful, even if you have cut my lifespan in half.”

  Wait, what? I opened my mouth to ask for clarification on that little fact, but the first syllable barely left my lips before Ilya’s eyes narrowed. He pushed himself off the bench while yanking his mask into place in a single motion before turning to stare into the dark corner where my bag sat abandoned, “yes?”

  From the shadows, a lithe figure emerged. It was impossible to guess their gender or age, and not simply because the masked uniform obscured any identifying features, but because they were so little that there was nothing there to identify. Deities, how young were the Ilvarjo when they commenced their duties? Barely above foetus age if that runt was any indication. They gracefully bowed while diverting their eyes from Ilya’s face, “I apologize,” they began, voice giving no further clues to what the mask hid, “I didn’t intend to eavesdrop.”

  “Did you have something to report?” Ilya asked coolly.

  The child straightened with a nod, “Miss Ilana reports that they have identified the traitor and will return come daybreak. There is another message, but it is intended only for your ears.” They turned those irritated eyes onto me as if intending to strike me down with sight alone. Did the Ilvarjo teach their children those bone-chilling stares or was it an inherited trait? Either way, it had to have something to do with the eyes. It had to. Sighing, I pushed myself off the bench. I could take a hint, and even though not a single word of Ilvarjo made sense to my ears, I didn’t need to be told twice by an overgrown foetus where to go.

  “You don’t have to-” Ilya started, but I touched his arm.

  “But I will,” I narrowed my eyes at the little Ilvarjo because two could play at that game, “are you going to your own tent tonight or returning to the infirmary?”

  “Yes.”

  I had no clue what his confirmation was for, but his eyes were locked with the child’s in the most intense stare off the several realms had ever seen, and I dared not interfere for confirmation.

  I’d always liked surprises anyway.

  “The Poota have been sent to hunt down any enemy deserters. It’s a big forest, but the Poota are bigger. We’ll catch ‘em yet, we will,” one of the foot troops stammered around the slobbery blade of grass between his teeth as his sunken eyes darted around the corral nervously. Poor bastard looked barely old enough to be out of basic training and had likely never been that close to death, never heard the final dregs of life grow hoarse as the screaming and crying faded, but to me it was home. The blood, limbs laying limp, the desperate pleads for healers was both the stability I craved and the chaos I knew. Only there in its embrace did the adrenaline leave my system.

  Only to pump tenfold when I met the familiar icy glare of Doctor Kira from across the corral. Those eyes narrowed, face twisting into a snarl, as she mouthed something slow and deliberate. I muttered my thanks to the troop and sped down the hill. She had every right to be mad, every right to be after my blood on her hands. She’d sent me off that morning with a simple task of scrubbing an office clean, and I’d re-emerged in the darkest hours of night with a dead kid. Of course, she was pissed, and I would endure her rage without complaint.

  Tomorrow.

  “Kilco.”

  On pure instinct, I broke into a run, only to grind to a halt as the deep drawl of that voice registered in my brain. Turning around, I crossed my arms as Pogue approached and exhaled with a whistle, “Boy, you walk fast sometimes.”

  “Sorry, thought you were somebody else,” I said just as that beautiful, roguish smile lit up his face. The ocean inside me calmed once more. I uncrossed my arms. How could anybody stay mad at somebody so beautiful and light? The smile grew wider, and he opened his mouth, but any words were drowned
out as a large group of troops strolled by and showered him with cheerful greetings. Pogue turned around, the moment between us lost as he greeted them loudly in turn. Oh right, that’s how. Rolling my eyes, I resumed walking. I got a good distance away too before the heavy footsteps chased after me, pausing to take my hand.

  “Sorry about that,” Pogue said.

  “The people want what they want,” I said without breaking steps for a moment.

  He let go and fell into stride beside me, rubbing his neck gingerly. The silence lasted only a minute. It only ever did with him, “okay, tell me. Where’s Ilya?”

  I snorted. Typical, “wouldn’t you like to know.”

  “Yeah, I would,” he reached for my hand again, “pretty please?”

  I stopped to look at him, savouring the feeling of my chest fluttering as he squirmed under my gaze, and only when satisfied that he looked desperate enough did I point towards the maze, “he’s in the maintenance hut, but you should wait a while. He has company.”

  Pogue looked to the maze with a frown, “who?’

  “Don’t know,” I shrugged as I continued walking, “some Ilvarjo kid. Didn’t catch their name but they had the most intense glare I’ve ever encountered.”

  “They all do,” Pogue said, “it’s something to do with the eyes.”

  “That’s exactly what I thought,” I exclaimed.

  Pogue made a sound reminiscent of his barking laugh, only it was too hollow, too forced. Pausing, I turned back, and his laughter died a swift death as his handsome face crumbled. Looking around nervously, Pogue leaned in to whisper in my ear, “what did you tell him about…you know?

  “I told him nothing,” I said.

  “Nothing?”

  “Nothing,” I turned and resumed walking, “and you shouldn’t either.”

  Strong hands grabbed my shoulders and forced me back around. Pogue’s face close enough to mine that I could smell his sweat and breath. I held my breath, “Kilco,” he said slowly, “we can’t not tell him. I can’t not tell him. I don’t wanna build our relationship on lies.”