by Daryl Banner
He drops his lips onto Edrick’s. They are so plush and cared for, it’s just like kissing a girl when Rone closes his eyes. Even the taste is pleasant. He is kissing Ruena. He is kissing Erana.
And he is kissing Edrick, the pleasure boy who cared for him, who revived him, who gave him such … pleasure … that he wonders if he really could love him in that way.
Then Rone pulls away, the sensation of the kiss still lingering on his lips. When Edrick at last opens his eyes, they are bright, alive, and vibrant with emotion. “W-Was that … how it … feels like?” the pleasure boy asks, his voice breaking. “Is that what it’s like?”
Rone puts a hand to the boy’s soft cheek, gives it a gentle pat, then says, “When you meet him, you’ll know.” Rone gives the boy a wink of his sapphire eyes, then turns to depart the alley with but one destination in mind, and a secret gripped in his tightened palm.
0224 Ellena
Ellena only experiences one day of peace before she is sat down in a stark room and interrogated by a man named Obert Ranfog who looks damaged inside and out, his posture broken and his whiskered face gaunt. He wears a clean white button shirt and pants the color of the Guardian, and a badge is affixed to his chest. His eyes are cold and vicious, likely causing any he’s standing before to wither.
But Ellena does not wither. She sits in her chair with her legs crossed tightly and her eyes half-lidded, annoyed with all the pomp of this meeting. Gabel, Bee, and Cope stand on one side of the stark room. Three other Guardian she has never met stand on the other. The room is brightly lit from one end to the other, seeming to reveal every secret, truth, and lie in its dusty corners and pitted walls. The door is far away and bolted thrice.
“I’m Lead Officer Obert Ranfog,” states the man, despite being previously introduced, “and you’re Ellena Lesser. You killed Taylon Redbrade, former Marshal of Order, by somehow breaking his bones while unbreaking yours, thus ending his short, miserable little life. Is that all of the truth, Ellena?”
Finally, a man who will call her by her first name. Ellena tries to straighten her spine, despite the awkward cuffing of her hands to either side of her chair. “That is the truth you have been told,” she answers caustically.
Obert’s stare is icy. “Tell it your way, then. What’s the truth?”
Ellena answers in clipped words, her voice as hard as his. “I was arrested under a false pretense. Before my situation with the Marshal of Order, I was threatened by arrow-point by an ex-coworker named Ernice and her armed son, neither of which, I believe, suffered any consequence for their criminal actions. I, myself, have committed no crime. If anything, the true criminal is Taylon Redbrade himself, who falsely made a fatal example of me before his Guardian based solely on his own juvenile misconception of what my husband, Forgemon, had done, and what that bitch Ernice said of me.”
A cold silence falls over the room. Ellena pays it no mind, her lips smirking, her hands hanging on either side of her chair, cuffed to the cold metal legs.
Obert regards her carefully. Unlike the other six Guardian who look scandalized and shocked by Ellena’s boldness—Gabel included—Obert merely stands there with a curiously open expression on his face. Ellena might daresay that Obert’s eyes have softened.
“Your husband,” says Obert. “Forgemon Lesser. His crime was the abduction and harboring of a Son of Sanctum, whose name I give zero shits about. Tell—”
“Athan Broadmore,” recites Ellena coolly, not waiting for Obert to finish. She is ready for this to be over with and for this fool to render his skewed, cold judgment upon her. Give me the next King’s execution. Give me life in a collapsed Keep that can’t hold me anyway. I don’t care anymore. I have hugged my broken Halvesand. I might see Aleksand if I’m lucky before I go. My husband is dead. I don’t care.
Obert’s eyes narrow, and then he finishes his question. “Tell me the series of … circumstances … that led to a Son of Sanctum ending up under your sad ninth ward roof.”
“Certainly,” spits out Ellena, her eyes half-lidded and her mouth tight. “The boy was rescued by my second-youngest, Anwick Lesser, from the explosion of Lordia Garden, or whatever it was called. The Athan Broadmore boy and my son fell in love. Sure, they’re young. I don’t care if it was lust or silly teenage puppy love, it’s all love just the same to me. Athan, of his own free will, came into my house and wished to live there with my son, as they had grown close. He was free to leave whenever he damned well pleased, but he chose to stay. When the Guardian came to my house, my husband boldly, bravely, sacrificially claimed to have abducted Athan himself so that his son Anwick would remain free and not be arrested. Despite Athan’s protests and attempts at explaining the truth to the Guardian, they took them both. My husband saw the King and then the Keep for the rest of his days—which I hear are now over, thanks to the collapse of the Keep crushing all its occupants dead. Athan was returned to his place in the sky. My son suffered a broken heart. The end.”
A cold silence twice as icy and bitter as the last captures the room. Gabel’s eyes are wide open, the greens of them glistening. Even the stoic Bee looks rattled by Ellena’s words. The boy Guardian Cope stares at the floor, as if wishing he was anywhere but in this room. Ellena feels a pang of worry for the trio of them; they’re likely next to be interrogated, since they were responsible for her transfer from the temporary sixth ward holding unit.
Obert, yet again, seems to be processing her words with opened ears and a calm yet steady demeanor. He lifts his chin as his eyes keep locked upon hers, studying her.
Ellena huffs impatiently. “Is that it?” she asks into the silence, unable to contain herself. “Or is there something else?”
Obert’s lip twitches. For a second, Ellena thinks he almost meant to smile. There’s a sparkle in his eye that Ellena can mistake for mild amusement, were she not so riled up herself.
Obert clasps his hands behind his back, then tilts his head. His voice is light and curious. “Explain to me how your Legacy works.”
“Ah, a lesson in Legacies. Lovely. Just how I wanted to spend my last day alive.” Ellena lifts her hands as far as they’ll go, which isn’t very far at all before the cuffs stop them near her hips. “I put my bare hands on a wounded person. I take their wounds from them and put them onto myself. I’m an Empath. I also happen to heal quicker, so I was known a bit in my neighborhood to be a healer. I took a damaged leg from a neighbor’s daughter. I took hundreds of schoolyard scrapes from my kids. I took a bruise from Denetta across the street so she could work, and a cramp from her husband’s neck too, and so on, and so on. Until that fateful moment with the Marshal of Order—a moment orchestrated by Ernice and her son—I did not realize that my Legacy works both ways. That day, I discovered that I can also move my wounds onto others. It was an unfortunate discovery, but a discovery just the same.”
“I would rather call that discovery fortunate,” posits Obert, “as it saved your life. Did it not?”
Ellena’s eyebrows pull together. Is that statement a trick to get her to spill a secret hatred for Sanctum, revealing her as the criminal that’d make this farce of a trial so much simpler to conduct?
“You say it was a discovery you made that day,” says Obert. He takes a few steps forward, his feet shuffling slightly along the tile, which leads Ellena to wonder how wounded he is under that outfit of his. “You also say you heal faster than most. You can’t have two damned Legacies. You can’t heal quick and also transfer wounds.”
“What are you getting at?” mutters Ellena petulantly.
“I think you’ve been spilling wounds from yourself for longer than you realize, that’s what.” Obert lifts his eyebrows, coming to a stop right in front of her chair, towering over her. “Allow me to suggest to you how dumb you’ve been your whole life.”
“So allowed,” she returns with a smirk. “Enlighten me.”
“You take a wounded leg from your friend’s dancer daughter. Then afterwards, you unknowingly give every per
son you hug, kiss, or give a handshake to … a tiny fraction of that leg wound.” Obert snorts, amused at the stunned look that slowly creeps onto Ellena’s face. “How’s that for some perspective? You’ve been sharing your aches and pains with every dumb fool who touches you.”
Ellena closes her mouth, clearing her face of any expression, despite the war of protests happening in her brain. That can’t be the truth, Ellena wants to say right away, denying Obert’s claim. But yet, it makes so much sense that Ellena cannot in any easy way refute it. Have I really been doing that this whole time? There is some sort of beautiful irony in a community sharing in the slow healing of its own wounds, but it’s lost on Ellena, her mind caught in a sudden fog.
“I think I’ve gathered all I need from you, Ellena Lesser.”
Her face tightens at once. “Is that so? Got all the evidence you need to conclude your phony little interrogation and send me to—”
“Uncuff her,” he announces.
The rest of Ellena’s words die on her parted lips. After a second of hesitation, the closest Guardian—one of the ones Ellena does not know from the other side of the room—steps forward with a key and unlocks the cuffs from her wrists. The chains drop heavily to the floor. Ellena slowly draws her hands to her chest, rubbing the wrists soothingly as she stares at Obert with questions in her eyes.
“You are free to go,” states Obert. “I hereby clear you of any and all charges. And as the intervening Marshal of Order, I hereby clear Forgemon Lesser of his crimes. When order is established both in the sky as well as in the Keep, he will be released.”
Astonished, Ellena gapes at him. Obert gives a curt signal of his hand, and the Guardian start to file out of the room. Gabel’s face clouds over as he turns and makes his way to the door.
“The Keep?” says Ellena in a small, faraway voice. “When order is established … in the Keep?”
“Did I stutter?” grunts Obert.
“I thought the Keep—Wait. But I was told—” Ellena tries to say, but Lead Officer Obert has left the room with the Guardian in tow. She stands by the chair holding her wrists, the act of massaging them frozen as she stares at the door in a cloud of confusion. “Gabel??”
After a minute, a face reemerges at the doorway, a face that is clouded over the same as hers, but with a different sort of emotion—a darker sort. He doesn’t meet her eyes.
“Gabel,” she says, her voice shaking. “Tell me. Gabel. Tell me right now. Tell it to me straight.” He says nothing at all. He stares at the wall, his mouth tight and his green eyes darkened. “Gabel. You will look at me when I talk to you.” His eyes begin to shimmer, a hint of tears forming in them. He still will not look at her. “Say it. Have the decency to just say it.”
He opens his mouth. He pauses. Then he says, “I’m sorry.”
“For what?” Ellena demands, tears coming to her own eyes. “Say it, Gabel. Fucking put me out of my misery and say the words, so Sisters help me, say the fucking words.”
“I lied.” His throat is constricted, the words coming out tight and strangled. “About the Keep. I lied.”
Ellena takes a short breath, determined not to shed another tear in front of this young man. “My husband is alive. Say those words.”
“I cannot, because I do not know.”
“My husband may be alive. Say those words.”
“Your husband …” He clenches shut his eyes, his jaw tightening, and then he opens them again. “… may be alive.”
Ellena sucks in air, her lungs filling more than they have since the day the love of her life was ripped from her home. I’ve been a fool. I’ve been a lovesick, eye-blind, desperate, selfish fool. “Get out,” she hisses through bared teeth.
“Ellena …”
“GET OUT!” Gabel flinches at her scream. “OUT! OUT! OUT!” And then he is gone from the doorway so fast, she doesn’t hear his footsteps. She angrily pounds the chair with her fists over and over. I let him fuck me! She drops to the seat and grabs her head, emptying her lungs of scream after angry scream. FOOL! And then in the cold silence of the room, Ellena thinks of Forge, his strong eyes, his big arms, his kisses. She stares ahead numbly. She is back on the chair, but this time free of cuffs, this time free of interrogation, this time … “Free,” she finishes in wonder. “I’m … free.”
0225 Forgemon
Forgemon and Aphne do what they do best: sit across from each other at a table in the great commons and worry.
“Use the math, Forge.”
“I did. I counted to one. What a great accomplishment of math. And now I’m counting to zero.”
“You can’t count to zero. Zero means there’s no numbers.”
“I used my great Legacy of math and I counted. One exit. Now zero. Why do I try? I don’t know how to use my Legacy anymore.”
“Yes, you do. Our lives depend on it. Everyone’s lives.” Aphne leans back and slaps the table. “Come on, you sorry sack of shit.”
Forge takes her words for crass terms of endearment. She only says such words to the people she cares for, that much Forge knows. I mean so much to her, I’m a sorry sack of shit. If Aphne didn’t believe in me, she would’ve left this table a week ago when our only exit caved in and looked for stronger, smarter, more capable people to align with. But she stuck with me. She believes in this sorry sack of shit.
“You are only disturbed,” says Forge, “because of what we saw on the broadcasts.” When he brings his eyes up to Aphne’s, he finds her smirking. “You can play nonchalant all you wish, but I know it’s true. We got a glimpse of Impis and know there’s a Queen on the loose and that murdering slumborn innocents is Impis’s answer.”
“Math, math, and math,” grumbles Aphne. “That’s what I hear. It’s plenty of information to go on. So figure us a way to get above all of that. If anyone can do it, it’s you.”
“Impis’s big powdered face tells me nothing.”
“Because you aren’t using your fucking Legacy.”
Forge stares at the ceiling with frustration. It seems so high up that he swears he could fit Cloud Tower itself in these commons. He thinks on Cloud Tower and the Mad King Impis who rules atop it. He thinks of rulers and Kings and Almost Queens. He considers the massive amounts of people in the slums, and the tiny handful in the sky. He thinks of the number of fools trapped down here in the earth and the stone. Legacies. Likelihoods. A tilting of loyalty. A fear.
Fear. That must be the thing he saw in Impis’s eyes, the thing that gave him several numbers he needed to further his calculations since the day Ames fled the Keep. Their eyes are all filled with fear.
“No one has stepped up to take charge,” Forge points out, seeing the fear in all their eyes. “The Keep is getting on—”
“The Undercity,” corrects Aphne.
“The Undercity,” grunts Forge, “is getting on quite well enough without a leader. People are doing just what they did before with no King of Bones answering their petty, pesky questions. Resources are being gathered from the mines and organized automatically, as if a crew of guards still whip their backs. Weapons are being—”
“Yes, and they’ll be made and made, electricity generated, food stores counted and recounted … but to what end? For what purpose? Forge, all the Boner King did was prepare us. We need—”
“King of Bones,” mumbles Forge. “Not Boner King. He was not King of Erections.”
“The Boner King Ames was a coward who ran,” states Aphne. “It will not take long before the people come to accept that fact, and then I am certain that others will catch on. The wrong others. The angry others. Someone will take advantage of the peace, Forge, and we can’t have that. Someone will start making demands. Forge, you need to be the first one to do it. You need to make demands.”
“Aphne …” he growls for a warning.
She’s on her feet. “Organize us. Look into the future. Decide the direction our souls are headed. You have an army down here.”
“An army to fight what, exact
ly?” spouts Forge. “We are not at war with anyone. We are trapped like the child in his room while the parents fight. Let them fight. We are safe in our little room.”
“Aye, until the parents are done fighting and one of them is all eaten up by the other. Then what’ll you do when that parent comes knocking at your door?”
“There is no door,” says Forge. “The parent can’t get in.”
“Your analogy is terrible.”
“You’re the one talking of parents eating one another.”
“And what will you do when that parent shows up at your son’s door?” she murmurs, her tone darkening.
Forge glares at her for that remark. “That isn’t fair.”
“Or your wife’s door? Is she in a cute little room, too? Or is she one of these parents you have fighting each other out there? Your wife and your sons, are they the parents?”
“Aphne. I’m fucking warning you …”
“And are you the child?” she presses on, her voice cold. “Hiding? Waiting? Listening to your sons and your wife die?”
Forge is to his feet in an instant, and he comes around the table to face Aphne. He’s come so close, he could kiss her or bite off her nose. Aphne doesn’t even so much as flinch. Does this insufferable woman fear anything?
“If you speak of my sons or wife again …”
“Tell me, Forge. Where are they? Look for them. You think I’m just blowing fire in your ear for a little rise? How insulting. You are not so stupid, Forge.”
“My children are up there. My wife is up there.”
“Where? Look for them, Forge. Look for them.”
With Aphne in his face, their breaths falling hot and angrily upon one another, Forge clenches shut his eyes and he searches. The only figures and variables he can put together are from the day he was taken from his home. Ellena. Anwick. The Broadmore boy. Forge digs deeply into the words that were said, the actions that were taken, and the actions that followed. Halvesand. Aleksand. Lionis. He listens for his wife’s soft voice. He listens for Anwick’s slow draw of breath as he sleeps. Each of these items becomes a number, a figure. He calculates …
