by Ben Wolf
The door opened into a short, white corridor lit with torches. The ceiling arched upward, and the girl’s father waited at the far end. The corridor had no doors and was well lit, so Mehta continued forward.
As he walked, he found it ironic how much solace he had taken in the shadows of his room, yet now he also found comfort in knowing that nothing and no one could hide nearby due to the ample lighting throughout the space.
The corridor ended in a room about the size of the one with the hearth, only it contained a stone oven, cabinets, countertops, and a simple, wooden table with four chairs instead. Torches lit this room as well, and what few small shadows he saw couldn’t have concealed anything.
A door at the far end hung open, and the man stepped out of it with a bulging sack in each hand. Not an exit—just a pantry door. The room had no exits except for the door through which they’d entered.
“Please, sit.” The man nodded toward the table, then he set the sacks on one of the countertops and began to untie them. “Do you like apples? If you prefer something more exotic, I have a few oranges as well.”
Mehta hadn’t eaten an orange in over a year. He’d been sent on a commission to the island of Caclos, where the climate was conducive to growing oranges, and he’d indulged in one there. It was perhaps the finest fruit he’d ever eaten. After that, he’d taken several in his pack and enjoyed them on his journey home to Etrijan.
He wanted another one now.
“You have oranges?” Mehta asked, his voice edged with caution.
“Yes.” The man smiled and pulled one out of the sack. He tossed it to Mehta, who caught it. The man said, “It’s all yours.”
Mehta looked it over in his hands. Its pebble-grain texture felt familiar to his fingers, and he dug his nails into it and began peeling the skin off. Before long, he’d devoured it, and sticky juice clung to his hands, but he still hadn’t sat down.
He noticed his hands for the first time since he’d awakened. They weren’t covered with blood anymore. Nor was there any on his arms or his clothes. They’d bathed him and cleaned his garments.
As he looked closer, he noticed brownish specks of grit under his fingernails. They hadn’t gotten all the blood off of him, but he could hardly fault them for not cleaning under his fingernails.
The man and the girl watched him with smiles on their faces, and the girl took a seat at the table with an apple and a small knife in her hands. Hardly threatening, but Mehta noted it nonetheless. Should he need the knife, he could take it from her easily enough.
“Would you like another?” the man asked. “You’re welcome to sit, by the way.”
Mehta shook his head in response to both the man’s question and his comment. “Where am I?”
“You’re in the parsonage of the Temple of Laeri. I’m the high priest, Rulfran.” The man nodded toward the girl. “This is Ferne, my daughter.”
Ferne waved at Mehta. He didn’t wave back, but she didn’t seem to mind. She was too fixated on her apple.
“Here. Have another. I insist.” Rulfran tossed a second orange to Mehta. “I’m sure you’re famished.”
“How long have I been here?” The orange clung to Mehta’s sticky fingers.
“Since this morning, when I encountered you in the alley.”
Good. I haven’t lingered too long, then. “I should leave.”
“In your condition? You wouldn’t last long out there.” Rulfran shook his head. “You need rest, my friend.”
Friend. How could Rulfran refer to him as a friend? They didn’t know each other at all. So what had inspired Rulfran to use such a term? It made no sense.
Mehta had never had friends—only fellow Xyonate trainees and Xyonate brethren. Personal connections beyond that were scorned, even forbidden.
He’d been taught to keep his brethren at an arm’s-length, partially because Xyonates lived notoriously short lifespans but also because focus was paramount when it came to the Xyonate way of life. A Xyonate who lacked focus was dangerous. Reckless. A threat.
And Mehta had been the best of them. He’d devoted every aspect of his life to the Xyonate way, dedicated every ounce of himself to fulfilling Xyon’s will in Aletia.
And look where it has gotten you.
“Rest is for the weak,” Mehta repeated the mantra Lament had taught him nearly two decades earlier and repeated hundreds of times since then.
Rulfran stared at him. “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”
Mehta blinked but said nothing.
“If you don’t rest, you won’t heal.”
“If I do rest, they will find me.”
Rulfran shook his head. “You’re safe. Laeri watches over all of us.”
“No.” Mehta set the orange down on the corner of the table. “You don’t know them. They won’t stop until I’m dead.”
Ferne looked up at him from her spot at the table, her blue eyes wide.
Rulfran rounded the table and put his hands on Ferne’s shoulders. “I understand how you feel. I’m sorry you’ve found yourself in this predicament, but I would like to help you if I can. If you insist that you must leave, may I give you some coin, at least, to help you flee the city?”
Why would Rulfran give him money? Mehta was a Xyonate and a total stranger.
“I can’t take your money. It wouldn’t be—” Mehta stopped.
He was about to say it wasn’t right, but the irony of the statement hit him. He had virtually no concept of what was right and what wasn’t. He just followed orders.
“I’m offering it freely.” Rulfran pulled a strand of sandy blonde hair away from Ferne’s forehead and tucked it behind her ear. “As a gift.”
“I can’t accept it.” Mehta glanced around. “Will you release me?”
Rulfran stared at him. “You’re free to go any time. You’re not our prisoner.”
“Which way is out?”
Ferne pointed toward the doorway they’d used to enter the kitchen. “Door’s out there. I wish you’d stay, though.”
The way she said it stirred something deep within Mehta. Her words carried an innocence he hadn’t known since before pledging himself as a Xyonate.
They were sweet words, kind and true. They almost made him trust Ferne and Rulfran. They almost made him want to stay.
Almost.
But the cratered mountain called to him. He would make his home there and try to find out if any of his family remained alive.
And maybe he’d find out who had sent those soldiers to slay his parents.
Mehta started toward the door without another word, his steps determined.
And then his head started to swim. He staggered to the nearest wall and braced himself against it as fresh pain spiked in his side.
He winced and ground his teeth.
Footsteps sounded behind him, and he whirled around, his eyes fixed on Rulfran’s approaching form. He growled, “Stay back.”
Rulfran halted, his hands outstretched. “I won’t harm you. I only want to help.”
Mehta’s vision blurred, and his hand slipped off of the wall. He sank to his knees and braced himself against the floor.
The pain heightened. Mehta resisted. He would not submit again.
“Please,” Rulfran said. “I hate to see you like this. You need rest. Let me help.”
Mehta shook his head, trying to force the pain from his mind. He clutched his wounded side with his free hand, and his arm bracing him against the floor quaked.
Concern etched on her kind face, Ferne stood and joined her father.
Sticky moisture clung to his fingers. He pulled his hand away from his bandaged wound and found it coated in blood.
Chapter Four
He’d seen plenty of blood before. It hadn’t fazed him then, and it would not faze him now. Neither would the pain nor the disorientation.
Mehta inhaled a long, shaky breath, and he looked up at Ferne and Rulfran again. If they intended to do him harm, now would be an excellent oppo
rtunity. Instead, they just watched him struggle, helpless to intervene because he wouldn’t let them.
But why am I struggling? His arm quaked again, and he planted his other hand on the ground with a wet smack, leaving a bloody handprint where he’d braced himself on the floor.
Ferne crouched next to him, and he looked up at her. Sadness filled her pleading blue eyes. “Please let us help you.”
He didn’t want to submit, but this wasn’t truly submitting. Accepting care from these people wouldn’t put him at risk.
Mehta’s arms quivered, and he slumped onto his good side, defeated by the culmination of pain, weakness, and the goodwill of strangers. They’d told him he was safe. He could either accept it as the truth or not.
Mehta nodded, and Rulfran crouched down as well and helped him upright on wobbly legs. Together, they headed back to the room where Mehta had awoken.
Morning light levered Mehta’s eyelids open a crack, then he opened them all the way, immediately alert. Sunshine glowed around the perimeter of the window, but thick curtains blocked most of the light from breaking into the room.
Mehta sat up in the bed. He’d slept through the night, but the pain in his side lingered. His shoulder, however, did not hurt at all.
If he could’ve reached back to touch it, he would have, but his side wouldn’t allow him to do so.
Metal clinked and scraped, and the door started opening.
Mehta tensed, but he relaxed just as quickly. He was safe. He’d decided to believe it last night, and he needed to continue to believe it now.
But neither Rulfran nor Ferne entered the room. Instead, a blonde woman in white robes entered, carrying a tray of food.
Mehta’s guard went up, but it slackened the more he studied her pretty face. She had to be Ferne’s mother. The resemblance was unmistakable, and she had the same blue eyes.
But unlike Ferne, this woman did not seem comfortable with Mehta’s presence.
“Good morning,” she said, her voice flat. She gave him a forced smile.
Mehta didn’t respond. He just stared at her, wary.
She placed the tray on the nightstand beside the bed. A silver goblet of water sat on the tray next to a small loaf of bread. Also on the tray, a bowl of steaming brown-orange soup smelled of garlic and spices and meat—lamb, perhaps.
Mehta’s stomach rumbled in response to the aroma. He couldn’t have stopped it from growling if he’d wanted to.
“You don’t have to eat all of this, but I suggest that you do.” Her voice was still flat. “The sooner you recover, the sooner you can be on your way.”
Her tone suggested that she not only wanted him gone but also that she didn’t care that he knew it. Mehta took no offense; he wanted to leave as well, sooner rather than later, and he couldn’t blame a holy woman like her—a priest’s wife—for wanting him out of their home.
“But I need to change your bandages first.”
Mehta looked down at himself. Rulfran had changed his bandages prior to letting him drift off to sleep the night before, and it did not appear that any blood had seeped through the new bandages.
Mehta raised his head. The woman hadn’t moved since she’d mentioned changing his bandages. She just stared at him with her arms folded.
He took her silence as impatience, and, still seated on the bed, he straightened his back and raised his arms slightly to give her access to his torso. It hurt his side to hold his arm up, but he didn’t show it.
The woman reached for his torso and changed his bandages on his side. When she’d cleaned his wound and reapplied the new bandages, she asked him to turn to his side so she could get to his shoulder.
Once she had it unwrapped, she said, “Hm.”
Mehta looked up at her again.
“We don’t need to rewrap your shoulder.”
“Why not?” Mehta asked.
She shook her head. “It appears my husband has been using his magic on you.”
Mehta recoiled from her.
“It’s fine.” She held her hands up, tense and with nervousness behind her blue eyes. “He practices light magic. As a servant of Laeri, he can use it to heal others. That explains why he’s been in bed all morning.”
Mehta didn’t understand, but he didn’t ask about it, either. Instead, he rotated his shoulder to confirm what she’d said. Sure enough, the only pain came from his side. His shoulder felt fine.
“I’ll be on my way, then.” She collected the used bandages and left the room without so much as another word. She hadn’t even given Mehta her name.
Ferne and Rulfran had been overly hospitable, but the woman had been cold toward Mehta. She had to know what he was. Not many people would even consider bringing a trained assassin to enter their home, much less allowing one to stay overnight, feeding him, tending to his wounds, and seeing to his wellbeing.
She’d done more for him than he’d deserved, certainly.
Mehta tried the soup and found it as delicious as it smelled, but his appetite hadn’t yet fully returned, so he ate very little of it. He left it sitting on the tray and headed toward the door, which the woman had left open.
Instead of stepping out right away, he peered into the sunlit room beyond, studying it. Watching. He’d resolved to trust these people, but that didn’t mean he should be any less vigilant. A lifetime of Xyonate training had ingrained caution into his very core.
The hearth on the opposite end of the room was dark and devoid of the fire crackling in it the night before. Ferne sat in one of the three whitewashed chairs before the hearth, reading a thick book with her legs curled underneath her. Beams of white sunlight from skylight windows illuminated the floor around her.
Satisfied, Mehta entered the room, his hand pressed against his side. His steps sent tiny jolts of pain into his side, and the wound still throbbed even when he stopped walking. He placed his hands on the back of one of the chairs adjacent to where Ferne sat.
She looked up at him and smiled, then she refocused on her book again.
Throughout his time as a Xyonate, thousands of people had glanced at him and not given him so much as a second look. He’d sifted some of those people, he’d slipped past others after a commission, and others had simply been passersby.
But none of them had looked at him with the ambivalent innocence of Ferne. He might as well have been a tree, or a horse, or a statue, or some other object worthy of only fleeting interest.
When she didn’t look up again, he rounded the chair and sat in it, careful to do so slowly for the sake of his wounded side. He sat there, listening to the relative silence of Rulfran’s home.
He could hear his own breathing, and he could hear Ferne drawing measured, easy breaths as she read. The occasional mug or cup clunked from inside the kitchen. Mehta thought he even heard Rulfran snoring in one of the rooms to his left, but he couldn’t be sure.
Mehta stared at the triangle-shaped icon sitting on the mantle, then he glanced at Ferne again. She still wore the triangle-shaped pendant that matched the icon.
Her neck—he’d wanted to snap it last night. Now the thirst stirred in his chest yet again.
“Mother says it’s not polite to stare.” Ferne’s voice broke Mehta out of his dark thoughts.
The sound of her voice subdued the thirst but only because her words had distracted him. He said, “I’m sorry.”
“I don’t mind,” Ferne said, still reading. “I’m just telling you what’s proper when it comes to manners.”
Manners and politeness weren’t subjects that Mehta had studied while training to become a Xyonate. What use were manners and politeness to a precision instrument? Any time spent learning such frivolities was wasted, except insofar as it was necessary for a Xyonate to blend in with those around him.
Ferne glanced up at him and giggled. “You’re still staring.”
Mehta looked away. He repeated, “I’m sorry.”
“So who are you?” Ferne lowered her book.
Mehta hesitated
. “What—what do you mean?”
“I mean, tell me who you are.”
The question perplexed him. For such a simple inquiry, he lacked any definitive answer. Until yesterday, the entirety of his person had been tethered to the Xyonates. Every breath, every whisper in every shadow, and every single action had belonged to them.
Now, without them, Mehta lacked identity.
“What’s your name?” Ferne asked.
Even that question bothered him.
Mehta. The name he’d been born with. The name he’d remembered from so many years before.
Requiem. His Xyonate name, given to him upon the completion of his training. The name under which he’d sifted countless people and done Xyon’s bidding.
Ferne giggled again. “Don’t you know your own name?”
Mehta inhaled a sharp breath but a shock of pain in his side stopped him. He exhaled slowly. And he chose a name.
“Mehta,” he said.
By all considerations, the name Requiem held no meaning for him anymore. He’d renounced the Xyonates, and he’d fled their ranks. Shouldn’t he also strip himself of the name they’d given him?
“Mehta,” Ferne repeated. “I like it. It’s pretty. Meh-ta.”
Pretty? “Thank you… I suppose.”
“Where are you from?” Ferne asked.
The cratered mountain arose in his memory. “Far away from here.”
Ferne leaned toward him and whispered, “How did you get hurt?”
Mehta swallowed the lump in his throat and closed his eyes. The memory of Elegy’s attack inside the Sanctum returned, and the pain in his side spiked to accompany it, albeit less severe than before. Mehta opened his eyes.
Ferne’s innocent eyes stared up at him. “Mother and Father won’t tell me.”
Mehta considered that they had spared her the details due to her age. But he’d been even younger when the Xyonates had introduced him to the God of Death and his ways.
