Chapter 16: Beacon in the night

  Leftovers were still out, and I filled my plate quickly. At least my plate was full, and the tables were empty.

  I ate, even though I felt sick, and after clearing up, made my way across the yard towards my room again. That’s when the alarms sounded.

  People were rushing towards the far wall. I grabbed someone I knew from my dorm. “What is it?”

  “They found a body,” she said.

  A body...

  Fuck.

  James.

  I was done for.

  The realization hit me like a physical blow. Evidence. Witnesses. Questions. They’d find out I was the last person to see him alive, that we’d gone outside the gates together. Even if they couldn’t prove I’d deliberately led him to his death, suspicion alone would be enough. In this world, you didn’t need trials and juries to mete out punishment.

  We had to get out of here, now more than ever, it wouldn’t be long before they knew it was me. I knew it…. They’d figure it out. They wouldn’t believe me if I lied.

  Thought whirred round and around in my head.

  I was utterly doomed.

  I headed straight for my room, shut the door behind me, and then crumpled, much like I had in the shower. There was no pain left, though I didn’t know how long that would last. I needed sleep. I was on shift in the morning. I only hoped I could get someone to help cover so I could make it to the arena.

  My night wasn’t good. I tossed and turned in my bed, and got up a few times to use the toilet. This body of mine was betraying me, and the stomachache was worse.

  I found myself wandering, rubbing the ache away, and eventually found my way up to the rooftop, where I sat, looking out into the forest.

  The darkness out there pulled me.

  The fluttering of tiny wings.

  They found his body, the voice said. What was left of him.

  I tried to look towards the voice, but only saw movement.

  “Where are you?”

  I cannot manifest for you again. You are weak. I am weak.

  “Because you saved me?”

  Yes.

  The realization that the creature - this entity - had expended energy to protect me created an unexpected feeling of responsibility. It had intervened at my darkest moment, had prevented a violation I couldn’t have stopped on my own. And in doing so, it had depleted itself. The bond between us was more complex than I’d first understood - not just predator and prey, not just savior and saved, but something mutual, something reciprocal.

  With my knees up to my chest, I tried not to cry again.

  I really did.

  “We will become stronger,” I said.

  Yes, the voice replied. Yes, we will. I wouldn’t have answered your call if I felt we couldn’t.

  “Cerys? Is that you?” Leigh’s voice called up to me.

  “Yeah,” I replied.

  Within a minute, she was sitting beside me. “Stomach that bad?”

  I just nodded.

  “I’m going to ask you, just once.” She was all serious now. “The gate guard—Phil—said you and James went out to the forest.”

  I had to act like I didn’t know about this. I had to keep my emotions in check.

  “We did,” I said. “It wasn’t very fun.”

  She put her hand on my arm, but I flinched away. “Did he—did he hurt you?”

  “If you mean did he rape me, then no.” It wasn’t a lie, not really even if he’d tried.

  “I know you don’t mean that,” Leigh said. “No sane woman would ever let him near them, let alone lead him outside.”

  “Is he telling everyone I was easy?” I sniffed. “Asled?”

  “Asled’s worried about you. James—James is dead,” Leigh said. “The body they found earlier was his.”

  “What?” I asked, raising my voice. “Dead, no… no way?”

  I hoped my feigned shock was convincing. The acting felt hollow, mechanical, like I was watching myself perform from a distance. Was this what guilt felt like? Not remorse for James’s death - I couldn’t summon that - but guilt for the deception, for letting Leigh believe I was an innocent victim rather than an accomplice to... what? Murder? Self-defense? Justice? I wasn’t sure what to call it anymore.

  “Did you run away from him?” She paused. “I mean, I know it wasn’t you. The body was almost unrecognizable, but did you do anything?”

  “He had his fun with me. I left,” I said.

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  “The guard said he never let you back in.”

  “I didn’t want the walk of shame,” I admitted.

  At last, Leigh nodded. “They might ask you where you got in—at least over the wall.”

  “Now?”

  “Not now. Probably tomorrow.”

  “I’m on the first shift,” I said.

  “You’ll be off-shift until they clear you,” she said. “But that’s not a bad thing—you could use the rest. The furnaces are hard enough without pain.”

  “It comes and goes,” I replied, feeling the pain lessen. “I’m sorry to let you down.”

  “You haven’t let me down,” she said, about to leave.

  “I…” Her eyes met mine. “I’ve got a pass to see my brother in the arena.”

  “Someone gave you that?”

  I nodded. “I need to see him,” I said. “I really need to.”

  “I’ll come. I’ll drop by after lunch, pick you up.” This time, she put a hand on my shoulder. “It’s not a good place. Be prepared for anything.”

  “Can I see Asled?” I asked her.

  “You are free to go anywhere you usually do. No one will stop that.”

  She left, and I watched her, the feeling of tomorrow’s arena—whatever it was—twisting in my gut.

  They knew I’d gone out the gates with James. All of them would know.

  That made me feel even sicker, because of what he had done… because I had let him.

  A wave of self-recrimination washed over me. Had I brought this on myself? By going with him, by trying to outsmart him rather than simply running or fighting? But what real options had I had? If I’d refused, he might have taken me by force right there. If I’d fought back, I would have lost. If I’d run, he would have caught me. Logic told me I’d made the only viable choice, but the emotion - the disgust, the shame - wasn’t so easily reasoned with.

  Your survival instinct is strong, the voice said.

  “Who are you?” I finally asked.

  Many call me Death, he said, in a distinctly low, male voice.

  “Death,” I replied. “It’s nice to meet you. Are you here to help me?”

  I have followed you and your brother for a while. The tiny fluttering of wings by my ears. Ever since you lost your mother.

  That caught me by surprise.

  I have never left you, he said.

  “You k—”

  A tiny weight settled on my shoulder. I took his life and his life force with pleasure, Death said. He was dangerous, a very bad man.

  “Thank you,” I said. “Thank you for being there for me, and for us, all these years.”

  It was your mother, he said. Even though she didn’t call for me, she knew I waited. Even as her life force passed, she asked only one thing: that I help you, if I could. Normally, I don’t answer such requests, but her soul was… different. And you carry part of it.

  My mother. Even in her final moments, she’d been thinking of us, planning for our protection. The knowledge was both comforting and devastating. Had she known, somehow, what I would become? What I would need? Had she glimpsed this connection to Death, this “hidden skill” that the system couldn’t properly classify? Mom’s journal might have answers, if I could only find time to read it thoroughly.

  “I have nothing,” I said, sadness washing over me.

  You have everything, but no one can see it.

  “Even me?”

  You can’t see it either. The system could never quantify what you are. You missed those years.

  “But my brother?”

  Was young enough to get caught when he left the valley.

  “So, what are you to me? What would you be?”

  No one can summon Death, he said. Though they try.

  “You’re not a summons?”

  I am not. Nor am I what others might call a familiar, though if they saw me, that is what they’d think.

  “Familiar?”

  A bonded partner.

  “I don’t understand any of this,” I sighed. “Mom wrote about a few things, but this… it’s a lot.”

  I’ve watched your brother, Death said, fluttering around my ears. You’ll see more tomorrow at the Arena.

  “Should I be scared?”

  He laughed. You have Death on your side. You need never fear again. If someone thinks they can hurt, you or Reece…

  “Will you protect him too?”

  Only if you ask me to.

  “If I ask… that means—”

  Death, he said. Always death. I must take what I need to manifest here, and that must always be death.

  The implications were chilling. My newfound protection came with a terrible price - death. Not my own, but others’. To keep Reece safe, to keep myself safe, would require killing. The moral calculus was dizzying. Where was the line between justified protection and senseless violence? Between being a victim and becoming a monster? Could I live with being the cause of more deaths, even indirectly?

  I made my way down to the gardens, to wait there instead. I needed some comfort, someone I could talk to, that might understand.

  I waited and waited.

  Then heard a branch snap.

  Asled stood looking at me, there was a pain across his features though. I stood and stepped toward him. “They’re calling you names,” he stated. “Is it true?”

  I didn’t know what I was going to say to him, what would make this—this okay.

  But that pain on his face wasn’t going away. “If you’re asking did I intentionally take James out into the woods, then yes.”

  Asled crossed his arms. He’d never done that before, and I felt that invisible barrier also then between us.

  “Did you know what was out there?”

  I took a step towards him and although he didn’t move away, that barrier seemed stronger. “Would you hate me if I said, yes?”

  “No,” he said, but his face said everything.

  “Yes, I knew what was out there.”

  “Did he hurt you?” This time he took a step forward.

  That barrier… fuck it was killing me, but then so was him being closer to me. What if he was just like James.

  The thought was irrational, unfair to Asled. But trauma doesn’t follow reason. James’s attack had broken something in me, severed my ability to trust, to feel safe with another person. Even Asled, who had shown me nothing but gentleness, triggered a primal fear response. My body remembered the violation, cataloged all men as potential threats. It wasn’t fair, but it was real.

  It was irrational. It was stupid, he’d shown me nothing but care. Friendship.

  I was the one that took a step back this time, and that seemed to hurt him even more.

  “Yes,” I said. “Yes, he hurt me, and am I glad he’s dead? With every part of me that he touched, that he hurt, yes, I’m glad he’s dead too.”

  The words tumbled out, and then so did the tears.

  Asled crossed that barrier between us and wrapped me in his arms. “Then I’m glad he’s dead too,” he soothed. “He won’t hurt anyone ever again. Not like that.”

  My breath escaped me, and I couldn’t catch it again, sobs wracked my body, my mind, and Asled did all he could to try and make me feel better. I crumpled into him like one of my old rag dolls. “Shh,” he tried. “Someone will hear you.”

  When I couldn’t stop the tears, the sobs, he scooped me up and took me deeper into the lands, away from people.

  Eventually I stopped crying, and found myself sitting in his lap clinging to him for all I was worth.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m so sorry I couldn’t protect you.”

  “I need to protect myself,” I said and straightened my back out. It cracked.

  “We’re all vulnerable with no gift.”

  “I got a notification this morning,” I said.

  “What?” he asked. “What did it say?”

  “That I hit puberty, that I had some hidden skill.”

  “Hidden skill, I’ve never known anyone have that.” He smoothed my hair away from my eyes.

  Only then did I notice. “You had your hair cut?”

  He pushed back from me. “Oh, you finally noticed,” he smiled. “Yes, this morning.”

  I reached up and ran my fingers over the top of his head, then up from the back. He shivered underneath me. “It feels amazing,” I said, and then used both hands. “You feel amazing.”

  In that moment, I made a conscious choice. I could let James’s attack define me, let the fear and violation become the lens through which I experienced all future intimacy. Or I could reclaim my body, my autonomy, my right to choose connection with someone I trusted. It wasn’t about erasing what had happened - nothing could do that. It was about refusing to let it dictate my future.

  “Cerys, I—” his eyes were so mesmerizing, his hands settling on my hips.

  “I want you to touch me,” I said. “Get rid of—”

  Asled slid his hand under my shirt. “Like this?”

  “Any way you want to touch me,” I replied.

  “Any—way?”

  I put my lips to his, tasting his softness, his sweetness. “Yes.”

  When his hands slid inside my pants, I never flinched, but I did moan into his ear.

  This I wanted. I wanted him to push every thought of James away.

  Asled was more than happy to comply, his every touch, gentle, reassuring, loving.