The unlit lantern Tiberian holds in his left hand scrapes against a wall on the lowest floor of the prison. Since entering the place, my nose has been overcome with the stench of mildew and stale urine. But there is an unexpected scent here too. I can’t help but notice the sweet, cloying stench of death pervading all. It’s a smell I’ve grown quite accustomed to since my youth. To me, it has always brought to mind cheap perfume.
“Only a handful of people are aware of what you’re about to see,” Tiberian says. His words echo off the stone walls. “It hasn’t been necessary to swear anyone to secrecy since most haven’t made it out of the prison alive.”
He personally leads my brother and me through a torchlit corridor, past hundreds of ancient wooden cell doors set into black cobblestone walls. Judging by the dust and cobwebs alone, I would guess that no one has been held here for dozens of years. But from the groans and sobs coming from some of the cells as we pass, I realize that is not the case. With each step we take down the corridor, the smell grows worse, until finally it’s so pungent that I must fight back the urge to gag. Tiberian stops at an unremarkable door identical to each one that has come before it.
“Hold this.” Tiberian thrusts the unlit lantern into my hands. I’m so damn tired of old men telling me what to do.
He produces a gasper from one of the pockets of his coat and puts it in his mouth while concurrently searching for a tinderbox. When he finally finds it, he lights the gasper and blows a cloud of smoke that crawls toward me and then dissipates. I’m grateful for the stink of burning herbs and paper.
“I told you that some cruelties can’t be told; they must be seen,” he says, and removes the gasper from his mouth, using it to light the lantern I hold. As it comes alive, he snatches it out of my hands and swings the door open.
The smell that emanates from the room almost brings me to my knees. Even Abraham—who saw and did so much worse at the Battle of Ashford—produces a handkerchief to cover his nose and mouth.
Upon our entry, a dozen rats scatter across the floor, but a few linger to pick at the toes of a corpse sitting against the wall to my immediate left.
The dark room is subdivided into three smaller prison cells built into the stone on the right side of the room. Tiberian, who seems not to notice the smell, enters and holds up the lantern, illuminating hundreds of rat corpses littering the ground, each in a different state of decomposition. As he walks across the room and past the human remains propped up against the wall, I hear the squelch a tomato would make if one were to stand upon it, and I realize he is walking over the dead rats as if they weren’t there. He finally reaches the third and final holding cell and calls to us with a tone that evokes mockery, “Here is where your search begins.”
Abraham goes first, and I follow, noting the number of rat corpses that have melted into goo. As we pass them, I examine the first two cells and realize they’re not empty. Each contains its own human corpse, visible only by the faint stream of light from Tiberian’s lantern.
“How long have they been like this?” I say, pointing at the carnage in the cells and the body propped up against the wall near the entrance to the room.
“It’s been about a month,” Tiberian answers. “I’ve been unwilling to clear the corpses for fear of losing the trail. Today that hopefully ends.”
As I stay to study the bodies, Abraham continues to where Tiberian stands. It’s not long before his commentary pulls at my curiosity.
“Look at this poor bastard over here, Cass.” Abraham has never been very empathetic. Sometimes I’ll find myself wondering if I took all of it in the womb, leaving him with only a delight for violence, but I know that’s not true. There are moments where his kindness can eclipse even my own, but those moments seem to be fewer and further between. Besides, right now he needs to be the Butcher, for whom there is no space for empathy or kindness.
As I step past Tiberian and into the third and final cell at the end of the small hall, I’m greeted by a sight I’m not prepared for: two bodies wearing paragon livery posed in almost identical positions on the black cobblestone wall to my left. But that’s not what has my brother’s attention. Instead, Abraham is focused on the dissolving remains of a man pinned against the far wall. He’s half skeleton, half skin and is still wearing the Kalykan uniform that he no doubt was proud of at one point.
Abraham unsheathes his baskom knife and uses the black metal blade to point to the skeleton’s forehead.
“Look at this.”
A perfect gammadon is seared into the corpse’s forehead. But where a conscript brand should lie on flesh only, this gammadon seems seared into the corpse’s very skull. This man was no conscript. He was likely one of the guards assigned to this room, judging from his uniform. Who was he guarding?
Tiberian enters the cell, and the lantern light gives further dimension to the paragons’ bodies. Each has a Callahan revolver in his hand and a hole in his head in roughly the same spot as the guard’s gammadon. I can’t determine if the pungent smell is coming from the bodies of the men or rats. Just like the scene outside this cell, dozens of the disgusting creatures are expired, and all are collected around the corpse of the guard.
“Could you please shine that over here, Arkhan?” Abraham uses his knife to point to a sticky mat of dried blood at the foot of the branded corpse. Tiberian complies.
A rat sniffing around the skeleton’s large toe catches the scent of the blood and rushes over to it, licking furiously. The flicks of its tiny tongue are a quick, precise motion. After a small taste, the rat seems to speed up its chewing, alternating bites at the crusted blood with licks. In moments, the rat has become ravenous. It thrashes about in the blood, nipping and chomping as it flails.
“Disgusting, but it’s just a rat.” My voice can’t hide my disdain for the creatures, but Tiberian says nothing, bidding me to simply watch. Abruptly, the rat stops feasting and begins running around in circles. It knocks loose a funny memory from my youth, of the guard dog at St. Barsen’s Orphanage, who used to run circles around the little courtyard whenever the cook would feed him a spare bone from the soup pot. So, too, does this rat run in small concentric circles near the corpse’s foot. But the speed at which the rodent performs the maneuver doesn’t seem sustainable. Eventually, the running ceases and is replaced by frantic clawing at its own head. Small cuts appear, and the pain seems to infuriate the rat even more. It rushes past me and slams headfirst into a wall next to the gammadon-clad corpse. Afterward, it backs up and slams its face again. And again. Understanding courses through me.
“It’s killing itself,” I say.
Abraham nods as the rat continues to find a way to end its life.
“A blood trap,” he says. “I’ve read about them but never seen one before. Didn’t think anyone knew how to do this anymore.” We share the briefest look of concern, for this means whatever foe we’re tracking has been blessed by Atlee, just like us. A paragon. But who?
My brother nods and thinks for a moment, eventually deciding on our next course of action. “I’ll read him.” He points to the gammadon corpse, but before I have a chance to tell him to slow down, he turns to Tiberian.
“Arkhan West, is there anything you can tell us about who we are after? Surely you know who did this. What am I walking into here?”
A long, uncomfortable moment passes before Tiberian speaks.
“Prove to me that you are still the Butcher, and all will be made clear.”
Spoken like a true politician. But I would be remiss not to notice the barest hint of emotion in his voice. This is personal for him. Nevertheless, he tests my brother, and he is right to. Abraham, for his part, has eyes only for the corpse now.
“I wouldn’t be shocked if whoever did this also trapped the other bodies. You read the ones closest to the door, Cass, and we’ll see if we can piece together what happened. But be careful.”
No, this is not a good idea. He’s most prone to succumbing to the rot when he does a reading. I can’t lose him even if it costs him his pride.
“I’ll do it all, Abraham. There’s no need to tax yourself on something so trivial.”
I knew the words were a mistake the moment I uttered them. I can see his anger in the way he furrows his eyebrows. If we were alone, he wouldn’t think twice about letting me do it, but because Tiberian West is here and, worse, issued him a direct challenge, he feels the need to prove himself, to prove that he’s still the Butcher. But the sad truth is that he’s a shadow of what he once was, and he knows it. I worry he’ll die. He’ll kill himself like the paragons on the wall to our left.
“You don’t tell me what to do, Cassandra. I protect you, not the other way around. Now do as I say.”
Before I have a chance to respond, he removes the glove on his left hand and draws his knife diagonally across his palm. He squeezes his fist together until drops of blood slowly drip onto the puddle. Tiberian’s eyes narrow, and a smirk plays at his lips.
“The problem with the fools you sent, Arkhan,” Abraham says while using the knife to gesture to his left, “is that they don’t have the willpower to overcome this trap, nor the person who set it. And the reason I don’t want you anywhere near this fella, Cass,” he says to me, once again using his knife to point at the branded corpse, “is because I think it’s going to take everything I have to break past whatever trap was laid. I’ll need you for the other ones. Now get to it.”
He gently places his bare and bloodied hand on the sticky black mass. To the casual observer, it would appear like he’s doing nothing more than touching a stain on the ground, but I know the skill and sacrifice it takes to follow the threads of death and spin them back together into a whole memory. I know what it’s like to relive someone’s last moments as if they were your own, how their life becomes yours so much so that you can lose yourself in their pain. But what my brother attempts makes it even more difficult.
Whoever is responsible for the carnage in this room has claimed this corpse. It’s theirs by blood right, and any who try to take the memories held from within must assert their own dominance to fend off the curse. To the blood, it is a sacrifice that would prove my brother’s divinity. But for my brother, it is a memory he will lose forever. I wonder what part of his mind my brother is willing to sacrifice for this mission.
The tremble starts first in his fingertips. It’s a subtle thing, but the longer he holds the pose, the more it crawls through his body. When it overcomes his entire being, an angry voice cuts through the silence.
“He’s failing; this was how the others reacted.” Tiberian removes his Callahan in defense.
I move to pull my brother’s arm away, to save some vestige of his sanity, but to my surprise, he grabs me.
“He had help,” Abraham gasps before falling to his knees.
“Who helped him?” Tiberian’s desperation betrays itself.
But the Butcher has fled, and a scared man has taken his place. He scampers next to the two other corpses and holds both of his arms in front of his face so he can’t see anything.
“I don’t know.” And then after a moment, “What? What did you say?”
They’re upon him. He’s having trouble separating himself from the memories.
“No! Get back, dogs!” he shouts at the top of his lungs and swings his knife at me as I approach, just missing my sternum. His eyes flash this way and that, seeing invisible enemies everywhere.
“It’s all right,” I say calmly continuing my approach. I open my arms and spread them to make myself vulnerable. He turns the knife in his hand and shifts his posture so that it appears as if he’s about to pounce.
“This is no Butcher. He’s not up to the task,” says Tiberian irritably.
“He’s still alive! Your other paragons failed,” I say, gesturing my hand toward the corpses next to Abraham. “We just need to help him find his way back.”
Then an idea comes to me: the carving of the bird I was working on earlier in the day is unfinished, but it might be enough to ground him. Our tradition has always been to carve sculptures for one another, trying to outdo the other. Over the years, we’ve gotten pretty good at it.
I produce the small wooden carving stuffed in my pocket and place it in front of Abraham, then back away. When I’ve reached a reasonable distance, he picks up the bird and stares at it, turning the small figurine over in his hands. It’s a gradual process, but he starts to come back to himself. His shoulders slacken. His breath becomes more measured, and when he finally closes his eyes, tilts his head back, and takes a deep breath, I know he has returned to us and is back among the living.
“You messed up his wing,” he says with a tired smile.
“Gives her character,” I say, returning his grin.
“Tell me, what did you find?” Tiberian ruins the moment.
Abraham tosses the bird back to me and rubs his forehead. He is still shaking, but it is not as noticeable.
“Your son had help,” he says to Tiberian.
The old man blanches. The weight of this knowledge settles on me, and I feel my eyes widen. Alexander West, the arkhan’s own son. That is whom Tiberian seeks? West’s own heir murdered these men and cursed their blood?
Abraham continues. “I saw a second man, but I didn’t get a good look at him. Together they overpowered this guard, then branded him after the fact. Not sure why.” He rubs his eyes, annoyed. “Cass, I’m sorry but you’re going to have to do the rest. Start with the one closest to the door back there. He probably saw the most.”
I’m not sure about that. The one closest to the door was probably the first to die. The one that saw the most was probably one of the corpses in the cells.
“I think we need to choose carefully,” I muse. “If his traps are as bad—”
“They are,” Abraham cuts me off.
Tiberian finally holsters the Callahan he drew, relaxing at our progress in the investigation. His eyes fall to the floor, and he kicks at a rat scurrying by.
The rats!The idea forces a grin to spread across my face.The rats give the traps away.I stalk from corpse to corpse, paying attention to which ones have the most rat bodies surrounding them.
Alexander West was heralded as a prodigy among all of those in the paragon order. It’s said he is undefeatable in a duel and unparalleled in his divine abilities.
“What are you doing?” Tiberian demands, his voice laced with disdain. He’s not used to having to answer to a woman.
“I’m looking”—I remove my own baskom knife to pick at a rat corpse near a body in the second cell—“to see if your son made any mistakes.”
But there’s nothing. He laid a trap in every single corpse. At least, that’s what I think, until I make it to the first cell, the one closest to the door. There are no rats nearby. Just a singular body, lying on its side and in the process of liquifying. I smile triumphantly at Tiberian. “And here we are.”
I remove the black glove on my left hand and am about to touch the body, but a shaky hand grabs me. At some point during my search, Abraham must have found the strength to stand.
“Claim it first, just to be safe.”
He’s right. I use my knife to slice my left hand open, and I clench it into a fist until miniscule drops of blood fall onto the forehead of the dead man.
Drip …
Drip …
Drip …
My brother nods to me, and I touch the skull. As soon as I do, there is a hot wind, and I find myself standing in the meridian. All is black and swirling around me, and I can feel grit being blown against my face. Tiny reddish flecks that look like butterflies flick by, but they are nothing more than a distraction. I follow the threads of the man’s death to his last moments. I feel no resistance, no foreign presence when my body becomes his. My life stacks on top of his life. I force myself to remember where my mind stops and the dead man’s begins.
Am I dead yet? I gasp for air that does not come as a pair of boots exits my cell. Blood pools from my throat, and I try to stuff it back in, but I have no control over the contortions of my body.
There’s no air, and my heartbeat slows. I can feel its weakened thump in my ears.
Why me? Why kill me?
I’m scared. I don’t want die. Energy escapes me, and I can no longer hold my throat to stop the bleeding. As my hands fall to my side and my body tumbles over, I see the one dressed as a conscript use a torch to heat a branding iron. The gammadon on the end glows red hot.
“I need you to brand me before we run out of time,” says the man dressed as a conscript to the other figure as he hands the branding iron over. The other figure, the one who sliced my throat, carefully takes the iron.
My vision begins to dim, and my consciousness is fading. Is that the sky in the distance?
The sound of searing flesh warrants the last of my attention.
“No time to brand you here. We need to get going before more guards arrive.” The newly branded conscript takes a few steps toward me, but a loud sound in the distance causes him to stop before my vision fails and the ringing in my ears washes out all other sound.
I suck in a breath as my senses return to the present.
I am Cassandra Ward, I remind myself, not wanting to lose any part of me in the dead memories. The dim light returns, as does the stench of death.
“What did you see?” Tiberian’s voice pulls me out of it, but I’m not where I want to be. When I was with that man, I felt comfortable, like I was close to home. It was bright and warm. Everything here is harsh and dark with only remnants of peace left behind. The familiar little crimson rays flow by me, and my first thought is the same thought I always have: they’re like embers from a fire. But when I grab at them, there’s nothing. They disappear and are replaced by the greed and cruelty of Kalyko. “Speak, Paragon. Your arkhan commands it.”
“Your son and his companion marked themselves as conscripts. I expect that is how they snuck out of the city,” I finally answer. Abraham allows just a little pride to show on his face as he sets his jaw and nods at my assessment.
Tiberian grasps one of the bars of the cell until his knuckles turn white, and I hear the metal squeal under his grip. He exhales forcefully through his nose, turns to my brother, and delivers his orders through gritted teeth. “Search every train yard in Westchester. Find my son and bring him to me. I don’t care what you do with the other one, but my son must be taken alive. Do that, and I’ll make you so rich you won’t have to answer to anyone again.”
“But, sir,” I say, and stand, “there are hundreds of trains—”
I am cut off by a sharp gesture from Abraham. He steadies himself on me with a firm hand on my forearm. He’s not shaking anymore. In fact, Abraham looks stronger and more assured than he has in months when he rises to his feet.
“Arkhan West,” he says, “consider this task done.”