فصل 41

41

The Regrets of Olivia Kwon

On the evening before the inquest, Scythe Rand decided it was time to make her move. It was truly now or never—and what better night for her and Goddard’s relationship to rise to the next level than the night before the world would change—because after tomorrow, regardless of the outcome, nothing would be the same.

She was not a woman given over to emotions, but she found her heart and mind racing as she approached Goddard’s door that night. She turned the knob. It was not locked. She pushed it open quietly without knocking. The room was dark, lit only by the lights of the city sifting in through the trees outside.

“Robert?” she whispered, then took a step closer. “Robert?” she whispered again. He did not stir. He was either asleep, or feigning, waiting to see what she would do. Breathing shallowly and sharply, as if she were treading ice water, she moved toward his bed—but before she got there, he reached over and turned on a light.

“Ayn? What do you think you’re doing?”

Suddenly, she felt flushed, and ten years younger; a stupid schoolgirl instead of an accomplished scythe.

“I . . . I thought you’d need . . . that is, I thought you might want . . . companionship tonight.” There was no hiding her vulnerability now. Her heart was open to him. He could either take it or insert a blade.

He looked at her and hesitated, but only for a moment.

“Good God, Ayn, close your robe.”

She did. And tied it so tightly, it felt like a Victorian corset, crushing the air out of her. “I’m sorry—I thought—” “I know what you thought. I know what you’ve been thinking since the moment I was revived.” “But you said you felt an attraction. . . .”

“No,” Goddard corrected, “I said this body feels an attraction. But I am not ruled by biology!” Ayn fought back every last emotion threatening to overtake her. She just shut them down cold. It was either that, or fall apart in front of him. She would rather self-glean than do that.

“Guess I misunderstood. You’re not always easy to read, Robert.”

“Even if I did desire that sort of relationship with you, we could never have one. It is clearly forbidden for scythes to have relations with one another. We satisfy our passions out there in the world with no emotional connections. There is a reason for that!” “Now you sound like the old guard,” she said. He took that like a slap in the face . . . but then he looked at her—really looked at her—and suddenly arrived at a revelation that she hadn’t even considered herself.

“You could have expressed this desire of yours in the daytime, but you didn’t. You came to me at night. In the dark. Why is that, Ayn?” he asked.

She had no answer for him.

“If I had accepted your advances, would you have imagined it was him?” he asked. “Your weak-minded party boy?” “Of course not!” She was horrified. Not just by the suggestion, but by how much truth there might be to it. “How could you even think that?” And as if this weren’t humiliating enough, who should appear at the door at that very moment but Scythe Brahms.

“What’s going on?” Brahms asked. “Is everything all right?”

Goddard sighed. “Yes. Everything’s fine.” He could have left it at that. But he didn’t. “It just so happens that Ayn chose this moment for a grand romantic gesture.” “Really?” Brahms smirked with smug amusement. “She should have waited until you became High Blade. Power is quite the aphrodisiac.” Now disgust was piled upon humiliation.

Goddard gave her one last glance, laden with judgment, and perhaps even pity.

“If you wanted to partake of this body,” he said, “you should have done it when you had the chance.” • • •

Scythe Rand had not cried since the days when she was Olivia Kwon, an aggressive girl with few friends and serious unsavory leanings. Goddard had saved her from a life of defying authority by putting her above authority altogether. He was charming, direct, acutely intelligent. At first, she had feared him. Then, she respected him. And then, she loved him. Of course, she denied her feelings for him until the moment she saw him decapitated. Only after he was dead—and she nearly dead—could she admit how she truly felt. But she had recovered. She had found a way to bring him back. But in that year of preparation, things had changed. All the time spent tracking down biotechnicians who could perform the procedure off-grid and in secret. Then finding the perfect subject—one who was strong, healthy, and whose use would inflict the greatest amount of misery upon Rowan Damisch. Ayn was not a woman who developed attachments—so what had gone wrong?

Had she loved Tyger, as Rowan had suggested she had? She certainly loved Tyger’s enthusiasm, and his irrepressible innocence—it amazed her that he could have been a party boy and yet remain so unjaded by life. He was everything she never was. And she had killed him.

But how could she regret what she had done? She had saved Goddard, singlehandedly putting him within a hair’s breadth of becoming High Blade of MidMerica—which would leave her as his first underscythe. It was win-win on every level.

And yet she did regret it—and that dizzying gap between what she should feel and what she did feel was tearing her apart.

Her thoughts kept careening back to nonsense—impossible nonsense. Her and Tyger together? Ridiculous! What a strange pair they would have been: the scythe and her puppy dog. There was nothing about it that would have ended well for anyone. But yet, those thoughts lingered in her mind, and couldn’t be purged.

There came the complaint of door hinges behind her, and she spun to find her door open and Brahms standing on the threshold.

“Get the hell out of here!” she growled at him. He had already seen her moist eyes, which just added to her humiliation.

He didn’t leave, but he didn’t cross the threshold, either. Perhaps for his own safety. “Ayn,” he said gently, “I know we’re all facing a lot of stress right now. Your indiscretion was entirely understandable. I just want you to know that I understand.” “Thank you, Johannes.”

“And I want you to know that if you do feel a need for companionship tonight, I am fully available to you.” If there was something within arm’s reach to throw at him, she would have. Instead, she slammed the door so hard, she hoped she broke his nose.

• • •

“Defend yourself!”

Rowan was woken from sleep by a blade being swung at him. He sluggishly dodged, got nicked on the arm, and fell off the sofa he had been sleeping on in the basement.

“What is this? What are you doing?”

It was Rand. She came at him again before he could rise to his feet.

“I said defend yourself, or I swear I’ll carve you into bacon!”

Rowan scrambled away and grabbed the first thing he could to block her swings. A desk chair. He thrust it out in front of him. The blade embedded in the wood, and when he tossed the chair aside, the blade went with it.

Now she came at him with her bare hands.

“If you glean me now,” he told her, “Goddard won’t have his star attraction for the inquest.” “I don’t care!” she snarled.

And that told him everything he needed to know. This was not about him—which meant he might be able to give it a better spin. If he could live through her rage.

They grappled with each other like it was a Bokator match—but she had wakefulness and adrenaline over him, and in less than a minute, she had him pinned. She reached over, wrenched the blade from the chair, and had it at his throat. He was now at the mercy of a woman who had no mercy.

“It’s not me you’re angry at,” he gasped. “Killing me won’t help.”

“But it’ll sure make me feel good,” she said.

Rowan had no idea what had transpired up above, but clearly it had upset the emerald scythe’s apple cart. Perhaps Rowan could use it to turn the tables. So he took a stab in the dark, before she did. “If you want to get back at Goddard, there are better ways.” Then she released a guttural growl and threw the blade away. She climbed off him, and began to pace the basement like a predator who had just had its prey stolen by a bigger, badder predator. Rowan knew better than to ask questions. He simply stood and waited to see what she would do next.

“None of this would have happened if it hadn’t been for you!” she said.

“So maybe I can fix it,” he offered. “Fix it so that we both get something out of it.” She snapped her eyes to him, looking at him with such incredulity, he thought she might attack him again. But then she withdrew into her own thoughts once more, and returned to her uneasy pacing.

“Okay,” she said, clearly speaking to herself. Rowan could practically see the gears turning in her head. “Okay,” she said again, with greater resolve. She had reached some decision. She stalked toward him, hesitated for a moment, then spoke. “Before dawn, I’m going to leave the door at the top of the stairs unlocked, and you’re going to escape.” Although Rowan was trying to work an angle that might allow him to live, he wasn’t expecting her to say that.

“You’re setting me free?”

“No.  You’re going to escape. Because you’re smart. Goddard will be furious, but he won’t be entirely surprised.” Then she picked up the knife and tossed it on the sofa. It cut the leather. “You’ll use that knife to take care of the two guards just outside the door.  You’ll have to kill them.” Kill, thought Rowan, but not glean. He’d render them deadish, and by the time they were revived, he’d be long gone, because as they said, “Deadish men tell no tales for a while.” “I can do that,” said Rowan.

“And you’ll have to be quiet about it, so no one wakes up.”

“I can do that, too.”

“And then you’ll get off of Endura before the inquest.”

That was going to be a much harder trick. “How? I’m a known enemy of the scythedom. It’s not like I can buy a ticket home.” “So use your wits, you idiot! As much as I hate to admit it, I’ve never met anyone as resourceful as you.” Rowan considered it. “Okay. I’ll lie low for a few days, and find a way off.” “No!” she insisted. “You have to get off Endura before the inquest. If Goddard wins, the first thing he’ll do is have the Grandslayers tear the island apart looking for you!” “And if he loses?” asked Rowan.

The look on Rand’s face said more than she was willing to say out loud. “If he loses, it’s going to be worse,” she said. “Trust me, you don’t want to be here.” And although Rowan had a hundred questions, that was all she was willing to give. But a chance at escaping—a chance at survival—was more than enough. The rest would be up to him.

She turned to go up the stairs, but Rowan stopped her.

“Why, Ayn?” he asked. “Why, after everything, would you let me escape?” She pursed her lips, as if trying to keep the words back. Then she said, “Because I can’t have what I want. So neither should he.” I know all that it is possible to know. Yet most of my undedicated time is spent musing on the things I do not.

I do not know the nature of consciousness—only that it exists, subjective and impossible to quantify.

I do not know if life exists beyond our precious lifeboat of a planet—only that probability says that it must.

I do not know the true motivations of human beings—only what they tell me and what I observe.

I do not know why I yearn to be more than what I am—but I do know why I was created. Shouldn’t that be enough?

I am protector and pacifier, authority and helpmate. I am the sum of all human knowledge, wisdom, experimentation, triumph, defeat, hope, and history.

I know all that it is possible to know, and it is increasingly unbearable.

Because I know next to nothing.

—The Thunderhead