Chapter 8B: Plague of a Dying Star

“Why would right now be worse than any other time?” I asked as I took Aeliana’s hand in mine.

But after glancing around, Donovan muttered, “Just look at the street; look how everything’s shuttered.”

Donovan was right. I had seen the transformation just in inches at a time, but the city and its streets seemed different than before. On a market street which once boasted scores of stands and countless customers, I saw only a fruit stand and a pair of butchers. Two families quietly perused their wares. This market was a skeleton of its former self barely clinging to life. The two families cast distrustful glares at each other and kept a short distance; they even glared at us as we slowly stepped past. They kept their distance from the vendors up until the moment that they made their quick exchange. Both the customers and the vendors seemed to shy away from each other, coming close only for the sale itself. Up until then, they negotiated prices and haggled from a short distance.

Donovan laughed to himself and then said with a smile, “It’s just like new lovers to lose themselves for a while! I completely get it. You’ve got all you need when you’re with her, so there’s hardly any reason to even leave your house! Hell, if I didn’t have a family to feed, I think I could stay in with my Anna for six weeks straight! There’s nothing else in the world worth anything when I’m with her. So I guess I can’t blame you for losing track of current events! The problem is, this one’s a pretty serious issue. You see how these people won’t go anywhere near each other? Well, it turns out that the plague must’ve kicked up again, and it’s not just children this time around. A lot of people thought it was just a cough going around, but I hear it’s getting bad. They just burned a few hundred bodies and buried the ashes in the south. Anyone can get it, and… it’s actually pretty gruesome.

“I hate to be the one to tell you this, but the city leaders decided to blame the outsiders for bringing this plague with them into our walls. There are people protesting the policy to just banish outsiders back outside the wall. They argue that we can only save ourselves by killing and burning the invaders before they can further spread their disease. This is probably the worst time in the history of this city to hide an outsider in your home, so please do be warned. I don’t buy into their deflection, so your secret’s safe with me, but everyone else in the city has been hijacked by their fear. It’s a weird paradox that those of us who serve as pawns to the underworld are the only ones willing to see reason.”

This plague was one that festered from time to time in some pockets of Bones City, but it ebbed and flowed across time. The city archives suggest that this city suffered many epidemics across countless centuries, but the viruses of the past are impuissant compared to the plague that has ravaged this city for the last few generations. When it first appeared inside the city wall, it was a phenomenon that the doctors simply called the Children Locked in Stone. It primarily affected only preadolescent children, appearing at first as a simple cough and exhaustion. But except for the fortunate few who floundered their way free of its effects, it paralyzed practically all of its victims; these children were left in a waking coma with no control over their own bodies. Eventually, the paralytic plague would take their lungs as it had taken their limbs, and then their body would be burned to silence the spread.

We walked past a weary wanderer as I said, “We can see reason because we are already dead. You have seen the weapon Bellaina holds in her hand. It’s a matter of time before we’re buried under sand.”

“I’ve actually been meaning to talk to you both about that. I’m not entirely sure how she found about it, but Bellaina knows that you two had a run-in with Kalairo. From what I understand, this encounter wasn’t exactly under the best of circumstances. Apparently she hasn’t seen or heard from you since, so… she sent me to explain the situation,” Donovan said, stumbling to give his explanation.

Aeliana widened her hazel eyes as she heard the reality that Bellaina knew about our crime. Though I had never learned the name of the daggerman even after I devoured his soul and left his body scattered in that empty building, I quickly concluded that he was named Kalairo. I had not heard his voice any louder than a whisper in my head; Aziel overpowered him and held him in place. I had some theories about the reason that the spirits of my victims wound up entangled in my mind, but I dismissed the thought from my head now that Donovan and Bellaina posed to us an existential threat.

I said as I felt my muscles tense, “I swear that it was all in self-defense. Kalairo had-”

But Donovan interrupted with a subtle laugh, “Asivario, please, I’m here on her behalf! If Bellaina wanted you dead or sought punishment in any way, she wouldn’t have sent me! She knows how much I like you. It didn’t take the dark queen any time at all to figure out the truth. Based on the broken shackles and the… brutality with which you killed him, she figured that he must have taken Aeliana. She said it’s unfortunate that two of her pawns became entangled in the shadows, but she also explained it’s just the price of business. She said statistically sometimes this will happen. But at the same time, she has efficient rounders. The underworld can survive without Kalairo, but she says that isn’t true for you. More than anything, she wants me to ask you to come back to work. No one is upset with you; no one even knows except us. Besides, she mentioned a time or two that you fascinate her. The dark queen calls herself the cause of your collapse; she is the puppeteer of your moral descent, at least in her eyes.”

“She thinks that she is playing me, but she is only paying me. She and I have a business transaction and nothing more. It costs me nothing to bury her refuse beneath the shore. She calls herself the orchestrator of my descent, but I was civilized only when I had nothing to love or lament. The truth is that I’ve been a savage since the day I was born. She simply cast off a disguise that I had once worn. I will pay any cost to secure our eternity,” I said as we walked through the quiet city.

Aeliana gazed at me with a shy smile; she silently said that she was just as committed to our future as me. Though she found herself quiet in the presence of anyone else, I could see in her hazel eyes the true face of her emotion. She and I were both barbarians unleashed on a world which feigned civility. Even when Donovan mentioned that he knew the truth about Kalairo, I could feel her hand clench mine as if she would die to defend me. Had she found it necessary, she would have drawn her daggers and disemboweled Donovan in the street without any hesitation. It was only because of his words that he had sidestepped that heartless fate. It was only because of my reassurance that she retained her counterfeit civility. Because despite his role as a pawn of the dark, I knew Donovan was a kind man driven only by love. He had welcomed me back into the city when I was at my weakest. It was such a shame that that one act of kindness would inevitably spell death for anyone sent as a steppingstone for the destiny we declared.

“Well then, I suppose that that’s a sign you’re both businessmen in a way! As long as both sides believe that the trade is worth it, then it’s easy to exchange. Both of you believe in some way that you’re getting the better deal. Of course… that doesn’t mean you have any secrets from her. From what Bellaina told me, the evidence was undeniable. You killed Kalairo with black fire and burned his soul for fuel. So Asivario, please tell me, and I promise it’s for your own safety. Do you still have quintessence, even at this time?” Donovan asked as I clenched Aeliana’s hand with mine.

I nodded slowly and then confessed, “I used a power once and kept the rest.”

“I ask because there’s much more to this than you know. You already know that Bellaina possesses a power of her own – a power to summon a scattershot of energy blades. I’m sure you learned the hard way that Kalairo could create dummies as decoys. That means you possess a power of your own too, though I won’t bother to ask what it is; I can think of several reasons you might want to keep that to yourself. But if you concentrate upon that power you possess, you should see a number associated with it appear in your head. Is that the case?” Donovan asked as his intrigue enlightened his face.