Page 19 of The Verdant Cage
A person would need bottomless luck and a lifetime of combat training to survive…
Marina had been tormenting me again. For the last time, I vow. The Rose she used as her own private plaything died alongside my mother. This Rose is angry, and she’s tired of living small. My mother’s quiet obedience after my father’s death—always walking with her head down, never questioning the Council, never even raising her voice—didn’t protect herormy brother, did it?
I pound the ground with my fist. Jonas shouldn’t have been Harvested. Not on my wedding day. Not ever. He was young, healthy, and a good citizen up until the end.
Wasn’t he?
Entering the Record Keeper vault was a rule broken, sure, but it shouldn’t have been enough to get him Harvested. Besides, he was in the vault right before my wedding, and the Harvest basket was already lowered when we showed up. Someone had planned for a body to go in there all along.
I close my eyes. There’d been more. What were his last words?
We’re not what we seem.
What could that mean? I sigh from the bottom of my soul. There’s only one way to find out. Iwillget around Marina and into her basement on my next attempt. I have to, for Jonas, for my mom, and for all the villagers still at risk with a killer on the loose. The thought gives me a thin sense of purpose, enough that I’m able to get to my feet.
I’m brushing myself off when footsteps approach. “I’m going,” I snap at Gryphon. “Just give me a moment.”
But when I lift my gaze, I see it isn’t him.
It’s Leonidas Khan, his normally smug face as slack as a bag. He’s twenty-five to Gryphon’s eighteen, but the two grew up training together and have always been close. It needled me with jealousy when we were younger.
“There you are,” he says in a strained voice. “You’re to come immediately. There’s been another animal attack.”
13
Leonidas stalks ahead of me, shoulders rigid, every step pulled taut like he’s bracing for impact. We soon round the corner to the border of the industrial district. Smoke still clings to the brick here, smelling of iron and burnt grain even though no one’s worked here for months.
The industrial district is where the Vex began. It appeared first in the Potters’ cottage, then spread like wildfire to the Wheelwrights, Coopers, and Blacksmiths. Two dozen villagers were struck within the first week. The illness started with the bluish-gray tinge followed by a cough and fever, progressing quickly to red, hot blisters that broke open on the skin. The exposed tissue was raw, sometimes oozing. Edema, stomach cramps, and vomiting marked the end. Six of our patients died. Their bodies were carried up the Wall.
On advice from my mother, the Council of Elders quarantined this area, abandoning the surrounding orchards, hives, cottages, and their single well. That last wasn’t much of a loss; the water was orange-tinged and apparently always tasted of rust. Our community was gutted by the loss of food, though, plus the evacuated Houses being unable to work until temporary shelters were provided.
Still, it’s for the best until we ascertain what exactly the Vex is and how it’s transmitted. We found no bacteria in the well water, and the illness didn’t respond to antibiotics. We left off hoping it was a virus now gone for good.
What would have drawn wild creatures to this abandoned area? And why had Leonidas summoned me, a girl no longer of the Apothecary House? I’m working up the courage to ask when we turn the final corner and come within twenty-five feet of the Wall.
My breath catches in horror.
There, at the edge of the cobbled path, the Council of Elders stand in a triangle—Jarek, of course, with Nero Carter of the Farmer House and Alexandra Yevele of the Masons. Their dark robes billow in the breeze, the intricate stitching at their hems catching what little light filters through the clouds.
A body lies between them.
This set of Elders should have stepped down weeks ago. Council terms rotate every five years, with new voices elected from the heads of Houses periodically. This is meant to prevent an individual amassing unsafe amounts of power. But that was before the Vex caused panic, and before the uptick of wild animals hunting in our farmlands. At some point, it was decided that this Council would stay on a bit longer—just until everything settles back to normal.
I hurry to the body they’re gathered around. A teenage boy, supine, his face frozen skyward. The positioning is unnatural—limbs askew, torso twisted—but it’s his color that captures my attention.
Or, rather, the absence of it.
His skin is cadaverous: waxen, parchment-thin, hanging off the contours of bone. The sclerae of his wide-open eyes, normally white, have clouded to a sickly gray, a telltale sign of hypoxia. His lips are drawn back, exposing teeth in a grimace that mimics a scream. His hands are the final horror, his fingers flexed into tight contractures, nails splintered and blood-dark, suggesting he’d been desperately clawing against something at the moment of his death.
My mouth pools with saliva, and I have to choke back a wave of bile as I place the victim’s face at last.
Holy Wall, it’s Peter.
Peter is—or was—prone to ear infections. Six years below me and Jonas in school, a lover of knock-knock jokes. His friends called him “Potter,” a play on his name and trade. Before his death, his cheeks were still pink and rounded, having not yet taken on their adult shape.
I know this boy, and he died an agonizing death.
Something about the violence brings to mind my father’s body, though the style of carnage is far different. Where my father was all wet and crimson, Peter’s corpse appears to be sucked completely dry. In fact, I see no blood, and the dirt on the cobblestones is disturbed in long strokes behind him.
