Page 72 of The Moon Blessed King
‘I don’t think you fully appreciate just how much politics is involved in the operation of the Kreuzfurt conclave. If you think Marina and I had any say in how it operated, you’re sorely mistaken. We were installed at Kreuzfurt to clean up the mess left behind after the first plague ransacked its way through Soleb. We were put there to make sure that Reapers and Givers only used their abilities when sanctioned by the crown, and the Houses were designed to ensure that no one school took dominance over another. Every part of Kreuzfurt’s function is to stop another plague from starting, not prepare for a second one. A second one was never considered. And for hundreds of years, it worked. Now, tell me howyourgift works, Fen.’
‘It doesn’t,’ she snaps back.
‘How can you possibly say that after everything you’ve done? Everything you’ve seen?’
‘I can’t heal like Elician or you!’
‘I don’tcareabout howweheal; how doyouheal?’
‘But that’s what you’ve always cared about! All you’ve ever wanted me to do is heal like you!’
‘All I’ve ever wanted is for you to understand the answer to a question I wasn’t allowed to ask you—’
‘What are you eventalkingabout?’
‘—But you’ve worked with Elena; you’ve gone to battle. You’ve healed patients right outside these walls.Tell me how you do it.’
Fen thinks of fire bursting into life, molecules and atoms and movement. She thinks of speeding up things that have long since gone still, of friction and energy and electricity that scampers from one electron to another, charging it and motivating it. She thinks of the way death feels beneath her skin: a gaping openness waiting to be filled. She thinks of doorways and keyholes and metaphors, and she stares at Zinnitzia and knows none of it is what Zinnitzia is looking for.
‘I don’t know what you want from me,’ she tells her. ‘I haveneverunderstood what you wanted from me.’
Zinnitzia’s shoulders sag. She sighs, long and disappointed. Fen has a history of disappointing her. But once again, seeing her failures reflected on Zinnitzia’s features sends a flicker of despair through Fen’s body. She crosses her arms, trying desperately to keep from showing the pain that has made its home deep in her heart. It is a familiar pain. For years she tried every day to receive Zinnitzia’s approval, and every day she failed. Eventually, not trying became as important to her as trying. At least then it was her choices, and not her failures, that lost Zinnitzia’s faith in her.
‘Givers don’t start with raising the dead,’ Zinnitzia says. Fen knows this; she’s heard it time and time again. ‘Why did you?’
‘I don’t know. I’m stupid. I’m a freak.’
‘What do you think of when you touch the dead?’ Zinnitzia asks. Her hand reaches out and Fen flinches, expecting a strike. It does not land. Instead, she gently pulls Fen’s hand towards her, ignoring how Fen’s fingers quiver with uncertainty at the touch. ‘When you touch things that are dead, what do you feel?’
‘I feel…possibility.’
Zinnitzia smiles. ‘And why can’t you heal injuries? Why can you only raise the dead or mitigate possibilities?’
‘Because I’m broken! And stupid! And I never figured it out! But you seem to know. You seem to know everything, so why don’t you tell me? Why am I never good enough? Well?Tell me.‘
‘Ican’t,’ Zinnitzia whispers. ‘I can’t. I told you already, Marina and I made a pact with the god to help put an end to the plague that would have killed everyone in Soleb and Alelune. And part of that pact means that I cannottellyou the answer, Fen. It is forbidden. Everything about who and what you are you have to find out for yourself. I can put lessons in your way, barriers and roadblocks for you to overcome, but it isyouwho needs to decide what to do with them. No one else can do that for you.’
‘But you said you thought I’d do it – learn why my talentmanifests differently to other Giver abilities. You said you thought I’d figure this out, whatever this is.’
‘Yes, I did. But now…’ Zinnitzia hesitates. She looks out towards the window. ‘I think it’s more and more likely that, in the end, Elician and Alest will be the ones to make that journey. To figure out the shape of their powers. Still…for all your deficits – you are not far behind.’
Fen hates her with everything she has. ‘I’ve never been good enough for you.’
‘Oh, Fen, you’vealwaysbeen good enough. You just…can’t see it.’ Zinnitzia hesitates again, then says, ‘Tell me something. Altas and Lio and this plague aside – what do you think would have happened if Elician had been sent to Kreuzfurt as a child? If his powers weren’t a secret?’
The question catches Fen off guard once more. She shrugs on instinct, but when she thinks about it, all she can see is how Elician would have prospered, flourished, his potential growing beyond expected possibility. It would not have taken Elician almost two decades to have the power to save all of Altas with hismind– he could have done it so much sooner. And from there…how far could he have gone? Perhaps his power could have matched the gods’. She says as much too, imagining Elician alone healing all in the House of the Wanting day in and day out without so much as leaving the entrance hall, healing all the nation in the blink of an eye.
‘Possibly,’ Zinnitzia concedes. ‘But I wonder, also, if Elician is able to do so much now because he was free to develop at his own pace, free to go on his journey unimpeded by the rules and constraints others had for him – in the field – when you and others like you…were constrained by the lessons we were made to teach you.’
That did not make any sense. ‘KreuzfurttrainsGivers.’
‘Kreuzfurt trains Givers to work and serveKreuzfurt. Elician trainedhimselfand followed his own path. He was raising Lio from the dead as achild. He may not have had a natural affinity for instantresurrection as you did, but he honed that skill like a fine sword from the moment he realized what he could do. The deficits I mentioned aren’t yourpersonaldeficits, Fen.’ She points towards the door. ‘Look what you have done, on your own, after only a short while training under Elena Morsen. Look at what you can understand.’
‘Are you saying Kreuzfurt is to blame? That it’s keeping our powers in check?’
‘I’m saying that the system was designed to ensure another outbreak like this did not occur, rather than allow and encourage Givers and Reapers to be free amongst the people, healing or killing at will. Kreuzfurt ensures that both Givers and Reapers refrain from utilizing their abilities to their fullest because the moment theydo…this happens.’
‘But none of that helps me with what you’ve decided I’m supposed to donow. You want me to teach these…these Givers, these Reapers, andnoneof this talk helps me to do that.’
