Page 69 of The Moon Blessed King
‘It’s…I just thought the words in my head, I suppose.’
‘How would she hear that?’
‘Maybe she didn’t. But I hoped she did.’
‘So, I just…think at her?’
‘Why do you want to pray to Death, Alest?’ Elician sounds tired. Worn. The sound of his given name on Elician’s tongue feels strange, familiar and comforting yet stiff and formal at the same time.
‘I think I need to talk to her.’
‘Praying andtalkingare two very different things.’
‘So how do I talk to her?’ Every time he heard her voice in the past, it was always on her terms. Her appearing before him, and never him seeking her out.
Elician shrugs. He sits up. He rubs his eyes. He is still so tired; after all those lives he saved, a weariness clings to him and will not fully let him go. ‘Is this about your bid for the throne, your…challenge?’
‘Yes.’
‘Cat, I asked around. Everyone I could who was willing to talk. Leferge is right. Everyone who’s challenged the reigning monarch hasdied.’
‘I told you one day I would disappoint you,’ Cat murmurs. ‘Perhaps you have given me your love too soon.’ He never meant to break Elician’s heart. He had thought, truly, deeply, that he could stand at Elician’s side for ever. And Elician would never need to fear being abandoned as a result of losing him to Death while Life forced Elician to always, always, live on.
‘It’s too late now.’ Elician’s voice breaks. He cups Cat’s cheeks between his palms. He pulls their brows together. Cat sets Marina’s journal to the side. He clings to Elician’s wrists. ‘There has to be another way,’ Elician tries.
‘Death’s already chosen me, Elician,’ Cat says. ‘She chose me…to be her Reaper. Just as she chose Marina. A Reaper on the throne of Alelune – she chose us. I have to believe…I have to believe she wants me there.’
‘And if you’re wrong?’
‘I don’t know…but…I need to talk to her.’
‘You don’t need to go through with the ritual to talk to her.’
‘How else would I do it?’
‘I don’t know – pray, like I said, and hope it works, but—’
‘And when it doesn’t? If…if I had no other obligations, I would not do this. I have never wanted or needed to know her mind, hear her voice. I don’tcarewhat she does or why. And it is comforting, to be Cat alone. But I’m not. I cannot beCatalone. And…these are my people. All of them, whether they are Reapers or not. Aren’t they?’ Stello Alest asks the King of Soleb. ‘And so…I need to talk to her. Truly speak with her…and hope she will listen. For what I want here…it is more than a crown. And I have to try.’
Elician’s fingers curl into Cat’s hair. Their lips touch, the kiss soft and filled with despair. Grieving before the body takes its last breath. ‘I hate this,’ Elician says, holding him as if he were something truly too precious to lose.
‘I know,’ Cat says. ‘Please help me anyway?’
Another kiss, firmer, stronger, one that ends with Elician shifting to hold Cat close. ‘Of course I will,’ he promises. ‘Even if it hurts.’
It will hurt, Cat thinks, wrapping his arms around Elician’s body and letting himself be held.But it will hurt less with you there.
The first day Cat arrived in Crowen, all those many months ago, Elena did what she could to make him and Fen comfortable. She welcomed them to her home, and she gave them rooms to sleep in and whatever comforts they desired. Cat sat at the kitchen table andwatched Elena cook. He ate the food she offered him, listened to her tell him about an experiment she had left behind when she had first gone to Himmelsheim to teach them, and soaked in the simple comfort of her familiarity.
She took him to her study that night and showed him a specially made glass microscope that was too delicate to bring to Himmelsheim, then recreated their first experiment. ‘Look here,’ she said, pointing to the eyepiece. Then she took his gloved hands and set them on small dials and knobs, so much bigger than the little screw of her first design. ‘This one for larger adjustments, this one for smaller. Keep turning until you see it.’
‘See what?’ he asked. She hadn’t put a leaf out for inspection this time. Instead, she’d placed a sliver of glass down over a reflected light.
‘Keep turning it,’ she said. She never liked to tell him the answers he could find out on his own. He turned the knobs and dials and he squinted down the tube where light reflected up through a mirror at the bottom.
And then he saw it.
His breath caught in his throat. He stared at the twitching things on the glass. ‘It’s life,’ Elena told him. But that wasn’t what he was looking at. The twitching things broke apart. They crumbled into nothingness and then were reabsorbed by other twitching things. One thing eating another over and over again, and he could feel it if he focused on the point of contact between his eye and the glass plate and the tube. He could feel it burning behind his sclera.
