Nunka's Burden

Freya crawled out from under the corpse, gasping and clutching her throat. Her body ached, but shock and fear sent her scrambling away. She stumbled along until she reached a busy road. Passersby immediately noticed her frenzied state, and she pointed back the way she came. 

"He's dead," she sobbed. 

"Are you okay?" A young man moved closer to her, and she flinched away. "Who's dead?"

Fleya couldn't answer. Her head spun, and she felt as if she were going to fall. A shout for help went up behind her. "There's a man here! Someone call a doctor!" Gentle hands grabbed Fleya and sat her down before she fell. Soon it became evident that a doctor was not necessary, and the man's body was brought out to the street and covered with a cloak. Fleya tried not to look at it. She felt cold and weak. A large crowd gathered around the body, craning for a look, while guards tried to shoo them back. 

The magistrate was called, and Fleya felt relief wash over her as she saw Aspen with him. Aspen, of course, needed only to observe the scene to understand what had happened. She said nothing as the magistrate began to question Fleya, pretending to have no connection to her younger sister. 

"What happened here, child? Did you see what happened to this man?"

Fleya scrambled for an answer. She looked at Aspen, but her sister's face was unreadable. It was clear she needed to make up a story, but her mind was befuddled. "I-- yes, I saw."

"How did he die?"

"He was drunk. He just fell over."

"Are you saying this man just died-- just like that?" The magistrate snapped his fingers. 

"Well--" Fleya swallowed. "He seemed to have drunk a lot. He was stumbling around and looked sick."

"Carth was in my tavern just an hour ago, magistrate," a plump, sandy-haired man called. "He had drunk some, but he was fine then." 

"Why is the girl injured?" A woman asked. Dark bruises had started to form on Fleya's arms and neck. Panic began to rise again in her breast. She wasn't doing very well. She needed a better story, but she couldn't think of anything.

"He did," she piped, terrified. "He just fell over." Inspiration struck. "Look at him-- he doesn't have any wounds." An inspection of the body followed this statement, and when they found it to be true, the city guards seemed dumbfounded. 

"Could it be poison?" someone asked. The tavern owner took offense. 

"But what happened to you?" The magistrate, a white-mustachioed man wearing a clean black suit, was looking at her intently; he was far too close and Fleya could feel her heart hammering. She wanted to run, but she wasn't so stupid as that. 

"My dad did it," she mumbled. "This morning."

"Hmm." The magistrate gave instructions to the guards to take the body to the undertaker, then pulled Aspen aside and spoke to her quietly. Aspen didn't look in her direction again. Fleya stood up, realizing now that the shock before had hidden how much her body really hurt, and slipped away toward the room Aspen had hired for the night on the border of the slums. She waited outside until nightfall, huddled in a dark place where she might not be noticed. Every glance from a passing man made her quail and drop her gaze. Finally, when she was getting very cold in her thin summer clothes, Aspen arrived. She gestured for her little sister to follow her inside the small room. Fleya hadn't realized until that moment how much she feared that Aspen would not come because she was guilty of killing someone, and she would be left waiting, without a way to survive, just like when she was a kid.

"I didn't mean to!" Fleya sobbed as soon as the door closed. "I'm sorry!"

"Shhh." Aspen pulled her into a hug. Startled, Fleya stopped crying. Aspen was so distant all the time; she never did this kind of thing. "It wasn't your fault. Whatever happened to that man, he deserved it." Aspen sat her down on the straw mattress and wrapped her in a blanket. 

"I killed him." Fleya wiped her eyes. "I didn't mean to-- it was so easy. It just happened." 

Aspen sighed, her dark eyes gazing into some distant memory. "I was twelve when I evolved my curse. My mother was a wealthy woman from a good family. She did a good job of hiding what I was. Until she invited over this guest-- a businessman, very important, who was supposed to give the family a loan for a risky investment. She was trying hard to impress him, and I--" she laughed bitterly. "I saw everything he had done." Her fair face twisted into an expression of utter contempt. "More than saw. That's what it really means to be Justice. I felt every wrong as if it had happened to me. He sold my children into slavery. He ruined my family. He hurt me, raped me. He took everything from me. Before I realized what I was doing, I'd slit his throat with a steak knife."

Fleya's eyes widened. She'd never heard of this before. She thought of all the people Aspen passed every day, of all the pain they had caused to others, and how she felt all of that injustice personally every day. The knowledge of the weight of that burden struck her forcefully. 

"Of course, after that the people of the town learned I was a daughter of Nunka and my family disowned my mother and me, and I watched my mother burn at the stake." 

Fleya gasped. She'd known that was what happened to mothers of Nunka's demigods, but poor Aspen...

"But not me." Aspen's mouth quirked in a dark smile. "They fear our curse too much to harm us. Lots of people used to die trying to kill our brothers and sisters. So now they just ignore us and hope we die on our own." Fleya thought of the people in her hometown, who must have hoped that she'd starve to death if left alone. "Luckily, I was old enough to fend for myself. I sold my mother's brooch to buy this sword." 

"It must be hard... to feel the injustices of so many people every day," Fleya said quietly. 

"No," Aspen said harshly. "It's hard to turn away--" Her expression contorted with hate. "It's hard to take money from the people who are the worst, who deserve to die more than anyone, so I can keep myself alive. To ignore justice for those who need it most so that the rich can continue to live off of the bones of the poor, thinking themselves above everyone, even the gods--" She clenched her fists. "That's what's hard."