Chapter Three (SC)

A disaster occurs in the Council, and a warning is given.

Kaja was watching her, Agata noticed. She could feel the yellow eyes digging under skin, searching for every secret Agata had ever held in her shaky hands. The Council had always been filled with people who stared, but Kaja was different. She had an unblinking, unending gaze. She saw everything. It was enough to make Agata's skin crawl, but there was nothing she could do. This was the Council, and Kaja had a right to be here. Dismissing the only Skelski in Court just because her eyes were beautiful and unsettling was only going to lead to a war with the Skelski. And so, she kept her eyes on Gerda, refusing to acknowledge the Skelski ambassador. After all, it was her Council. She refused to let eyes put her off.

“This is ridiculous,” Gerda was saying. She was standing at the podium in the centre of the semi-circle of Speakers.

The Speakers of the Council wore blue, and all stood. Agata was the only one allowed to sit in her throne, and she was the only one allowed to wear green �" the colour of the Reasoner. She was also the only woman present who was allowed to wear a kokoshnik. She sat in her furs and leather, hands calmly folded over her lap.

She hadn't expected a Council this soon; she was still in her hunting gear. Hunting always took her mind off things, and after Lyosha, she needed something to distract her. Gerda, however, had refused to allow it. As Agata had stepped out of her bedroom, bow and arrows in place, Gerda had stepped forwards and informed her of the Council being held.

We have to speak about Lyosha, she'd said. We have to tell the Speakers.

So here Agata was. She'd given Gerda the first opportunity to Speak, knowing her personal Speaker would have more to say than anyone else. Olga and Siljie kept exchanging glances across the room, and it was beginning to get annoying. Agata wished everyone would just do as they were supposed to. She wished people would take her seriously for once, instead of seeing her as little more than a girl aspiring to be more than she could.

She was not a girl. She was a woman. And she was the Reasoner, whether they liked it or not.

“How is it ridiculous?” Olga demanded, breaking Agata out of her spiralling thoughts. She was leaning forwards where she stood, scowling at Gerda with all the fury in the world. “This is what we are trained to do. We see a threat to the Reasoner, we destroy it. Why else would be here? To discuss who's on the rota to prepare banquets?”

Nobody dared to laugh, though Agata could see a smirk on Siljie's face.

Gerda looked like she was about to explode. Her hands were tight on the sides of the podium. She refused to meet Olga's eyes, instead choosing to direct her next words towards Agata herself.

“We have been met with a real threat. Skelski raids are happening all over the country. We must act.”

“We have no idea this boy is telling the truth,” Olga protested. “Why would the Skelski act now?”

“Because,” Gerda growled, still keeping her eyes on Agata, “we have just lost the Reasoner who began the Truce in the first place. The Skelski have no reason to trust our new Reasoner.”

“She's her daughter!” Olga exclaimed. “Of course they have reason to trust her.”

“They do not. Daughters are not always the same as their mothers. Look at her!”

She pointed towards Agata. If anyone else had done it, they would immediately be expelled from the Council Chamber. But Gerda was Agata's personal Speaker. She had more leeway than the average Speaker.

“I'm looking,” Olga remarked coolly.

So was Kaja. She never stopped looking.

“Our new Reasoner is different. She is nothing at all like her mother.” Gerda smiled apologetically. “With all due respect, Your imminence.”

Agata nodded. “Noted.”

“And your point is?” Olga demanded.

“My point,” Gerda continued, “is that the Skelski now have reason to raid villages, to raze them to the ground. We are living in an uncertain time, an uncertain age. We have no idea what will come in the future. Our new Reasoner has held that role for a few days, and already the Skelski are destroying villages and killing. Not to mention the disappearances.”

Agata's eyes flickered, just once, to Kaja. Kaja was still staring at her, but now there was a challenge in those mesmerising eyes. Agata was immediately reminded of the night before, of when Kaja had demanded that she spread her message. The Skelski were not responsible for the disappearances of the women, for the murders of the men. Agata had sworn to understand this.

She broke eye contact, looked back at Gerda.

“This is too sudden to be a coincidence,” Gerda said. “This is a real problem and we must deal with it. Astraia is at its weakest. Humanity is at its weakest. We've no time for dallying. We have to do what we've been trained our whole lives to do. We have to protect the Reasoner from the biggest threat out there. And right now, the biggest threat out there is the Skelski.”

Kaja stood up. All eyes were on her now, but her eyes saw only Agata. They bored into Agata's core, seeing everything, knowing everything, stripping her down to the bare foundations of what made her human. Kaja's stare was unblinking. Kaja's stare was unsettling.

Kaja's stare was addictive.

“I object to this accusation,” she said. Her voice was like raw honey, dripping over her deep accents. It was disarming.

It occurred to Agata that Kaja had never spoken in Court before. She had been the silent Speaker, the ghost of a Skelski ambassador. The reactions were obvious: the rest of the Speakers stared with wide eyes and dropped jaws, stunned to hear that this Skelski was not mute. But Kaja did not seem to care about the attention; she completely ignored it. It was the mark of a leader. An ability to ignore stares and whispered comments. It was something Agata had never learned about leadership, and it was something that now gave Kaja the upper hand.

“The Skelski have not caused the disappearances or the murders,” Kaja stated. She seemed calm on the surface. But Agata had learned to spot evidence of emotion in indifferent people, and she could sense the anger rolling from her in waves. “And the Skelski have not caused these raids. There may have been Skelski involved, but this has not been sanctioned. I have not allowed this to happen. I have deliberately refrained from allowing Skelski raids or attacks anywhere in these critical first days of the new Reasoner.”

“Why?” Gerda demanded. “You have no reason to stop it. You're Skelski.”

“You assume all Skelski are evil barbarians,” Kaja growled, turning the icy stare on Gerda. “You expect the worse and complain when you get it. And yet, if we ever try to please you, you retaliate with suspicion. Tell me, woman. What is the purpose of playing your human games, if we are only going to be thrown to the ground afterwards?”

“This is not a game,” Gerda said. “This is a war. And you are the antagonist.”

“There are no antagonists in war,” Kaja retorted. “Each side supposes they are in the right. Each side is usually wrong. Victory does not make you the heroes.” Kaja turned her head, looking back to Agata. Agata couldn't look away if she wanted to; she was drowning in that stare. “Your Reasoner knows that we have not caused the murders and disappearances. But will she dare speak up now? Where does she stand in this war?”

Side-taking. They were asking her to take a side. It was a ridiculous proposition. Kaja was either stupidly naïve, or had an ulterior motive here �" a plan to destroy everyone in this Council. Agata was no fool; she knew Kaja could do it. The Reasoner kept her promises. But she also kept her loyalties.

“Gerda is right,” Agata said. She tried to ignore the flash of fury and betrayal in Kaja's yellow eyes. “The Skelski are to blame.”

“We are, are we?” Kaja asked. She sounded completely calm. But again, Agata knew she was not. “Then we'll see, won't we? We'll see the true antagonists.”

She stepped away from her Speaker's podium, much to the shock and horror of the other Speakers. Nobody dared stop her, however. Kaja did not look like the sort of woman anyone wanted to cross, and stopping her would be a direct challenge.

“I suppose you humans think war is a game, do you?” Kaja demanded, glowering at each and every woman in the room. One by one by one. “One that you are so desperate to play.”

“No,” Agata hissed, standing up. Her hands were shaking. “Stop this. I order you to sit.”

Kaja grinned at her. The grin was more unsettling than any glare. “Sit, Skelski, sit, Skelski,” she said in a sing-song voice. “Beat a dog hard enough and you will notice it has a bite.”

She turned on her heel, cloak billowing behind her, and stormed out of the Council Chamber, leaving Agata alone with Speakers who no longer knew what to do.

Merthin stood in her bedroom when Agata got back.

He was standing at one of her many bookshelves, running a single, gloved finger across the spines of the books. The majority of them were boring and had come from their mother. There were only about three fictional books, all of which belonged to Agata personally. Her mother had banned fictional books when she was a child, instead allowing her to absorb Rites of Passage and World of Reason: The History of the Reasoner. They were so dry that Agata often reread them just so she could get to sleep at night. As a child, Agata had convinced Siljie to smuggle in as many fictional books as she could into the palace, and Siljie had happily obliged. Most of them had been discovered and burned by the previous Reasoner, but Agata still had three, and they were still the most important things in her life.

Agata had not seen much of Merthin, her twelve-year-old brother, for the last few days. She'd been far too busy sitting in Council meetings and holding audiences, trying to convince the people that a new Reasoner was not a bad thing. It was difficult, however, when the previous Reasoner had been so cool and detached, able to make decisions with no personal attachments.

Agata was the complete opposite. There was emotion in all that she did, and as Gerda and Siljie liked to remark, this made her difficult to the people. It made her different, and different was the scariest thing in Astraia.

The book Merthin was gazing at was Rites of Passage, though the distasteful look on his face was enough to tell Agata he was not going to be reading it. He turned when he heard her enter, smiled down at the floor, or her shoes, or anything that was not her face. His eyes, when he'd first been born, had been the creepiest thing in existence for Agata. They were completely black, with no whites or irises, and in them, there were strange, golden cracks. His otherworldly eyes were golden fire burning through the cracks of black concrete.

“Good afternoon,” Merthin said, politely inclining his head. Then he went back to staring at the books. It was typical of Merthin, so Agata did not let it bother her.

Instead, she yawned, started to remove the pins from her hair, and asked, “How did you get in?”

There were guards stationed outside her bedroom at all times; of this, everyone in Astraia was aware. They weren't normal guards, either. They were guards who had been specifically trained their whole lives to protect the Reasoner. If they did not, they failed their duty, failed their Code. And if they failed their Code, their souls would forever burn.

“Magic,” answered Merthin simply. From anyone else, it may have sounded sarcastic. But Merthin was always honest. “I simply imagined that I was here, and then I was.”

“That would be extremely helpful for me today,” Agata commented wryly. “That was the worst Council meeting I've ever attended.”

“I heard,” said Merthin.

The Council meeting, and the disaster with Kaja's storming out, had been three hours ago. Agata had ended it soon after the incident with the Skelski ambassador, and she'd given out the order to keep it quiet �" if anyone told anyone outside of the Council Chamber about the incident, they would be killed. No one would know. But Merthin was not just anyone.

“Did you have a vision? Before it happened?” asked Agata.

“I Saw it,” Merthin confirmed. “I would have warned you, but...I felt you needed to see it yourself.”

Agata yawned again, rubbing at one of her pale green eyes with the back of her palm. Nobody liked to comment on either Agata's or Merthin's eyes. Agata's were too much like her father's, and there was no pride in looking like him. Merthin's were the eyes of a seer, and held ridiculously negative connotations because of it. “You did?” asked Agata. “Why is that?”

“Because if I See anything, it is going to happen, sister. I cannot stop it. That's just how it works.”

He paused. It was easy to forget how young Merthin was. It was difficult to really see him through all the magic and soothsaying, through all the walls he had to put up in order to protect himself. For anyone to be a seer was bad in Astraia. For a young boy, it was awful. There was a reason only Speakers were allowed the truth of who Merthin really was.

“You look tired,” Agata informed him. It was true; he did. There were red rings under his eyes, and his cheeks were hollow. His black hair, always lank, now looked scraggly, hanging around his face in thin, unkempt curtains.

Merthin sighed. “Can I take this?” he asked instead of acknowledging her statement.

He was holding one of the three fictional books �" Agata's favourite. It was called One Rose, and it followed the story of a rose who watched her family get taken away from the garden, and went on an adventure to save them from humanity. Agata had read it so often as a child, completely ignorant to the political references. As an adult, politics was all she saw.

“Of course,” she said.

Merthin nodded. “Thank you.”

He held the book close to his chest, as though it was comforting to have it right against his heart. Agata had taught him to read. It hurt now to realise that they would never again share this sibling bond. She was no longer Agata; she was the Reasoner. And Reasoners had no family.

“I did not come just to take one of your books,” Merthin said. He was still looking at her shoes. He found it too difficult to meet anyone's eyes �" it was something Agata would rather die than push.

“Did you See something else?” asked Agata. She was careful to keep her voice gentle. Merthin was not the sort of person who liked loud noises, and simple speech was loud to his sensitive ears.

“In a sense,” Merthin said wryly. “The red-haired boy.”

“Lyosha?”

“Yes. I saw him in a corridor. I was surprised to see a boy running around the palace, so I touched his arm and squeezed.” Touching could trigger Merthin's Sight. If ever he was panicking, touching someone, or squeezing their wrist, could help calm him �" the flashes he saw, the flashes of their memories and their soul, were enough to soothe the boy. “And I saw who he really was, Agata.”

“What did you see?” asked Agata.

Her breath caught in her throat. She was standing a few yards away from him, and yet, she could see his eyes grow larger, as they always did when he was Seeing. She was just fortunate that he was calm. Usually, if he Saw something particularly distressing, he'd be on his knees screaming about death and blood. It was another reason why Merthin was not allowed anywhere near the Council Chamber.

“What did you think of Lyosha?” she said when he didn't answer her previous question.

Merthin tilted his head to one side, a strange, bird-like gesture. Siljie had once said he reminded her of a crow. Small and hiding in the shadows, with the weird eyes and jumpy movements. Agata couldn't help but be reminded of this now. She was not afraid of her brother. He was just rather unsettling when he started Seeing.

“He is a liar,” Merthin said simply. “And he's playing both sides. Skelski but human. Human but Skelski.”

Merthin was completely enveloped in a vision now. The book dropped from his arms as he raised his hands. He looked like he was feeling something in the empty air, twitching relentlessly, gazing into nothing. Agata didn't bother following his gaze. Wherever his eyes were going, it was certainly not here.

“Where does he go?” Merthin asked, but Agata knew it was not a question she was supposed to answer. “Who does he go with? She watches, stares, waits. He does not know. He does not know. Mother to the left, leader to the right, who, who, who? It hurts, it hurts. He whines, 'It hurts!'” His voice rose to a higher pitch, a perfect imitation of Lyosha. “'I don't want it to hurt! Make it stop, make it stop!'” His voice lowered, until it was a husky, strangely familiar accent, “'I will make it all stop. You're safe now. Everything is all right. Everything is going to be all right.'” Back to Lyosha's voice: “'But my mama! They killed my mama! They burned my village to the ground!'” Back to the deep voice: “'Hush, little one. There is nothing you can do for them now. Come with me, and we can help you. I promise we can help you.'”

Abruptly, Merthin let out a long, rasping gasp, as though he was struggling for breath. His knees buckled beneath him, and he fell to the floor. Still, he kept his hands in the air, and his eyes were larger than ever; he was still swaddled in a vision, a million memories Agata could not see.

“He goes with her. No other choice...she treats him kindly. Feeds him, keeps him warm. He is happy. So happy. Then one day, someone comes, someone else, another Skelski with dark, dark eyes, no yellow, where is the familiar yellow? The other Skelski comes in the dead of night; the Southerners are hunting; this Skelski is Northern. She takes him in her arms, tells him: 'It is time.'” His voice was deep again, but this time, there was no smokiness to the voice. It was purely terrifying. The fact that Merthin could recreate it so well sent shivers down Agata's spine. “'It is time to come, to go, to leave. It is time to do as you were meant to do.'” Lyosha's voice: “'What do I do? Where are the others?'” The other voice: “'They do not matter anymore. You come with me. You train. Then you go to the palace. I have foreseen it. Foreseen it all. We need the Reasoner.'”

Another gasp came from Merthin's lips. This time, his hands fell from the air and clutched at his head. From deep within his chest, a dry, wretched sob came, spilling from his mouth.

“The Reasoner, the Reasoner,” he continued. His voice was too fast to pick up half of the words; to anyone who hadn't heard one of his visions before, he would be impossible to understand. Agata, however, could just about figure out what he meant. “Green eyes. Pale eyes. They stare at her, gaze at her from across the room, she wants to dance, she wants to, wants to, wants, wants. Poison, poison. She's drinking poison and she forgets. Everything drips from her mind. She, she, her, her. What are they doing? They are staring. Staring, gazing, staring, gazing, 'I shouldn't care.'” The husky voice returned. Agata could only watch in shock, uncertain of what was going on. This was not Lyosha's memory. This was something that would happen. “But she does! She does. She needs to.”

One last gasp came from Merthin. Now, he dropped completely to the floor, lying there in a bundle of strangeness and Sight. Agata had backed into the wall at some point during his twitching tale, and now gazed down at him with heavy breaths, wondering when he was going to stop and wishing that he would.

But he was not yet done. He had one last thing to say.

“Do not go to Skeleton Crown,” he hissed.

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