The Autumn Republic

“What happened?”

She shook her head, knowing she must look the fool. Her cheeks would be red, tears streaking down her face. This wasn’t how a Privileged behaved. She felt Bo put a hand on either side of her face as he forced her to look him in the eyes. “What happened?” he asked again.

“I killed them.” Her voice sounded so pitiful, and she hated herself for it.

“Come on.” Bo took her by the hand. He led them through the camp with his arm around her, shielding her from onlookers as a brother might shield his grieving sister. She remembered him asking questions, and her blubbering out the answers, and soon they were back in her tent. He lit a lantern and hung it from the cross pole. “Tell me,” he said.

Nila had managed to regain her composure, and after a few deep breaths she began. “I was back with the baggage and the Kez managed to make a run at us. There were a lot of men-they outnumbered the men guarding the baggage. I was so angry that I couldn’t do anything. I just kept trying and trying to make the connection.” She mimed snapping her fingers, but was sure not to let them touch. “I thought if I could make fire, I could help, and suddenly I did. The right gesture and it flowed from me so easily. I ran out in front of the defenders and I just let loose.”

“Fire?” Bo asked quietly.

She nodded. “It was like watching a wave roll across the plains. I tried to control it, but it just grew and grew and then I passed out.” Nila felt the tears coming again. “When I woke up, the inspector had dragged me to safety. He tried to hide the truth from me, but I saw the scorched plain from afar. I killed them.”

Bo produced a flask from his pocket and handed it to Nila. She took several swallows gratefully.

“Passing out is common when you draw too much power and don’t properly control it,” Bo said. “It’s the body’s defense against destroying yourself with the Else. How many?”

“How many what?”

“Did you kill.”

Nila looked away. “Thousands.” When she looked up, she expected her own self-loathing to be apparent on Bo’s face. After all, she was a monster, wasn’t she? She had murdered so many with just a few gestures.

Instead, Bo’s eyebrows were raised. “Bloody good show, girl!”

She punched him in the shoulder.

“Ow. No, I mean it. That’s amazing. You saved the entire Wings baggage camp, probably thousands of lives, all by yourself.”

She stared at him, uncomprehending. “Can’t you see how horrid that is? So many lives gone in an instant! They didn’t even get the chance to defend themselves!”

“Nila,” Bo said, his expression sobering, “you did an incredible thing. You can’t blame yourself for that.”

“But I do! Are you so insulated against death? Are you so hard of heart as not to realize what terrible power we hold in our hands?” She held her hands out to him, silently willing him to cut them off. Her cheeks were cold with tears, and suddenly she felt frigid. She began to shiver.

Bo frowned at her for a moment, then sighed. He took the blanket off her cot and pulled it around her shoulders, then moved closer to her. He took her by one hand, stroking her fingers as he spoke softly.

“They made me kill my first when I was fourteen,” he said. “Some slave they’d brought in for the purpose-illegal, I know, but legality means very little in a royal cabal. She was probably around seventeen. The olive skin of a Gurlish, with one droopy eye.” Bo sniffed. “I refused to kill her four times, and they beat me soundly each time I did. Then, the fifth time, they told me that if I didn’t kill her, I would be a dead man myself. I still refused, and they told me that if I didn’t kill her, they would slaughter Taniel and Tamas and Vlora. My only friends. Bloody idiot that I was, I believed them. I couldn’t let that happen and so when they asked again, I killed the slave girl as quickly as I could.”

There was the streak of a tear on Bo’s face. He wiped it away when he noticed Nila was looking at him.

“Why would they make you do that?” she asked. The cruelty of it astonished her. To make a fourteen-year-old boy murder in cold blood?

“To harden me. To show me what life in a royal cabal is really like. I tried to run away seven, maybe eight times. They beat me a lot for that. I was the magus’s own apprentice and he said he wasn’t going to let my talent go to waste just because I was weak-willed. Pit, I hated that man. I did everything I could to make his life miserable: embarrassed him in public, started bedding his own concubines by the time I was sixteen. I even took a shit in his bed once.” Bo chuckled. “And every bruise he gave me, every markless, sorcerous torture they inflicted on me, I used to reinforce my hate. I even swore to kill him, but Tamas took care of that for me.”

Nila felt hollow inside, her energy and emotions sapped. “Is that what I’m to become? Someone driven by hate and self-loathing?”

“Hey now,” Bo said. “I’ve never been driven by my self-loathing. I keep that locked up tight in the back of my head.”