Everything once whole
now shattered all around me,
broken glass and sharp edges,
all angles,
all glittering light
bouncing and reflecting
becoming something glimmering
and somehow solid
a field of diamonds
oh how I wish just for once
to be hard as a diamond,
so I can begin to become
something glimmering too
without cutting myself
on myself.
what’s on your mind when you’re
looking at the flaws I have tried
so desperately to conceal as though
I could paste on yet one more
layer one more bit of cover one more
thing to misdirect your
attention I want your
attention but only carefully curated
attention somehow on me and yet not on
me at all all at once what’s on your
mind when you see all of
me what do you see when I stand here naked and all of my
flaws are up for your
understanding what’s on your
mind when you see what I
don’t want you to see?
This is Issue #85 of DeathWatch, Book II: tentatively called Heart Of Ilona, an ongoing Serial. Click that link to go find DeathWatch, the first in the series, or start from the beginning of Book II!
Happy Reading!
* * *
“Secta?”
The knock at the door rousted him; Secta jerked his head up off the table, panting, and immediately put his hands to his temples, uttering a brief, mewling cry.
He opened the door, looking hollow-eyed and unslept.
The servant who served him much in the same way he’d served Jet stared at him, gape-mouthed. “Sir, you–” He cut himself off, and simply kept staring.
“What?” Secta said, somewhat impatient. “Is it time to leave?”
“Ah, yes… Sir, it is, but you–” He gestured at Secta weakly. “You do not appear to be ready, I could–”
“Of course I’m ready,” Secta growled. “Let us go to the Domina; no doubt she is wondering why you haven’t fetched me yet–”
“But, sir, you–”
Secta strode out of his room, away from the door jamb that had been holding him up. He made it one, two, three steps, and then promptly collapsed. He stared at his own hand as it lay on the floor, fingertips weakly pawing at the marble.
He watched the feet of the servant running away, down the hall, slapping on that same marble, until they were out of sight, and then he closed his eyes.
* * *
The declaration of House Venustus and its succession was simple enough; the house did not even need to arrive, but would be at the coronation to formally kneel before the Queen. Jet marveled over the beauty in Secta’s script, at how he had so carefully made certain of the family’s future — he found his heart swell with pride at the thought of his famulo. Soon, he told himself silently. Soon, there will be time to speak, finally, of his heart and mine.
* * *
When they arrived in the hall, Jet felt a measure of relief that he had not realized would come — arriving in the great hall with the whole of the city expectant, he could not help but feel as he did the time he and Key walked into vespers late.
Every head within the massive chapel had turned to see them — he and Kieron had been holding hands nearly until that moment.
Now, they all turned to look, but there would be no Headmaster to issue demerits or promise punishment of any kind. Now, he kept his hand in Lucida’s; she gave his a squeeze as they walked to their thrones in full view of the courtiers and other house representatives. Delegates from the other city states bowed their heads as they went by; everyone knelt with their heads down until Jet and Lucida passed.
They sat, and the ceremony itself began.
Amidst chimes and incense, priests and officials transferred power from Immanis’s line to Lucida. They laid a radiant crown of carnelian and jade on her brow — it looked heavy in the priest’s hands, but she held her head high and looked out over the sea of expectant faces, and beamed with joy.
Jet was recognized officially as her consort; he took off his mask and wore a circlet on his painted brow.
When the fanfare was over, the people were jubilant — vidscreens outside showed the whole ceremony to the city, while vidscreens inside showed the court the celebrations within the city. People marveled at the sheer number of pilgrims who’d come to witness and pay their respects.
Soon, it was time for the Houses to kneel before the Queen and her Consort — they did this with great adoration and humility, proclaiming their loyalty and offering up gifts.
When Gemma and Acer knelt before Lucida, she raised Acer and kissed his lips and then his forehead, thanking him for the multitudes of soldiers he brought. She touched Gemma’s shoulder, and they nodded to one another, wordless.
Jet touched Lucida’s cheek when House Plaga stepped away; she smiled for him, her jaw clenched, the smile forced, but well in place, not at all in danger of slipping. Lucida was a woman who knew well how to handle duty, and the two faces of royalty.
House after hours, city state after city state — Jet waited for House Venustus, but when the military delegations came, he saw the look of frustration on Coryphaeus’s and Nixus’s faces as they each knelt.
House Venustus would not be coming, for some reason.
Doubtless, court gossips would be speaking of it for heavens-knew-how-long, but largely, it went unremarked. There were so many people who had knelt, so many delegations, so many houses, and there was still so much to do.
The ceremony itself came to an end, marked by the priests and officials declaring it so, but then Jet stood before the monitors that showed his face to the world that watched him. He smiled his sharp-toothed grin, and raised his hands. The people within and without the palace went wild with adoration. He gestured for Lucida to join his side, and the people grew louder. Even noble families within the marble hall lifted their voices and stamped their feet, shouting, calling their support.
“My people! Ilona! All of her sister states! The time has come. I spoke to you last night of our enemies and what they mean to do to our beautiful country — what they have done already. I asked you for your loyalty, for your alliance, for your willingness to fight, to bleed, and yes, to die in service for your fellow citizen. Today, we celebrate with you. Tonight, we take to the skies to vanquish an enemy so dishonorable, they come crawling in the night without a formal declaration of war. Tonight, we show them they have no chance at extinguishing our light!”
And with that, he kissed Lucida rather hungrily, and then put on his painted mask. He took off his ceremonial robes and showed off the knives strapped to his painted skin, strapped to his braccae. His golden eyes were lit from within, and he roared aloud, the city’s Guardian come to life before them, challenging the intruders that were coming to destroy the family he’d made for himself.
“Vivat Venator!” The nobles, the palace, the city cried. “Vivat Ilona!”
* * *
What’s a good day?
Is it when he wakes up calmly and takes the pills she leaves out for him?
Is it when he waits for her, if he gets up before her?
Is it when he doesn’t break a dish in frustration, when his hands don’t work the way he wants them to?
Is it when he reads the papers, watches the news, and can string together a conversation with her that doesn’t blank out in the middle?
Is it a good day when his eyes are clear and focused?
She’ll take those days; she’ll take those days if she can get them. She counts herself lucky when his hand briefly cups her cheek, tender, fever warm. He says nothing, but the gesture, coupled with the way he flicks that one long green braid back out of her face, eases her heart.
The coat was thrown away; she bought him a new one. The cat earned a place of honor in his closet, where she would lovingly deposit hair balls and dead mice in his shoes.
That’s for wrapping me up in your coat and imprisoning me where I can’t get to the pigeons, human.
But she also curls up in his lap and doesn’t dig her nails in, much.
That day, she found herself smiling, caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror — tired but recognizable, still. Mostly.
They listened to his albums and they watched the news and read the papers. He was quiet, like he often was, and she caught him watching her carefully now and then, so she changed her movements to be as transparent as possible, always in his view, always slow enough that there was no worry for surprises, for any tricks. She was light and casual, snarky, easy.
He was quiet and angry, but only the angry he always had been, a slow burning angry against a world that had taken so much from them, from everyone. The man who fought the injustices with calculated strikes and an unstoppable determination and a soul-wrenching need to do what needed doing.
She felt like she did in the first few weeks of knowing him, not quite tentative, not quite on eggshells, but testing boundaries, making certain of the certainties.
I do this.
You do that.
I move like this.
You move like that.
They fell into the rhythm they fell into, and by sunset, she was exhausted and exhilarated as Jethro Tull blared in the background, and he chopped onions for dinner, scowling at the cat, but feeding it pieces of cheese when he thought she wasn’t looking.
He caught her staring, saw the tears in her navy eyes and his crooked grin twisted that tiny fraction more, the too-blue of his eyes focusing on her, bright and promising. “Hey,” he said, crossing to her.
“Hey,” she laughed, blushing, wiping her eyes. “Sorry, I–”
“Don’t be sorry,” he said, shaking his head. He reached to put an arm around her, and nodded to the window out to the fire escape from the kitchen, saying, “That one’s unlocked some nights.”
“Oh?” She said, chuckling, wiping her eyes, wondering what the joke was. He was probably right; she probably forgot now and then. It was good he could remember the details.
“You’re a good kid,” he said, and her heart sank, suddenly and without warning. She watched his face, but felt a drowning, wrenching loss to realize the difference wasn’t easy to see anymore. Those too-blue eyes looked just as clear as they had all day.
And it had been such a good day, hadn’t it?
The low rasp of his voice was so him that it burned as he whispered to her, “I’ll cover your exit when y’run. Keep ’em from following.”
This is Issue #84 of DeathWatch, Book II: tentatively called Heart Of Ilona, an ongoing Serial. Click that link to go find DeathWatch, the first in the series, or start from the beginning of Book II!
Happy Reading!
* * *
Shaking his head, Secta continued. “Only in his blood will burn Ilona’s fire. His blood will bear the one True Gift of Ilona, eternal. Wait. His blood will bear it eternally? Or his blood will bear eternity? Or it is that Ilona’s True Gift shall be eternal?”
He groaned, pushing the book away from himself, and got back up to pace again, picking up a different book, one he’d been looking at back in his own room, in the palace, where he felt he belonged.
He wondered if the room had been cleaned out, when he asked for his books.
Would he be allowed to go back?
His head throbbed, and he set down the book he was holding, half-dropping it. It flopped open to the page discussing the various blood gifts of house Venator, and he forced himself to read and reread the pages where scribes had recorded what the various generations of House Venator’s sons and daughters were capable of doing.
From the mighty Immanis, who could command with his voice, to a ‘never-spoken-of-aloud’ broken branch of the family tree centuries ago whose gift seemed to be for fecundity — and yet nearly every one of his forty-six children by seventeen different brides died at birth, upon taking their first breath. Sixteen of the brides died in their second, third, or forth stint in the birthing chair.
“What happened to the seventeenth?” Secta wondered aloud. “That poor girl.” He rubbed his temples, staring at the words. He found himself smiling in congratulations for the woman who rid herself of the seed before it took deep root. She withdrew from the throne and lived out the remainder of her blessedly long life as Dowager Queen, allowing the throne to pass to her husband’s brother, whose son was somewhat sickly and so immediately had his grandson succeed him, and thereafter, the line continued on and on and on, down to Immanis.
“And now to Lucida,” he said quietly. “And then presumably to the sons or daughters she may have with the Guardian.
Three thousand years of an unbroken bloodline — unheard of in other lands, in other cultures but simply accepted as a way of life within Intemeratus Posito. That other leaders’ lines could not withstand time meant they were weak.
“If the seed Gemma attempted to plant even took. And what if it did not? What if Lucida bore no children? The line would die with her. Would Ilona survive such a thing? Would the Guardian be looked to, to continue? Would his blood become the new line, or would they view him as the thing that had robbed Ilona of its Legacy? Perhaps–”
The throbbing in his head returned, and Secta glanced up at the clock. It would be time to go, soon. The thought of seeing Jet again made his heart race, and in turn, made his headache feel crushing. “Gods, my head,” he whispered aloud.
He pulled the book containing the high speech back to him and struggled again to go over it, pressing his fingers against pages so thin they were almost translucent. “Only his blood — his blood only. His blood will only carry — no.”
Secta felt the pain radiate behind his eyes toward the back of his head, a spike driven through him, impaling his thoughts, making it hard to get them out. He remembered the way Gemma had lied, how he had caught her at her horrible schemes, how he had confronted her, and she had seemed so afraid, so pained, perhaps even ready to confess, or at the very least, stop, once she’d been caught.
But then also, he remembered how she had murdered him.
The first strike of the candlestick had not quite caught him by surprise. He’d seen the way Gemma watched what was about to happen to him. Someone else had swung the blow, but she had held his hands, been on her knees, begging him.
He remembered the way he saw his own blood spatter against her breasts as he’d fallen into her, no longer able to move. He remembered there had been another strike, but by then, the cold had come to suffuse his limbs, and he had been blinded by something he only later understood was death itself, come to claim him.
He remembered waking up on the floor, after. There had been fire and pain, but it was the sort of pain that was half-pleasure, searing through him from root to voice, playing sparks on the back of his tongue, leading him back to life, burning him clean of the chill of death.
Where was that fire, now? All he felt was cold. Tired.
He remembered, suddenly, the space in between. He felt his throat tighten, his body tremble. “No,” he breathed. “No, please.”
He ground his teeth, tightening his hands into fists, refusing to acknowledge the dark, the black, the void that had come, before the fire, before salvation and rebirth. The nothing that had surrounded him, unending. “No,” he insisted. “I am whole. I am Secta. I am beloved. Favored.”
Nothing answered him; silence mocked him easily — Secta panted, there at the table, panicked, but opened his eyes to find that the day was growing faintly brighter, that the world was exactly as he’d left it only moments ago. “I am safe,” he said softly. “I am whole. I am beloved. I am favored. I am Secta.”
Sitting at the table, Secta felt his heart thunder in his chest, his head pound, the chill of his own death creeping around the edges of his consciousness. “Only his blood,” Secta whispered, the realization dawning. “Oh, my Jet. Nothing truly lasts, does it? Beloved or not, I do not have the same time you have.”
He closed his eyes and put his face in his hands, exhausted and pained. Any minute, he had to leave — to go to the coronation. Any minute now.
“I just need to rest,” he whispered, laying his head down on the table. “Gods, I just need to rest, just a moment.”
“Just a–”
* * *
