ASAIO

We don’t let Yaselle even entertain the idea of sendin Ana to a Slaughter House.

The Slaughter Houses are supposed to compensate you with a piece of your loved one’s flesh as a way to celebrate them in their physical form.

That never happens. You just wait in long, long lines for the chance of a bite. And, even then, I have a feelin the flesh the Butchers and Bloodmixers hand out on those stone platters are some random Soul’s. But we get rid of the dead for free, they say. It Purifies the Soul, to lay the dead to rest in a way that’s nodded by the Suns. Everyone gets a proper goodbye. Even if they ain’t loved. They lie.

I don’t want to look at the body. I can’t.

I try to seek out the leaves and the whisperin branches, searchin for some otherness that’ll fill the slowly tearin hole in the middle of my chest. There’s no way that Ana’s dead. No way I’ve outlived another Garnet.

It’s as though the trees are tryin to respond to me, tryin to offer me solace. I remember, while fightin the Lime Men, they spoke to me, speakin of poision, but I think that might have been the trick of the mind. My head’s poundin so much that I ain’t sure what’s the trick of the mind and what ain’t. I yearn for whatever voice I heard though. I need a distraction.

“Vip,” I hear Lahla say. “Vip, I—”

“Don’t—no one speak to me. Fuck.”

***

Ana was never religious. She didn’t care to have her Soul looked after by the Mothers and Fathers of the Temples and then repurposed for the good of the people in the Slaughter Houses. She wanted to be burned to a crisp, turned into a beautiful damned pile of ash.

Yaselle comes in and says somethin bout our hidin here bein dangerous. She says somethin bout our numbers and our group, but I don’t really hear her. I remember her sayin that she’s gonna move us out of this place in one or two Moons, get us into a safe and secure location in the Mini City. I’ll begin work with her in those one or two Moons, too. I notice vaguely that this Yaselle is different than the last one I spoke to . She got a longer face and narrower eyes. Even the green shroomlight hits her face differently.

She promises us arson-flower for Ana. We want to burn her as soon as possible, and not in the slums.

At some point, she takes the silver-haired boy with her, the one Asher saved. Heish. Vernon snaps at her, demandin that we keep ‘the boy’--cause he don’t know Heish’s name. She says somethin bout this bein the deal, but I’m already havin a hard time rememberin the deal. I thought it was that we give her Heish once she proved I would be safe in her hands.

I want to scream at the thought. My life ain’t worth no more than that white haired boy’s.

Maybe losin Ana was punishment for not puttin up a fight right when that deal was made.

I grab onto the boy’s wrist when she takes him, sayin nothin.

“Asaio,” Yaselle warns, and I let go. My tongue is paralyzed.

If Death is a god, a deity like the Suns, She is random at best, but not meaningless. Never meaningless, I think, as I stare at Ana’s rottin body.

Yaselle brings us all food and tends to our wounds, but nothin heals.

***

Flynn and Ellie-Darlin have fallen asleep. The layout of our warehouse is so ingrained in our minds that everyone takes the same corners they had back home. The home that’s gone, burned away. The two of em breath against my leg while I run a hand through young Uyala’s hair, her head in Seht’s lap. A few of the shroomlamps in this tunnel have been blown out. Uyala only sleeps with us cause she loves Seht so much. Otherwise, I’m sure she’d rather sleep with Kim, who’s so much closer to her age. Only ragged breathin can be heard, labored breathin—nothin like the panicked heaves that were uttered just an hour earlier.

“I’m so sick of this,” Seht says.

“Yeah.”

“I feel bad for Vip.”

I just nod. Uyala lets out a little groan. “You should really go to sleep, brightness,” Seht tellsl her. She shakes her head and buries her face into Seht’s chest.

She never really knew Ana, but we all looked up to her, especially the other girls.

“I want to die,” Uyala whispers.

It’s startlin to hear that from such a sweet, high-pitched, innocently young voice.

And it resurfaces an old memory of my own, from when I was younger and when Sherald died and I wasn’t copin very well, but I push that thought aside at the threat of the tears prickin. I remain silent for a few seconds, tryin to think of a proper way to console someone that really shouldn’t have such an innate understandin of death.

The only thing I can think is, If you all up and die, I’ll be left alone. I bite my lip. Hard.

Enlightened.

“You don’t want that.” It’s so soft I ain’t sure if I said it or thought it.

She just shakes her head against Seht, who leans to kiss her on the forehead.

“Uyala, you don’t want that,” I repeat.

“Nah, I think we all do, a little bit,” Seht says. “It isn’t worth it, though. It’s stupid, plain and simple. You aren’t stupid, are you, Uyala?”

He’s crushin a stone to bits with his enhanced strength in the hand that Uyala can’t see.

***

Shis-Aspinova Prays in the back of the tunnel-room, clickin her tongue to an unheard rhythm. She’s been Prayin for a long time. She tried to get me to Pray with her, but I refused, and the hurt in her eyes was somethin I ain’t ever seen of her before. I didn’t care. I just want to sleep, but I can’t. I don’t want to close my eyes. Seht and Uyala are curled up together, besides Ellie-Darlin and Nep and Pen. I stare at their bodies. I feel their warmth breath on my hands. I keep those hands over their noses, picturin how it will feel when their breaths go cold without warnin.

Whispers in my ears. Whispers of leaves from outside the tunnel. I’ve been stretchin out my consciousness for so long, a buzzin has developed in my ears. I’m strainin myself, I know it. It might be the only way I’m gonna be able to fall asleep at this point. It feels like my mind is bein pulled in eight different directions.

It won’t work. The moment I don’t want to pass out, I can’t. I let go of my hold on the branches and leaves, and a thick wave of exhaustion hits me, like someone’s just slapped me over the head. I suck in a sharp breath.

Flynn is in a different corner, with his bag of runes. He ain’t from round here, and he ain’t Yevanian, so he don’t Pray like most people in Mecraentos. I don’t know what those runes do, but he lays them on the ground and kneels before them.

Shis and Flynn sit with as much distance between em as possible.

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I stand up and walk to Shis. “Shis,” I say, “how long do Enlighteneds live for?”

She don’t respond to me till she finishes her Prayer.

She stares at me for a moment before respondin, like she can’t believe she’s even lookin at me.

“Enlightened Everleigh is the eldest, and she’s yet to die, Enlightened,” she answers.

I knew that answer already.

“Really. Please don’t call me Enlightened,” I say, much softer than I’d meant to.

Without another word, I stand up and lay down besides my sleepin friends. We don’t pry, us Garnets, but I know that I’ve probably seen more death than any of em. In all its forms. I reach my consciousness out as far as it can stretch, to as many trees and brush-bundles and leaves as possible. The mere effort knocks me out. I can make out the fragment of distant words, but I no longer want to hear them. I don’t want to know if they are real or not. If they are, if I really am a chosen one of the Suns, then it ain’t as Asher says. Nothin just is. Black spots appear and my head hits the ground, hard.

***

“Don’t be stupid, Vernon. Don’t you dare walk out—”

Vip grabs Vernon by the shoulder and forces him to slow before he can reach the widely open exit of the room we’re kept in.

“I’m gonna find them,” Vernon hisses. He has one of the muskets slung over his shoulder. Just like that, he extends the length of his arm so he keeps walkin even though Vip’s got a hold on him. I gasp when Vip twists Vernon’s arm and throws him to the ground, effectively breakin the damn thing.

Shimmy and Lahla rush to pull Vip off Vernon as he yells obscenities. From the hallway, I hear Yaselle’s Bugs tramplin through to deal with us.

“You broke my arm! You broke my damn arm!”

“You’ll end up just as dead as Ana if you go,” Vip snaps as Lahla grabs her lover by the collar and whispers furiously into his ear. Her eyes are red and puffy. I ain’t ever seen Lahla wear any emotion besides utter blankness and the occasional smirk for Vernon.

Mustletop’s yellin somethin and then Genavieve is involved, somehow, because of somethin real smart that Shimmy said to Mustletop and then they’re all yellin over Vip and Vernon and then Vip and Vernon are yellin again. I just remain in my corner, one hand over my right ear, one hand holdin Ellie-Darlin’s. Little Kim cries and tells Uyala they should run away together. Seht goes into that way that he always does: utterly lifeless. Starin. Like he’s a statue rather than a person.

Flynn plays with his bag of runes. I realize I must have been out for less than an hour.

Flynn ain’t said a single word since Ana’s passin. When he has an episode, like the one I think happened when I knocked out the first time, sometimes he won’t speak for Moons.

For some reason, I focus on his long, dexterous fingers and those round stones. The runes are painted with blood in symbols I don’t understand. It is as though no words utter matter. No sounds matter except for the sound of those stones clickin together. Click. Click. Click. A low, reverberatin click. Click. Click.

Vernon says, his voice hoarse, “I’ve got to find them, I’ve got to. Ana would do the same for me.”

Just then, Asher appears in the entrance, Yaselle behind him. HIs dark black eyes are once more expressionless.

It dawns upon me just how peculiar Asher’s appearance is. His pale skin. The dark eyes and the bright hair, all beneath a pitch black cloak. It is as though he ain’t a real person but an omen.

A third body appears, but I can’t see it over all the heads.

“Shut up! Shut up!” Shimmy yells at the already yellin and crazy-eyed garnets. “Suns. Oh, Suns!”

I stand up. That third body is a face so beaten and bruised it’s unrecognizable, except for the singular eye. The other, empty in its socket. Crimson, with dirt all over his face, dried blood on his shoulders, and his single eye red and bloodshot. There is no relief upon seein him. He drops a leather-skin bag to the ground.

***

Crass died at the hands of the Five Pitters, strangled then burned for information. She tried to swim out to the docks and failed. Malloo died in a struggle against the lickers, or that’s what Asher assumed happened. He couldn’t get to the lickers, but he hunted down the young Pitters that tortured Crass and cut off their heads.

It was not Crass or Malloo’s body in the bag, but the two heads that Asher obtained, and a small flask with their blood.

“If you believe that drinking the blood of your enemies is retribution,” he says. Only Vernon drinks.

***

It’s dangerous, but Yaselle lets us burn Ana’s body in an extremely large pit that she had her Bugs carve out, just for us, to better keep the smoke from alertin the lickers or any gangs in the City. The pit is blocked by a huge plague-ridden tree that also covers much of the tunnel, one that Vernon and Seht and Ana and I clambored out of, thinkin that we had outsmarted Yaselle.

For Crass and Malloo, we burn a necklace that Lahla had been given from Crass and a paintin that Flynn had done for Malloo—one that she never let him destroy. It is one of very few paintins he will never destroy, not even when it burns.

We can’t burn them at night, as Ana would have liked, beneath the sweetness of the Moons. Nighttime is when the gangs are most active and the authorities make their ‘necessary arrests’ and ‘rounds’ for the Slaughter Houses. No one wants to be doin business like that with the Suns watchin.

So the Suns judge us. Beneath a blood-red sky. We ignore the Bugs that have formed a perimeter around us. Dozens of em.

The others have me whisper to the trees round us and wrap her in a tight cocoon, layin her to the ground. I’m glad cause it gives me somethin to concentrate on. It drains me. The trees whisper angrily to me, but not in the way they did when I killed the Lime Men. No words like, locotatuira are poisonous when consumed. But it’s hard to get the branches to comply. It’s like, right when I need em the most, our connection is waverin and they’re just some hollow extension of me that don’t work right, like a sleepin arm with its pins and needles. At some point, I completely stop to let out a guttural cry, then pick up Ana’s cocoon again.

We each take our turn speakin to our dead. I am first, upon the insistence of a few of the Garnets that the Enlightened must be first.

I don’t even remember what I say, it is so little and so meaningless. Nothin I can give has my Soul in it. I hope Ana can forgive me for that.

Shis and Ellie-Darlin and Seht all offer Prayers. The others memories. Vernon and Lahla, I know, offer long words. But I can hardly listen to those either. Flynn a prayer of his own type.

But it is Vip who lights Ana, ignitin the arson-flower.

“Ananiva,” he starts. “You are the Purest thing I have ever known in this world. You are my true Soulmate. There is so much I could say, but I will wait for-for—”

He turns away and covers his mouth. After a few moments, he leans down to whisper what he wanted to say instead to the cocoon. He gives a sincere goodbye to Malloo and Crass, but I know those words are static and forced.

I can’t watch this again, but I feel oddly hardened to it all. Of course this Moon would come. It finally has. Maybe it’s even relievin. More black spots in my vision.

When she burns, she is the most gorgeous bouquet of scaldin-hot flame I have ever seen.

***

I sit across Yaselle at a stone table. We are in a different room slightly further into the tunnel. She rambles a bit to me bout the history of this tunnel or somethin, but it all goes in one ear and out the other. In front of me is the stone plate, the Code of Conduct, that now binds me to her. Me, in exchange for her completely providin for the Garnets. That Vernon and Ana signed.

When Vernon and Ana signed, Yaselle taught them signatures are like an art. They are unique to each person, drawn in the black plague-ridden blood from one’s fingertip, so as to be unique in two different aspects. I realize that Ana’s signature on that stone tablet is the last physical remainin part of her. It is the last thing she will have left a permanent mark on.

I can’t look at it.

“Enlightened,” she says. “I am truly sorry.”

“They died because of me.”

Crass was tortured. Because of me. Her body may never be found. Neither will Malloo’s.

“No, Enlightened Asaio. They died because your friends were too idealistic and delusional to accept my deal and protection,” she says. “It is easy to risk everything for an idea, Asaio. We all like to imagine we are the exception to the hierarchy of power, don’t we, Enlightened? When we really have something to fight for? Asaio?” she reaches out and squeezes my hand. “No. Real change takes time and effort and training. Asaio, what is it you want? I know that, soon, you will be under my jurisdiction completely, but I want to know that your needs are met.”

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I wonder how this stone plate can keep me under her jurisdiction.

There’s somethin in her eyes. A softness to em.

“I don’t know,” I answer. “I don’t want nothin right now. We… we’re goin to be safe with you watchin over us, right?”

“Right, Enlightened. When you are with me, no harm can come to you. I will be your sanction. I promise.”

“Okay.”

“Do you think you are ready to start working with me tomorrow?”

“Yeah.”

“Thank you, Asaio. You are strong.”

I don't know why that does it. The tears begin to flow without me even feelin em. My throat tightens and my hands shake. I ain’t surrounded by any of my Garnets. Just a strange woman with a veil and white gloves. I try to cover my mouth, to prevent any sound from comin out, but I fail. I cry, for the first time since hearin of Ana’s death, my heart beatin so fast it physically hurts and each breath I take feels like I’m swallowin acid.

Yaselle, her mouth slightly open in alarm, gets out of her seat and wraps her arms around me. She says nothin and I think I mutter incoherently and she just nods. She lets me bury her head into her shoulder.