The next few seconds were a blur.
Edmar was five feet away one moment, and the next, his knuckles were deeply embedded into the cloth of Remus’ apron. Remus gagged, spittle flinging from his mouth. With little more than milliseconds to register the barrage of blows, he struggled to keep his increasingly fleeting vision clear, all the air left clinging to his winded lungs surrendering even their passing remnants.
Another strike was all it took to fling him back another dozen paces, and by that time, the Death-Marked could hardly register the round-house kick threatening to crack his jaw. It was sure to have fractured it, if nothing more. Dazed, shrapnel from the piles of debris beneath him jutting into his back, and piercing the skin of his left calf, Remus’ better judgement began to return in slow, gradual whisperings of reason. It rarely made appearances nowadays, but he was starting to feel very convinced that this whole ordeal had been a rather bad idea.
Hands latching onto the dislodged rock around him — either its tarmac was of an incredibly weak mix, or the tax-collector was hiding more than just ageing joints in those old arms of his — Remus scurried backwards, his hands creating frantic rowing motions against the road to propel him. Inch by inch, he ascended a mound of upheaved stone and shrapnel, pebbles of which perished to dust with every desperate swipe.
Edmar appeared by his side, moving so suddenly that Remus' human vision hadn’t registered any movement. Grasping him by the hair, where he was dangled like the human equivalent of a rabid canine, the man cackled. “Feel like giving up?”
“Nev-”
The ground appeared to spring up in front him, and a beaten Remus was met with a mouthful of concrete. Body spasming by its effort, he trembled upwards on twig-like arms — only for a booted foot to force him down once more.
“I really hate punching down like this, Remus.” The man spoke wistfully between swattings of the foot. “You’re making me resort to some very nasty deeds.”
Edmar’s words fell on deaf ears, his speech hollowed and empty. The heel of his boot dug into Remus’ shoulder deeper, causing a most frustrated moisture to materialise in the crevices of the boy’s eyes.
Remus’ shame was like none other he had ever experienced, and that alone was saying much. Like an ubiquitous presence gripping him from head to toe, imperceivable to the human eye, but quietly brutalising him nonetheless. Mortification given a vessel to enact its deepest desires, to punish him for his inadequacy; his failure. Not only was Edmar by law right in his actions, he had inflicted hell on Remus’ brutalised body without sparing the effort to activate his Mark. But even considering the embarrassment of all that, what had stung him the most? Fuelling Remus’ own indignities to pain him further?
The fact that the man was holding back, even only relying on his bodily strength. And greatly.
It had never before struck Remus the entire worlds of power that separated the Divine Ranks. What had been put into his drink for him to consider pulling something on one who had climbed that ladder, with vast success, where he could never possibly dream of ascending its first step?
Finally, Edmar stood still, passively observing Remus’ ruined form struggling back into a standing position, limping leg and all. The streets were silent, a trail of blood and cracked stone the only sign to indicate the one-sided beatdown that had just occurred. The man whistled, hands behind his back, and advanced in long, exaggerated strides. His robes were perfectly, absolutely clean. Not a crumple in sight.
Glancing down at his own attire, Remus saw a shredded collection of slitted ribbons, just barely holding the form of a tunic and apron. He was fitted into the rags of a failure, and he’d never before more closely related to such a label.
“The Inklings, Remus. Hand them over and you can save yourself any further humiliation. Though, I’m sure this little encounter of ours has supplied you with enough to last a lifetime, but there’s always more to be earned, if you wish.”
“Damn you Edmar,” he managed to murmur, a line of blood drizzling down his purpled cheek. “Damn you to hell and back.”
He may have been a sore fighter, but Remus sold himself on being anything but a quitter. Whether that made him a fool or not was up to others to decide, but right here, right now, he would not give in. He would fight until his legs could no longer uphold his weight, until consciousness left his beaten pulp of a body, until-
“Remus!”
Swivelling round — only narrowly avoiding tripping over himself in the process — the Death-Marked laid his eyes on a familiar face, rushing forwards through the throng of onlookers, jaw set.
Edmar’s lips cracked a smile. “Oh, what do we have here? Has the famed sect itself come rushing forward, to stop their pet from committing anymore mischief?”
Remus breathed in roughly through a bloody nose. “You-”
Damion’s arms circled around his inner body, hefting him off the ground. Remus scraped his hands towards the stationary man before him madly, Edmar’s smirk the most hideous thing to have ever graced his vision.
“Let me go!” He huffed. “I’m not done, not like this, let me down Damion, let me down!”
Damion said nothing, slowly backing away, gradually robbing Remus of his one chance. His one fleeting opportunity to get back at the world, for all the injustices it had casted against him. And he, like always, was too weak to do anything about it. Not of the strength to push away his brother’s Engorged solidity, nor of the resolve to look at him squarely in the eye, and admit fault.
The watchful eyes of the bystanders bore into him. Always so scathing, still so perceptive. He wanted to send them scattering. He wanted to put an end to the endless antagonism.
But in his sibling’s arms, Remus’ vitality failed. His sore body desired nothing more than rest, and, his blinking eyes betraying him, that was just what he acquired.
----------------------------------------
“What could have possibly been running through your mind to stir you into doing, of all the stupid stunts you could pull, this?”
Remus continued to stubbornly ignore his brother’s words of scolding, eyes closed, in the comfort of his personal bed back within their family’s quarters. Leaning over him from a stool at his bedside, a commissioned medic from the Vitality Sect examined his condition. Their near inaudible murmurs of quiet discontent was not exactly the reassurance he was looking for.
At the room’s corner, the sound of his parents uncomfortably shifting pricked at Remus’ ears. They were obviously in the midst of a heated argument, with him as its primary subject. That was to be expected of course, after their son had initiated a conflict drawing the attention of over a third of First Rite. Attention that anyone with more than two operational brain cells would conclude to not necessarily be positive. Not by a wide margin.
Remus bit his lip against the constant pains ravaging him from the inside out, the quilt laid over his body grudgingly determined to clutch against his every bruise and cut. And believe him, there were many. His face felt swollen, his every limb thoroughly exhausted of their energy supplies, and his leg was slowly but surely turning numb. Whatever that entailed, he wasn’t keen to find out.
“Partially damaged jawbone, a mid-sized cut into his calf, and, lucky you! Only one rib was broken.”
Remus wasn’t able to surface out of the sea of his guilt to conjure a smile at that joke, questionably timed or not. Instead, he let out a fatigued groan.
“The rest is less severe. A lot of harsh bruising to be sure, and a couple modest cuts that'll need to be bandaged, but nothing that an Engorged body couldn’t shake off after a Duration or two, and my Mark’s assistance should speed up that time just nicely.”
“He’s not Engorged.” Damion explained, voice sounding exasperated.
The medic’s eyes narrowed. “Hmm, the Vitality Mark usually lets me read the Divine Rank of anyone I’m examining, but I’m not picking up on anything. Is he Enkindled?”
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.
“No. He’s Death-Marked.”
By her next words, the doctor sounded caught off-guard. “Oh! Well then, with natural healing, and the Mark usage designated from my base booking . . . maybe a Passing? But if you slipped in a few more Inklings, he could probably manage a speedier recovery in — what, a few Durations?”
Doing his utmost best to ignore the conversation, Remus spared the little strength he had to raise his eyelids, espying his mother Briella dropping her and Aiden’s whispered discussion to question the medic. The years hadn’t changed her much, save for a few additional wrinkles, and the first onset of grey hairs. “And how much more would that be?”
The medic winced, a plump woman whose black hair was concentrated into a thick bun, eying Remus’ not-so-pristine state with an examining eye. “Another three hundred coins or so, roughly. I know it's a little expensive, and I’m sorry for that. But as Remus has made a very pointed show of this morning, times are growing tough, and not even my sect remains unaffected.”
“Oh, because you would know, wouldn't you?” Damion scoffed, “It's not as if you’re one of Ruling District's topdogs.”
“Damion, be polite.” Aiden piped in, tone reasonable, but stony. “Extra money going out of our pockets is bad for anyone, regardless of the size of that pocket, or its hole.”
The medic fumbled around uncomfortably. “Of course Labour is taking the blunt of Damosh’s blows, but for a service like ours, that relies on the coinage of customers, less of that cash going around isn’t ideal for business. Or for anyone subject to this economy, for that matter.”
“Of course it isn’t.” Briella replied, expression strained. “We’ll pay, somehow . . .”
After graciously thanking the two of them with an overbearing series of bows, the woman left, stating that she’ll begin properly at tomorrow’s dawn. For now, Remus was instructed to sleep, and with a tap of the medic’s finger, his pains seemed to vanish. Some fine powder was set as his bedside, colourless, and of a mint-like scent. It was apparently a plant-based anaesthetic he could take in small quantities, when the pain of his injuries inevitably returned with a blazing vengeance.
Bedridden, but so troubled that the mercy of sleep wouldn’t come to him, Remus was left with only two options: bathe in the misery of his idiocy, or commission his relatives to fetch him a few books from the sect’s personal library to peruse. Not a hard choice, to be sure.
“What’s got you so interested in world history all of a sudden?” Briella questioned, handing him a thick tomb the weight of a brick.
“Nothing specific, just curious.” He said quietly back, the two of them ignoring the enormous elephant in the room.
Remus’ relationship with his parents had grown tense, since he’d lashed out at Edmar. After a few very disciplinary lines to chide him, they’d mostly avoided the topic. Even Damion, who tended to speak his mind regardless of the gravity of the situation, rarely spoke of Remus’ conflict with the tax collector, and only when their parents were elsewhere. Not able to bear the intensity of the air around them, Remus finally broached the elusive topic.
“You don’t need to pay for anymore treatment, Mother, I’ll be fine. I promise. Save the money.”
Briella shot him an icy look. “What, should I leave you here to suffer for Passings on end? Would you prefer that?”
Remus set down the book upon his lap. “If it meant saving the clan a couple hundred Inklings, I’d say so.”
By the ire in her next words, Remus knew he’d overstepped. “You really are stupid sometimes, you know that? Is this what’s got you so worked up, our financial struggles? Money isn’t everything, Remus!”
“It is when our livelihoods depend on it!” He snapped back, dangerously close to drawing the two into a full-out argument. “Life-sustaining income streams that Damosh and his henchmen are slowly sapping away from the rest of us. Who built the houses they live in, Mother? The houses where the Wealth Sect and the rest of the top five placements live in the highest luxury, safe and far-off in their damned Ruling District towers?”
“Remus-”
“Who puts the food they feast upon onto their ornate plates? While we’re left to sustain ourselves on the leftover rations; when it's the Labour District itself that feeds them in the first place! They bleed us non-combat oriented sects for all we’re worth, we the Carpentry Sect, and the Clan of the Feast deity perhaps they abuse the most. I’m barely scratching the surface here, but the list is damn near endless. I can’t bring myself to mention the other half-a-dozen sects, or we’d be sitting here all day debating. Must I go on? The list of their wrongdoings goes from here to hell and back. And you expect me to sit here, and not be even the slightest bit bothered by all that?”
“Of course not! But violence isn’t going to fix matters, is it?” Briella reasoned. “Look at the Leisure District, Remus. Damosh’s taxes may have struck them badly, but the majority survive and make do. We just have to wait out the Wealth Sect’s reign as the top sect. Then, the economy should slowly fix itself. Be patient, we have to play the long game here.”
The longer the two went on, the less Remus could prevent his blood from boiling to near molten level. “Wait out the reign of a God-Graced? The nearest thing to a deity that one can be, without fully giving up their grip on mortality? Until someone forcibly takes the throne away from him, Damosh’s reign as a monarch won’t end. You act as if he’s just going to wake up one day, wipe the sleep out of his eyes and go ‘whelp, that was a great run, but I don’t really feel like continuing this whole King business. This endless stream of profits and power is getting pretty tiresome, better hand it off to the next sect! Yippee!’”
“Remus!”
Suffice to say, Briella wasn't particularly happy with him for the rest of the night. She left in a huff, only half-slamming the door to avoid damaging it.
Taking a second to compose himself, the weight of his own self-sabotaging actions struck down on Remus harder than Edmar ever could. He wanted to strangle reality itself, to bend it to his whims and undo all of his rash decisions. To reverse this nightmarish timeline and make amends.
My every intention has only resulted in the opposite occurring, it dawned on him. First with getting back at Edmar like some stubborn child, and now I cast away my own mother in sightless anger.
“That’s it.” he blurted to himself, pushing away his blanket and making for the door. “I need to apologise, and then I’ll track down Edmar and kiss his boots, if that’s what it’ll take to reclaim even a fraction of the clan’s dignity.”
In his haste, Remus took one step upon the floor, cursed in pain as all his mass went upon his leg, and promptly collapsed face-first. Seconds later, Damion rushed in, helping him up.
“Were you not listening to that medic?” His brother rightfully berated, pulling him upwards by the arm. “You need rest, not to attempt a second round with the tax collector.”
Remus grunted as he was laid back into bed. The momentary pain-resistance the doctor’s Mark had provided seemed to finally be wearing off. “I was going to apologise to Mother, I think I upset her.”
“How so?”
“I started ranting about Damosh, and things quickly escalated. Much on my behalf, I’m forced to concede.”
Damion sighed, no surprise in his tone. “Sounds like something you’d do. So does immediately going to say sorry, despite the fact you have one functional leg, and a myriad of other wounds keeping your doctor well busy.”
“I’m just that dedicated.” Remus murmured through a pained smile. “You tell her I’m sorry for me, and be sure to mention my own virtuous attempt at seeing to it myself.”
“Replace virtuous with moronic and we might be onto something, but before that, aren’t you forgetting something?”
“What?”
“The big day? Don’t you remember? Andreas' arrival and the Day of Descension?”
Remus jolted into an upright position. “Gods above, how could I have — gah!”
His broken rib openly disagreed with that sudden movement. “Maybe I do need rest after all . . .” he considered, sprinkling the powder at his bedside into an adjacent glass of water, and stirring it into a mixture. With much reluctance, he scrutinised the murky, greyish fluid, before downing it.
It tasted like leaves, and before he could deliberate on how he knew what leaves tasted like, a coughing fit overcame him. At last, Remus was done, and most gingerly, he looked back at Damion, who was shaking his head in exasperation. He was trying to be discreet about it, but Remus would’ve sworn that the boy was smirking.
“Now, if I can continue, yes, the Day of Descension is less than a Passing away, or four Durations. So rest. Recover beforehand. Preferably before Andreas arrives in a few Durations’ time. Then, when you do regain your past unwavering reserves of energy, be on your best behaviour, publicly apologise to Edmar, and to everyone for your actions. It’ll be embarrassing for sure, but better you do that and risk ridicule, than not make amends at all. Can you agree with that plan . . . please?”
“You don’t have to beg Damion,” Remus reassured. “I would’ve done something along those lines anyway, I just hadn’t planned it out yet.”
“Of course you would have. Now, if this is the only advice from me you’ll ever humour, rest, for the love of the gods and the grace of Infinity, rest.”
“Yes, yes, I get the point. Now be off, I’ll be taking an early night.”
At Remus’ request, his brother did so. Yet, even as Remus attempted for the life of him to abide by Damion’s instruction, the advent of the sect’s Warlord returning caused an uneasy feeling to pervade his thoughts. What would his grandfather’s reaction be when he heard of his confrontation with Edmar? Pride? No, he wasn’t the type to endorse initiating an unprovoked fight, not in the boisterous manner he had. Then . . . fury? That too didn’t seem quite right. From their brief meetings when he wasn’t preoccupied with the war effort, Andreas had been a jovial, gentle man. Then . . . shame? Disappointment? It was these two outcomes that concerned him the most, for he couldn’t help but think them the most likely. At the very least, Andreas would definitely disapprove of his shortcomings.
Another factor preventing his much needed rest was the Day of Descension itself. The only span of the year where the deities could grace the Mortal Realms they played a hand in creating. The event was a momentous — and opposing its own title — multi-Duration spanning festival that brought much good cheer and excitement to whichever city it was held in. The whereabouts differed per year based on an ever-altering cycle. Last year, Remus recalled it to have been held in the city of Hybrid. Their sect hadn’t bothered attending the last Descension for the same reason why they had withheld for many years prior; thinking it better to save the Inklings they would’ve spent on transport to keep up with the ever-more demanding economy. Yet this year, at the birthplace of the gods, the festival would be right outside their doorstep.
The gods were coming to First Rite, and Remus, if he knew it yet or not, was going to rob the pompous beings blind.