Chapter 33: 32. The Execution

Dorian stood and came around toward Corvo, leaning against a weeping wall. He folded his arms.

Aletheia took a seat on the stool in front of the prisoner. She stared at Melitas, saying nothing as she looked him over with a deep frown. Whatever illness afflicted him now, Corvo had never seen anything like it before. His skin sparkled with the colors of the rainbow, like a fish in sunlight, and he was covered in welts and hives. He was bloated and cadaverous. His own breath seemed to bring him pain.

Corvo knew Melitas had done something bad, that he deserved to be punished for, but the sight of such punishment scared him badly. He could not help but wonder if such a fate awaited him, should he make a mistake. And Melitas had seemed like a friend. Wasn’t he still a friend? Was this what happened to boys who ate too many sweets? Corvo did not want to find out.

Aletheia said nothing for a long time. She couldn’t look at Melitas any longer and hung her head, like he had hung his, and stared at his manacled feet.

“When I was thirteen, my mentor betrayed me,” she said, finally, still not looking at him. “She didn’t want to hurt me. But she did anyway.”

Melitas glared up at her. His look terrified Corvo. His magician’s eyes were bloodshot and animalistic. But he said nothing.

“I never understood how,” she continued. “Like it must have been a mistake. I didn’t get it. Maybe I was a bitch, or a fuck-up, or just annoying. I was definitely annoying.” Now she stared into his eyes. “But I still couldn’t believe that she would do it. I forgave her, even when I shouldn’t have.”

She sighed.

“I think I still feel that way.” She brushed her hair aside as she thought. “I feel like I’m talking to a misbehaving neophyte. Is this what it’s like to give detention at the Tower? I guess the difference is that here, after I leave, Eris kills you.”

“I didn’t torture you,” Melitas whispered. Corvo could barely hear his voice. It was weak and coarse.

“What?” Aletheia said.

“I didn’t torture you. You don’t have to torture me. Just kill me.”

“But as any cat knows, playing with her prey is the most delicious part of a meal,” Mother said.

Aletheia seemed to ignore her. She scrunched her shoulders together. “Is this torture?”

“You took everything,” Melitas hissed. “It’s over. So end it.”

“I didn’t do anything.” She reached forward and touched his forehead as though to cast a spell. Corvo felt nothing, but Mother twitched with frustration.

“Aletheia,” she said. “Have you learned nothing?”

“Yes,” Aletheia said. She settled backward on the stool. “There. That should help with the pain.”

It must have, because the immense tension in Melitas’ muscles dissipated. He went limp as he slumped against the wall, gasping for air with heavy breaths.

“You have not forgot that he tried to assassinate you in your sleep?” Mother said.

“Said he was going for Eris next, too,” Dorian said. “I think we should leave him in his misery until the Boyar gets here.”

“He can’t do anything,” Aletheia said. “There’s no mana in the air here, and there’s none left in his bloodstream. It’ll be weeks before he can cast another spell. If he stays down here—even longer.”

“A lot longer,” Dorian agreed. “Like forever, maybe.”

“Maybe,” she said. Her chest rose to speak again—but before she could, footsteps echoed ever-more-loudly down the corridor beyond the cell.

Presently the Boyar and his scale-clad attendant appeared. He said as he entered, “Why did you not tell me that she—”

But he stopped when he saw Aletheia. His eyes widened, and he whispered her name.

He rushed to her. He pushed the stool aside and embraced her, heaving her up off the seat and wrapping his arms around her. His head lowered, and he kissed her on the lips.

She kissed him back.

“Gross,” Corvo whispered.

Mother snorted and smiled but said nothing.

But after a moment, Aletheia yelped and cringed, and he let her go. She grabbed at her wound.

“I’m sorry,” the Boyar said. “Too hard?”

“Too hard,” Aletheia said.

“You should have sent for me before coming here. You shouldn’t have come here at all. Return to bed. I will deal with this traitor.”

Mother stepped forward. “And ‘tis about time. So: what do you propose? A flaying? I was thinking that it had been quite some time since my last flaying. Or are your gallows ready? Perhaps at a gibbet on the hill over Bahaty? It would be fitting, for his body to be slowly devoured by crows. Or—and I defer to your judgment as a sovereign—I might turn him to ash with which you may then fertilize your garden. There is really no need to wait further.”

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The Boyar watched her with some concern but nodded along. He looked at the chained magician.

“In Veshod,” he said, “we bind the limbs of traitors and tie them to stones. Then they are set in the sea. I favor this fate for Melitas.”

“A mundane death, without much symbolism,” Mother said. “But it will do.”

“I’ll carry him up the stairs,” Dorian said.

“Wait!” Aletheia almost shouted. She looked at the men around her, and then to Mother. “Shouldn’t I get to decide?”

“Does it really matter? One death’s as good as any other,” Dorian said.

“Not true,” Mother said. “Some are far more enjoyable for the aggrieved parties. And spectators also.”

Aletheia’s hair was spectacularly messy after having spent so long in bed, and she had been idly tidying it since waking up. Now she pulled it to the side of her chest.

She shook her head. “I don’t want to kill him.”

Mother groaned. Dorian sighed. The Boyar stepped closer to her, taking her wrist and bringing it to his heart.

“Aletheia,” he said in his nasal, high-pitched accent. “This magician is a murderer. The law does not care if he succeeds or not. The punishment is the same. That he did it to a friend, an ally, a leader—it cannot be forgiven.”

“What if it could be? What if I forgave him anyway?”

“Then you will be killed, as you already almost were,” Mother said. “You are not well. Allow us to handle this.”

“Not everyone who disagrees with you is cognitively compromised, Eris,” Aletheia snapped. “Let me talk for once.”

Mother looked stunned. She scoffed and folded her arms, letting her staff hover beside her, but couldn’t say anything in response except, “Then make your case.”

“I just wanted to hear from him. Why he did it.”

They all looked to Melitas. He had the look of a drunken man now, relaxed and carefree, despite his wounds. When he noticed that he was being scrutinized, he shook his head.

“You’re a bitch,” he said. “Both of you. Stupid and vain and smug and—I was sick of you. I hate you.”

“Was I that mean?” she said. She seemed to think hard. “Is that really it?”

Melitas stared at her. But eventually he shook his head slowly. “You wouldn’t teach me your magic. Neither of you. So I did what I had to.”

He nodded to Eris’ staff upright on its own.

Aletheia laughed suddenly. She covered her mouth and tried to hold it back, but it came out anyway. “You tried to kill me for Eris’ staff?”

Melitas frowned at this reaction, and he said, “Yes.”

“You think the staff is what matters?”

“Isn’t it?” he whispered.

“You wouldn’t even know how to use it. I still can’t figure it out. It wouldn’t have done you any good. A stick isn’t what makes Eris powerful.”

Now he made no response.

Aletheia cupped her eyes and wiped a tear away. She cringed in pain as she chuckled, soon coming to a rest, when she shook her head.

“That’s so stupid,” she whispered, almost in awe. “You’re just a kid. You’re….” She looked back at the others, and Corvo. “Eris. How many times would you have been killed if it hadn’t been for Rook? Or Robur? How many bad things did you do for power, because you were afraid to end up—like this? He’s just like you.”

“I never would have harmed an ally.”

“You killed the Veshod boy in Nanos.”

Mother clenched her teeth, as though she cringed to hear this incident mentioned, like she hated that Aletheia knew about it.

“He killed himself,” she said. “I simply did not intervene. And he was not a friend, or an ally. He was no one. He was—a victim, but no one I had ever possessed honest intentions toward. But you have shown nothing but generosity to this neophyte, bringing him with you even where he does not belong.”

“And what about Robur? And Kauom?”

“I regarded them as the same. Yet once we became true allies, I never once touched them, nor would I have. At least not on purpose. Also, as cruel as I have been in my life, I have never been caught.”

“You were caught once.”

Mother clicked her tongue. “True. Thus, if one intends to be devious and fail, he should at least ensure he has powerful allies beforehand. Yet Melitas has none who will come to his rescue, and did not compensate with ability. I have no pity for the weak or ungrateful. This man is both.”

“He’s also a threat,” Dorian said. “As we’ve seen. You want to pretend that nothing happened? After what he did to you?”

“No. I don’t,” Aletheia said. “I just—I think—I don’t know. I’m not spiteful.”

“Justice is not spite,” the Boyar said. “Criminals face justice. That is how society is kept in order.”

She sighed. “What good will killing him do?”

“It will keep us safe from one more threat going forward,” Mother said. “If you let him go, if you exile him from this castle instead of killing him, he will surely seek us out again. And what then? He knows our faces, our habits, our desires. He knows of the Shadow Man. He will tell the Tower where we have been and where we are going.”

“We’ll be long gone by then,” Aletheia said. “He can’t give them anything they don’t already have. You know the Seekers are being told about us all the time, from everyone. People notice us. He won’t make a difference.”

“Will you be long gone, or will you be here in the arms of your lover?” Eris said.

Aletheia turned suddenly to look up at the Boyar. He was serious as he gazed down at her eyes.

“Eris is right. He cannot be spared,” he said.

She put her hands on his chest, tugging idly at his tunic. “Please. For me. Ilya.”

“I cannot pardon the man who tried to kill you. Especially when he has done nothing to repent.”

She closed her eyes and let her head fall to his sternum.

“There’s only so much pity a girl can have,” Dorian said. “You should save yours for men who deserve it. Or you’ll spend your whole life mourning.”

At first she shook her head. “I already have,” she whispered. But then, after a breath, she nodded.

She stepped away from the Boyar.

“Okay,” she said. “You’re right. I—need to go lie down.” She gave one last look to Melitas. “I’m sorry if I was cruel. And I’m sorry that it has to be you or me.”

“He chose this, Aletheia,” Mother said. “Not you.”

Aletheia didn’t look at her. Instead she walked quickly and quietly into the hallway, away from the cell, past the guard, and back up to her room.

Mother sighed. “Aletheia refuses to learn. We are lucky that her empathy cost a mere five golden acorns, this time. She—is just like Rook. But even he would have done away with this fool.”

“Let’s hope things work out better for her than they did for him,” Dorian said.

“She has a merciful soul,” said the Boyar. “Without evil, or hatred, or anger.”

“Or instinct of preservation,” Mother said.

“It is beautiful. I think it is how a woman should be. But it is no way to govern a realm.”

“I don’t see it as that complicated,” Dorian said. He stepped up toward Melitas and moved the stool aside. “She isn’t like us. A Boyar. A sorceress. A washed-up old rogue. The three of us—we understand, when we look at this young sod, why he did what he did. We understand that he’s a rotten, selfish bastard, just like me, without any goodness in him. But the girl doesn’t think that way. She can’t understand. She thinks it was her fault he came to kill her, just like she thinks there was more to her old elf master’s choice to throw her to the wolves than simple selfishness.” Dorian smiled and shook his head. “My first wife was the same way.”

“Is this the wife you left and robbed?” Mother asked.

“Yes, but not the one you’re thinking of.”

Mother took hold of Corvo’s shoulder and grabbed her staff. “I hope you are wrong, and she sees sense someday. Sooner before later. For now, let us be content that we persuaded her stubborn will, and continue apace with our plans.”

They looked to the Boyar.

“Of course. My hetman will continue with the arrangements for the execution,” he said. “I don’t care if she should hate me after this. Some things cannot be forgiven. I would sooner lose her love than let this magician go.”