Thirty One: Burial

"What the fuck was that?"

Silas scowled at the throwing blade hanging by a splinter from the bottom of the target board. "Shut up."

Arlen didn't shut up. He was quite enjoying himself, and wasn't inclined to stop when the rest of his day had been an endless stream of shit. "You've almost got your nose pressed up against a motionless target and you still can't hit it. You wanted tuition, here it is."

"Bet magic boy didn't do any better," Silas mumbled.

"Only because I haven't had him on throwing blades yet."

Arlen had nothing to back this claim up – after all, he had never been out in the field with his own apprentice, a thought that curled his lip as a reflex. For all he knew, Jordan could be a poor enough shot to miss the wall, but it was worth saying just to see the look on Silas's face. His next shot went wide, but at least managed to stick in the board.

"Better," Arlen grunted, taking a long swig of ale. His leg was prickling particularly badly that day, and the only thing distracting him was being slightly drunk.

It was definitely not to drown out thoughts of what he had to do later.

"You're letting go too late," he said. He had agreed to teach Silas for as long as Jordan was away, and as much as he enjoyed winding him up, a deal was a deal. He had to throw a few genuine pointers in, even if it felt like he was dragging them through his teeth. "Give that here."

Silas plucked the blade from the board and handed it over. It was a familiar weight in Arlen's hand, though he couldn't recall the last time he'd had to use a throwing blade – not since long before he'd lost his leg. He crushed the little voice inside his head that wondered what he'd do if he was so rusty he made Silas look like an expert, and threw. The blade hit and stuck about two inches from the centre target with a satisfying thud.

"I've done better," he muttered, easing a sudden cramp out of his neck. "Were you watching when I let go?"

Silas nodded, already having retrieved the weapon. His third shot stuck too, albeit not much closer to the centre. They were interrupted – blessedly, and Arlen wasn't a huge believer in blessings – by Usk arriving. He hauled himself in through the window, nodding a greeting and meeting Arlen's eye.

"Your carriage is outside."

"Where are you going?" Silas squawked immediately, then hissed and sucked on the cut he'd just given himself.

"If you're holding something with four blades, best practice is to pay attention to where your fingers are," Arlen snapped. "And I promised you tuition, not a running commentary on everything I decide to do."

Not that he had particularly decided to do this, but he suspected that if he'd refused it might have been enough to bring Darin into the dead quarter, after which he would be shortly parting company with a few more body parts.

He had agreed with Usk that morning that Silas was not to see the brute helping him down the crates on pain of a matching amputation, and as a result the trip down was arduous and painful. He climbed into the carriage with a sigh of barely-suppressed relief, his stump buzzing worse than ever. He hoped it was a sign of it healing rather than a rapid downward turn, but pushed the thought away as the first stirrings of panic pushed at the fringes of the beer haze.

"Try and get shot of him before I get back," Arlen muttered through the window to Usk. "Is the driver..."

"Paid off," Usk said. His yellow gaze searched Arlen's face until he grew irritated.

"What?"

Usk opened his mouth, and then closed it again, seeming to think better of whatever he'd been about to say. "Safe trip."

Arlen rolled his eyes. Nothing about this was safe. This was the first time he had had to get his own carriage and couldn't just brush it off as his usual business. Marick hadn't asked him to run any errands and his apprentice was gone, which meant any requests for use of a carriage would garner more questions than usual. As far as Arlen knew, or at least hoped, Marick Silversong had never caught wind of his trips to Wick Row, and it would be a terrible irony if he was caught out for going to the funeral.

The carriage pulled away at a signal from Usk, and Arlen tucked himself further back in the seat so that no one who might casually glance inside would see him. It limited his view of the journey somewhat, leaving him only a sliver of the streets they passed to orientate himself. He had anticipated it would take a while to get there; since neither he nor Darin could dream of finding enough funds for an interment at the House temple of Kiel, Darin had picked the smaller chapel grounds the House owned in the shadow of the castle, in the quarter where the guards and staff lived. If Arlen had found this out in person, or had any part of the discussions, he would have shaken the man until his brain rolled around in his skull and he changed his mind. While not quite a temple interment, a burial on one of the rare plots of usable land still stretched resources to their limits; not to mention that if he was recognised or found out he would have a bitch of a time escaping.

Still, it was done. All he had to do was sit back and try not to let paranoia consume him, which was easier said than done. All he had was Usk's word that the driver wouldn't sell him out and was taking him in the right direction. He knew Marick favoured the riverside warehouses for interrogations, and his heart still jumped in his throat whenever he thought he heard water.

He was almost surprised when he reached the chapel without being hauled out of the carriage with a bag over his head, but didn't waste any time covering himself up. There weren't many mourners; Darin loitered by the chapel door talking to another man who looked like he also worked at the factory. A couple of women chatted near the waiting pit in the ground. There were a few others scattered around, a few which Arlen very dimly recognised as Darin's neighbours and an old friend of Blackheart senior's. It was still too many for his comfort.

He peered up at the sky as a few spots of rain blew in on an icy breeze. The end of the dark season was a tease; a few weeks of steadily growing light, and then the storms rolled in from the plains and took it all away again. He could see the cloudbank, sullen and angry, far off over the roofs of the quarter's low-slung housing. He'd give it a week or two at most, and Jordan had better hope that Unspoken cloak was waterproof.

Darin had spotted him while he'd been distracted and was halfway over. Arlen scowled. He'd been hoping to install himself unseen under one of the chapel-yard trees and not talk to anyone.

"You're trying to get me nicked," he said accusingly, as Darin came within earshot. The other man glanced up at the dim outline of the castle on the hill above them and raised a brow.

"I don't think the lord is making time in his schedule to attend."

"If the lord was the only person who could get someone recognised and arrested, his jails would be empty," Arlen growled.

"Oh, quit complaining. No one is paying extra attention to head to toe black at a funeral, for Kiel's sake."

Darin looked haggard and badly slept; the dark circles that were a usual feature had become darker and more bruise-like. He smelled faintly of alcohol.

That makes two of us, then.

"My landlord is already looking to move me into smaller lodging," Darin said bitterly, after a long silence. "I suppose he thinks that one extra room is a luxury for a single lodger."

"But you'll still be able to pay enough rent on the cottage," Arlen said. "Makes no difference to the rent payments whether she's there or not."

"I said that," Darin replied. "And refrained from pushing it further when he implied that my job would depend on the move. And no, I'm not cutting bits off him to change his mind, if that's what you're about to suggest."

"It's always worked for me." Arlen shrugged.

"You revolt me on a regular basis."

"Not enough to leave me alone."

Darin gave him a measured look that reminded Arlen so strongly of the man's father that he almost winced. "When Pa kicked you out of the house, he was devastated. He thought it might knock some sense into you, and then you never came back. Ma asked after you almost every day for the next several years, and almost every day he lied about where you'd gone until it wore him into the dirt. They loved you like a son, Arlen. And you still act like we were the ones who betrayed you."

"A son?" Arlen spluttered. "Is that what he called it? Because I heard a lot of different things, and that was never one of them."

"That's just what he was like," Darin snapped. "He never called me son to my face, either. Not until he was about to die, when I was there and you weren't."

Arlen scowl was starting to feel fixed in place. He didn't want to talk about this anymore, and it wouldn't be long before the few other attendees realised there was something going on. He was not about to be identified as a family member, ex or otherwise, just because he couldn't help butting heads with Darin.

"When's it starting?" Arlen muttered, ignoring the exasperated look on the other man's face. "My employer doesn't know I'm out and if he finds out I left without borrowing transport from him he'll want to know why." He blinked as a gust of icy rain swept through the graveyard. "I'm not expecting a visit, but then I very rarely am."

"Is it such a problem?" Darin said. "Does no one in your stupid guild have family?"

"No one in my stupid guild has been lying about their earnings to make up rent for that family." Arlen's back prickled as if it could feel the knife hovering above his skin even now. "And no, usually by family they don't mean foster family. They mean 'I rolled someone and it had results'."

"Lying about your earnings?" Darin's blank look said it all, even though Arlen had assumed the man would work it out. He didn't go sneaking around the issue for nothing.

"My employer takes a cut. If I don't earn enough to cover everything, some earnings get...vanished." He surreptitiously checked the bushes and trees surrounding the graveyard. He swept his stick through them for good measure. "All the more reason to avoid too much attention. Or being useless."

Something he'd said had taken some of the wind out of Darin's sails. The anger drained away, replaced by that same thoughtfulness from before. "I've been thinking about that."

"I'm flattered."

"There's a kid who works on my factory floor. His uncle builds mechanics. Like that." He pointed at Arlen's leg, and he shuffled back, glaring. It was obvious enough without some idiot pointing at it. "He's working on a new design that could help you walk almost normally. Even run. If it works, of course."

Arlen looked down at the clunking hunk of metal strapped to his upper leg and hips dubiously. It had been the least awkward one he could find, and it hadn't been cheap. But if the options were buying another eye-wateringly priced prosthetic or dying... He frowned. "Working on?"

"That's what I said. Considering food is costing three times what it should at the moment and everyone's staying inside, he's run out of money to finish it."

Arlen's mind started racing. "And if he miraculously found some?"

Darin began to shrug and stopped halfway through. "You've got that look. Oh, night take me, I've given you a stupid idea."

He turned on his heel and stalked towards the chapel. The other attendees were also drifting in that direction, and a couple looked a bit perplexed at the factory worker storming past them like something just shat on his head. Arlen smirked as he left the shelter of the tree and limped towards the door, keeping well back from everyone else. Darin had given him a brilliant idea, but he wasn't about to credit the man with it. That way he didn't have to concede that he was right about something.

His brain was still sifting through ideas as he found a dusty corner in the tiny chapel to sit in, glaring daggers at anyone who looked round at the noise his leg was making. He propped his walking stick against the wall and drew his hood down further, curling his lip. Nicts weren't big on funerals; at most there would be a drink in honour of the deceased, sometimes with their urn present, sometimes not. He had always found the idea of burying a body whole unsettling, like they were just trapping someone rather than freeing them. Fire was a clean removal from the face of the world, and no one could do anything with a body when it was ashes.

He was prepared to concede that knowing Akiva had tainted his view of burials and interments a great deal.

The priestess was already at the head of the chapel, preparing for the service. Darin shot him a glare from the front bench, and Arlen almost scoffed at the idea that he'd thought he would put himself at the front for everyone to gawk at. It was miracle enough that Darin had convinced him to attend at all.

The chapel wasn't grand, but it was more decorated than a Nict temple. The stonework was carved into columns and patterns where Nict simply used plain blocks of rock. The favoured décor leaned more towards foliage and bright cloth than bones. Arlen had seen inside the Kiel house temple before, and grudgingly accepted that at the very least Darin had not chosen anything nauseatingly lavish.

In each sweep of the room he took in every figure except the one wrapped in black cloth, lying on a stone table in the centre aisle with its organ jars lined alongside it. At the end of the funeral the organs at least would be taken away to be burned. His eye skipped over the whole table, almost as if it repelled his gaze, but he was horribly aware it was there.

"You'd better remember there'll be a will reading in a week or two," Darin had warned in the note he'd sent with Usk to tell Arlen the date and time for the funeral. "I think she's left you something."

Arlen didn't want to remember the will. Whatever it was, he probably didn't want or need it – almost definitely, in fact, because no matter what it would be an unwelcome reminder. Of what exactly, he'd only know when he saw it, but sentiment had never got him very far in the past. With the exception of two items, he made a point of never owning anything he valued enough that losing it would hurt. He even considered getting rid of those things every now and then, to rid himself of a weakness on his own terms.

As the service began, his mind began to slow down. He tucked the problem away for later discussion, and instead began an uphill battle with a prickling stump, a biting wind that crept in under the chapel door and swirled around the back benches, and a growing headache. He hated sitting in services; it was part of the reason Nict had held such appeal. The incense tickled his nose and the corners of his eyes, and while the priestess was better at holding attention than every Orthanian priest who had ever been ordained, he still found himself wishing the time away. He wondered if Marick had checked on him yet, and what Usk would say if he did. Would it be the time the Varthian finally sold him out?

Threading through all his wandering thoughts was the figure on the stone table. At some point he found himself unable to avoid it any longer, and finally gazed at it. Nothing explosive or alarming happened when he did, but an odd feeling sunk its claws into his chest nonetheless.

Some time must have passed while he was struggling with this strange feeling, because when he next looked up Darin was standing over him, holding out a white blossom. In his other hand he held a sprig of tiny blue flowers. Where he'd found flowers Arlen had no idea, but the blooms were flattened and slightly brown around the edges and so had probably been miraculously preserved in a press for funerals. With the whole chapel watching him, he couldn't refuse the flower, even as it declared him a family member of the deceased. As he stood, he muttered at Darin, almost inaudibly, "I'm revising 'nicked' to 'killed'."

Darin didn't respond, only offered the flower again. His stare was the baleful, watery look of a man who had just lost the little he'd had to lose. Arlen had seen many in his time, and it was often wise to be wary of it.

He hadn't been in a Kelian ceremony since he was very young, and even then it hadn't been a funeral, so he followed Darin's lead. He felt eyes on him, felt them linger on his hood and then drop without fail to the false limb sticking out of the bottom of his trousers. He kept his glaring to himself, since the light was more concentrated at the head of the chapel and he didn't want to risk anyone actually recognising him – not from his sketch on a wanted poster, and certainly not from when he was a child. If any of the older attendees made the connection between the blank-eyed refugee child at Wick Row and the blank-eyed Devil staring from guard post noticeboards, he couldn't see it in their faces. He knew as well as anyone, though, that faces couldn't always be trusted.

He laid his flower on the black-wrapped figure after Darin, suppressing a shudder. He wore gloves, but touching it still felt wrong. The claws in his chest tightened, made it hard to breathe, and he frowned, rubbing at it. Too much beer, he decided. There was a reason he'd always preferred nettle wine.

He and Darin led the procession to the graveside, and while the priestess was giving her final, solemn blessings Arlen was finally able to slink into the background once more, standing several feet back from the gathering. He didn't see her go into the grave, but he didn't want to. She had been lost in her mind for many years. The woman he'd known had died a decade ago.

Look after your brother now, won't you?

You've got to look after him when I can't, miká.

The claws tightened again, and he turned away abruptly, unable to look anymore. The wind carried fat drops of rain now, and there was a low rumble in the distance. Storms coming.

"It's okay, you know," Darin muttered. His voice was hoarse, cheeks shining as he stared towards the mountains beside him. "To be sad. It's not weakness."

"Everything can be a weakness."

Darin's look didn't change. "And in four words, you identified yours." He sniffed, and before Arlen could snap an angry retort, he said, "I'm assuming you're going to do something dumb and illegal to get funds for this leg. Be lying if I wasn't regretting it a little bit, but... If you do get hold of some, I'll take you to the workshop."

"How uncommonly charitable of you." He couldn't keep the bite out of his voice.

"You might not have helped much in person." Darin shrugged. "And you infuriate the living demonshit out of me every time you visit. But you kept a roof over her head when I wouldn't have been able to. So I'm not sure I'd call it charity."

Arlen scowled. He didn't like to be reminded of stupid decisions. "Fine. It's a deal."

"I'll send you a note when I know where I'm living," Darin said, smiling sadly, "I won't make you stay for the rest of it."

He walked away, skirting around the hole in the ground to talk to the priestess again, and Arlen watched him go, the claws twisting deep.