Xenocrates shifted uncomfortably at the mention of the ordeal. It was not something he cared to remember.
“I’ve made arrangements for Esme to be returned to her mother,” Rowan said. “But maybe you’d like to take her there yourself.”
“Me?” said Xenocrates, feigning indifference. “Why would I want to?”
“Because you care about people,” Rowan said with a well-timed wink. “Some more than others.”
As the High Blade regarded the daughter that he could never publicly or even privately acknowledge, he melted just the tiniest bit. The boy had planned this, hadn’t he? This Rowan Damisch was a sly one—an admirable trait when properly directed. Perhaps Rowan warranted more attention than the High Blade had given him in the past.
Esme waited to see what would happen, and Xenocrates finally offered her a warm smile. “It would be my pleasure to take you home, Esme.”
With that, Xenocrates rose to leave . . . but he couldn’t go just yet. There was still one more thing he had to do. One more decision that was in his power to make. He turned back to Rowan.
“Perhaps I should use my influence to call off the investigation,” he said. “Out of respect for our fallen comrades. Let their memory be untainted by clumsy forensics that might cast aspersions on their legacy.”
“Let the dead be dead,” agreed Rowan.
And so an unspoken agreement was reached. The High Blade would cease shaking the tree, and Rowan would keep the High Blade’s secret safe.
“If you need a place to stay once leaving here, Rowan, please know that my door is always open for you.”
“Thank you, Your Excellency.”
“No, thank you, Rowan.”
Then the High Blade took Esme’s hand and left to return her home.
* * *
The power of life and death cannot be handed out blithely, but only with stoic and weighty reserve. Ascension to scythehood should by no means be easy. We who have established the Scythedom have faced our own struggles in the process, and we must ensure that all those who join us in our mission face a trial that is not only instructive but transformative. Scythehood is humanity’s highest calling, and to achieve it should cut one’s soul to the very core, so that no scythe will ever forget the cost of the ring they bear.
Of course, to those on the outside, our rite of passage might seem unthinkably cruel. Which is why it must forever remain a secret sacrament.
—From the gleaning journal of H.S. Prometheus, the first World Supreme Blade
* * *
38
The Final Test
On January second, Year of the Capybara, the day before Winter Conclave, Scythe Curie took Citra on the long drive to the MidMerica Capitol Building.
“Your final test will be tonight, but you won’t know the results until tomorrow’s conclave,” she told Citra. But Citra already knew that. “It’s the same test, year to year, for every apprentice. And each apprentice must take the test alone.”
That was something Citra didn’t know. It only made sense that the final test would be some sort of standard that all candidates had to pass, but somehow the thought of having to face that test alone, and not in the company of the others, was troubling. Because now it wouldn’t be a competition with Rowan and the others. She’d be competing against no one but herself.
“You should tell me what the test is.”
“I can’t,” said Scythe Curie.
“You mean you won’t.”
Scythe Curie thought about that. “You’re right. I won’t.”
“If I may speak frankly, Your Honor . . .”
“When have you ever not spoken frankly, Citra?”
Citra cleared her throat and tried to be her most persuasive self. “You play too fair, and it puts me at a disadvantage. You wouldn’t want me to suffer just because you’re too honorable, would you?”
“In our line of work we must hold on to every bit of honor we have.”
“I’m sure other scythes tell their apprentices what the final test is.”
“Perhaps,” said Scythe Curie, “but then again, perhaps not. There are some traditions not even the unscrupulous among us would dare break.”
Citra crossed her arms and said nothing more. She knew she was pouting, she knew it was childish, but she didn’t care.
“You trust Scythe Faraday, do you not?” asked Scythe Curie.
“I do.”
“Have you come to trust me at least as much?”
“I have.”
“Then trust me now and let the question go. I have faith in your ability to shine in the final test without knowing what the test is.”
“Yes, Your Honor.”
? ? ?
They arrived at eight that evening, and were told that, by the luck of the draw, Citra was to be tested last. Rowan and the two other candidates for Scythedom were to go first. She and Scythe Curie were put in a room to wait, and wait, and wait some more.
“Was that a gunshot?” Citra said, perhaps an hour in. Citra didn’t know whether or not it had been her imagination.
“Shhhh,” was Scythe Curie’s only response.
Finally a guard came to get her. Scythe Curie did not wish her good luck—just gave her a serious nod. “I’ll be waiting for you when you’re done,” she said.
Citra was brought to a long room that seemed unpleasantly cold. There were five scythes seated in comfortable chairs at one end. She recognized two of them: Scythe Mandela and Scythe Meir. The other three she did not. The bejeweling committee, she realized.
Before her was a table covered with a clean white tablecloth. And on that tablecloth, evenly spaced, were weapons: a pistol, a shotgun, a scimitar, a bowie knife, and a vial with a poison pill.
“What are these for?” Citra asked. Then she realized it was a stupid question. She knew what they were for. So she rephrased it. “What is it, exactly, that you want me to do?”
“Look to the other end of the room,” Scythe Mandela told her, pointing. A spotlight came up on another chair at the far end of the long room that had been hidden in shadows; one not as comfortable as theirs. Someone sat in it, hands and legs bound, with a canvas hood covering his or her head.
“We want to see how you might glean,” Scythe Meir said. “For this purpose we’ve prepared a unique subject for you to demonstrate.”
“What do you mean, ‘unique?’”
“See for yourself,” said Scythe Mandela.
Citra approached the figure. She could hear faint snuffling from beneath the hood. She pulled it off.
Nothing could have prepared her for what she saw. Now she understood why Scythe Curie did not tell her.
Because bound to that chair, gagged, terrified, and tearful, was her brother, Ben.
He tried to speak, but nothing but muffled grunts came from behind the gag.
She backed away, then ran back to the five scythes.
“No! You can’t do this! You can’t make me do it.”
“We can’t make you do anything,” said one of the scythes she didn’t know, a woman in violet with PanAsian leanings. “If you do this, you do it by choice.” Then the woman stepped forward and held a small box out to Citra. “Your weapon will be random. Choose a slip of paper from the box.”
Citra reached in and pulled out a folded piece of paper. She dared not open it. She turned to look at her brother, sitting so helpless in the chair.
“How can you do this to people?” she screamed.
“My dear,” said Scythe Meir with practiced patience, “it’s not a gleaning, because you are not yet a scythe. You merely have to render him deadish. An ambudrone will take him to be revived as soon as you complete the task we’ve put before you.”
“But he’ll remember!”
“Yes,” said Scythe Mandela. “And so will you.”
One of the other scythes she did not know crossed his arms and huffed, much the way she had done on the drive here. “She’s too resistant,” he said. “Let her go. This night’s already gone on too long.”