With quick, efficient moves, Cas untucked the bedclothes and wrapped the body in them. His actions sent a wave of shiny yellow beetles scuttling off the corpse in every direction. The insects piled into a mound by Cas’ boot. The sounds they made, click, click, click, grew louder as they formed a single queue and trailed across the chamber, up to the open window, and out of the cottage. The clicking faded away. Izaro, still in the chair, turned a curious shade of green. Cas had not realized it was possible for a ghost to feel queasy.
“Don’t look,” Cas advised. It was easier to breathe through his mouth. The worst of the smell might have gone but not all of it. Grunting, he tossed the shrouded Izaro over his shoulder and staggered out the door. The body, though heavy, was little more than bone and hair, held together by tendon and rotting wool. It rattled and clacked as Cas rounded the cottage, past a small fenced yard that he remembered had once held chickens. A rusted shovel lay on the ground by the back wall. He grabbed it, then clambered up the embankment, Izaro following close behind.
“Here?” Cas asked.
They stood in a grove full of wild olive trees and dense pine. A good place, he thought, to bury a man who had prized his solitude. At Izaro’s nod, Cas tossed the shovel onto the ground and laid the body beside it. His heavy cloak followed.
The morning sun offered little heat, and the wind remained brisk, but the work more than made up for it. Cas had already gone to the river twice to refill his flask. As for Izaro, he sat with his back against a nearby olive tree. Quiet at first until Cas, shirt sticking unpleasantly to his skin, tugged it over his head and left it by the cloak. At the sound of Izaro’s hiss, Cas went still.
Idiot. How could he have forgotten the scars? Cas looked at Izaro, whose eyes were filled with shock and horror, and saw what he saw.
Scarring that covered his back and chest. The long line of a whip, from left shoulder to right hipbone. The crescents formed by a steel-toed boot. Deep purple bands at his wrists where iron cuffs had rubbed the skin raw. Cas had lost any hope the vivid, angry markings would ever fade away.
“Who did this to—?” Izaro broke off. Whatever it was he saw on Cas’ face silenced him.
Without speaking, Cas reached for his shirt and put it on. Humiliation rose like bile in his throat.
He grabbed the shovel and dug.
Deeper.
And he remembered.
The last of his beatings had come a year ago, a memory that never strayed far from his thoughts.
“Get up.”
The guard’s kick had caught him in the ribs as he bent to lift another stone. Flinching, Cas did as he was told. In the years since his capture and imprisonment, he had sprouted upward and outward, though this guard continued to loom over him. “Get your slop,” the guard ordered. He marched off, kicking and barking his way past the other prisoners.
Cas had never been so far from home. Only feet away, Brisa’s grandest bridge lay in ruins. Destroyed in the ongoing war between Oliveras, the land of his birth, and Brisa, this wretched kingdom in the north. Cas had been among the prisoners sent here to help rebuild the bridge. Stone by stone. He joined the others in the queue waiting for their share of kettle slop. Turnips and cat meat likely, if there was meat at all. At least it would be hot. He had woken with a vicious chill and a discovery that he had spoken of to no one. For he was surrounded by his enemies, and there was no one here to tell.
The shove at his back was expected. Almost perfunctory. Cas ignored it, which only earned him another. This time he shifted and smiled pleasantly at a gray-toothed man named Mendo.
“What are you looking at, Oliveran?” Mendo demanded. “I’ll beat that ugly face of yours in, you keep looking at me.”
Mendo alone was no threat, but he had friends. Fellow Brisans. Not for the first time, Cas wished his brother were here. For his protection and for his counsel. What would Ventillas do in his place? And as he thought of his brother, the answer became clear. Cas replied, “Ugly? That’s not what your sister said.”
That was all it took. It was as simple and as pitiful as that. Mendo’s eyes widened in outrage and his face purpled as the other prisoners heard and laughed. Cas braced himself. Here it starts. Seconds later, he was in the mud, kicked and pummeled by Mendo and anyone else who could get a fist or a foot in. His lip split open. The blows to his stomach had him coughing up blood. A single kick or a thousand. One would think he would become resigned to the beatings after years of imprisonment, able to bear them more easily. It was not so. They never became easier. Every indignity made him feel more like a dog and less like the boy his family had loved. Though terror and pain filled him, Cas fought none of it. Did not even attempt to shield his face as the blows rained down. Touch me all you want, you mules. As much as you want, today.
More shouting came from afar. Cas’ abusers were hauled off. He squinted through swollen eyes to see the same guard glaring down at him.
“Oy! What’s this, then?” the guard demanded.
“The Oliveran started it,” one prisoner offered. “Said bad things about Mendo’s sister.”
It was not the guard who answered but his captain, who stepped into Cas’ line of sight. A man not much older than Cas with a weak chin and a crisp uniform. He regarded the situation with mild interest. “Ah. The old sister provocation. Only you don’t have a sister, Mendo.”
“He didn’t know that,” Mendo protested. “Can’t have a filthy Oliveran insulting our women.”
“True.” The captain surveyed the prisoners with their bloodied knuckles, then turned to Cas, who had pulled himself to his knees. “What’s wrong with you today, Oliveran? You usually fight back.”
Cas spat blood onto the ground. “One against thirty?” His voice came out hoarse. It hurt to speak. “To what end?”
“That never stopped you before,” the captain pointed out. “I wouldn’t be so eager to die if I were in your place. We all know where you’re off to next.”
Mendo, who didn’t have a sister, said, “To hell, you basta—”
“Yes, Mendo, I think he understood. On your feet, Oliveran.” The captain turned to the guard, who pulled a whip from his belt. “Fighting is not tolerated in my camp. Someone must be punished. It might as well be you.”
Cas swayed to his feet, every inch of him screaming in agony. He shivered. It was so terribly cold.
The guard stepped forward. “Your shirt.”
With difficulty, Cas pulled his shirt, stained and torn even before the beating, over his head. A stunned silence fell, followed by a mad rush as everyone—prisoners, guard, captain—backed away from him.
Cas glanced down. He had discovered the boils that morning. One below his collarbone, the other by his hip. They had not been there the night before. And now they had burst open, punctured by kicks and punches. He knew what the boils meant, had heard the rumors from the city, of overrun hospitals and bodies left in the street. He had seen the uneasy watchfulness among the guards.
This was what his brother would do. If escape was impossible and death imminent, Ventillas would take his enemies with him. As many as he could. Though it hurt tremendously, Cas grinned, teeth slick with blood as he looked at the men with their bleeding knuckles and panicked eyes.