The Blunt Reaper

Elara continued staring at Mara after the final words left her mouth. Then her attention shifted toward Rook.

"Is that true?"

Rook remained seated with both arms folded across his chest. His expression suggested that the possibility of recovering his living memories concerned everyone in the room except him. "I don’t know."

"You don’t know whether the memories belong to you?"

"I didn’t go through them."

"More like you’re afraid of doing so."

Rook didn’t deny it, he looked Elara in the eyes and said, "Would you?"

She didn’t reply.

Elara looked toward the fragment enclosed within Mara’s hand. Its dark surface continued shifting as pieces of countless recollections pressed against one another beneath it. "Why do you believe they might be his?"

"The Fourth Rank recognized him," Mara said. "It accused him of murder. The Fourth ranked’s murder. When I touched the fragment, I saw some of the deaths, but there were other memories mixed between them. A white room, machines, people surrounding someone I couldn’t see properly. None of it looked like the Underworld."

Elara’s gaze returned to Rook. "And none of this interests you?"

"Not particularly."

Mara turned toward him. "You nearly stopped me from handing it over."

"I don’t want strangers digging through it. That isn’t the same as wanting to see what’s inside."

"If it contains your memories, you should know."

Rook leaned farther back in the chair. "They aren’t my memories."

"You just said you didn’t know."

"They aren’t from my perspective," he explained. "The Fourth Rank was looking at me when it remembered whatever happened. At best, those memories belonged to people who knew me while I was alive. More likely, they belonged to people who thought they knew me and blamed me for whatever killed them. Or maybe blamed me for killing them..."

"It recognized you."

"So have several people who wanted to stab me. Recognition doesn’t make someone reliable."

Mara closed her fingers more firmly around the fragment. "It accused you of killing them."

"I have been accused of worse by things with better memories."

"You don’t even remember what you were accused of."

"Exactly. Makes it difficult to take personally. Or bother caring enough to go through them."

Elara watched him for several seconds, searching his face for any indication that the indifference was an act. "You truly do not care what they contain."

"I care enough to wish Mara would stop trying to solve every problem she finds."

"That isn’t an answer," Mara said.

"It’s the only one you’re getting. Those memories belong to whoever was staring at me, which means they’ll show what that person believed happened, not necessarily what actually happened. If you insist on looking, that’s your decision. Just don’t expect me to sit beside you while a dead stranger explains how everything was apparently my fault."

The fragment shifted within Mara’s palm. A face briefly pressed against its dark surface, too distorted to identify, before sinking beneath another twisting memory.

"I’m not giving up," she said.

"I know. You’re remarkably stubborn for someone who has been dead less than a week."

"Says the man who refuses to regain his own memories."

"That’s different."

"How?"

"I was already stubborn to begin with, without the memories."

Elara left them to argue and walked around her desk. She opened one of the reinforced doors leading into the corridor, where two secretaries sat at a narrow table sorting reports into metal trays. Both immediately looked up.

"Find an available Remembrancer," she ordered. "Someone experienced with composite fragments."

One of the secretaries rose. "The registry team is still processing the survivors from the current."

"Then find someone outside the registry team. Tell them the fragment came from a Fourth Rank and contains the memories of several souls. It must be separated without alteration."

The secretary glanced into the office and noticed the dark sphere in Mara’s hand. "How urgently?"

"Before the eastern officers return."

"That gives them approximately one week."

"It gives them less if they waste time asking how urgently."

The secretary nodded and hurried down the corridor. Elara closed the door and returned to her desk.

"A Remembrancer will isolate the death scenes first," she explained. "That should reduce the pressure upon the fragment and make the remaining memories easier to separate."

"Isolate?" Mara asked.

"Filter, if you prefer. Nothing will be destroyed. Memories of death carry more force than ordinary recollections, particularly inside a fragment taken from an Abomination. They will be placed within a separate vessel while the Remembrancer examines what remains."

Rook looked toward the sphere. His supposed lack of interest did not prevent the questions that followed. "What happens if separating them destabilizes it?"

"They stop."

"If the memories begin leaking?"

"They seal the fragment."

"And if the Remembrancer attempts to enter anything that might belong to me?"

Elara gave him a flat look. "I will have them ask permission before violating the private memories you repeatedly insist you do not care about."

"Good."

Mara held out the fragment, but Elara did not take it directly. She opened another drawer and removed a small pouch stitched from several layers of grey cloth. Thin symbols had been sewn around its opening with silver thread, forming several closed circles when she pulled the drawstrings apart.

"Place it inside."

Mara lowered the fragment into the pouch. The instant the cloth closed around it, the faint pressure within the office disappeared. She had grown accustomed to the sensation of the memories shifting near her chest and only recognized how heavily it had weighed upon her once it was gone.

Elara secured the drawstrings and placed the pouch upon her desk. "Now that we have established what you want from the Forty-Second, we can settle what the Forty-Second expects from you."

She pulled a clean stone tablet from another drawer and began filling its engraved sections with a narrow metal stylus. Each mark briefly shone before sinking into the surface.

"Name?"

"Mara."

"Former Bastion?"

"I don’t have one."

Elara’s stylus stopped. "Place of arrival, then."

"Near the Eleventh."

"That is not the same as belonging to it." Elara marked another section before speaking aloud as she wrote. "Status: unregistered soul. Contracted protection. Newly awakened Death Imprint. Voluntary enrollment in the accelerated Reaper program."

Mara leaned forward. "Voluntary enrollment?"

"You could remain a protected soul and refuse training."

"And then you wouldn’t allow me to join the search."

"Correct."

"That doesn’t sound very voluntary."

"It is voluntary in the sense that no one will drag you into the training facility. Your alternatives being unpleasant does not remove your ability to choose them."

Rook nodded toward Elara. "You’ll fit in here."

Mara ignored him. "How accelerated is accelerated?"

"Already mentioned, one week of assessment, physical instruction and Abomination doctrine. It normally covers only the minimum required to prevent a newly awakened Reaper from killing themselves or everyone travelling beside them. In your case, the instructors will also determine whether your Death Imprint can be used reliably enough to justify allowing you onto the expedition."

Elara pressed her palm against the bottom of the tablet. The marks brightened together before settling permanently into the stone.

"Rook will accompany you."

"No," Rook said immediately.

Elara continued writing. "That was not a request."

"I am not spending a week watching someone explain how to hold a weapon."

"You will not be taking the course."

"Then I have even less reason to attend."

"Mara possesses an unstable Death Imprint and remains under your protection. The training facility contains active abilities, live weapons and restrained Abominations used for instruction. Your Brand will not allow you to leave her there unless someone formally assumes your contract."

"Assign an officer."

"The contract is yours."

"I’ll stand outside."

"You’ll enter with her."

Rook looked toward Mara, evidently expecting her to object to being followed through every part of her training.

She smiled instead. "You heard her."

His expression darkened. "You don’t need me there."

"I’ve needed you everywhere else."

"That was before you reached a functional Bastion."

"You told me the Forty-Second wasn’t safe."

"I said nowhere was safe. That doesn’t mean I need to watch you get measured for a uniform."

Mara rose from her chair. "Then try leaving."

Rook did not move.

"Go on," she said. "You seem confident the contract won’t care."

He stared at her for several seconds before pushing himself to his feet. Rook retrieved the coffin from the reinforced corner and secured it vertically across his back. "This is coercion."

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