PART III: STARLING.
11
Rhodos McNamara. The Falcon.
Guilt Season
DAY 12.
"What are you doing here?"
The Vivisector laughs. Cynane restrains Rhodos as he strains towards the Vivisector, raises his sword. He'll end them end them end them he has to fucking finish this—!
They are in One, after Eight's train plucked them from Four and drove them there, and Rhodos McNamara faces down the one person he hates in the world. Hate is a strong word; he does not typically hate. But he hates the killer of his family and his best friend.
"I understand there is history between the both of you. But if you are to work together—"
Everything fades out, after that. He does not hear what Cynane says; does not care to.
"I am not working with a murderer."
"That is not up to you, Rhodos," Cynane says. Her one-eyed gaze - the other is covered by an eyepatch - tells a hard sympathy. "I am sorry about Althea. But if our plan to take One and the Capitol by brute force is to work - then you must be with the Vivisector."
There are no musts in the revolution. Still, his anger starts to fade. If he convinces himself that this is necessity, then that's how it'll go.
He approaches the Vivisector. The Vivisector gives him a little wave, throwing their fingers out and together like sparking stars.
"Nice to see you here, McNamara. You're working with me? Too bad, so sad," The Vivisector says. "But you can't hate me for that. We all are murderers. Technically, I think you're more of a murderer than me. I was under duress! Not my fault you gave up rebel secrets a tad too late." They giggle, grin at Cynane. "Sorry about that, by the way."
Is this retribution?
For his betrayal?
The taste in his mouth is shameful. It is bitter. The revolution adores its irony. Of course it does.
He doesn't know what to do.
She's dead. Althea Ivory is dead - because they tried - because they attempted - to -
To save.
He stares at her body before him, bloody and empty and gone, and he clutches her hand and sobs, and sobs.
"Rhodos, get up."
When he doesn't, the hand grabs his shoulder and takes him away and away, from the encampment and the battlefield and - his hand reaches out for Althea's body, eyes staring off into the skies - and his throat leaps a cry, we can't leave her there, we can't, please -
"No. We have to go, fuck's sake McNamara, we're not pounding out the keys to Tristesse here. "
Hezediah.
Hezediah!
He gasps as he blinks through the blurs. "You… you aren't…"
Hezediah rolls her eyes. "'Course not. D'you think The Vivisector could've killed me that easy?"
Disbelief whirls in his throat.
Relief should pool through his body.
There is none.
Despair arrives in threes. In death-death-deaths. Dad, Mom, Althea, oh, Althea—
They get into the truck. The truck revs, rumbles, and speeds down into the depths: away from camp, away from death, away, away.
"Have this, McNamara."
He blinks at the offered knife, its metal glistening in the moonlight. "What is it?"
"It sticks well in metal," Hezediah says. The broken streets around her are cur, rinsing bleed and destructive carapace. Her mouth curves. "Tried and true."
Oh. Rhodos does not ask. Does not need to. Hezediah Zenkovah's vengeance streak upon the Forges is an open secret. Seeing that the Metals and the Forges are the same kind; it only makes sense here, too.
It must be how she escaped, he thinks and thinks of the Vivisector's grinning, maniacal smile. When Althea attacked them with a knife and it met hollows. When she shot them twice and they rose again.
The Vivisector is not here now. Hezediah is not supposed to be here. She should be warring upon One with Talquin. And yet.
"Consider it an apology. I'm sorry about Althea."
The perfect hurricane disappears into One's city depths.
Rhodos McNamara clutches a knife.
He's here to make their sacrifices worthy. To make Daniel's death mean something. To make Ryleigh's death mean something. To make his family's deaths mean something. To make Althea's death mean something.
But are they sacrifices? They're just death. Death and death and—
No, they mean something. They have to: for the sake of purpose, for the sake of meaning.
They couldn't have died in vain. He can't let them die in vain.
The Vultures is still his answer. He has pledged himself to the cause. He will win with it. Die with it.
He has betrayed them: how could they ever regard him as their own men?
They have forsaken him: how could he stay with the wolves that have killed everyone he loves?
How could he stay with the wolf?
"I used to live in houses like these," The Vivisector whistles. They stare out at a mansion's marble, smashed into smithereens by their blade. "We had everything. Opulence, obviously, but it was more than that."
Rhodos will not indulge them.
"Why? Oh, 'cause I was the parasite," The Vivisector smiles. "They fed me, sheltered me. The Good Doctor was 'nice' because he could afford to be. Well, nicer. I was promised an army and I'd submit."
To the next mansion. Taken down, just like that.
"They didn't know I owned them. Still don't. Well. Not yet."
The next. The next after.
"They think they can get away with it. Xianrith, Essetella, Ivory. Hell, Snow."
The next, and the next.
"They can't. I'm the bomb, McNamara. I'm their arms. I choose which wars win, and which wars lose. That's the beauty of Variables. We are control."
Another, and another.
Empty statue faces, peeling quartz, smogged mirror shards.
(Was old money always this self-same?)
"I killed Sonellion," Rhodos says, "when he came for me." He does not mention that Sonellion was begging for death, his irises like the Nine girl that slashed her own throat.
"They won't know if I kill you now," The smoothness of the hilt's silver twinges Rhodos' palm. "I could say you died in an accident."
(He has never been this steady with death before.)
(But deaths change you.)
"I'm the bomb, McNamara," the Vivisector says, knuckles knocking upon their exoskeleton of armour. "Quite literally. Kill me and…"
From their thumbs, their hands spread out an explosion like a fucked-up butterfly.
"... we're nuclear. That's my gorgeous promise. Don't get me wrong, I'd be impressed. If you forsook the revolution for little old me. But mister McNamara is the loyal sort, isn't he?"
Rhodos' hold loosens on his knife.
The Vivisector grins at that injustice.
They reunite. Talquin and Daria, that is, delivered by a dead girl.
Alithyia, who has brought Daria out from the depths of Eight and accosted her to Havenside, where a broken lover awaits to break her heart.
Daria sobs into Talquin's chest, as she holds him, as he holds her, as they undergo the heartbreak of Cel Ivory's death.
They must see his tears. Because Daria is beckoning to him, teary-eyed and Rhodos breaks into them too. He has not felt human touch, in so long: not since Althea, grasping his hand in the cells; not since Hezediah, wrangling him from the Vivisector's camps. He has not felt touch so tender.
"Is it possible?" Rhodos gasps, through his sobs, "To save them?"
It is a hope. A sick hope, but hope nonetheless. If Alithyia Essetella could return from the dead — who's to say? —
(Will his family's survival salve him? Will Althea's?)
A hand falls upon his shoulder. Alithyia's, placating.
"You don't want to go there," she says, "Let them rest, Rhodos. Bringing them back to life isn't kindness. They're better off dead than alive."
The rubble of One ebbs and flows like tides to Four's shores. The Vivisector's feet swish the detritus waves, twisting in the waves of ruin and kicking up dust like seafoam. Except instead of the pale flecks flying into the skies and the wisp lights, it specks white bits into the abyss.
They are not skin flecks. They are not dead skin. They are not.
The Vivisector hums. They glance at Rhodos. "Have you ever wanted a District to rule?"
He blinks. "What kind of question is that?"
"I would rule the Capitol," the Vivisector says, "And I'd be right by her. Kath would've ruled One. I promised her that. She loved Metal, see. One's the home of it."
"Isn't Four?"
"No. Xianrith might try to valorise her underground. Try as she might, though, she isn't us. One has verity. One has Levine Saros," they snicker. "Or had, rather. Good people tend to die early."
They want to provoke him. They want to see if he'll snap, if he'll carve their throat out and explode all of One and its Vultures along with.
(They want to see if he's like Althea.)
"I should kill you," Rhodos says. He does not reach for his knife.
"Let's say you did. You'd be just like me, McNamara," the Vivisector says. "But I never killed innocents. You'd be blowing me up. And One's men and women and children, buy-one-get-three-free."
"I am not you."
"No," the Vivisector laughs. "Of course not. But we're two parts guilty, aren't we? You to Althea. I to Kath. The ends are, such and such. They're like that."
"Are you sorry?"
The Vivisector stops. "What type of question is that?"
Rhodos does not respond. You want to talk, Vivisector? Let's talk. I'll let you talk.
"Are you?"
Silence.
The flecks swish in the mid-air, twisting like fireflies.
"Obviously not," the Vivisector says, snickers, and it is hollow, "I'm a killing machine. This is war. Why would I be?"
One's Academy burns. Its centopath - a rack of weapons, wreathed with immortal roses - withers in the flame. Rhodos stares at the destruction. He stares.
He has not thought about his parents since their deaths. He has not let himself. Yet One's Academy dredges and nets in Four's memories.
Himself, playing the keys in Mrs. Larimar's study - his piano songs, his guitar strings - the brimming mouth of the windows, peeking with dusk - his parents' discerning eyes are nowhere here -
He loves them. Why isn't he more upset?
He should be. It's his due to them.
(Why isn't he?)
He's disgusted with himself. As he should be. He's upset with himself - as he should be. He doesn't feel enough. He feels too much.
He feels too much for a Career. It has been obvious to him in the Games: obvious still in its bird-ridden aftermath.
He sold the Vultures out. For what? For a promise unkept? For—
Not anything.
At dusk, One is nearly the Vultures'.
At dusk, the Vivisector stands bright and gleaming. Metal is evinced on their body: it twines inside, twines out. Curves into an exoskeleton, primed to blow.
At dusk, Rhodos wants to get away.
The Vultures' operations are finished. He's finished. He never wants to see the Vivisector's face again.
He wants to kill them. Violence may have him sick to his stomach, but if there is any being in the world that deserves death. It is the Vivisector.
The Vivisector, as they twirl in the unearth, curling dust-motes to their metallic flesh. The Vivisector, as they laugh at One, broken as a yolk cusped between their hands. At dusk, the Vivisector dances.
Rhodos' words unclasp from his throat.
"Do you like death that much?"
The Vivisector stops. "Who says?" the Vivisector says. "I'm a machine," the Vivisector grins, "I'm a leader. I was built that way."
At dusk, One is nearly dead.
"You're not a leader," Rhodos says. "You're a deserter. To the winner the spoils, right?"
To make sense of the Vivisector — with the Vultures — is insane.
"That's an accusation," the Vivisector says. The glint is on her lips, now. Whether it is metal is anyone's guess. "Where's your good evidence?"
The world falls silent.
He doesn't have any proof.
So what if he does? So what if the Vivisector left the Metals? Rhodos doesn't have it in him to care. If the Vultures win, if the Capitol wins— his family is no less dead. Althea is no less dead.
"It's draining," the Vivisector says, suddenly.
"What?"
"It's draining. To be madall the time."
Their silence is a parasite.
"No," Rhodos says. "You love it."
"Okay, if that's what you say," The Vivisector grins. Their fingers clatter on their blades: one-two-three-four, a symphony of a screwed-up song. "Fight me, then! McNamara, you have a traitor in your midst."
"They fuckin' killed," and the Vivisector lifts their index finger, "your Dad," middle, "Mom," fourth, "sister", pinkie, "best friend."
They drop their hands.
"You know you want to."
Why does he see her in them? Althea with that inferno inside of her; where posture and play could not keep pace. Althea, with her destruction akindled. Althea, with her rage.
He made a promise.
He's keeping his promise to Althea.
He's finishing this off.
Clash. Bang-bang-bang go their blades and the Vivisector grins when Rhodos is up close, blade to theirs and he's pressing down, down, down. "Oh, I loveit," the Vivisector hisses, "about time, McNamara." Then their blades fray apart.
He feels all of it. Hurt serrates his skin, flurries into a feeling like—
(like guitarstrings chopping into his fingertips)
(like falcons tearing teeth into the gulls flocking within the disordering winds)
(like seaglass and its contorting bodies)
He understands why Althea loves it.
Rhodos jags his blade—
Oh.
Oh.
Oh god.
He has cut the Vivisector's throat open.
No. He didn't mean to. No, no, no. They're dying. The Vivisector isn't meant to die like that! He's using Hezediah's blade, special for the metals. What else was he expecting? That's not revenge, oh god. Oh god, the world will die. Oh god, oh gods. He did it. He killed them all.
Their throat—
(is flowers, sputnik and wirings, cogged throats and corrugated tubing, spewing out tar and oil and)
—red. It's just red.
"I'm keeping my promise," the Vivisector grins. Blood jags up, shudders down their exoskeleton, glinting upon the silver shafts. Their ghastly eyes are hollow, smiling. Their fingers tap against the guts strewn upon their belt, counting down for the final goring.
Three.
Two.
One.
Rhodos McNamara closes his eyes. The tears slip down his cheeks. The Vivisector dies.
The world—
The world does not blow.
He opens his eyes. Quite suddenly, Rhodos realises. Oh.
The Vivisector keeps their promise. Not to Rhodos, no.
But to Kathvarine Guthrie.
One stays a gleaming wasteland, awaiting its ruler in some future. It is anarchy and it is memorial. It belongs to a metal being and their best friend.
At dusk, the Vultures successfully take One.
"Congratulations, McNamara," Hezediah says. Her grin's up a lip, feral still when she plucks the blade from his fingers, admires the blood slick rank on its mouth.
(It is not oil and silver. The Vivisector bleeds as any other human bleeds.)
"You made sharp work outta that bitch, huh? Bet it felt good."
Did it?
Rhodos has only had sickness. In the Games, when Nine girl dragged her blade along-ways her neck - he could not eat without the churn in his gut. On the 10th day, when Soneillon died with a plea, he could not sleep without his hollow gaze pulsing in his head.
The Vivisector's death was a pleasure. It was the chords of his guitar, fatally in tune.
(And the melody was an utter mess. Of dispassion, of squeak and of tears, of Mrs. Larimar's disapproving frown. Rhodos, that was awful. You're not being truthful to yourself.)
Hezediah throws an arm around his neck, drags him into a hug. Rhodos stiffs at it.
He feels sick.
"It didn't," he exhales. "I feel disgusting. I feel— I feel like a criminal. You shouldn't be alive, I," and the hysterical bubbles out of his throat, "I killed the Vivisector and I killed you all, too. They promised. They said… the bomb, it…"
Hezediah stills, now. Then he falls into it. He clutches Hezediah's shoulder, his nails creasing in her flesh, her flesh.
"I'm so tired," Rhodos sobs. "I don't want to feel. I don't want to feel anymore."
Hezediah's fingers tense around Rhodos' back.
"Rhodos," Hezediah says. "Look at me."
He does.
She stares at him, like she doesn't believe what'll come out of her mouth. Finally, Hezediah exhales, shakes her head. "It's not gonna seem it, in war. Hell, it's not gonna seem it anywhere. But feeling's your best quality. You'll kill yourself, tryin' to feel nothing. It's machine."
He breaks. Rhodos breaks for his friends; for Daniel, for Ryleigh. Rhodos breaks for his family; for his Mom, his Dad. Rhodos breaks for Althea.
On the 12th day of the revolution, Rhodos McNamara mourns. He mourns in his mentor's arms. He sobs into her shoulder. She allows it.
When all is said and done: Rhodos brings Hezediah to see the Vivisector's bones.
"I don't know—" he says. "—don't know what you can do with this. I can't look at it."
Hezediah drags up the Vivisector's corpse. She saws out their exoskeleton. She hefts up their armour over her shoulder, and clamps a hand on Rhodos' shoulder.
"Get rest," Hezediah says. "I'll finish this."
This is how the Vultures' rebellion ends, for Rhodos McNamara.
His rebellion ends in One. The Vultures march on to the Capitol, Hezediah leading their charge. Rhodos stays in the train. After the 12th day, he mourns his family, his friends' life and their deaths. He is swallowed in grief: in his inability to save and to create meaning for their bodies.
He finds a dusted piano within the cabins of the train. It is off-key and squeaky; not a note sounds right, when he runs his fingers along it. But Mrs. Larimar taught him well: she taught him that songs were, by all, first passion-made. On the keys, he plays a mourn-song.
This is how it ends.