Someone else has lived through all my summertime,

Stripped away the roots and burned the petals to the wind –

As I am lost in the autumn of my memory

I swear that tonight the poets will bleed.

-An excerpt from “Valer’s Lament”, by Marya of Kontabliku

245 YT, Winter: Kivv

Badem and Melik stood on the wall, the wind whipping at their hair as they faced one another, grinning in the stinging cold. Flakes of snow bit against their cheeks and forced them to blink, lest their eyes fill up with bitter-burning tears. The teenage boy and the young man squared off against one another while their friends looked on, waiting, watching – the two approached one another slowly. Badem watched Melik’s every move with a careful eye, waiting for him to strike aggressively.

Badem had never been much of a fighter, but he did have a couple of things going for him, things that had helped him in the rare confrontation with one of the fighters he liked to watch in the old fighting club of Oxdal. Even though he’d never participated directly – well, that place did tend to attract the worst people in town. He learned quickly to be unassuming, something he was already very good at. His tall, thin frame, the mop of tangled wavy hair and the big goofy smile that came naturally to him – it all gave the impression, to the others there, that he was a little bit ‘above it all’, but not someone to worry about. He’d never prove a threat.

But he was tall, and he was strong enough to hold his own, and no one expected him to know his way around a fight.

Even Melik, in all the time he and Badem had known each other, since that first night at the fighting hall – Melik had never truly internalized that lesson. Badem terrified Melik, truthfully – the way he’d taken up the sword against that fighter, the way she’d backed off warily from him. But when Melik went in to strike, the knowledge of the threat that Badem truly posed was entirely intellectual.

When Melik went for his first strike, it was too soft – his arm didn’t fully extend, and though he slapped both Badem’s hands down away from his face, he didn’t push hard enough nor account for Badem’s presence of mind. In a straight-up fistfight against an inexperienced opponent, Melik could have grabbed both of his opponent’s wrists and slapped them down – not pulled – relying on the instinctual reflex that would cause his opponent to lean forward, straight into Melik’s fist. But Badem fought the instinct, knowing better than to give in to his basic impulse, and leaned back, ducking Melik’s first strike. Badem then turned his hands over, reached out and grabbed Melik’s arms, under the wrists. Pulling hard, Melik leapt from the ground and kicked out with his right foot, and Badem took the strike in his side, turning away from it so that he wouldn’t crack a rib. He still fell, but he fell with grace, letting go of Melik’s arms and leaning further back into the fall.

When he struck the stone, it was soft as a mattress, and he shimmied back a little, began to roll back up onto his feet. Melik bent down and grabbed onto the front of Badem’s shirt, raising a fist. The air around Badem shifted, and he took in a sharp breath – in his nose was the cloying scent of rot and metal. He wondered, in that instant, if he truly was where he believed himself to be. He was going through motions as though they were drilled into his very body, thinking through them rationally, and that – in itself – didn’t make sense to him.

Then Melik’s fist was nearly in his face, and Badem caught it and turned it aside. Badem reached up and wrapped his legs around Melik’s back, pushing with his knees to the side in an attempt to force the other fighter away. Yet Melik held his base, strong, leaning in to repeat the first punch. It didn’t break Badem’s guard, but it brought his attention to his own hands just long enough. With his opposite elbow Melik then pushed into the hollow of Badem’s knee, hard. The jolt of it caused Badem to let go of Melik’s back, and Melik then forced that leg down to the side, crawling over it so that he sat atop Badem’s chest. He raised his fists and prepared to pummel at Badem until he surrendered.

Badem caught a quick glance of their friends, watching from nearby – as well as Avishag. Avishag shouldn’t have been there, Badem knew that. “She’s not here,” he muttered. “She went away.” But Melik was pummeling his face, and he flailed with his hands to try to keep himself safe from the incessant strikes. Badem grabbed Melik’s arms just below the wrists, and then, holding the fists away from his face. Badem shifted his weight back, hard, and Melik lost his balance, throwing his weight forward with his hands landing on the stone behind Badem. Badem reached out with his right hand, grabbed on to the wrist there, reached his other arm over Melik’s head and wrapped it around the arm so that the hand was trapped. Badem pushed hard with his hips and his shoulder, rolling through his side, and Melik went with him, ending up below while Badem extricated himself from the hold and stumbled back. They were nearly at the inner rampart now, and as soon as Badem had rolled away, Melik rolled back so that he was standing closer to the center of the wall.

Breathing heavily, sweat dripping from his hair, Melik rose to his feet. He hesitantly raised his fists, and between breaths, he muttered: “I should have listened. I should have known I couldn’t trust you. You turn your back on everyone.” Melik stalked forward.

Badem shook his head, trying to keep his breath steady himself. “What are you talking about, Melik? I’m right here.” He glanced over at his friends. At Avishag. They stared, on the edges of their seats. As though this were not some mere spar. And when Badem looked into Melik’s eyes – there was such anger there, resentment and fear and regret. “I’m… I’m right here. How long have we been friends, Melik? We’re friends – right?”

“I don’t know anymore,” Melik said, coming close to Badem. “How many times did you put yourself first, Badem? The first time they came to Oxdal – you said you’d help get everyone out. And what did you do? You snapped. You killed.”

Badem scoffed, raising his fists to guard his face. “You – you praised me for that! You wanted them to suffer!”

“And then?” Melik stepped forward and thrust out an arm, too wide to hit Badem. But it was an obvious lead-in – Badem shifted his stance and jump-stepped to the side, and Melik abandoned the attempt. Melik was smaller than Badem, but he’d always been stronger – more compact, more trained in the blade and with those wrapped-knuckle hands of his. But for all of Melik’s speed and strength, he was predictable. The next viper-like swipe, an attempt to pull Badem’s guard apart, he easily deflected. But even as he battered off Melik’s attempts to bypass his guard, Badem began to sweat. With each strike, between the breaths, Melik spoke aloud.

“And the second time they came?” A cupped hand grabbed the inner hollow of Badem’s wrist. He didn’t try to hold it in place, seeing Badem step forward to lead into his strong-hand punch. Instead Badem twisted, reached out with the other hand, grabbed Melik by the wrist. He finished sidestepping, pulling back his trapped hand as it was freed from Melik’s grip, and allowed the younger boy to stumble past him. “You ran away!” Melik half-spun and kicked out, and Badem leaned away, catching the foot with both hands, forcing it back down. Melik kept his other foot planted, stepped back, and fixed his stance again.

From out of the range of a kick, Melik taunted: “you couldn’t bear to do it again – you couldn’t bear to kill! So you made us run away, even if we could have beaten them.”

“We couldn’t have beaten them,” Badem said, watching Melik through the gap between his own fists. “We didn’t stand a chance. You know that.”

“You don’t know that!” Melik stepped in, pivoted his hips and lashed out with his right fist, the arm held back. This time he fully extended – with a pop of flesh against flesh, Badem blocked the strike, but barely managed to keep his footing. He stumbled – and he would have fallen if Melik had pressed the attack. But instead, his opponent stepped back.

“And then… when it mattered most of all… you ran away.” Melik lowered his fists, still breathing heavily.

“Wait,” Badem said. He glanced toward the crowd of friends watching him and Melik. Their faces were all blurred, indistinct people blending with the stones of the buildings in the background. The snow grew thicker and the wind stronger, and Badem’s hair – plastered to his face – began to freeze at the tips.

“You didn’t even say anything,” Melik said, his hands falling to his sides, bloodshot eyes staring accusingly at Badem.

“Wait!” Badem said, louder. He started to walk toward Melik, but Melik only stepped back, further away.

And then Badem found himself frozen in place, although he tried to keep walking forward – as though the stone had melded with his feet, and he was rooted into the ground by a force stronger than his own fast-pounding heart. He watched, as though from outside his body, as his arm slowly raised until it was pointing – perpendicular from his body – toward Melik. Through the increasingly thick snow, Badem could only barely see the gun cradled in his hand.

“Wait!” Badem shouted, more at Melik than himself, and he felt his finger tighten around the trigger and – in a moment passing like an hour – slowly squeeze.

Bang! As the last rock fell atop the pile, and the others shifted by inches, but the cairn remained standing. The mourners sat nearby, watching the spot. The smell of blood was still acrid in Badem’s nostrils, and all around him lay the remains of fallen bricks, the dust of stone that had been torn apart by explosives and bullets and powers beyond his comprehension. He glanced around at the crowd – none of the faces were familiar except for Aleks and Hilda Zelenko. Avishag was nowhere to be seen – of course. Even when Oxdal fell the first time, Avishag never went to any of the formal funerals. The pain in the air was too much for her. And when it was her own brother that was being mourned…

Even the normally too-calm Aleks Zelenko seemed shaken. Though there were no tears on his cheeks, his shoulders shook with silent sobs. Hilda kept the brim of her hat pulled low over her eyes, so that Badem couldn’t see her cry.

Slowly Badem became more aware of the scene around him, his mind reassociating to reality. The pain in his limbs from the fight was gone, although he was still breathing heavily, struggling not to break down. His hands were clenched into fists, and his fingernails dug into his palms – beginning to draw surface blood as he sat.

Each of the mourners had their own things to say – to themselves and to the bodies of the dead. Melik’s cairn, standing in the center of the ruined building’s main hall, was far from the only one – indeed, he had a great deal of company there. With the building in the shape it was in, the cairns wouldn’t be able to stay up for very long – but custom demanded that the cairns be placed here, even if it meant they would fall with the building when all of this fighting finally ended. Badem wondered idly where the bodies had gone, though it was a strange thought – what need was there to hold on to the bodies of the dead, stripped of their memories?

Devani’s presence answered that question – she came into the building, swinging a small metal box on a small chain under her nose. When she closer, Badem smelled first the scent of rot and death – the unmistakable, corrupting stench of one who has been near a corpse. Only after this did Badem detect the scent of cloying herbs, spices packed tight inside the box. The herbs had a pleasant scent, but it couldn’t cover up the smell of death. Devani glanced left and right, looking over the crowd of mourners, stepping past cairn after cairn and finally approaching Badem. She knelt down and whispered in a reedy voice, quiet, and yet terribly firm all the same: “I understand that he was a friend of yours.”

Badem did not respond at first, still struggling to pull himself together so that he could look the strange woman in the eye. He’d seen her around once or twice – she seemed to be a friend of Kamila’s, and she’d been at the dance the previous day. Now, under the watchful gaze of the newly-recalibrated guns scanning the horizon for any attempt by the Invictan army waiting outside to repeat yesterday’s breach, Devani was walking the city at her leisure. The way she held herself, Badem thought, it was as though she could forget that just south of the wall there was an army massing, devising their next plan to break down the city walls and surge in and kill every living soul inside.

Devani waited as Badem sat and thought and stared into the middle distance, unfocused – and then finally, Devani sat down beside him, breathing in slow and deep through her nose. “You accomplish nothing by sitting here and blaming yourself for what is past."

Badem looked up and opened his eyes. The other mourners didn’t seem to notice that Devani had sat down, or didn’t think her conversation with Badem unusual in the least. He opened his mouth, feeling the pop of his lips, the furrow of his own brow, and he glanced at Devani out of the corner of his eye. “I don’t blame myself –“

She slapped him on the back of the neck. Again, no one else seemed to notice the sudden motion, nor Badem’s pained, sharp intake of breath. “Do not lie to me, boy,” Devani whispered. “It will do you no good. Save the lies for your real enemies.”

“Who are you?” Badem whispered. “I don’t know you.”

“Yet, Badem Teke, I know you well enough. I know that you lament your powerlessness almost as much as you lament Melik’s death.” She chuckled, almost inaudibly. “I hope you’ll forgive an eccentric her riddles. Have you seen Kamila Zelenko?”

“Not since the dance,” Badem replied. “Weren’t you with her?”

“I was.” As she said it, she reached up with her hand and brushed fingers through Badem’s hair, combing apart the strands. Then she reached into a pocket in her coat and withdrew a small metal whistle. “Take it, the blessing of the Aetheric Angel,” she said. She grabbed Badem’s wrist – a shockingly hard grip, thin fingers pressing down on pressure points – and opened his hand, then placed the whistle in his palm. It was no larger than his pinky finger, and had only two holes along the back, none on the opposite side.

“What is this?” he asked.

“As I said.” Devani slapped him lightly again. “It is the blessing of the Aetheric Angel, to guide you on the path you must take. Don’t you wish that you could defeat this demon of guilt?”

“What guilt –“

“Do not lie to me!” she hissed. When Badem glanced up, away from Devani, he saw that the others still had not reacted to this strange foreign Angelist’s behavior. As though sensing Badem’s thoughts, she continued, “I have been in this city far longer than you and I have learned to walk its streets the same as one who was born here. But it does not matter. I know the demon that dwells in your head because it is a close acquaintance to me as well. But there is no honor – none – in bearing this pain silently.” Her voice grew bitter and angry, and in that voice Badem could hear the years of resentment built up under Devani’s weathered skin. “Those who tell you to bear your pain, who will say that it makes you stronger, are nothing but prattling fools and should not be treated as anything more. The purpose of accepting the demons that live in you is so that you can defeat them. Without your victory, there is no purpose. And the only victory worth having is against the very real demons which created this nightmare.” She pointed to the south – to the wall behind which waited the army.

“Devani,” Badem said, bowing his head and locking his eyes on the floor, his bloody hand clasped tight around the whistle. “Leave me alone. I don’t want to talk to you.”

“Just hold on to the whistle,” Devani said, backing away slightly, but still sitting, leaning in Badem’s direction. “Through it, heed my council. Kamila Zelenko is on the right path – don’t you see her example?”

Slowly, Badem nodded, trying not to let his body tremor too much, or betray his fear and disgust. “I can see her example,” he said.

“Then you will know that her path is the one that leads to victory,” Devani replied. “You are resistant to this truth. Yet, it is a truth that has been proved to me again and again and again, every time becoming clearer. You’ll start to see it too, in time.”

Badem slowly raised his head, his expression becoming a half-neutral frown. In spite of everything Badem had been through, there were certain truths about himself that he could not escape. One of these was the simple fact that he was not one for confrontation. He shied away from a fight, he was hesitant to stand up for himself directly, and he knew full well that others could tell that about him. He had a long history of staying quiet, even when it might have been easier to speak up defiantly.

He steeled himself, let his hands drift to his legs, just above the knees, and stood up. The others didn’t react to him rising, and when he started to back away they didn’t so much as glance his way. “I don’t belong here,” he muttered under his breath, so quiet the mourners almost certainly couldn’t hear him. If they did, they didn’t react. Hilda’s face remained obscured behind the brim of her flat cap. Slowly Badem backed away, his unsteady breaths gradually slowing as he neared the outside door. Then finally he turned on his heel and stepped outside.