“I’ve never been to this one before,” she confessed. “Where does it lead?”
“The eighth,” I told her.
“And you can go all the way through?”
“Not without a few tricks courtesy of theGeistthemselves.”
She nodded, not even surprised.
“I suspected as much,” she said. “Well, I would say I’m eager to see you do it but I can’t see a damn thing down here so I’ll wait wherever it drops you off to be here for your return.”
I nodded.
“Anyone you want to know about?” I asked. “I can’t guarantee I’ll have time to make it up to the Second Ring but if there’s someone specific and you can tell me where to find them—”
“My sister,” she said at once. “House ofChasina. She’s always in the garden tending her roses. She’d be fourteen now. She has long black hair and dark eyes. She’ll be wearing lilac. She always wore lilac. And she probably has flowers in her hair. A whole crown of them if the season has been kind to her blooms.”
It was the gentlest tone of voice I’d ever heard fromZya. I nodded in return even though I knew she couldn’t see me in the dark.
“I'll try to find her,” I promised. “If not this time, then next.”
Zyanodded as well and took a step back to allow me my leave. I gave her a curt nod and turned away, already making my way down the dark tunnel toward Sanctuary.
The walk was the same as ever. I’d memorized the exact spot I needed to phase out of existence in order to cross the border without being tossed back into the tunnel. I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and phased, stepping through the border a moment later.
I’d forgotten about the Culling.
The first sound that hit me was the wailing of theDeckers. I turned toward the twelfth and hesitated. This wasn’t myintention. I'd come here to avoid the Culling, not to attend it. But the crying was growing louder, more intense than I could ever remember having heard from a Culling before, and my curiosity had me stepping forward before I could stop myself.
I remembered Darius’ Culling, every moment of it. The way the First Ringers stepped forward to make their vows before disappearing into that swirling black vortex below the twelfth tunnel opening, the wayZyastepped through, silent and defiant, and how Darius went in after. There was crying then but it was muffled, emanating from families huddled together, whispering goodbyes that weren’t meant to be shared with anyone but themselves. Not this wailing despair, not this loud crying out in anguish.
Something was wrong. I could feel it in my bones. Something had happened.
I was running now, my nonexistent feet padding against the cobblestone of the Deck as I made my way to the twelfth. But I skidded to a stop the moment I rounded the corner of the western wall and the twelfth tunnel became visible.
There were no families huddled together, no friends gripping their loved one’s hands tightly, urging them forward into the void. This was no somber affair attended only by the grieving.
I sawCosmofirst.Myrinestood directly behind him, staring down vacantly at the headless body at her feet. It belonged to a boy, no older than fifteen. Blood poured from his neck, staining the roots of his hair where his head had rolled a few feet away. His eyes were still open, staring at the sky as an older woman screamed nearby. Officers held her down on her knees as she cried, reaching out for the dead boy and pleading with the Vipers for a life that no longer existed.
My gut roiled as I turned to take in the rest of the scene. The priests I remembered from Darius’ Culling stood nearby, the ones who'd performed the ceremony they deemed necessary forthe gods. They were all narrow-eyed and solemn-faced as they stared at the assembly of young men and women before them, all marked with the black bar in the center of their foreheads. One of the boys’ chests was heaving as his gaze remained fixed upon the dead boy on the other end of the square. Tears streamed down his cheeks as his knees shook. I wondered how much longer he would remain standing.
“Enough,” someone shouted and the voice was so familiar it dragged my gaze away to the stairs.
“Milo,” I whispered to no one.
He was storming down the steps now, more wrath upon his expression than I'd ever seen before. He wore a suit of shining silver and powdery blue, more ornate than anything I’d seen him in before. His grandmother followed after him far more slowly, shrewd old eyes taking in the scene they'd encountered. Behind them was a man I knew I’d seen before but couldn’t name, one of Milo’s cousins perhaps, and Olympia as well. Then another set of feet pounded down the stairs at their backs and my brows furrowed in confusion.
“Harrison?” I asked aloud.
“What is the meaning of this,Cosmo?”Naschaasked as serenely as one might when inquiring about the weather. Her gaze passed over the headless boy bleeding on the ground and the weeping woman who could only be his mother before flicking back to the patriarch of House Viper, brows raised as she waited for an explanation.
“The priests informed me that the Lower Ringers had determined they weren’t going willingly to their Culling this year,”Cosmo answered, voice dripping with that disinterested disdain I remembered so well. “An example had to be made.”
“You murdered a Culled?” she gasped.
“No. I made an example of his brother.”
Cosmonodded to the shaking, crying boy in line with the others waiting to be Culled and a sickening feeling punched me in the gut.
