Litany of Winter

The next morning, Neumann led all nine into the healing wing.

Martin walked beside Severin without saying much, and that alone made the corridor feel wrong. Paul kept looking toward him and then away whenever Martin noticed. Nobody mentioned the mask.

The healing wing was already busy. A man in black sat on the edge of a narrow bed while a healer held his forearm steady. The muscles beneath his skin jumped hard enough to move his whole hand. Each spasm bent two fingers inward before they slowly opened again.

Neumann stopped the group several paces away.

”Every gift costs something,” he said. ”You’re about to see what that means.”

The man on the bed swore when his arm jerked again. His healer told him to keep still, and he told her he was doing his fucking best. Martin almost smiled.

Across the room, another marked man leaned back while a healer examined one eye. Tiny red vessels had burst across the white around the iris. His other eye stayed open but did not track the healer’s fingers. Dark swirls and irregular patterns covered the blind eye, close enough to the markings Severin had seen on Hans’s hand that he noticed the resemblance.

Severin kept looking until the healer shifted and blocked the eye from view.

A curtain farther down had been left partly open. Behind it, a man in what looked like a Pilgrim’s coat lay with one arm stretched across a metal tray, dark lines crossing the back of his hand. Higher up, a section of his forearm had gone gray.

The healer working on him cut away a strip of dead flesh without getting a reaction, then went deeper.

”Fuck.”

”Found the living part,” the healer said.

”No shit.”

The healer steadied his arm and cut again.

Neumann waited until all nine had seen enough.

”As you can see, none of these men failed their pact,” he said. ”They survived it.”

Thomas looked from Neumann to the occupied beds.

Neumann lifted his right hand. Severin had noticed the mark before without ever paying much attention to it. Dark lines crossed the back beneath the knuckles and ran toward the wrist.

”You should have figured this out by now, but in case you haven’t, if the pact is successful, you lose sight in one eye. The mark appears on the same side as the blind eye. Mine came on the back of the hand. Sometimes it appears on the eye itself. If that happens, Order rules say you keep it covered in public. Saves questions.”

Johann had already taken out his notebook. ”Sir, I’ve heard the survival chances are slim. How bad is it really?”

Neumann looked at him. ”We don’t know who survives or why. Recent cohorts have averaged about one in six.”

Johann’s pen stopped above the page.

Paul stared at Neumann while Anna looked toward the occupied beds again.

”You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. One in six?” Thomas said.

”I’m afraid so.”

Johann looked down at his notebook. ”Across how many cohorts?”

”Enough to trust the average. I’ve seen cohorts where only one in seven survived. Once, one in eight.”

”So the Order knows most people who attempt the pact will die, and you still send them there?” Thomas said.

”Yes. Because without marked men, we don’t stand much of a chance against these fucking things.”

Anna looked past Neumann toward the healers. ”Is there at least anything they can do if things start going wrong?”

”No. We’ve been trying for hundreds of years. Once the pact rejects an Initiate, we’ve never managed to keep one alive.”

Nobody wrote that down. Martin rubbed a thumb along the edge of his sleeve while Paul stared at the floor.

Madeleine asked, ”If we’re already at Gravewatch and decide we don’t want this anymore, can we still go back?”

”As long as the pact ceremony hasn’t started, you’re free to return. You can be assigned other roles within the temple.”

Paul asked, ”Is there any way we can know what gift we’ll get?”

”No. The only thing we know is that you won’t get a gift another marked brother or sister already has while they’re still alive.”

Severin looked at Neumann’s marked hand.

”What if we survive and get some useless gift?”

”There’s no such thing as a useless gift, Hale. Some aren’t much good in a fight, but once you understand what yours can do and use your head, you’ll find a use for it.”

”Great,” Martin said. ”So we’re probably going to die, and if we somehow survive, we might still get something shit.”

”Don’t worry, Martin. Your gift for constantly complaining requires no pact at all.”

Martin gave him a tired smile. It was the first one Severin had seen since yesterday.

Rafael spoke next. ”Let’s say we survive. How long are we required to remain in service?”

”Once you’re marked, your oath to the Order is for life. We can’t let someone walk away with a gift they barely understand and do whatever they please with it.”

Thomas gave a short, dry laugh. ”So it’s death or a lifetime in service.”

Neumann exhaled. ”No one forced you to come here, Bennett. And no one will force you to take the pact.”

He turned toward the corridor. ”Come on.”

The main training hall was empty when they reached it. One of the timber beams used during the earlier marked demonstration still rested across trestles near the far wall.

Neumann walked to it, then took a small leather pouch from his belt.

Iron clicked inside, and Severin recognized the sound at once. Coins.

Neumann shook one into his palm. ”This is mine.”

As Neumann pressed his right thumb against the iron, the dark lines across the back of his hand flared green and the coin began to glow with a low hum.

Severin leaned forward before he could stop himself as the glow sharpened and Neumann flicked the coin toward the timber.

The coin struck with a flat crack, green light bursting across the face of the beam as a shallow bite of wood vanished and splinters scattered across the floor.

Paul stepped closer before catching himself. ”What the fuck...”

Neumann took out another coin. ”This one gets more.”

The second charge came faster. The markings on Neumann’s hand burned brighter as green spread across the iron until the coin shone strongly enough to stain his fingers with light. The hum grew louder.

He threw it, and the detonation punched a ragged hole through the beam, kicking one end hard against its trestle.

Several of the others stepped back, but Severin stayed where he was, watching Neumann’s hand instead.

”No hiding that,” Andreas said.

”No.” Neumann opened his fingers. ”Once I charge something, it glows and starts making that noise. I can’t hold it for long.”

”What happens if you do?” Paul asked.

”It goes off in my hand.”

Anna glanced at his hand. ”And what does it cost you?”

”Charging burns through what my body has available. If I use too much too quickly, my blood sugar drops. I get dizzy and my muscles start giving out. Food helps, but it takes time to recover.”

Martin looked at the hole in the beam. ”Comforting.”

Thomas looked from the damaged timber to Neumann. ”So this is why you keep doing it?”

”Part of why.”

”You tell us most people die, then you show us this.”

”I’m showing you what the work can require.”

”You bring people in, feed them, house them, train them, give them a place here, and then tell them the way forward is a slab that kills most of them.”

Nobody answered as Thomas stepped closer. ”And you call that a choice?”

Severin found himself agreeing with more of it than he liked.

A bed beat sleeping on the floor, and meals he did not have to count coins for were better than most things Blackhaven had given him. The training mattered too. He had spent years learning useful lessons only after somebody broke something in him.

Neumann answered without changing expression. ”It is a choice.”

”Yeah. For people with nothing else to choose.”

”Listen, Bennett. I survived Gravewatch. Most of my cohort didn’t.”

”So what?” Thomas said. ”Does that make it acceptable?”

”No.” Neumann set three iron coins across the fingers of his right hand. ”It makes me qualified to tell you what it fucking is. Watch my hand.”

The first coin glowed green as the markings across Neumann’s hand flared with it. He snapped the coin into the damaged beam, tearing away another chunk of wood.

A second coin was already glowing when the first struck. Neumann threw it almost immediately and charged the third before the second detonated. The two blasts came close enough together that Severin felt them through the soles of his boots.

The beam split along the damaged section as smoke curled from the broken wood.

Neumann closed his right hand once, then opened it again more slowly.

”The army and police can only do so much against what we deal with. We need more marked members because sometimes they’re the only thing that gives us a fighting chance.”

Thomas stared at him. ”You think that justifies it?”

”No. We do it because otherwise more people die.”

No one had anything else to ask. Neumann waited a moment, then dismissed them.

As the others filed toward the doors, Martin caught Paul’s sleeve before he could slip past.

”Stop looking at me like that.”

”I thought you were dying.”

Martin let go of Paul’s sleeve. ”Next time, try not to break the fucking room saving me.”

Paul gave a quiet, uneasy laugh.

Severin followed the others, then glanced back and saw Neumann still standing beside the damaged beam.

He waited until the door was nearly clear before taking a small tin from his coat. His fingers trembled as he opened it and tipped several lumps of sugar into his palm, eating them one after another.

Neumann lowered himself to the floor with his back against the wall, the open tin resting between his knees. No healer came for him, and he did not call for one.

He closed his eyes. Severin watched for another moment, then followed the others out.