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Chapter 3: What’s My Name

Chapter 3: What’s My Name

Rook left the Department without waiting for her. The contract tightened around her wrist and dragged her after him, giving her only enough time to glare at Hessa before she was pulled into the crowded street.

Rook did not slow until they had put several buildings between themselves and the Department. He turned into a quieter street, where narrow stone houses leaned over the road and blocked most of the pale light from the Beacon.

The woman hurried after him, still holding the metal sheet against her chest.

"So... Rook."

"What is it?"

"At least ask me what my name is."

"Not necessary."

She stared at the back of his coffin. "You’re supposed to protect me until I reincarnate."

"I’m painfully aware."

"You might at least learn the name of the person you’re protecting."

"The contract knows who you are."

"The contract isn’t going to speak to me."

"Good. One talkative burden is enough."

Her grip tightened around the metal sheet. "Do you make an effort to be unbearable, or does it come naturally?"

"Three hundred years of practice."

He continued walking as though the matter had been settled. She considered throwing the reincarnation sheet at his head, but she doubted the thin piece of metal would accomplish much against a man who had been bitten by an Abomination without complaining.

She walked faster and moved beside him. "We should leave."

"We just arrived."

"We should leave for the Gate."

"No."

"You heard what Hessa said. I chose reincarnation."

"I was standing there."

"Then we need to meet this Yama guy."

Rook stopped so abruptly that she walked several steps ahead before noticing.

"I wouldn’t call Yama a guy," he said. "I wouldn’t call Yama a girl, either. In fact, if we are ever unfortunate enough to stand before Yama, I strongly recommend that you avoid calling Yama anything."

"Fine. We need to meet Yama."

"No."

She pointed at the metal sheet. "I already chose."

"And I’m advising you to reconsider."

"I didn’t ask for your advice."

"You screamed for my help. That was much worse."

She turned away from him and began marching down the street. She had no idea where the Gate was, but standing there arguing would take her no closer to it.

Rook remained where he was.

After several steps, the pale chain appeared between them. It stretched from her wrist, lengthening until it became taut.

She continued walking.

The chain jerked against Rook’s forearm.

He grunted but did not move. "That isn’t the right direction."

"Then show me the right one."

"No."

She changed direction.

"That’s a butcher’s district."

She turned down another street.

"That leads back to the wall."

"Then perhaps you should stop standing there and guide me!"

Rook folded his arms.

She continued walking until the chain tightened again. The markings around her wrist shone, and pale light travelled along the links toward him.

The moment it entered his blackened forearm, smoke rose from his skin.

Rook’s expression twisted.

He grabbed his arm as glowing cracks spread through the darkness of his Brand. The contract was not merely pulling him this time. It was burning through him, forcing the condemned Reaper to obey a request connected to her chosen reincarnation.

"Stop walking," he growled.

"Are you going to take me to the Gate?"

"No."

She took another step.

The glow intensified.

Rook crossed the distance between them, seized the back of her clothes and lifted her partially from the ground. "Do you have any idea what you’re asking?"

"Put me down."

"Answer me."

"How would I know? Nobody has explained anything without acting as if I’m inconveniencing them by dying."

"You are inconveniencing me."

She drove an elbow into his ribs. It accomplished nothing, although the surprise made him release her.

She straightened her clothes. "Hessa said you know the way."

"I know where it is. That is very different from being able to reach it."

"You survived outside the city."

"Barely outside the city."

"You defeated that creature."

"I cut it into pieces. Someone else defeated it."

"You still fought it."

Rook rubbed the burning section of his arm. "That thing was a crawling infant compared to what lives between here and Yama. A cute little kitten with too many hands."

Her mind returned to the creature tearing memories from her body. "That was a kitten?"

"A particularly ugly one."

"You’re exaggerating."

"I am trying to keep you from getting us both killed."

"You already said death isn’t permanent here."

"Usually."

That word silenced her briefly.

Rook pointed toward the damaged Beacon towering over the city. "The roads beyond these walls pass through territories where entire Reaper companies disappear. There are Abominations old enough to remember civilizations that no longer exist. Some have consumed so many souls that they can build cities out of the memories inside them. Compared to those things, the one that attacked you was a hungry animal."

"Then we avoid them."

His face tightened as though she had physically hurt him again. "Brilliant. Three hundred years here and I never considered walking around the monsters."

"There must be protected roads."

"There were."

"Caravans?"

"You heard Hessa. Eight months. And that’s only to get your to the starting point."

"I’m not staying here for eight months."

"You should stay here for eight hundred years."

"I want to reincarnate."

"And I want you to develop enough sense to understand what that requires."

She held up the metal sheet. "You said almost nobody achieves Nirvana. I didn’t ask for Nirvana. I chose ordinary reincarnation."

"You still need to reach the same Gate."

"There are thousands of people in this city."

"Millions."

"Then millions of people must have reincarnated before me."

Rook gave a humourless laugh. "In the past hundred years, one soul from this city reached Yama."

She waited for him to correct himself.

He did not.

"One?" she asked.

"One."

"That’s impossible."

"It cost the Reaper Corps seven Captains to get him there. Seven of the strongest Reapers in this region escorted one soul to the Gate. None of them came back."

She looked around at the crowded street. The people surrounding them continued with whatever existence they had built after death. Merchants called from open shops. Workers carried crates between buildings.

She had assumed these people were waiting for their turn.

Now she realised many of them had simply given up.

Rook watched understanding settle across her face. "Stay here. Find a room. Get a job if boredom starts eating at you. Spend a few decades pretending this is another life. That’s what everyone else does."

"You’re trying to avoid taking me."

"I am trying to avoid watching another idiot discover why the journey is impossible."

"I’m not the other two."

"They said that as well."

"Did you even try to protect them?"

The question changed his expression.

His irritation remained, but something colder appeared beneath it. He reached inside his coat and removed a small transparent sphere.

It rested in his palm like a lump of hardened gel. Yellow liquid shifted inside it, glowing faintly whenever he moved his hand.

She took an instinctive step closer. "What the hell is that?"

"Yama’s Blessing."

"It looks disgusting."

"It isn’t made for looking at."

"What does it do?"

Rook held it between two fingers. "You eat it."

"And?"

"You disappear."

She stepped back.

He continued with the same blunt indifference he had used when informing her that she was dead. "First, you lose your memories. Then your name. Your attachments, fears, regrets, everything you carried from life. The soul empties itself and collapses. Fast, painless and permanent."

She stared at the yellow liquid. "True death."

"As close as anyone gets."

"And you carry that around?"

"Most contracted Reapers do. Some journeys become impossible. Some souls would rather end themselves than be dragged back through what broke them."

The sphere appeared harmless. Small enough to swallow without water. She imagined every memory vanishing at once, including the one she had recovered in the wasteland and desperately wished she could forget again.

"What does that have to do with your other contracts?"

Rook returned the sphere to his coat. "The first one swallowed his after three days. The second lasted five."

She looked at his hands. Those same hands had torn an Abomination’s faces apart.

"Are you sure you didn’t shove it down their throats?"

Rook stared at her as though he had discovered an idiot wearing human skin.

"I cannot harm someone contracted to me."

"You threatened to break my legs."

"They grow back."

"Putting that thing in my mouth would also solve your contract."

"The Brand doesn’t care whether anyone witnesses it. If I knowingly poison, injure or force a contracted soul toward true death, it burns through both arms and starts eating the rest of me."

"So they chose it?"

"They were never physically harmed." His gaze shifted toward the end of the street. "That was the problem."

She frowned. "What does that mean?"

"It means there are things on the road that don’t need claws to destroy you."

The woman said nothing.

"I kept their bodies intact," Rook continued. "I couldn’t protect them from deciding they’d had enough."

For the first time since leaving the Department, she heard no mockery in his voice. He sounded tired. Three hundred years old, exactly as Hessa had claimed.

Then the weariness disappeared beneath his usual scowl.

"You’ll consume yours soon enough. I’ll be free in a couple of days at most."

Her sympathy died immediately. "I’m not going to kill myself in two days."

"Sure."

"I won’t."

"Of course."

"I’ll reach Yama."

"If you say so."

"I’ll reincarnate into a better family. Somewhere peaceful. Rich, preferably."

"Yama will be delighted to hear your demands."

"You just watch."

"I’ll try to contain my excitement."

The way he dismissed her rekindled everything she had been trying to suppress since awakening. The terror, confusion and helplessness hardened into stubborn anger.

She stepped directly into his path.

"My name is Mara."

Rook tried to walk around her.

She moved with him. "Mara Veyne. You had better remember it."

"Why?"

"Because I will be the second person in a hundred years to reach Yama, and when I reincarnate into a life so comfortable that I forget this miserable place ever existed, I want you to remember who proved you wrong."

Rook looked down at her.

The damaged Beacon flickered behind him, casting pale light over his battered coat and the immense coffin chained to his back.

"Fine," he said. "Your funeral."

Mara smiled without humour. "You’ll protect me. The contract says so."

Rook’s gaze lowered to the pale mark around her wrist.

Then he looked back at her with the exhausted contempt of a man who had heard the same promise twice before.

"Try surviving the week first, Third."