Inside the Gate

The casualty crews gave Eridan four minutes with his son.

Then Mira Seln took him away.

“He can barely stand,” she said. “His wrists are infected, his left knee has not healed correctly and someone allowed him to cross a battlefield with an untreated fever.”

Eridan remained between Atyas and Solara with one arm around each.

“In my defence, the battlefield was not my suggestion.”

“You are no longer the king. I do not require your defence.”

Mira pointed towards the casualty station.

“Move.”

Eridan looked at Atyas.

“Is everyone in Feenix like this?”

“The considerate ones are worse.”

Mira had already turned away. The inner freight court had become a field hospital before the gate finished closing. Coloured screens divided the wounded by urgency. Phoenix and Asehrian healers worked side by side. The prisoners rescued with Eridan occupied the northern wall, where Lunar Watch recorded their names before exhaustion or blood loss could take them. Hundreds of soldiers still waited for treatment. Mira did not move Eridan ahead of people already dying.

She placed him inside a guarded examination bay while medical crews stabilised the worst injuries around them. Captain Maelin closed the court to everyone not listed upon the casualty roster. Seraphina positioned six Lunar Watch at the bay and another six along the route to the protected infirmary. Alaria remained inside the canvas screen with Atyas. Eridan sat upon a low treatment bench while Mira cut the prison coat from his shoulders. Bruises covered his ribs in different stages of healing. Iron had opened both wrists. The swelling around his left knee extended halfway down the leg.

Atyas saw three years upon his father’s body without a chain concealing any of them.

Eridan noticed where he was looking.

“Most appear worse than they are.”

Mira pressed two fingers against a dark mark below his ribs. Eridan stopped breathing.

“That one appears exactly as bad as it is,” she said.

Solara folded her arms.

“I missed her.”

“You have six field hospitals full of this experience.”

“None insult you personally.”

Atyas took the cup from the edge of the bench and held it while Eridan drank. His father’s fingers rested against his wrist. When he lowered the cup, neither moved away.

“You used to spill half of it down me,” Eridan said.

“I was little.”

“You were trying to help.”

Atyas looked down at the water. He had been watching the cup so carefully that he had not noticed his father watching him.

“I ride a grey mare now,” Atyas said.

Eridan looked up from the cup.

“What’s her name?”

“Vela. She threw me into a mounting block.”

A sound escaped his father, half laugh and half cough. Mira waited for it to pass before touching his ribs again.

“Have you forgiven her?”

“She hasn’t forgiven me.”

“Your mother would have liked her.”

Atyas began to tell him about the first morning he had saddled her alone. Mira asked for Eridan’s hand, and his father lifted one finger towards Atyas: wait, he wanted the rest. Atyas held the story while the physician worked.

She examined his eyes and pulse before cleaning the iron wounds.

“The fever may come from these. His breathing is uneven upon the left. I need the chest surgeon.”

Captain Maelin checked the medical board outside the screen.

“Jonan Es.”

Atyas remembered Jonan from the southern district’s casualty reports and, later, from the assembly hearing about fever in the canal housing. Maelin compared the stamped tablet on his instrument case with the medical board. Mira recognised the mark.

“Admit him,” she said.

Jonan entered after two Phoenix Guards searched him. He was a narrow man with greying hair bound at the back of his neck, his apron already dark with blood from the causeway wounded. When he recognised Atyas, he bowed only far enough to acknowledge the Crown without delaying the work.

“Your Majesty.”

Then he looked at Eridan.

Nothing changed in his face.

“How long has the breathing been impaired?”

“Three years, according to everyone who dislikes my judgement,” Eridan said.

Jonan placed two fingers against his left ribs.

“Pain here?”

“Yes.”

“Here?”

“Less.”

“After the fall upon the platform?”

“Before.”

Jonan listened against Eridan’s back while Mira described the old marks and fever. His questions were ordinary. His hands moved with the economy of someone who had examined wounded bodies for years.

Outside the screen, another soldier began screaming. Atyas looked towards the sound. Eridan caught his sleeve.

“Stay.”

Atyas stayed beside the bench, close enough for his father to reach him. Seraphina entered the bay after surrendering her sword to the medical guard. A bandage covered her right forearm. Blood had dried beneath one ear.

“The western companies are recorded,” she said. “Some remain outside the gate.”

Eridan’s hand tightened upon Atyas’s sleeve.

“How many?”

“We do not know yet.”

“The companies that pursued?”

“Captain Edrin has recovered part of the Fourth. The Seventh lost its command group before the gate closed.”

Atyas felt every word turn towards him without anyone making the accusation. Eridan looked at his son.

“Later,” he said.

“You said we would answer.”

“We will.”

“People are still outside because I told them—”

“And people are alive inside because a plan you helped make opened the road to them.”

Eridan pulled his sleeve again.

“Stay until she has finished with me. Then we find out who is still outside.”

Alaria moved the stool closer. Atyas stayed on his feet beside his father. Jonan opened his instrument case. Every tool occupied a marked place: forceps, probes, bone needles, narrow knives, suture hooks and two hollow drainage spikes used to release blood trapped around an injured lung. Maelin’s medical guard checked them against the stamped inventory before stepping back.

Jonan selected one drainage spike.

“His left chest sounds restricted,” he told Mira. “It may be old scarring. It may be fluid from the recent impact.”

“No puncture until we confirm,” Mira said.

Jonan returned the spike to its place. He closed the case and moved it beyond the wet cloth.

The eastern report reached Solara while Mira bound Eridan’s wrists. Oris Lock had restored one water gate under Keh’Dia control. Two assault columns moved towards the northern channel. If they reached the second machinery court, almost six million people inside the protected districts would lose water before the western battle reached another dawn. Veyra requested the Queen in the command gallery. Solara read the report twice. Then she folded it.

“I have to leave.”

Eridan nodded.

“Of course.”

The ease of his answer angered her.

“Do not sound understanding. I have waited three years to be furious with you in person.”

“Then Feenix will have to remain standing until you finish.”

Solara gripped the folded report. She did not move towards the screen.

“Two minutes,” Mira said without looking up. “Then I need everyone without a medical purpose outside.”

“I am the Queen.”

“That is not a medical purpose.”

Solara ignored her and took Eridan’s hand.

“When I return, you will still be here.”

Eridan looked at their joined hands.

“That is my intention.”

“Do not give me intention.”

His expression softened.

“I will be here.”

She released his hand.

Before she reached the screen, something struck the western gate hard enough to lift the cup from the edge of the bench. Atyas caught it against his thigh. Water spilled over his fingers; above him, a support rope tore free and the canvas sagged across the entrance. The guards turned towards the falling cloth.

Jonan steadied his instrument case. Atyas saw him take out the hollow spike again and assumed, for the length of that movement, that Mira had given permission.

Alaria caught Jonan’s wrist. The spike was already beneath Eridan’s collarbone.

Her other hand struck Jonan’s throat with a crack Atyas heard through the noise from the gate. The physician folded against the bench, pulling at the instrument as he fell. Alaria drew her sword.

“Alive!” Seraphina shouted.

The blade entered beneath his ribs. His knees struck the floor, and Alaria was left holding the hilt with both of them looking down at it.

Eridan touched the spike in his chest. Blood came through its hollow centre and ran between his fingers. Mira caught his shoulder.

“Leave it. Eridan, leave it where it is.”

Atyas put the cup down. He missed the bench. It rolled against his boot while Mira lowered his father onto the folded cloth and shouted for clamps. Alaria let go of her sword; Jonan fell with it still inside him. Seraphina kicked the open case clear and knelt to search his coat. Through the sagging entrance came Maelin’s voice, closing the court, calling for the medical guards.

His father turned his head towards Atyas. “What happened?”

“He—”

Atyas could see the instrument. He could see Jonan’s hand on the floor, its fingers curled towards nothing. He could not put the two together quickly enough to answer. Solara came back past him and took Eridan’s hand.

Mira sent Atyas to the other side of the bench when a second physician arrived. He went because she sounded certain. There were clamps now, clean cloth, another pair of hands. She opened the wound around the spike and told the other physician where to press. Blood darkened the new cloth almost before it touched his father.

“There. Hold there.”

The other physician changed his grip. Mira bent lower, shutting Atyas out with her shoulder. He watched the place where his father’s foot rested against the end of the bench. The boot was still on. They had meant to take it off and examine the swollen knee.

“Mira,” Eridan said.

“Keep still.”

“How long?”

She reached for another clamp. It slipped against the wet metal, and the sound made Atyas flinch.

“Mira.”

“Minutes.”

Atyas looked towards the entrance. The healer they needed would have to come through there. He tried to remember who else was in the court, who had been treating the men beside the northern wall. The physicians in this bay had not stopped working. Perhaps she meant minutes until something else was ready.

“Atyas. Come here.”

His father’s hand was open upon the bench. Atyas had moved out of reach without noticing.

“We closed the gate,” he said.

Eridan waited for him.

“You were inside.”

“I know.”

Mira moved her shoulder, and he saw how much of the folded cloth had turned red. Atyas stepped back to the bench and took his father’s hand. The fingers were damp and cooler than they had been around his wrist a few minutes earlier. He covered them with his other hand.

“I’m sorry.”

“For the order?”

He nodded. It was not all he meant, but he could not begin again.

“You will have to answer for that.” Eridan stopped to breathe. “But not for bringing me home.”

“If I had waited—”

His father’s grip tightened, briefly.

“Stay with me now.”

Atyas bent his head. He could feel his own pulse in the hands holding Eridan’s and could no longer tell whether he felt his father’s too. He loosened his fingers, afraid he was gripping too hard, then closed them again when Eridan’s hand began to slip.

Seraphina came beside him. Her search of Jonan had ended. She had blood on the bandage around her arm and was trying to wipe it away with the heel of her other hand.

“You brought me through,” Eridan told her.

“I should have—”

His free hand moved towards her crescent. She caught it before it fell and held his fingers against the silver. Whatever she had been about to say went unfinished.

Alaria still stood beside Jonan. Atyas could see her past Seraphina’s shoulder, staring at the dead man as though waiting for another movement. Eridan said her name twice before she came to the bench.

“You stayed,” he said.

“Yes.”

He looked from her to Atyas. His lips moved, but Atyas heard only the effort of drawing air.

“I am here,” Alaria said. “Eridan, I’m here.”

Solara leaned down and pressed her forehead against his. The report she had meant to take away lay crumpled beside her foot. A voice called her name from the speaking tube beyond the canvas. She did not lift her head. Eridan said something Atyas could not hear, and she shook her head against him.

Then his father looked for him again.

“Closer.” Solara moved aside. Atyas leaned over the bench until his cheek brushed his father’s beard. It was coarse and unfamiliar against his skin. He remembered the shorter beard, his father bending to kiss him before leaving a room, and nearly turned his face to meet him that way.

“I was proud of you before this,” Eridan said.

Atyas felt him touch the seven-star clasp at his throat.

“You are my son. That came first.”

“Father?”

The fingers fell from the clasp. Atyas caught them and held them against his chest, waiting for his father to finish. Eridan had taken pauses between words before. He watched his mouth and tried to wait without making a sound that might keep him from hearing.

The next breath did not come.

Mira was still pressing on the wound. Atyas looked at her hands because they were moving, because someone was still doing something. Then the second physician spoke quietly to her. She shook her head once before she stopped.

“Atyas,” she said. “He is gone.”

He lowered his father’s hand to the bench. One finger caught in the edge of the cloth. He freed it carefully and laid it straight beside the others.

Maelin questioned the medical guards while Atyas stood beside the bench. Jonan had arrived from the southern station more than two hours before the rescue. The inventory matched. The spike came from the Phoenix store; there was no hidden mechanism, no foreign mark, nothing on it that the physicians could identify as poison. They had known him for years.

Atyas recognised each fact as it was spoken. None explained why Jonan had put his hand into the case.

“Family?” Alaria asked.

“A wife in the southern district. A daughter at a grain office. One son missing in occupied Asehria.”

“Detain them,” Seraphina said.

Maelin turned towards her. She rubbed her bandaged forearm, then dropped her hand.

“Protective custody. No accusation.” She looked directly at the captain. “No one touches them without evidence.”

He sent an officer to arrange it. Beyond the screen, the speaking tube called Solara again. She wiped her face and told Maelin to preserve the rosters, the store records, every account of Jonan’s movements. Her voice failed on his name. She began the sentence again and finished it.

“Veyra holds the northern water channel until I reach the gallery.”

She came to Atyas, still holding the report she had picked up from the floor. He knew she had to go. Knowing did nothing to loosen the knot beneath his ribs when she looked towards the entrance.

“Go,” he said.

She kissed his head. Her hand remained against his cheek for a moment before she left, and he watched the canvas fall behind her. The court seemed louder at once. Someone was asking for more water. A soldier beyond the screen kept calling for a man who did not answer.

The gate shook beneath another impact. Atyas laid his hand on the hilt at his side. Through the gap in the canvas he could see the men going past with shields, all of them facing the same way. Arcanis was out there. There was a road to him. Atyas could still make somebody move.

“Open the gate.”

Maelin lowered the roster.

“No, Your Majesty. That gate remains under General Veyra’s command.”

Atyas turned from him to Seraphina. Her eyes were red; the crescent on her armour had slipped crookedly against its fastening. She straightened when he spoke her name.

“Muster every—”

Alaria stepped away from the bench.

“Who are you sending?”

He wanted her out of the way. She was not in his way. No one held his arm or barred the space between him and Seraphina. Beside the entrance, a Watch officer had stopped with one hand on the lifted canvas, waiting to learn whether the words were for him to carry.

“All of them,” Atyas said. “Every company we have.”

Seraphina drew breath. She looked towards the officer, then back at Atyas.

“To do what?”

He knew the words. He had shouted them from the platform. Heat ran down his side, and the sharp smell of scorched leather reached him through the blood and damp cloth. His sword was burning inside its sheath. He tried to draw a breath deep enough to speak and found he was already holding one.

The officer waited. Atyas could see the bare place at his throat where the edge of his mail had rubbed the skin raw. He would go through the gate if Seraphina sent him. He would take the unfinished sentence to other men who had only just come back.

“Atyas,” Alaria said.

He looked at her hand. It was trembling beside her thigh, the fingers still curved as though holding the sword she had left in Jonan.

“You want to go too.”

“Yes.”

He waited for her to say something that would make it possible. She swallowed, looking past him at the bench.

“I want to,” she said again.

The admission left him with Seraphina and the waiting officer. His mouth opened. For a moment he could think only of how easy it would be to finish the order, and how grateful he would be when everyone stopped standing still.

“No.”

Seraphina stayed where she was.

“Atyas?”

He shook his head. He could not look at the officer while Seraphina sent him back to his post. When the canvas dropped, Atyas found that his hand was still locked around the hilt. Alaria held out hers beneath it.

“Let me take that.”

It took him two tries to open his fingers. She eased the belt free and lowered the sword and its blackening sheath onto the stone, clear of the hanging cloth. She stayed crouched beside it for a moment. His legs had begun to shake. When she stood, he sat abruptly on the floor with his back against the treatment bench.

He still wanted them to go. The want had survived the word that stopped him, and he did not know what to do with it. Above his shoulder, his father’s sleeve hung over the edge of the bench. Atyas lifted it back onto the cloth, then drew his knees up beneath his arms.

Alaria sat beside him. For a while they listened to the court. Her shoulder touched his only when she shifted to give a passing healer room.

“He told me to stay,” Atyas said.

“You did.”

“I kept thinking about who was outside.”

She did not answer. He pressed his palms against his eyes until the pressure hurt. All the things he had meant to tell his father were still there: Vela, the model, a question about his mother that he had kept for three years. He could remember almost nothing of what he had said while Eridan could hear him.

Alaria’s hand rested on the floor between them. He took it and held on, without turning towards her.

Seraphina came to the other side of the bench with the undamaged part of the prison coat. She stopped when Atyas looked up.

“Not yet,” he said.

She folded the coat over her arm and waited. He put his head back against the bench. Somewhere behind the screen the cup he had dropped scraped across the stone as someone moved it out of the way.

He began to cry then. Alaria stayed beside him while he tried to be quiet and could not. When Seraphina moved again, he let her lay the coat over his father’s face.