Starsinger

Expendable

He didn't remember them leaving the cell. There was just the blood, and the dying light in her blue eyes, and then darkness.

Hours slid by, maybe days. Aaron lost track. Sometimes there was food, and he ate it. The water sloshed down his throat. He was awake when they sent a guard to take away the empty tray, but he didn't try to engage. Instead he stared straight ahead, his gaze flat and relentless. The guard took one look at Aaron and shuffled away nervously.

He was paralyzed, caught somewhere between rage and numbness. His heart was boiling over and yet simultaneously empty. It made it hard to do anything, hard to think or plan. He couldn't look directly at the tangled burning in his chest for fear that the careful balance might shatter.

Over time, the fury crystallized into something hard and cold, nestled in the bottom of his stomach.

Aaron made no moves to escape. He lay collapsed in the corner, barely moving when the guards swept in and out. He knew he looked pathetic.

Let them think I've given up, he thought. Let Malcolm think himself safe and victorious.

They killed her to break him. Aaron refused to give them the satisfaction. He played the pitiful creature in his jail cell, his private rebellion simmering, building to a fever pitch. For her.

When the guards came with jingling keys announcing their intention to let him out, Aaron kept his expression slack and his movements sluggish. It was an easy charade. He already felt as if all the life had been wrenched out of him.

The day was bright and cold, the sun beaming down a sharp pale yellow. Aaron winced. The brightness was torture on his unaccustomed eyes.

He was escorted by another pair of guards. Some of the workers stopped to stare as they passed. Aaron noticed Jace hoisting bags of coal outside the smithy, almost dropping one when he caught sight of Aaron.

He's alive. The relief came to him as if deep underwater, thickly filtered and distant.

Meet tonight, Jace signaled with a spare hand. Same place.

Aaron replied with a barely perceptible nod.

The guards left him at the stables. Olive was standing outside the small stable, hands on her hips. She looked Aaron up and down. There was something in her eyes like understanding.

She ushered him inside wordlessly. Her father was there, clucking softly to the unicorn. He raised his head at Aaron's footsteps.

"Is that you, boy?" the hostler's father asked. "We've been wondering where you got to. What's a-matter? Took ill?"

"Leave him alone, da," Olive said softly, but in a voice that brooked no argument.

Working kept his hands busy. The flame-colored unicorn whickered and sighed as Aaron brushed her down, suddenly immune to the wonder of it. Her sounds were the only noises to disturb the implacable silence of the small stable.

Olive sent him home early. "You need a bath and food or you're like to keel over tomorrow."

"Thank you," said Aaron, not meeting her eyes.

"Just get yourself cleaned up."

The washerwomen let him use a spare tub. Aaron scrubbed long after the grime was gone, until his skin was red and raw. His left arm was pinching into a raised spiderweb of scar tissue. He took a strange sort of satisfaction in how gruesome it looked. He'd earned it. His mistake, his pain.