Twenty-Seven Deaths for One

Chapter Two

Content Warnings for this Chapter: Minor Mentions Blood

--

Wriothesley has a nightmare.

He never sleeps well. Sigewinne makes those terrible milkshakes that taste like sewer water but Wriothesley chokes them down because they offer a somewhat dreamless sleep. Sinking into the darkness isn't restful, not when Wriothesley sleeps with one eye open and his back to the wall. There's one person he trusts in these walls—one—and even Sigewinne has intentionally poisoned him before.

This nightmare slips past the barrier of that draft. Wriothesley goes to sleep with his tongue brined by seaweed and chamomile, and wakes in a flight-or-fight panic that sets his entire being on edge.

Ellie. She'd been a sweet thing, all of his sisters were, but she, she—

Father made her kneel on rice when she got her numbers wrong. Mother's words hit sharper, harder than anything physical ever could. Ellie grew defiant as a result, and defiant children do not get sold off. Defiant children do not get adopted and find new families, they get quietly disposed of six feet under in the backyard.

Wriothesley remembers the last thing she said to him. They'd shared a room because he was the only one she got along with. Her bunk had been above his. She'd lean over the side and watch him with a soft, upside-down smile. And that last thing she'd said to him had been in that way, her, hanging upside down, her auburn hair in a loose ponytail. She'd called him by his forgotten name with a gap-toothed grin.

"Mother said I get cake tomorrow, yellow with chocolate frosting! Do you think I've been adopted?"

Wriothesley knew she hadn't been. By that point, he'd figured out the ruse and seen the ledger. Ellie's name was nowhere on the accounts.

Mother had a saying: "You can't break a horse that doesn't want a master." Ellie would never roll over and show her belly. She wasn't a dog that could be taught new tricks, or trained to behave; she was a wild and free mare who'd buck off anything saddle set upon her back.

And so, the cake, a small concession to smooth over the fact that Ellie would soon be dead. "Do you let an extra mouth to feed go hungry? Or do you just handle the problem yourself and put the damn thing out of its misery?" asked Mother once. Wriothesley has never forgotten.

Ellie, though, was excited about that piece of cake. So, because Wriothesley was a good big brother, he said, "Of course, Ellie. I can't wait for you to finally be happy."

In this nightmare, she asks him that again—"Do you think I've been adopted?" Only this time her face is smudged with dirt. Her nails are crusted brown, soil lining underneath their edges. "I get cake tomorrow, yellow with chocolate frosting!"

Wriothesley wants to look away, but he can't.

"Mother said—"

Mother said many things. How many others did she give cake to before chucking them into their graves? Wriothesley lost count, he stopped counting because there wasn't a point. Nothing could change unless—

"Wriothesley," says Ellie, and this time when Wriothesley looks he sees that her face is melted, gray and mottled flesh falling from bone.

Dread fills him. Ellie was sweet. Ellie didn't deserve this. Wriothesley didn't do anything, he didn't, he couldn't—

But then he did. Wriothesley waited and waited, and then he took action. He remembers how easily the knife slid through skin and muscle, how much blood a person spills. Father was stupid to have him learn and study. Father trained Wriothesley for murder, and Wriothesley doesn't care about the blood that's still on his hands.