The Rebel Assassin

Chapter 22: The Death of the Ageless

A thousand explanations for what Ari had said raced through my mind. What had happened to the other Ageless? Could they have been— would the representatives have—?

I couldn't finish the thought even to myself, but the look on my face must have communicated it to Ari.

She sighed, leaning on her cane, and smoothed her long black coat in a way that was more reassuring than fussy. "I didn't mean to tell you like that. They died naturally. You needn't look so frightened."

The pressure on my chest eased, but fear still lingered. "What happened? Did they all— did they all die at— why?"

"Sit down. I'm going to get us tea." When I began to object, she added, "No, I need it. And I need to collect my thoughts before I try to explain to you why I've been waiting to meet someone like you for the past ten years. You have a way of throwing everything off track, did you know that?"

"I've noticed." I returned to my seat and sat down heavily. Ari disappeared through a door at the back of the library, leaving me alone with the hundreds of books.

I was more relieved than I could convey that the other Ageless had not been massacred, but the horror I'd felt in that moment had not faded. The way Ari had explained — "They all died naturally" — did not put at ease my scrambled thoughts. The fact that she was the last one of her kind left had unnerving undertones regardless. Had there ever been just one Guardian alive at a time in Solangia? How lonely would that be? I was glad when she returned, followed by a servant carrying a tray with tea.

"I had some unused rooms back there repurposed into my living chambers after the revolution," Ari said, by way of explanation.

Only a strong suspicion that she would not appreciate me fussing over her kept me from asking worriedly how often she even left this building.

The servant deposited tea and left. I waited for Ari to pour herself a cup and take a long sip with her eyes closed before I started.

"Is it normal for there to be only one Ageless at one time?"

"It is emphatically not. I've spent a lot of time looking at our records, and the average seemed to have been about five alive at any given time. That is not a hard number to sustain, even with our very rare births, when each person lives for as long as we do. It is considered a tragically young death if an antiquarum dies younger than two hundred year old, and the oldest in history was somewhere about five hundred." She paused again for a long time, drinking.

Trying to maintain some fragment of decorum out of respect, I poured myself a cup rather than press her to continue. It was strong and slightly bitter, but Ari didn't seem to notice the face I made at it.

"My uncle — my several-greats uncle, of course — died just before the revolution began. It was sad but not unusual. Three hundred and four years old is medium life span, and that left three of us alive, with I the youngest. One of my aunts died next, fighting for the royal's side in the civil war. She was only around two hundred and fifty, but it is not unusual for warriors to die young." There was an almost unnoticeable tremor in her voice. "It was just Aesara and I then. Aesara was born from one of the other families that can produce antiquarum, about forty years before me, so we were not related. But being so close in age, we were best friends."

I pressed my hands around my tea cup, drawing in its warmth. I had been reminded, without wanting to be, of Nemia, and I very much did not want to hear how Aesara died.

"It was hard, being the only ones left, but we had each other. We watched the war end. Watched the princes and princesses our recently-dead forbearers had tutored and trained be killed or exiled. Promised each other we would figure out where we fit in in this new country, and debated over how we would raise the new antiquarum now that the representatives had no idea what to do with us. It did not seem strange, at the time, that no new antiquarum had actually been born yet. After all, Aesara was barely a hundred and I was even younger. We figured we would have fifty to a hundred years to find our place while we waited."