THE DELIVERER'S DESTINY

Chapter 8, Part 1 - Matthew

Feldspar Mine, Desmond, 10416 P.C.

"It's getting faster."

Matthew heard the voice and cracked his eyes open a slit. He was still on the board, but they had moved him off the table and into one of the tiny side rooms. Everything ached, but it was more of a dull pain. How long had he been unconscious?

The voice continued and answered that question: "It's not even evening and his wounds are already half-healed. Last time it took him two days to get to this point, didn't it? It usually takes at least a week to get to this stage." It was Sabine, her voice hushed.

"He's gifted, that's for sure." Oceania's voice was also quiet. They didn't want to wake him. They didn't want anyone hearing their words. "He's unbreakable."

Unbreakable. Matthew mulled over the word long after Oceania and Sabine had left. What did the word even mean? Unable to be broken? If that was the case, then Oceania was wrong. Matthew had been broken over and over again. They had broken him the day they had killed his parents. Anything else in him had been broken when his sisters were killed, too. Matthew was alone, and he was broken.

Taking a deep breath, he shifted, the aches in his body begging to be relieved. The movement pulled on the cuts on his back, and he gritted his teeth and hissed as he managed to sit on the edge of the board. There he breathed, some of the pain in his muscles fading.

"It's getting faster."

Gently, Matthew reached over his shoulder and fingered one of the wounds on his back. It was scabbed over. He swallowed hard. Just hours ago, his back had been ripped open and bloodied. Sabine was right. He was healing faster.

Matthew's gift — his secret — was no surprise to him. He had known about it for years, ever since he was a little boy. His mother had told him he was gifted but had never explained anything beyond that. "When you're older," she had always told him, and then she had died, leaving him in the dark about the strange phenomenon surrounding his rapid healing. As he got older, it had gotten swifter — or maybe as the intensity of his wounds had gotten worse the Warmth, as he called it, had grown stronger. There was one downside: every cut, big or small, left a permanent scar, something else he couldn't quite understand. He could only imagine what his back looked like after years of whippings. He had no way of seeing it, but the stares of others were evidence enough that it was a sight to behold. He pictured a webbed puzzle of white and red lines, each one telling a story of darkness and pain.

He fingered the scabbed lash again, wondering what the Overseer would do if he knew of his fast regeneration. He knew of Matthew's incredible endurance, but Oceania and Sabine had been very good at keeping Matthew's other gifts a secret. As far as he knew, only the three of them knew. They played along, often keeping him in the infirmary away from the others for a couple of weeks or however long it usually took for a normal person to heal so as not to arouse suspicion. They wanted to hide his secret. Who knew what would happen if it was discovered?

He lifted his head when Oceania threw open the curtain to his little room, her dark eyes wide with determination. She stopped and paled a bit when she saw him sitting on the board. "Lay down quickly," she told him, her voice quiet but firm. "You're hurt, very very badly. Lay down and act like it."

"But I'm—"

"He's coming, Matthew."

Ah, blast it. Matthew obeyed without another word, biting his bottom lip as he positioned himself back on his chest. Oceania pulled a bloody sheet out of the basket she had been carrying and laid it over him. Matthew closed his eyes, trying not to grimace. The blood was fresh, probably from some other victim. Oceania pulled out the ointments and bandages. "Matthew," she whispered, but she was drowned out by the sharp voice of the Overseer the next room over.

"Incapable, you say?"

"You whipped him just last night, Terminus! Belik can't make any such journey. He's not stable!"

Matthew opened his eyes, looking at Oceania with a frown. Journey? What journey? She was watching him, an apology written across her face he couldn't understand.

"Very well. Quillin! Hardy! Take this man away and dispose of him."

"No!" Sabine cried out, but from the sounds of it, she had been shoved aside. Mathew gave Oceania a wide-eyed look, but she only closed her eyes, taking a deep breath.

"I'm sorry," she whispered. Matthew's heart skittered as he stared at her in fear and confusion. Sorry? Sorry for what?

"Terminus, you can't do this!" Sabine cried. She and the Overseer came into Matthew's room. Matthew barely closed his eyes in time, a panicky ache in his chest. He could practically feel the man's fiery glare on him.

"Dispose of this one, too."

"No, father," Oceania said, her voice quiet yet firm. "He can make the journey."

Matthew's heart froze. Oh. Oh no.

The loathing was clear in the man's voice. "Look at him. He's practically dead. I put him on death's door just hours ago. He'll never make a journey."

"Yes, he can." Oceania tugged the sheet off of his back.

Matthew felt exposed, betrayed, terrified. He opened his eyes, looking at Oceania with all the panic within him, and then shifted his gaze to the Overseer in the doorway. Confusion wracked the man's face, and then anger that quickly washed to curiosity. He stepped forward, inspecting Matthew's back further, and Matthew reacted with a new kind of fear. He scrambled to his hands and knees, throwing himself to the corner of the board and pressing his back against the corners of the wall. The stone was cool on his wounds, and he shuddered, looking at each person in the room staring back at him. Sabine looked mortified, the Overseer pleased in some kind of sick way, and Oceania was staring at the floor, unable to look at him. He sucked in a breath, staring at the Overseer, waiting to see what the man would do.

The man nodded slowly, any surprise he might have had washed away. He lifted his chin to Matthew. "Right hand. Let me see."

Confusion swirled in Matthew's chest until he remembered. Slowly, he uncurled his hand, looking at his palm. The burn the man had given him was gone, only a faint discoloration suggesting that something might have happened. He lifted his hand to the Overseer.

The man looked on, fascinated. "I see..." he murmured, more to himself than anyone else in the room. Then he seemed to snap out of his child-like stupor; his eyes grew hard, his back stiff. "You get your wish, Oceania. The boy lives." Then he turned and left, the sheet flailing in his departure.

Matthew sagged, his breath trembling as he looked at Sabine. She was pale, and she quickly followed her husband without a word. Matthew was left alone with Oceania. His betrayer.

"Why?" One word. It trembled off his tongue.

She lifted her head, tears sparkling in her eyes. There was that same determination from before creasing her face. "I hope you'll forgive me one day," she whispered, "but it had to be done."

"Why?" he repeated, a bit stronger, a bit harder.

"Because you can't die here, Matthew."

"He'll kill me." The words were dull, dropped like chunks of feldspar on the rocky ground.

She stuffed the bloody sheet back into her basket. Her hands were trembling. Finally, she looked at him, tears glistening in her eyes. "I have gifts too, you know. There is so much you have yet to do. So much you're going to go through. My father will not kill you. He cannot." Her lips moved in a way he hadn't seen in years; a small smile played on her face, for only just a moment, enough to stun him. "Matthew, have you ever thought that your gifts were given to you for a reason beyond just survival?"

With that question, she picked up her basket and left.