Jet and Ember gathered the others, and they started back. The walk home took the better part of two days, and at the end of it they came into the clearing to find Becca and Liz at the fire pit with a pot of stew going over it.
Bowls went round, hot enough to hurt the hands. Ember took a log beside Liz; Noel sat by Jet; Ben dropped down next to Homer; Becca sat apart, the way she did. Ember watched to see whether Homer would take the mask off to eat, and was almost let down when he didn’t—there was a hole worked into the mouth of it, made to come away, and he spooned the stew up through that.
They ate without talking for a while. Becca broke the silence.
“So. News. You get a job out of it?”
“We did.” Jet, around a mouthful. “Ember’ll tell it.”
Her head came up. “I will?”
Jet nodded and went back to his bowl. The rest of them were still eating like they hadn’t in a week—only now they were doing it pointed at her.
She cleared her throat and gave them the shape of it. The rebel army stirring again. The job to put names to whoever was rebuilding it, and find how far the recruiting had reached. They nodded along and kept eating.
Ben finished first. He set the empty bowl down beside him.
“You saw the castle? Did you see Reid?”
The spoon stopped halfway to Ember’s mouth. She lowered it back into the bowl.
“I saw him.”
Ben was on his feet, near vibrating. “Did he look strong? Did he look dangerous?”
She thought about it.
“Not dangerous. Not really. He looked tired. Like he hadn’t slept in a long time.”
“I heard he doesn’t sleep.” Ben was off and running. “I heard he doesn’t even eat. He just waits until there’s people he’s got to kill. He’s so cool.”
Homer shifted. “Ben—”
Ben spun back to her.
“You know why they call him Reid the Red?”
“No.” Ember had caught Homer’s unease and didn’t want to step on Ben either. “Why?”
“Ben.” Jet, low.
Ben couldn’t be stopped now.
“Three years ago, when the rebel army was huge, Reid’s little brother was in the Royal Army. He was supposed to be really strong too. He was up on the front lines, doing the important missions. And the rebels did something—something low—and his brother died.”
Ben leaned closer, his eyes huge.
“And when Reid found out, he lost it. They say he went by himself. Five rebel camps, five hundred men in each, and he killed every one of them. He killed their commander too, and the commander was meant to be so strong nobody could touch him. It ended the war. And when Reid came back to the castle, he was soaked head to foot in blood.”
He let the silence hold for half a breath.
“That’s why he’s Reid the Red.”
“Ben.” Homer’s hand closed on the boy’s shoulder. He tipped his head toward Liz.
Beside Ember, something had gone out of the air. She felt it land before she turned to look—that cold dropping into the warm.
Liz was looking down into her lap and had stopped moving.
Ben’s face fell open.
“I’m sorry, Liz. I forgot, I—”
“It’s fine.” Liz got up. It cost her something to do it. “I’m going to walk for a bit.”
She went toward the lake, stiff in every joint.
“Don’t go far,” Becca said after her.
When she was past hearing, Ben turned to Homer, sick with it.
“I forgot. I didn’t mean it.”
“I know.” Homer’s voice had all its warmth back. “You’re tired. Let’s call it a night, the two of us.”
Ben nodded down at his feet, and they went in.
That left four at the fire. Jet, Noel, Becca, and Ember, watching it burn down.
It was a while before Jet said anything.
“Ben left a part out.” He didn’t look up from the flames. “One of those five camps wasn’t soldiers. New recruits. Medics still in their training. They didn’t know which end of a sword to hold.”
Ember went still.
“He killed them anyway.”
“He killed all of them.”
“W-Why?”
Jet turned a stick in the embers. He watched a knot of sparks go up and die.
“That’s the curse of being the strongest. There’s nobody left who can stop you. Not when you’ve gone past stopping yourself.”
Ember looked into the fire.
Jet went on.
“Before that—before the massacre—they say Reid was the kind of man you’d follow anywhere. Bright. Easy to love. What walked back out of those camps was mostly the quiet parts of him.”
A pause.
“He gave up command after that. These days Amelia’s about the only thing holding the rest of him together.”
“That’s a horrible thing,” Ember said. Then, lower: “Is that why Liz—did she know one of them? One of the people he killed?”
Jet was quiet a moment. His eyes went to the dark where Liz had gone, then back to the fire.
“Who knows,” he said.
Ember knew enough now to hear the refusal in it, and she did not ask again.
They sat and watched the last of the bright go out of the fire, the sparks thinning into the dark above the pit until there was nothing left up there to see.
End of Act 1
The Silent Beggar's Anthology 