Chapter 14

  Buenos días, mi hijo.

  Aquiles tripped over his feet and fell. Swatting the dirt from his skin sticky with sweat and stopping himself from gagging at all the other sweat imbued over the years and years of weapons masters and Storms exerting themselves, his mind flamed with anger and frustration. It was seven hours past midday and the Mother decided to say it now? It was a good thing he’d been training late when no witnesses were around to spread the next rumor of the new Arm going mad, flopping and flipping and flitting about after a wild session slaughtering practice dummies. He wasn’t some growing boy, limbs and feet too big on him, unsure of his own extremities. He was a swordsman, and a good one, and he couldn’t be seen tripping over nothing.

  Though, it wasn’t nothing.

  “Buenas noches,” he corrected the Mother’s assessment of the hour through gritted teeth, “can you stop with this nonsense?” Like she could hear his complaints anyway. Effort spent for nought working the eerie sight of a man too similar to his own visage dragged at his eyes and arms and legs. He had been training as a distraction a lot lately, yet there were worse ways to cope, he supposed. The knuckles on his sword hand throbbed at the memory the walls in his room knew well, memories of coping gone wrong.

  So, on top of all the Bolt nonsense, there was Mother’s nonsense, and now this nonsense man. Really, who did this spook think he was showing up to mass and messing with Aquiles’ mind just to run off into the night? It was an inconsiderate and pathetic way to handle uncomfortable situations. Spasms of pain each morning were also an unwelcome experience to add to the list of nonsensical circumstances in Aquiles’ life. Perhaps he needed to eat more, get more fuel and nutrition. The thought of food made his stomach turn over. Perhaps he would eat more later.

  Wool robes graced his shoulders with that familiar hug of fabric. The nights weren’t retaining heat like they did in the middle of summer, so the air circulating in the Monastery was becoming cooler and soothing. He tried not to relish the luxuries. They would soften him. His arms and forms felt strong. His knife work was improving, and he was taking on more responsibilities as the Arm of the Monastery. Why did it feel like his life was falling apart? It was time to talk to Socorra, Child Socorra, the true Arm. He prepared himself to avoid impromptu swipes at various sensitive regions on his body incurred through expected practices of respect. Aquiles wouldn’t tell her everything, but he could tell her enough to get some help, some guidance. He snorted and cinched his boots tight. He couldn’t remember the last time Socorra was helpful.

  There was one more thing he’d been practicing while he was alone. He flexed his hands and placed his pointer fingers a knuckle’s length apart. Pop. A bright, petite arc jumped from one fingertip to the other. Deep tingles scratched at his bones to accompany the heat in his fingertips and the sound of the lightning. Socorra knew about this. This is what he should ask her about. Aquiles shoved the foreboding picture of a countryman in a ruined sombrero with a face just like his own to the back of his mind.

  Despite his stomach’s protests, Aquiles made his way to the Children’s mess. The main square was a mess of activity, Young Ones bustling around performing chores or academic endeavors, the older of that lower order joking in different cliques, laughing and pointing at each other before getting scolded back into motion, and Aquiles heart ached for a moment, for a childhood lost, and he did not know why.

  The mess was similarly busy. Children ate and laughed in their own cliques, never growing out of the mindset of those kids outside. Many lowered their voices and heads, tossing looks at Aquiles as he walked through the entrance and into the room, but he kept his back straight and his head forward, refusing to descend to the level of gossipers. Child Horacio sat with the herd of weapons masters, the only member of the group who seemed content with Aquiles’ entrance. The grizzled man stared Aquiles down, concern plain on his face, the air between them still pregnant with his warnings of Aquiles pushing himself too hard, with too much brutality. Horacio might have been the person closest to Aquiles in the whole of the Monastery. Not even he could understand Aquiles’ predicament.

  Tables of food grappled with Aquiles’ stomach for his dominant desire, to vomit or to eat. He might end up doing both. First, he downed a glass of water, then he seeked out the blandest looking food available, a compromise of needs as much as his discipline on frivolous enjoyment. Returning to Horacio, Aquiles cleared his throat. The weapons masters all turned wrinkled, annoyed, or exasperated faces towards him. “Child Horacio, do you know where Child Socorra might be?”

  “Si?,” he pointed towards the mess hall’s entrance. Socorra stood with her arms crossed and an expectant look on her face.

  “Gracias, Horacio.”

  The rest of the masters grumbled at his drop of the Child’s honorary.

  “De nada,” Horacio responded through a cough.

  Aquiles interrupted Horacio standing, presumably, to accompany him to the Arm, “Please, enjoy your dinner.” He sent a cold, sharp stare to each of the other masters in turn, “Buen provecho.”

  Horacio paused and sat back down, “Gracias.” The man seemed dazed.

  Brusk and blunt and busier than she should be for a woman of such age, Socorra turned and started walking back out of the Children’s mess before Aquiles had a chance to catch up with her. “Te ves mal,” came her greeting, soaking him in with obvious disgust.

  “Gracias,” he replied.

  “You like parading yourself around here for everyone to talk about?”

  Blood rushed in his ears as Aquiles clenched his jaw tight, “I was just looking for you, Child.”

  “Yet, I’m the one who found you,” Socorra looked over her shoulder before carrying on.

  Tighter.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  They walked out of the mess and across the main square where any conversation would be drowned out by the rumbling of the Young Ones.

  “Aquiles, while I sort out how to handle your literal outburst training with the Storms, I need you only speaking to two people and a god. That’s me, Josefa, and…” she pointed east towards the Ministry, “you know who. So, let’s stop pouting like nin?os. Horacio told me about your mood.”

  “Tell me what is happening to me.”

  She threw back her head and barked a laugh without smiling, “Really? Really? Are you that dumb?” She reached up and knocked on his skull. “Doesn’t sound hollow. You know what’s going on, you got your last piece of proof yesterday.”

  Aquiles stopped. “What do you mean, Socorra.” Foreboding country boy came right back to the front of his mind.

  The Arm stopped in her brisk walk, more a hobbling or shuffling, and turned to grab his sleeve. She yanked Aquiles back in motion and towards the square stairs. “Aquiles, I know you saw him. And I know you’re both showing.”

  “How would you know he’s showing if he just got here?”

  “That boy has quite the voice on him, deep like thunder,” she rolled her eyes at the obvious simile.

  “Socorra, I-”

  “Aquiles, please don’t make this harder than it must be. I want to talk to you two together, but I need you both to accept the situation at hand to be the truth.”

  They arrived at an empty hallway a couple levels up from the main square. Astronomy classes took place here, and there wouldn’t be anyone up there to overhear. Aquiles yanked his arm free once Socorra began walking from the stairs and down the desolate hall, “Child, how did you know about him?” The question came out a bit too loud.

  “Believe me nin?o, you have enough to work through as it is. What you need to know right now is that man is exactly what you fear him to be. You didn’t just start manifesting powers because the Father blessed you for being my apprentice. You aren’t going crazy. That man is your brother, Aquiles.”

  Despite expecting shock and bewilderment and fear, Aquiles simply felt tired, this building up of emotions and tension in his mind and body at last released, it exhausted him. Aquiles had a stubborn need for affirmation, “We’re identical. Aren’t we.”

  “You saw him in the great hall.”

  “Then we must not be allowed to live.”

  If he was producing lightning, that would make him the Bolt. If he died, so did his demon brother. There is no thunder without lightning.

  He would not allow a Greatstorm, an abomination, to exist in this world. The Father was right about Aquiles having a brother, but he was wrong about Aquiles lying. He may not be a zealot for religious study, but he loved the Parents and the country they built. He would not stand by and allow demons, himself, to roam free.

  Aquiles turned to walk towards the training grounds to find something sharp, and if not there, the kitchens. Socorra grabbed at his sleeve again, but Aquiles twisted his arm and parried her next attempt. Her strength and speed surprised him, and he imagined if she knew his state of mind, then she would have used all those virtues available to her. Her feet spread into a solid stance, and she pulled on his sleeves to hip check and bring him to the ground. An aggressive fighter. Aquiles might have enjoyed sparring with her like this rather than in word in another life. He didn’t resist the pull, as the intuition of most would do, but rather flew into her, using his superior weight and know-how to knock her from her feet. Socorra’s back foot shifted, and her free right hand came up to take him in the chest. He twisted and spun around her arm, feet swinging about in a crescent and landed on her other side, crossing the old lady’s arms up.

  Socorra jumped back to block the exit of the hallway, and the slightest hint of… fear… showed in her eyes. It froze him. It was the most off-putting thing Aquiles had ever seen. Including his demon twin.

  “Josefa, he took it poorly.” The stocky woman seemed to detach from the very shadow and dirt of the Monastery, a walking nightmare of ancient people and a dark promise for this to come, coming from nothing. She stood then with the Arm. No wonder Socorra had made her captain of the guard.

  Aquiles’ resignation was turning quickly to anger. “I will not be part of whatever you have in mind, Socorra. This,” he gestured around and at himself, “I’m not right. I resign as the Arm and forfeit my life.”

  “I do not accept your resignation.”

  “It was not a request.”

  Aquiles surged to get around Josefa, but she stood her ground, two daggers appearing faster than he could track, and the big, lumbering twins turned into the hallway from the stairs. No wonder they were guards as well. These people could hide in an open, sunlit field in short grass. Josefa pulled the old Arm to stand between and behind the Storm. She wrapped her knuckles in cloth while her eyes burned with a rage Aquiles had never known. Socorra pleaded at him from among her fear and her great misfit host.

  “We need you, Aquiles. The Parents need your help. The Father has told me so.”

  His teeth felt ready to burst at the tightness in his jaw now, “That is impossible.”

  His anger turned to fury at all of this, at these heretics, simply accepting the nature of his situation and the existence of an identical twin. It was disgusting, and it was against everything the Father had ever shown them. Years and years of executions of the little babes flashed through his mind. He wandered how the Parents missed him, let him live out this life, just to end without meaning or virtue. Josefa’s hair stood up from her tight bun, and the twins’ arms became prickly with their thick coats on end. “Really? You would use your blessings to strike at me? I welcome that. Strike me down!”

  “It’s not them, nin?o. It’s you.”

  Aquiles looked down and saw arcs jumping between his fingers and hands, bolts of lightning connecting to the earth around him before disappearing in a flash of purple light. The energy was thick and heavy and hot, and it coursed in and out of him, jumping to the walls and the ceiling and the ground. A few arcs jumped to Socorra, and she gritted her teeth and redirected it into the ground, and the hair on her arms singed and burned. The smell of a fresh rain kissed Aquiles’ nose. Juan moved to stand in front of Other Juan, protecting his Bolt from what he deemed to be a threat of death, the sign of good training learned well. That sight broke Aquiles, heart frozen with the fear that should have taken him before.

  “...no. This can’t be right.”

  The lights stopped, and the smell washed away, and he sank to his knees, one after the other, tears beating his fall to the ground.

  “Take him.” Josefa surged forward and hooked Aquiles across the temple. He let it happen. His vision went dark, and he fell into infinity.

  Buenas noches, mi hijo.

  ***

  Buenos dias, mi hijo.

  “Mierda!” Aquiles shot awake and looked around. He was in his room, candle burning in the corner, but still fully dressed under his blankets. The bed rattled as he shoved his way to the window to see the moon almost directly above his head. The Parents’ hour. He’d slept, or been unconscious rather, until the first hour of the next day.

  His ears rang and his temple pulsed. The pain in his head was nothing compared to the assault he’d been experiencing the last few mornings. “That woman hits like a grown man.” Aquiles rubbed his head and winced. He’d sport a nasty welt on the side of his head, growing over the coming day, knowing what was coming with his training experience. He turned his attention to the door. They wouldn’t lock him in his own room, would they? He pulled on the latch, and the door didn’t budge. He shook it and the door just shook in its hinges, a clamor resounding in his room. They locked him in his room.

  He looked back towards the open window. The fall to the streets below had to be enough to kill him and the demon spawn Socorra had called his brother. They went through all the trouble of locking him in here and stopping him from hurting himself, but they hadn’t even locked the window. Aquiles pressed his back to the door. He pushed off the wood, sprinted across his room, and jumped out the window to his death.