‘Vili died.’ Those were the first words Mejias spoke to her. Iseult felt her heart drop. She hadn’t been close with the woman, obviously. It was hard to have a close relationship with someone that didn’t know about your existence, but she had been fond enough of her, at least for Mejias’ sake. ‘Oh Meme, I’m so so sorry.’ She gathered the girl in her arms, pressing her as close as she was able. ‘How is Hija doing?’ Mejias sniffled, ‘really really bad. Can he stay with us?’ She looked up at Iseult, her eyes puffy and pink from her tears. ‘Of course,’ Iseult replied tenderly.
Hija stayed in Mejias’ room, despite the availability of their guest bedroom. He seemed to draw comfort from being near his closest friend. Iseult could often hear him crying when she passed Mejias’ door. In a rare move of consideration, Orikka had taken to leaving food outside the room, hearty home cooked meals that the children could eat together, as it was hard for Hija to go anywhere, even to the kitchen to feed himself.
One of Iseult’s closest friends had lost a parent during her life, and she remembered the pain the girl had gone through, the grief that had closed her off from the world. Sym had eventually cracked out of her shell, but she hadn’t really been the same, she came out a much harder girl than she had been before. Hija on the other hand, didn’t seem to be recovering in any sense, his tears went on and on, weeks and weeks after his mother’s passing. She wished there was something she could do for the boy, but even if he could see her, she couldn’t think of anything that would comfort him. She felt so helpless. ‘But why didn’t Veris do anything? She pledged her life to her, why didn’t she help when we needed her?’ She heard Hija sob to Mejias, as the girl held him, his head resting on her shoulder as they curled up in the nest they had made of her bed. ‘I just, I don’t understand why she would abandon us.’ Iseult peeked around the corner, wished she there was something she could say to him that would alleviate some of the heartache. ‘The gods are cruel. They are heartless and wrong and they shouldn’t exist in this world.’ Mejias said with such malice that Iseult stepped back. Had Yanus been speaking in her head again? She could only imagine the psychopathy the god might be spewing.
She did understand some measure of resentment, however. The parrots of the god Babkoche had taken to cackling death fortunes to those suffering from the ailment, and the crying god no longer relieved the sadness of those that came to his fountain. Even Zichu, the god of prophecy had only bizarre inanities to say on the death of her citizens, to the dissatisfaction of the cityfolk, who had taken to protesting outside of the palace of mirrors. King Sja had been doing her best to offset the discord, setting up emergency hospices and testing stations, as well as assembling care packages to be delivered to those in need so that they could stay in the relative safety of their homes, and abstain from spreading the contagion.
Hija coughed, interrupting her thoughts. Oh no. Hija could not get sick. Not only because she cared for the boy, but because of what it would do to Mejias. Mejias quickly raised the back of her hand against his forehead, lifting up his white forelock, testing for fever. ‘Don’t worry Meme, it’s just a little sniffle, I think my throat is sore from all the crying,’ he did his best to reassure her through his phlegmy tears.
It was not a little sniffle. A couple days later Hija was coughing even more heavily than his mother had been. Iseult’s shoulder tensed each time she heard him gasp for breath. Eventually he was too weak to even get out of bed, Mejias rarely leaving his side.
It was one of those rare moments when Mejias was called away that Hija spoke to Iseult. It was the first time, she realized, sitting by Hija’s bedside at Mejias’ request, that he had spoken to her directly. ‘Iseult?’ he hesitated, his eyes sweeping over the room, ‘thank you for sitting with me.’ He quieted for a moment, fumbling with the blankets of the blanket nest, Mejias’ old stuffed lamb, now significantly worn, tucked in next to him. ‘I’m sorry I never spoke to you before, it’s not that I didn’t believe you’re there, I just didn’t have anything particular to say. And it seemed, I don’t know, a little disrespectful? To talk to you without Meme there?’ He coughed for a little, lungs hacking, straining, before weakly pulling out another tissue to sniffle into. ‘I wanted to be your friend too, growing up. Meme had this, this guardian angel, and I was always a little jealous, she could see so much more of the world than I could. She seemed so much more mature, so wise.’ He smoothed the blanket in his hands, thoughtful, ‘but then she started losing friends because of what she could see and I stopped envying her. It was hard to see her hurt like that. But I was secretly a little happy, because it meant I had more of her. I guess that makes me a bad person, huh?’ He sniffled again, his eyes looking up blankly at the bunk of the bed over head, ‘or maybe just human. She’s not, is she? All the way human, I mean.’ Iseult started, alarmed, ‘it’s ok,’ he said, placatingly, presumably predicting her distress, ‘I think I’ve always known. Mejias doesn’t tell me as much, anymore, but I know when she’s holding something back. I can tell she’s hurting again. Or maybe she never really stopped hurting. I hope, I hope when I die,’ he paused, ‘I just wish there was a way to make her stop caring for me so much, so she won’t hurt.’
‘Please Nobi, please do something!’ Iseult begged Orikka, desperate to avoid the inevitable outcome if there was no intervening. ‘Mejias will never forgive you, she’ll never forgive any god if he dies.’ But Orikka remained unmoved. ‘It is the way of life. I cannot keep his soul trapped if it is destined to go free.’ ‘Ha, you would have intervened if it was a god, wouldn’t you,’ Iseult accused, uncaring if it was true or not, before storming away without giving Orikka time to answer. She turned around a corner, nearly running into Mejias, coming out of her bedroom with a tray in her hands. ‘Oh, Mejias,’ she stopped, looking behind her, suddenly concerned that her words to Orikka had been too much, that Mejias might have heard and misconstrued their conversation. Mejias looked at her, face set in a neutral expression. ‘I was just coming to get Jia some more juice and broth. He needs more fluids,’ she said quietly. ‘Of, of course,’ Iseult stuttered. Mejias pushed past, casting her an inscrutable look as she rounded the corner to the kitchen.
That evening Mejias went out, late after Hija had gone to sleep. Iseult watched her creep out, quietly pulling the door closed behind her. She didn’t get back until dawn crept over the horizon. The next morning the city was abuzz. Someone had vandalized the crying god, dumping red dye over their head and poured red salt into his fountain, turning the waters bloody, the salt so dense it crusted along the edges. Across the square read a message, ‘Save your tears, kill the gods,’ in sharp jagged script. It became a pattern, Mejias’ forays and the resulting, increasingly brazen messages. Eventually even when Mejias stayed in, the messages would still appear.
‘I’m not coming back tonight. Watch over Hija, alright Izzy?’ Mejias said to Iseult, hefting a dark bag over her shoulder. They had come to an arrangement, Iseult wouldn’t bring up Mejias’ activities, and Mejias didn’t tell her about them, though she was now used to Iseult staying up to see her back home. Hija seemed to be getting a little better, he was able to sit up in bed, and he kept his food down, though his food mostly consisted of fluids and fruit. ‘I will. Be careful, alright?’ Mejias returned a tight smile, her lamb pupils softening slightly. ‘Of course, who could hurt me?’
The city woke to a crimson sun, everything overcast with a red light, painting the buildings in an overcast hazy rouge, the scent of smoke and ash heavy on the breeze and as gray particulates rained down like desecrated snow. ‘What happened?’ Iseult asked when Mejias eventually returned, breaking their unspoken agreement. She had worried all night, her anxiety only increasing when dawn came so unnaturally. Mejias turned around from assembling Hija’s food, her hips leaning against the counter, hands braced. She looked tired, tired and older. But there was something both triumphant and defiant in how she held herself. ‘A god paid the final price last night. It may not repair the corruption, but it at least stops it from spreading.’ She said fiercely. ‘And,’ her lips twitched, Iseult couldn’t tell if it was in disgust or satisfaction, ‘they don’t deserve humanitys’ reverence. They are a parasite and deserve to be punished for leeching onto humans without offering anything in return.’ Iseult couldn’t take her eyes from Mejias. Was this the sweet little girl she had helped raise? The little girl that cried when she skinned her knee and giggled when she cheated badly at cards. ‘What did you do?’ she whispered. ‘I wasn’t the only one. Together, we took down Babkoche. Burned him to the ground. His mockery of our deaths with his false fortunes was too much.’
Iseult stood frozen in the doorway as Mejias walked past her with Hija’s tray. She had no idea this was what Mejias had been building towards. She had seen the messages, but hadn’t thought that Mejias would ever take the next step and put them in motion. She had thought they were just the frustrations of an angry girl, not the actions of a radical insurgent. But now her sweet Mejias was at the forefront of an extremist movement, and didn’t seem to be slowing down, but instead was accelerating, fast.
