Chapter Text
Elio woke up with an elbow in his stomach. He blinked, head still on the pillow. Something dark and scratchy tickled his nose. He sneezed. It was early, not quite dawn, the light filtering through his curtains a gray-blue. Outside the open window cherry-pickers sang.
He tried to roll over, away from the elbow, and found he could not. There was a very warm and very knobby lump pressed against his back. He blinked again, and frowned. He sat up. He pushed the blankets back.
Luan and Mari grumbled as their sleep was disturbed, blinking back up at him, bleary and flushed and way too comfortable.
Elio sputtered.
He clambered over Mari and out of bed, careful not to knee her in the side even though she deserved it, for her stupidly sharp elbows. She whined and curled into the warm hollow he’d left. The stone floor stung cold against his bare feet.
The door was cracked open. He’d shut it firmly before going to bed last night. He’d debated putting a chest in front of it because he’d known they were going to do this, it happened every time, every year, and he’d wanted to be left alone. He should have gotten over himself and moved the chest.
He reached across Mari and shook Luan’s shoulder. Luan swatted his hand away. Elio grit his teeth and gripped his brother’s shoulders and hauled him over Mari and out of the bed.
Luan yelped as his own feet hit cold stone, stumbling, and if Elio let go of him he would fall and that would be about what he deserved, too.
He did not let go. He marched a yawning, unresisting Luan all the way to the door, out the door, and into the hall. When he stepped back inside his room Mari was sitting up, shoving tangled hair out of her eyes with the heel of her palm.
He pointed to the door. She scrambled out of the rumpled blankets and careened across the floor and into the hall and into Luan, who caught her with another yelp.
Elio slammed the door. He rested his head against the cool, solid wood and breathed. There was giggling from the other side, and then stomping feet, loud whispering.
Elio went back to bed.
***
Elio woke up to a loud bang. He jolted upright, breathing hard, blankets twisted around his arms. The banging continued.
“Hey, Elio!” Luan shouted from the other side of the rattling door. “Ma says you have to get up!”
He scowled at the door. “Go away!”
“Ma says we’re going to be late!”
“Stop hitting the door!”
The banging stopped. Elio breathed in, and held it, and breathed out slow.
The light was a pale gold now, illuminating his bed and clothes chest and old, creaking desk, making the bright patterned rugs and wall-hangings glow. The cherry-pickers were still singing, but distant, farther out in the grove. He groaned, and rolled out of bed. The stone was warmer, now, but the breeze tugging at his old tunic made him shiver.
“Elio?” came muffled through the door.
“I’m up!” He shuffled over to the clothes chest. “When is breakfast?”
“Pa says we can eat in the kitchen, in our sleep clothes if we want.”
He diverted from the clothes chest to the door. He should have expected the change in routine. White was no longer allowed in the dining hall, after Mari had managed to ruin a set of Ma’s parliament robes at a fancy dinner.
Luan was standing just beyond the door, so close that when Elio opened it and tried to step out into the hall he almost ran him over.
“What?” he snapped, halting his forward momentum by clutching the door frame.
Luan met Elio’s eyes squarely, face placid but jaw set. Stubborn and unapologetic. He was skinny, especially in comparison to Elio’s increasingly broad frame, but at barely thirteen he was already eye-level with Elio, and never let him forget it. He looked just like Ma when he set his jaw like that, and Elio kind of hated it.
“Are you mad?” he asked, even.
Elio sighed, slumping against the frame. “If I say yes, will you stay out of my room?”
“No.”
“Then no.” He pushed Luan back, gently, and eased out of his room, shutting the door behind him. “I’m not mad, just tired. Didn’t sleep much.”
Luan snorted. “I know.” He fell into step beside Elio as he started down the hall, their shoulders brushing.
Elio and Luan had both had nightmares when they were small. Their bedrooms were next to each other, so when one of them would wake up screaming the other would run to comfort them. Luan had grown out of them, Elio had… mostly grown out of them. They were only bad enough he couldn’t sleep the week before the memorial.
Even if they were knobby and annoying, he had slept some with his siblings beside him, which was better than not sleeping at all. “… Thank you,” he mumbled.
Luan grinned, sunshine bright, and slipped his hand into Elio’s and squeezed.
***
When they arrived Pa was serving Mari, or maybe supervising Mari serving herself, and Ma was sitting very still and staring into the space above her bowl. She came back to herself when Elio sat beside her, smiling at him and brushing hair out of his face. “Good morning, Spark.”
“Morning, Ma.”
She didn’t ask how he had slept.
The day of the memorial was always hard. Elio knew Senior Legislator Candella Ramona Ignici had very few regrets in her life, and the destruction of the Vuelo de Paz encompassed most of them.
“Are you ready?” she asked.
He shrugged.
M. Moreno had left rice, eggs, frijolo soup, and fruit on the table. He served himself and passed the food on to Luan. The family ate quickly and quietly. Usually Elio loved eating in the kitchen, it was warmer than the dinning hall and always smelled of spices and honey. Today the strong scents were suffocating. When he was done he carried his dishes to the sink without asking to be excused.
Pa was close behind him, with both his and Mari’s bowls. “We’re leaving in an hour, Elio.”
He waved acknowledgment and left.
***
Elio straightened blankets and laid his dress robes out over the bed. M. Moreno had washed and pressed the whole family’s white dress robes the day before, so the thick silk smelled of grass and sunlight and soap. He wanted to enjoy it.
He took his time washing up, using the water instead of the sonic. Luan could use the other bathing room in their hall. When he was clean and mostly dressed, he took his time at the mirror brushing his hair.
It was finally long enough to braid, four months into his sixteenth summer. The mass of thick, straight black hair still felt strange and heavy, hanging down the back of his neck and brushing his shoulders, but he was getting used to it. He liked being able to do things with his hair besides pin it out of his eyes. He liked being addressed as M. Ignici instead of S. Elio. He liked being able to wear long flowing robes like Ma. But for everything he liked about the appearance of adulthood, he still felt inside as he had at fifteen, at fourteen, his thirteen-year-old self only now starting to be distant.
Pa had laughed when he’d confided this, but kindly, and told Elio he was himself, and would always be himself, and did not stop being himself because he was also an adult. Elio had been annoyed by that at the time, but as the months had passed it had started to sound true.
The door creaked. He glanced over his shoulder and found a tiny dark head peeking through the gap.
He groaned. “Mari…”
“Please?” She slipped inside, eyes wide and falsely innocent. “I want to watch.”
“I’m not doing anything interesting,” he protested, but he picked her up and sat her on the counter and went back to his hair, remembering sitting quietly in the corner of Ma’s dressing room as she worked oil through knee-length curls.
He didn’t have to oil his, not yet, but Ma had given him some of her own when his hair started getting past his ears. He liked the cinnamon scent of it, so he rubbed a bit into the ends.
“Can I have some?” Mari asked, hopeful.
He gave Mari a critical once-over. She was dressed, and she looked very sweet, the hems of her white tunic and pants embroidered with cherry blossoms, but she must have escaped Ma or Pa or whoever had dressed her before they were done.
Elio set the oil aside. “Hold still,” he said, and wet a comb from the basin, and worked out the snarls in Mari’s close-cropped curls as gently as he could. Apparently not gently enough, because she whined and squirmed the whole time. She did hold still as he ran cinnamon-oiled fingers through those same curls, smoothing away the frizz and getting them to lay in some kind of order.
Mari giggled when he was done, inspecting herself in the mirror. Elio smiled as he braided his own hair, tying it off with a white ribbon.
“What do you think, Marita?” he asked, leaning against the counter and poking her in the side. “Are we pretty enough to be seen in public?”
Her nose wrinkled, but she nodded, and gave him a very firm, “Yes.”
“Marisol!” echoed from down the hall. “Marisol, where are you?”
Mari wriggled off the counter and shoved the door open. “Ma! Look, Elio did my hair!”
Ma slowed to a halt just outside the bathing room, regarding Mari with a faint smile. She had a comb in her hand. “He did a very good job.” She looked over Mari’s head to Elio. “M. Ferra is out front, are you ready?”
He swallowed, and nodded. Ma set the comb on the counter. “Mari, go find your shoes.”
Mari darted off down the hall, bare feet pattering against the stone, and Ma shut the door softly behind her. She pulled Elio into her arms just as his throat started to burn.
He didn’t cry, but he trembled, the burning spreading through his body, and Mama rubbed circles into his back and didn’t say anything.
When he pulled away Ma took his face in her hands. She wasn’t distant like she’d been earlier. Her eyes were sharp and her face was painted to hide her exhaustion, her jaw set, stubborn. “Two hours,” she said. “Two hours, and then it is done for another year.”
“I know.”
She kissed his cheek. “Thank you for doing Mari’s hair. Get your things and get outside.”
***
Elio collected his ‘pad, to read or sketch on the short flight into the city, and dragged his feet through the many winding halls down to the front entrance and the drive. Ma and Pa were waiting outside with Mari. M. Ferra already had the hovercar running. It was the nice one Ma used, small and sleek, only seating for six in the back, the silver paint shining in the sun.
At least he was not the last to arrive. Luan came running down out the double doors behind him and almost tripped over his sandals.
“Alright, alright.” Pa steadied Luan with a hand on his shoulder. He was wearing robes for once, his hair braided neatly, and the red embroidery around the collar matched Ma’s hairbeads. He made a show of counting heads. “Marita, Luito, Elito. Mi vida. And me. We’re all here.” He clapped his hands. “Let’s go, let’s go.”
They piled into the hovercar, Elio and Luan claiming window seats and Mari grumbling as she wedged herself between them. Ma and Pa sat facing them. M. Ferra waved from behind the privacy glass and Elio and Luan and Mari dutifully waved back.
The liftoff always sent Elio’s stomach swooping, no matter how smoothly M. Ferra managed it. He breathed in, held it, and breathed out slow. Mari wiggled around, trying to get a view out his window, and elbowed him in the ribs. He elbowed her right back.
“Please, not this morning,” Pa said, strained. Elio glanced at him and the way he was gripping Ma’s hand too tight, and subsided. Pa preferred groundcars, even though they were so much slower. Or maybe because they were so much slower.
The flight passed in silence. Elio tried to sketch a single perfect curl of hair, but he couldn’t make himself focus on it, even with Mari humming encouragingly at the emerging image. All he could think about were the steps of the remembrance ceremony, running through them in his head over and over.
First the political stuff. Somebody would give a speech. This year was the tenth memorial, and so this year it was Ma. Ma would give a speech. Then a priest would lead Prayer for Sudden Death, Prayer for Violent Death, Prayer for Souls, and Prayer for Survivors. And then Elio and Ma together would read the list of names engraved on the memorial stone; a hundred and seventy-three in total.
And then it would be over. Then he could go home.
Elio did not want to attend the memorial. He did not have a choice. When he was younger he got away with standing beside Ma and looking solemn, but after his thirteenth summer Ma asked him to read with her. He could have said no, could have kept putting it off until sixteen, until it became an adult obligation. He did not.
Elio was one of two survivors. Four, counting Luan and Mari, but nobody ever did because Mari hadn’t been born until two days after and Luan hadn’t been on the official list of passengers and crew. So it was just Elio and Ma.
He wondered sometimes what Pa would have done if all four of them had died. The people who had lost someone had usually only lost someone, to lose a spouse and three children all at once… He wouldn’t have even known he’d lost Luan, was the worst part.
***
The remembrance was held in the square outside of Parliament, in front of the memorial stone. M. Ferra let them out behind Parliament, and they walked through the empty, echoing dark halls to the heavy wooden doors at the front. Servants in white drew the doors open slowly, and Ma stepped outside to a rising murmur in the crowd.
Luan hugged him, tight, and then Pa, and then Mari, and then Elio followed Ma outside, ignoring the burning in his chest.
The wide, red-stone square was all but invisible under the crush of people. Thousands, maybe. He would not be surprised if every single person in the city and surrounding towns had forced themselves into this square.
More than one priest attended, red robes standing out in the crowd of white and pale yellow, but the one who would be leading the prayers was standing by the memorial stone, speaking softly with Ma. He stepped around them to the stone.
The memorial stone was taller than Elio. It stood closest to Parliament of the line of memorial stones circling the square, a great white marble oval sunk into the ground, polished and gleaming, a hundred and seventy-three names scattered over its surface without any pattern he’d ever been able to find; like falling stars, or debris, stained a shimmering black.
He stepped up to the stone and ran a finger down it’s surface until he found the name Ma always read first—Arela Junia Gomez.
“Elio?”
He turned away from the stone to find Ma standing close at his shoulder, flowing white robes gleaming, hair twisted up on top of her head in perfect coils. She never looked anything less than regal in public, and especially not for this. “Are you ready?” she asked.
He breathed in, held it, and breathed out slow. “Yes.”
***
He could put faces to fewer and fewer names, only M. Gomez was clear, her hair up and that final, almost smile.
***
When they arrived home Elio had a headache, and all he wanted to do was lock himself in his room and sleep.
“We have a guest for lunch, Elio,” Ma called after him as he started down the hall. He mumbled something over his shoulder and picked up his pace.
He was all but running when he got to his room, and flopped onto the bed without bothering to change out of his formal robes. For a long time he lay still, and breathed.
A knock at the door.
“Go away!” He shoved his face into the pillow.
The door creaked open. “You alright?” Luan asked.
Elio did not bother to reply.
The door snicked shut. Luan crossed the floor quietly; he must have changed out of the formal tunic and fancy sandals. He sat on the edge of the bed and rubbed Elio’s back and didn’t say anything, and Elio was so grateful for the quiet and the touch he would have cried, if he could allow himself to cry today.
The door creaked open once again. Elio lifted his face enough to watch Mari shove one foot and her head inside. “Ma says you can’t skip lunch. And she says you have to meet our guest.”
Elio groaned and rubbed his face against the pillow. Luan asked, “Who is it?”
Mari squeezed enough of her shoulders through the gap to shrug. “Some lady. I don’t know. She’s got an accent. One of Ma’s friends.”
Probably a politician then. When meant Ma would expect Elio and Luan to be polite and ask questions about law and talk about their studies. They shared a grimace.
“Fine.” Elio heaved a sigh and heaved himself onto his feet. “Tell Ma we’re coming.”
His robes were wrinkled now, and he knew he should care, especially making a first impression, so he hung up the white set and put on a yellow set. Luan waited patiently with Mari, and when Elio was presentable the three of them set off for the dinning hall.
They entered before the food had been served, which was good. Pa hadn’t arrived yet. Ma was standing beside the circular, neatly set table and speaking to a woman in black. When they entered, the conversation cut off as Ma and the woman turned to face them.
Ma was not smiling. That was the first thing Elio noticed. Always she smiled when speaking to guests, both welcome and unwelcome, and she was not smiling.
The woman gasped, and Elio’s attention snapped to her just as she took a step forward, hand rising unconsciously, reaching for—
“Leo?” she said, gaze locked onto Luan.
Luan froze. Elio frowned, took a half step in front of his brother.
Ma laid a hand on the woman’s arm and gestured to Luan. There was a hard look in her eyes Elio had never seen before, and it sent cold curling in his stomach. “Lenora, this is Luan,” she said. “Luan, this is Lenora’mar, your aunt.”
Aunt.
Luan’s aunt.
Even through the deafening rush of blood in his ears, Elio could admit they looked similar. She was blond, but it was the same kind of blond Luan now-brown hair had been as a child, pale-gold and thin. She was skinny and tall, like Luan was skinny and tall. But there were hundreds of thousands of people who were blond, and skinny, and tall. That didn’t make any of them related to his little brother. Maybe this was some elaborate, political lie.
Luan’s face had gone totally, perfectly blank. He studied the woman who was supposedly his aunt while she studied him, revealing nothing.
“Candella,” the woman said, breathless, eyes wide with something that could be horror or hope. “What did you do?”