The Toll (Arc of a Scythe) - Neal Shusterman Page 0,29
been revived.
But where was Citra?
He could tell he wasn’t in a revival center. The walls were concrete. The bed beneath him wasn’t a bed at all but a slab. He was in ill-fitting gray institutional clothing, drenched from his own sweat, because it was uncomfortably warm and humid. On one side of the room was a minimalistic commode, and on the other side, a door of the kind that can only be opened from the outside. He had no idea where he was, or even when he was – for there’s no way to mark the passing of time when you’re dead – but he did know that he was in a cell, and whatever his captors had in store for him was not going to be pleasant. After all, he was Scythe Lucifer – which meant a single death was not good enough. He would have to die countless times to calm the fury of his captors, whoever they were. Well, the joke was on them – they didn’t know that Rowan had died over a dozen times at the hands of Scythe Goddard already, only to be revived each time and killed again. Dying was easy. A paper cut? That would be annoying.
Scythe Curie didn’t come for Citra. And the various nurses attending to Citra all carried that same sense of anxiety, offering nothing but diffused light and professional pleasantries to illuminate her situation.
Her first visitor was a surprise. It was Scythe Possuelo of Amazonia. She had only met him once, on a train from Buenos Aires. He had helped her elude the scythes who were pursuing her. Citra considered him a friend, but not so close a friend that he would come to her revival.
He sat beside her, and she noticed his greeting wasn’t exactly warm. He wasn’t unfriendly, just reserved. Guarded. He hadn’t smiled, and although he met her eye, it was as if he was seeking something in her. Something he had yet to find.
“Good morning, Scythe Possuelo,” she said, mustering her best Scythe Anastasia voice.
“Afternoon, actually,” he said. “Time flows in odd little eddies when you’re in revival.”
He was silent for a long moment Citra Terranova might have found awkward, but Scythe Anastasia found merely tiresome.
“I’m guessing you’re not just here for a social visit, Scythe Possuelo.”
“Well, I am pleased to see you,” he said, “but my reason for being here has to do with your reason for being here.”
“I don’t follow.”
He gave her that searching look again, then finally asked, “What do you remember?”
The panic rose again as she considered the question, but she did her best to hide it. In fact, some of it had come back to her since she’d regained consciousness, but not all. “I went to Endura with Marie – Scythe Curie, that is – for an inquest with the Grandslayers, although I’m hazy as to why.”
“The inquest had to do with who would succeed Xenocrates as High Blade of MidMerica,” Possuelo explained.
That opened the door a little wider. “Yes! Yes, I remember now.” The dread inside her grew. “We faced the council, made our arguments, and the council agreed that Goddard was not eligible, and that Scythe Curie should be High Blade.”
Possuelo leaned away, taken slightly aback. “That is … eye-opening.”
There were more memories now looming like storm clouds on her mental horizon. “I’m still having trouble remembering what came next.”
“Perhaps I can help you,” said Possuelo, no longer mincing words. “You were found sealed in the Vault of Relics and Futures in the arms of the young man who murdered the Grandslayers and thousands of others. The monster who sank Endura.”
Food and water came twice a day for Rowan, sliding through a small slit in the door, but whoever was doing the sliding didn’t speak at all.
“Can you talk?” he called out when the next meal arrived. “Or are you like those Tonists who cut their tongues out?”
“You aren’t worth the waste of words,” his captor responded. There was an accent to his voice, FrancoIberian maybe? Or Chilargentinian? He didn’t know what continent he was on, much less which region. Or perhaps he was misreading the situation. Perhaps this wasn’t life at all. Maybe he was dead for good, and, considering the sweltering nature of the cell, this was the mortal-age idea of hell. Fire and brimstone and the actual Lucifer, horns and all, ready to punish Rowan for stealing his name.
In his current light-headed state, it seemed possible. If so,