Chapter Text
There was a rare hint of wind throughout the dusty land of Quill on the day that Nadia Stowe’s sons were to leave the nest—one, to greater things; the other, to his death.
At the very least, the breeze served as a reprieve from the constant, mind-numbing heat. It was like someone had snapped their fingers in front of her face and finally woken her up from a daze she hadn’t realized she’d been stuck in. She just wished it didn’t have to be today.
She had never enjoyed the Purge, but she doubted that many did. It was a day off work for almost everyone in Quill, but beyond that, it was hardly anything cheerful. Kill off some children, place others in slavery, and call it a day. The Wanteds probably enjoyed it, actually. Not that she would know.
This Purge was worse than most on account of the fact that it was her sons’ turn.
Nadia had been dreading it for years. She had suspected, when she’d first caught Alexander making shapes in the dust that settled across everything, that he would not make it. She hadn’t reported him right away, just stopped him and cleaned up the mess and hoped that no one else had seen, but it happened again, and again, and again. She watched his eyes trace objects with too much interest, watched him debate where to place things so that one had to admit they looked nice together, watched him bite at his fingernails until they were even or until they bled. When he tied his shoes, he ensured that the laces were even on both sides; when she cut his and Aaron’s hair, he complained about the lengths not being equal; and on that day when it rained, and he had drawn a house in the mud, he had sealed his fate, once and for all.
Maybe it’s for the best, she tried to convince herself, over and over. Quill wasn’t made for kids like Alex, and living here would drive him to insanity. It had almost done the same to her. The only thing keeping her going was the hope, deep down, that someday this would all be over. Someday, someone would find out who she was, would overthrow Justine, would let her go home again. It was a futile hope, a nonsense hope, the kind of hope that Quill told her over and over to bury for good. She never did. It was what fueled her.
Alex didn’t have that. Was death a better option than suffering without a cause? She didn’t know. She never could make up her mind about it.
Nadia had avoided looking at him for the past few years, once she had known that he would be Unwanted. The anticipatory grief of his scheduled death threatened to break her. In the past week, she couldn’t think of a single time that she had looked in his eyes, for fear of falling apart at the seams.
If anything, she was glad that both were leaving at once, no matter where Aaron ended up; she couldn’t handle living in a house with one and not the other.
Standing tall on her stage in front of the amphitheater—hardly an amphitheater, Nadia thought, just a place to stand—was the High Priest Justine. Even after all these years, Nadia wasn’t entirely convinced she was human. She certainly wasn’t magical, that much was for sure, but there was nothing behind her black eyes.
Nadia wondered what would happen if Justine noticed her own black eyes. Did the Seven Islands view them the same way as they did back home? Would Justine acknowledge their similarities, let Nadia sit at her side? Maybe they were distantly related. (They weren’t; Nadia had seen the extensive family trees housed in her mother’s castle time and time again, and while she hadn’t paid all that much attention to them, she thought she would have remembered a name like Justine. Her memories felt especially fuzzy these days, though, so she wasn’t entirely sure.) What it would be like to explore the towering palace, if one could really call it that? She tried to wipe it from her mind as Justine began calling the Wanted names.
Most were unrecognizable to her. Wanted parents tended to produce Wanted kids, their intelligence and coldness trained into their children, though a few Necessary names she knew were mixed in. Not many.
Aaron’s name startled her, though Nadia tried not to let the breath catch in her throat. He stood just in front of her, still a head shorter, and his shoulders relaxed as a weight was removed from them.
She supposed it shouldn’t have been surprising. Aaron was an intelligent kid; she had been told that time and time again by other Necessaries and even his teachers, when she saw them around. He had never been caught doing a thing wrong, rarely an emotion out of place. He fell into line and he excelled at it, never stumbling. He was quick to notice and correct things that didn’t fit, observant almost to a fault, and obsessively determined to get his way. Nadia tried not to notice the same traits in Alex.
The perfect little Wanted. She should have been proud of Aaron, and maybe she was happy that he wouldn’t have to suffer like she and Owen did, and not like Alex; still, something about it left a weird taste in her mouth, slightly stale and metallic, like when she’d chew on her necklaces as a child. Maybe that was just the never-ending thirst in this desert.
The Necessaries passed by in a blur. There were slight bits of disappointment here and there; not quite shame, as was expected with the Unwanteds, but breaths slightly more dejected echoed around the crowd. A Necessary child was an alive child, a piece of the machine that was important enough to keep around, but to the people of Quill, they were still not good enough. She tried not to feel too offended at that.
And, finally, it was the Unwanteds’ turn. It was easy enough to notice who wasn’t named, and their parents’ faces burned, their eyes turned away from the children in front of them, who tried to fight the tears in their eyes. Just in front of her, Alex shifted on his feet.
She knew a few names. Burkesh sounded familiar, important, though certainly Wanted and far from the blandness and insignificance of her own work. Haluki was the senior governor, she knew that, though she didn’t know much else. (Unwanted daughter of a senior governor; now there was something to think about. That’d be a nice piece of drama if gossip really existed in this place. Her mind briefly flashed to days spent whispering and giggling with her friends, gasping at horrors such as wearing the wrong color to a party, falling off a horse, who had a crush on who. She pushed the nostalgia from her mind; she could think about it later, not now, not standing amongst all of Quill as her son was about to die. How nonsensical that would have sounded, to a younger version of herself.) Ranger; the father worked with the dairy cattle, red hair, gruff and quiet.
Stowe, Alexander.
She fought down the memories that clawed their way to the forefront of her mind, up her throat, towards her eyes. Not now. Names were still being called. A little boy—her little boy—with sparkling eyes in this dull, shadowy little valley. The chains clicked closed around his wrists. He would never hurt a fly. He got upset at the idea of the little birds outside having to die, and hid in the corner of his room when Owen told him that everything had to die, eventually. Click. His ankles, now. Nadia wanted to race forward, hold him tight, never let him go. He looked at her, brown eyes cold and unforgiving and still so full of life, and she finally looked back, trying to wipe any feeling from her face as she had so often practiced. Every moment in Quill, schooling her emotions, had led up to this. The table would feel empty when she got home; dinner with Aaron tonight, of course, and then just her and Owen tomorrow. She would still expect to hear their bedroom door open in the morning, Aaron up and awake first, then Alex racing after him to catch a glimpse of what little sunrise could be seen peeking over the wall. The governors pulled at the chains, dragging him away, and she could feel them around her own wrists again, too, like she was a little girl on that beach all over again. She had hated Adhira and all the others for years afterwards, spitting their names and a hundred other insults under her breath whenever anything bad happened, blaming them for even the most everyday of annoyances. Nadia finally understood why they’d done it. Saved themselves, their own families, a few lives of suffering. It certainly didn’t seem worth it, from the outside. How was she standing here, allowing this, as Alex walked away from her for the very last time? He boarded the bus. Aaron turned away, impatient. The High Priest Justine and her retinue left the scene, hands clean, faces proud.
Nadia had seen plenty of Purges during her time in Quill. Twenty-five, maybe? She hadn’t counted, but she knew the routine, by now. She’d just never been left so thoroughly sickened by one before. Still, her feet found a way to keep moving out of the amphitheater and back into Quill.