The vote of a nameless person did not exist.
Ria tore her own name into more than two thousand pieces.
She pressed her palm to the first page of the voting ledger.
`Ria Noen`, written in blood, unraveled like thread.
The letters crossed the bedchamber ceiling and descended to every bed.
A fine signature line wrapped around each nameless wrist.
"I will use my name as the basis for proxy signatures," Ria said.
"Each person casts their own vote. I bear responsibility for recording those choices."
Cassian looked at her paling hand.
"How many votes can you withstand?"
"All of them."
"Wrong answer."
The first nameless person voted.
The second refused Ria's signature line.
"If I borrow your name, my vote will look like yours."
He pressed the old burn on his wrist against the ledger.
There were no letters.
But the prices from three sales in a slave warehouse remained in the layers of his skin.
`Twelve silver.`
`Seven silver.`
`Two loaves of bread.`
The ledger read them as a unique history in place of a name.
The vote was registered.
Ria did not lose a fingernail.
The nameless people behind him looked down at their scars, missing teeth, and crooked fingers.
"If you can vote without my name, do so," Ria said.
Her proxy signature became a last resort instead of a right.
Ria's little fingernail fell out.
The second vote entered.
The color faded from her left eye.
With each vote, a part of the lender's body became a record.
No one knew how much of the human being named Ria Noen would remain after more than two thousand.
"Should I stop it?" Cassian asked.
Ria set the fallen nail on the ledger.
"Don't pretend to ask permission."
"If you die, the votes die."
"Which is why you'll keep me alive."
"While you're useful."
"That answer is why I continue."
Voting began at the first bed.
One name.
Two people.
One placed a hand on `Name`.
The other placed a hand on `Death`.
If they agreed, the tag tilted toward the chosen person.
If they did not, the remaining votes of the entire Court decided which one entered the half that received names.
Cassian walked between the beds with his sword drawn.
He cut only hands that interfered with the vote.
He did not decide which box they pressed.
Not yet.
The front-wagon faction argued that names should be awarded in order of arrival.
The feverish woman hung a list from her white standard.
"We found the Court first."
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
"You stole the wagons to get here first," Sena said from across the bed.
The rear-wagon faction cited the cost of defending the passage.
Those who pushed the wagons.
Those who endured the offices of the dead.
Those who treated the wounded.
Their list also put its chosen survivors first.
"So we live in order of merit?" the feverish woman asked.
"Better than the order of theft."
"Your name is first on your list."
"So is yours."
The women laughed together.
No leader was good enough to put her own life last.
If such a person had existed, she would never have survived this far.
Trades began between the beds.
Give me your vote for a name, and I will send money to your daughter outside.
Cast my death vote for me, and I will assume your debt.
Those who would leave made promises to those who would die.
The dying had to trust promises they could never verify.
Cassian did not stop the trades.
"That is coercion," Ria said.
"I called it a vote. I never called it fair."
"You said you would respect the result."
"A filthy result is still a result."
A scream came from the third bed.
The armless man was forcing the old woman's hand onto `Death`.
He bit down on her fingers.
The royal surgeon's name would restore his arms.
He had no intention of losing it.
Cassian's sword fell.
The man's jaw dropped onto the bed, its teeth still embedded in the woman's fingers.
"You said you'd cut only hands that interfere with the vote," Ria said.
"He used his mouth."
Cassian kicked the jaw aside.
The man leaked black mist instead of blood and laughed.
"I still can't die."
"That will be decided soon."
The laughter stopped.
The old woman pressed `Name` with her bitten fingers.
The man put a hand on the same box beneath his jawless face.
Agreement failed.
Their lives passed to the votes of the other nameless.
Not every bed fought.
Two elderly sisters sat at the forty-seventh.
The elder had no right leg.
The younger could not remember her age.
Between them lay the name `Bella Roin`.
There was no home to return to.
The name carried only the right to manage a cemetery and overdue burial taxes.
"You take it."
"You take it, Sister."
"I can't walk outside either."
"If I go outside, I'll forget you."
Each pressed only the `Death` box on her own side.
The `Name` box remained empty.
Ria's signature line trembled, unable to read a decision.
"One of you must choose the name."
"Why?" the younger asked.
"Because a name will remain."
"Then give it to someone else."
"It is the original attached to both of you."
The elder looked at Cassian.
"Can we both choose death?"
"Yes."
Ria turned to him.
"Then one name remains."
"Sell it for a price."
"You would make even their choice your property?"
"Better than throwing it away."
The elder laughed.
"That man eats everything left behind."
She lifted her sister's hand and placed it on `Name`.
When the younger tried to pull away, the elder locked their fingers.
"Go outside and forget me."
"No."
"That is the price I'll receive for my death."
Their two hands pressed different boxes.
The tag tilted toward the younger sister.
The first agreed death.
The fighting in the bedchamber paused.
No one called it beautiful.
Nor did they plan to make the same choice when their turn came.
Cassian left a small mark on the sisters' bed.
First in the order of execution.
He liked that the elder did not thank him.
A funeral bell rang.
Dona Har stood at the entrance to the bedchamber.
In place of her severed right hand hung a bundle of hundreds of tongues.
The last words of dead people had been stitched into each one.
"The dead also have the right to choose whether their family lives or dies."
"The dead have no vote," Ria said.
"They have names."
Dona untied one tongue.
Sena's mother's voice emerged.
"Our daughter must live."
Sena's face hardened.
"My mother would never say that."
"Last words are customarily edited for the family left behind."
Dona released a second tongue.
The feverish woman's husband spoke.
"Give my wife a name."
"That man sold me."
"He may have regretted it before he died."
"You added the regret."
Dona did not deny it.
The dead person's name remained in their last words.
With a name, they could provide a proxy signature.
Dona demanded votes in exchange for lending the tongues one by one.
The survivor's first winter harvest.
One-third of the land returned.
The funeral rights to one child.
Those who needed forgiveness from dead family signed contracts.
They listened despite knowing it was false.
They wanted to buy after death the words they had never received in life.
Dona's tongues licked the voting boxes.
Survival votes for the living multiplied under the names of the dead.
Ria's signature lines turned black around her wrists.
"Those votes are forged."
"Yours also use borrowed names."
Dona smiled.
"Borrow from the living and it is democracy. Borrow from the dead and it is forgery?"
Ria could not answer.
The difference was consent.
But only Dona possessed a way to verify the consent of the dead.
That monopoly turned lies into law.
Ria looked at Cassian.
"We must stop her."
Cassian lifted one of Dona's tongues on his sword point.
His own childhood voice flowed from it.
`I will protect Mira.`
He could not remember when he had said it.
Only the fact that Dona possessed it displeased him.
He did not cut the tongue.
"Continue."
Ria glared at him.
"Will you recognize the result?"
Cassian looked at everyone in the bedchamber.
"I will not change a single vote."
Ria recorded the declaration.
The nameless heard it.
Lauren heard it before the throne.
Dona smiled and became its witness.
The final vote entered.
Ria could no longer see color through her right eye.
Three fingernails remained.
She still read the count.
Total votes: `2,087`.
Votes to receive a name: `1,044`.
Votes to receive death: `1,043`.
There were only `1,043` names.
There were `2,086` nameless people, yet one extra vote.
"Whose is the last vote?" Sena asked.
Ria opened the first page.
The vote present before voting began.
`Mira Crow.`
`Receive the name.`
Mira was not among the `2,086` nameless.
Yet she occupied one name.
If Mira received a name, one nameless person who chose a name would be displaced.
Only `1,042` names would remain for people.
The nameless dead would number `1,044`.
If Mira received death, all `1,043` original names would return to people.
The nameless would divide exactly: `1,043` with names and `1,043` with death.
"Will you respect Mira's vote too?" Ria asked.
Cassian did not answer.
After everyone slept, he took the voting ledger.
Lauren stood before the throne.
"Do not lie about the method of execution," he said in the voice Cassian had lost.
"A vote is not a method of execution."
Cassian placed a finger on Mira's vote.
He fed Orsen's noiseless step into the letters.
The ink moved without sound.
`Receive the name.`
A black line erased the first choice.
A new one appeared beneath it.
`Receive death.`
Cassian had declared that he would not change a single vote.
Then he changed the very first one.