The archivist's hand severed its own finger.Even on the floor, the index finger did not release its pen.It crawled across the ledger.`Let me live.`It erased the first word and wrote another in blood.`Let me die.`The archivist gripped his wrist with his other hand."I did not write that."The severed finger made a second line.`Aaron Bale asked the executioner to end his suffering.`"That child never said that."Cassian entered the relief court.Aaron's cry inside his neck denied the same sentence.Twelve archivists raised their heads together.Their lips smiled. Their eyes wept."The saint granted the child's final plea."Their hands raised their pens again.The northern window shattered first.A black iron sword flew in and pinned twelve fingers to the desk.Marchesa Bell climbed through the window.Snowy boots landed on the ledger."My brother begged to live."She twisted the sword.Pen nibs and finger bones broke together."Let me say it only once."
* * *
There were two Aarons in the relief court.The dead Aaron. The living Aaron.The dead record bore Cassian's confirmation of execution.The living record listed today's bread ration and treatment fee.On the same desk, the two ledgers devoured each other's dates.The living ledger spoke first."Aaron Bale."One archivist's back folded.He shrank to the size of a thirteen-year-old.The sleeves of his robe dragged on the floor. A broken front tooth grew in his mouth."Received today's bread."The dead ledger answered."Aaron Bale."A black execution line appeared on another archivist's neck.His head tilted."Executed today."Each record put on a living body.One walked to the ration window. The other to a small block erected inside the court.It was an administration that fed and killed the same child every day.Marchesa moved first.Her iron sword smashed the ration stamp, splitting it through the handle.The archivist wearing the living Aaron returned to his proper size.She pivoted and kicked away the block.The plank struck the wall before the dead archivist's neck could open."His name was not Bale."Letters flew from the ledger toward Marchesa.`Orphanage registered name takes precedence.``Blood relation unverified.``Family claim dismissed.`White sentences clung to black armor.They tried to strip away even her memory of being Aaron's sister.Marchesa tore them off by hand.Glove and fingernails peeled away together.The oath-severance line showed in her bloody palm."Aaron Bell."She spoke his true surname.The first sentence cracked."My mother bore him."The second fell away."I tied his shoes."He had refused to remove them even in the cold.He believed losing his shoes meant losing the road home."I broke his front tooth."Ria looked up.Marchesa did not excuse herself.As a child, she had knocked him down with a wooden sword.Aaron refused, even crying, to say his sister had won.For that stubbornness he was struck again, and his front tooth broke."It is a scar I remember."The final sentence fell from her armor.The court did not recognize their blood.Nor did it prove Marchesa's memory.Still, the archivists worn by the two Aarons returned to their bodies.One vomited the smell of bread. The other clutched his throat and wept.Marchesa offered no comfort.She did not want to look long at bodies that had worn her brother.She drove her sword between the ledgers."Neither of you will pretend to be my brother again."Cassian opened the dead record.A black thread descended beneath the court.It led to the first speaker of the false pardon.The tracking thread recovered in EP052 had to pass through Aaron's original record to go deeper.Marchesa planted her blade on the ledger."Hands off.""I need the path.""From my brother?""From his death record.""Is there a difference?""Records don't cry."Her sword touched the seam in Cassian's neck.A black mouth licked the blade."That is why you like them. You can use them even when people say no.""Because they're dead."The iron entered an inch.A boy's cry leaked from Cassian's neck instead of blood.Marchesa's hand stopped.It was not a word.It was the sound of failing to swallow a breath before execution.His sister understood.She had known that cry longer than Cassian."Take it out.""I can't.""Did you eat it?""It remained.""Inside you?""You just heard it."She pushed the blade deeper."Then take it out."Cassian did not evade.Opening his neck would let him bind Aaron's cry to the tracking thread.It would become a more exact original.Marchesa realized it too.She withdrew first.The cry returned into the seam."Do not turn my brother's last sound into your hunting dog."
* * *
Ria unfolded the northern alliance document.The paper had dried stiff with blood and snow.Article Three.`Aaron Bell's death shall not be used as grounds for the alliance.`"This isn't grounds."Cassian spoke."It's a route.""That makes it worse," Marchesa replied."Without this record, the lie kills more people."Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation."You'll stop the disaster you made with the child you killed.""Correct.""Did you expect my consent?""It is faster not to ask the dead."Marchesa laughed without pleasure."I came to hear that answer."Each now had cause to behead the other.Cassian meant to make Aaron's death a debtor again.Marchesa meant to destroy their shared war's tracking route.No record could say who broke the alliance first."Then the faster blade decides."Marchesa raised her sword.Cassian did not draw his.He picked up dead Aaron's ledger.Her blade cut his wrist.The hand stayed on. The ledger fell.Cassian kicked it up toward Ria.Marchesa cut the ledger's corner, not Ria's neck.Hundreds of pages scattered through the court.Living Aaron's bread records. Dead Aaron's execution record.The fingerprint of a borrowed orphanage finger.The list of one hundred and thirteen transferred sins.Cassian walked through the falling pages.The black thread caught the thickest one.Aaron's original statement.Marchesa's blade pierced the paper and Cassian's palm beneath it.They held the same original."Let go.""No.""He begged you to let him live.""Yes.""You heard him.""And executed the name."Marchesa asked again for the entire court to hear."Did he ask to die?""No."The twelve severed fingers trembled.The mouths in Cassian's neck tried to object.He pressed them shut with his nails."He begged to live."A crowd gathered beyond the open doors.A woman with black feathers at her neck. Condemned prisoners freed at the western ground.Bereaved people holding their dead families' nameplates.All heard Cassian."Why did you leave him?""The residue was faster.""Faster than what?"Cassian did not answer.Faster than finding a way to save him to the end.Faster than separating gates, soldiers, and supply lines bound to nails.Faster than taking a child to safety.His judgment had been faster.Silence could not excuse him.So the crowd excused him instead."His pain must have been unbearable.""The saint understood what the child truly wanted.""He bore that sin for him."Cassian corrected them."No."The crowd was moved even more."He denies even his good deed.""He does not seek forgiveness.""That is why he is a saint."The original statement changed.`Let me live` remained.An interpretation appeared below it.`His plea to live meant a plea to end his suffering.`It did not erase the fact.It stole the meaning.Marchesa looked down."Even the truth becomes your story.""Yes.""Then I won't leave it."
* * *
Marchesa drew a small powder vial from behind her waist.It held white-phosphorus oil used to burn surrender armor.Ria blocked her."Burn the original and we cannot refute the lie.""What has refutation left us?""The fact that Aaron begged to live.""And proof of his honesty."Marchesa pointed at Cassian."It becomes a paper proving the confession of the man who abandoned my brother.""You would erase the fact to prevent that?""I remember it.""And when you die?""It dies with me."Ria's face hardened."You will own the memory alone?""No."Marchesa poured the oil over the original."I will let no one own it."Cassian could extinguish the flame.He could shadow-step and take the paper first.He did neither.Not only because the alliance document tightened around his neck.He wanted to see what Marchesa would offer after burning the route.Fire caught.White flame ate Aaron's first statement.The broken-tooth record. The list of 113 sins. His final plea. Cassian's execution signature.The black tracking thread snapped.The path beneath the court closed.Every bell in the capital rang."The child asked to die."The lie survived the loss of its original.With no paper left to refute it, it grew lighter.Light enough to enter any mouth.Ria watched the ledger burn."You made it stronger.""I know."Marchesa spoke."But those still aren't his words."Cassian asked,"What do you give me instead?""My memory.""It cannot be proved.""That is why I need you."Marchesa put her sword to Cassian's neck again."Because you heard him.""You'll use me as a witness?""As the accused."The alliance sentence sharing their defense and betrayal grew hot.One armor scale around Cassian's neck cracked.The oath-severance line in Marchesa's palm deepened.Both paid. Neither was forgiven.The two archivists worn by Aaron never fully returned to normal.The one worn by the living record vomited whenever he swallowed bread, saying it was not his share.The one worn by the dead record could not breathe unless he touched his throat.The court did not list them as workplace injuries.No compensation existed for wounds caused by a child who did not exist.Ria wrote both names on a separate page.This time she gave it no title claiming them as anyone's evidence.
* * *
The fire went out.Aaron's statement was ash.Only one sheet beneath it had not burned.Black imperial wax was devouring the flame.Marchesa unfolded it with her sword tip.The names of the eleven condemned.A clause incorporating Aaron's record as grounds for their pardon.At the bottom was the First Princess's signature.`Seraphina Aurelia.`Seventeen rats biting one another's tails writhed inside the wax.Marchesa looked at Cassian."Your princess bought it.""She isn't mine.""Will she say the same?"Cassian picked up the unburned pardon.Seraphina's warmth still lingered in the signature.