Chapter 127 — "Four"

The list was not posted.

That was the entire problem with it. Had it been posted, a person could have gone and looked, been disappointed, and resumed their life. Instead it existed the way weather existed — everyone agreed it was coming, nobody could say when, and the second year had collectively developed a flinch.

Torin had been lying on the common hall floor since breakfast.

"Get up."

"I can’t."

"Why."

"If I get up, something might happen."

Seraphina stepped over him. He didn’t react. He had achieved a state of readiness so complete it had circled around into paralysis.

By the second week the year had produced eleven theories about how the four were chosen. None agreed. All were held with total conviction.

One held that Renna picked by watching who ate breakfast fastest. One held that the instructors had decided before term began and everything since was theatre. One — Seraphina’s favourite — held that no list existed, no rotation existed, and the whole thing was an exercise to see who cracked first.

"That one’s mine," Torin said, when she mentioned it.

"You invented it."

"I proposed it."

"Do you believe it."

He thought about this seriously. "No. But I’d like credit if it turns out true."

She trained differently in those weeks.

Not harder. There was nothing left in that direction — she’d found the top of harder somewhere around month four and had been standing on it since. Narrower, instead. Cold-weather footing. Distance pacing. Fighting with hands that had stopped reporting back.

That last one was worse than expected. Her grip was fine. Her grip was excellent. What failed was the part of her that checked the grip — the small constant confirmation she’d never noticed making until it stopped arriving.

Renna watched her work through it once. Said nothing. Left.

Eren came to every session and participated in none of them. He sat at the yard’s edge with a book he did not read and made observations at intervals.

"Your left foot."

"Don’t."

"It commits before the right does."

"That’s not a real thing."

"It’s been happening eleven days."

She dropped her stance and turned. "You’ve been counting my foot."

"One foot. The other’s fine. The other’s a model citizen."

"Two years," she said, "and I’ve never once seen you in a yard."

"You’ve seen me in yards constantly. I’m in one now."

"Training."

He turned a page of the book he wasn’t reading. "Ah. No. That’s true."

"So how are you passing."

"Adequately."

"That’s not an answer."

"It’s a grade."

She considered pushing. Decided the pastry he’d put in her hand at the market on Wednesday was still sitting somewhere behind her ribs being unexamined, and that she had a limited budget for unexamined things this month.

She went back to her stance.

It took four days to fix the foot. It made a real difference. She never told him.

He stopped mentioning it on the fifth day, which was how she knew.

Ten days out, a letter came. Not the one she was waiting for — that one was still somewhere on a road, in a season that ran differently.

This one had Rowan’s handwriting on it. She read the name twice before opening it, because Rowan didn’t write letters. Rowan wrote arrival estimates and contact details.

Seraphina.

Fell says advanced track since month ten. He told me eight months ago. I’ve had this half-written since — which is longer than it takes to move goods across two borders, so make of that what you will.

Things here are the same, which I know is not an answer. Daren has a bench. He sits on it. He chose it specifically and he’ll tell you why at length if you ask him, so ask him, because he’s been waiting for someone to.

The academy looks the way it did. That bothers Daren more than it should. He mentions it.

I’ve stopped looking for my uncle.

I’m not going to explain that in a letter. But you’d have worked it out eventually and I’d rather you had it from me than worked it out.

Fell will keep sending word unless you tell me otherwise. He’s discreet about it. I’d say he enjoys it, but I’ve met him twice and I’m still not certain he enjoys anything.

Write if there’s something worth writing. Don’t if there isn’t. I’ll assume no news is the good kind.

— R

She wrote back that night. It took four attempts.

The first was too long. The second was too careful. The third she abandoned halfway through, having started explaining Kestral to a man who had never in his life asked for an explanation of anything.

The fourth was six lines.

Rowan.

I’m keeping doing it.

Tell Daren I want to know about the bench. All of it. Whatever he’s got.

I heard the third thing as a decision. That’s what it is.

— S

She looked at the last line a while.

Then left it.

The names came on a Tuesday.

No hall. No ceremony. Renna walked into the middle of morning drill, waited for the yard to notice her and stop, and read four names in the tone of someone confirming a delivery.

"Halvard. Ost. Valois. Sennick."

Then she left.

The yard held for two full seconds.

Then came apart.

Halvard — third year, enormous, spoke roughly once a week — said "oh" quietly and sat down on a crate.

Ost turned to the person nearest him, who happened to be a first-year with no stake in any of this, and began explaining why he had expected precisely this outcome. The explanation involved his performance in month two, an incident with a supply route, and a conversation with an instructor that improved every time he referenced it. The first-year did not interrupt. The first-year had worked out, correctly, that interrupting would extend it.

Near the back, Torin was informing three separate people that he had known about the list, had always known about the list, and — he wanted this noted — was not on it, which he considered a vindication.

"Vindication of what."

"Of the system."

"You’re not on the list."

"That’s the vindication."

Seraphina stood in the middle of all of it, running the fourth name again.

Sennick.

She didn’t know a Sennick.

She turned. Scanned the yard.

Found the only person in it who hadn’t moved.

Second row. Exactly where he’d been standing. Face doing nothing whatsoever.

"Eren."

He looked at her.

"Sennick."

"Yes."

"Your name is Sennick."

"It’s been Sennick the whole time."

"I have known you for two YEARS—"

"You’ve never asked."

"That is not a defence."

"It isn’t one." He adjusted the strap of his bag. "It’s a timeline."

The yard kept detonating around them. Nobody was watching. Nobody had ever watched Eren.

"You applied."

"Yes."

"For border rotation."

"Yes."

"You told me you couldn’t come."

"I told you I’d like to come and couldn’t." A pause. "Which was true when I said it. I applied nine days ago. Applications had closed. I applied anyway."

"They accepted a closed application."

"They accepted a closed application," he agreed. "Which I am also finding difficult to process. So if you could keep your voice down while I do that, I’d take it as a kindness."

She stared at him.

He looked, for the first time in two years, genuinely rattled.

"Eren."

"Hm."

"Why."

He was quiet for a moment.

"Because you were going to be somewhere real," he said, "and I’ve spent two years being funny at you inside warm buildings. At some point that stops counting for anything."

"That’s not—"

"It’s the honest answer. You keep asking for those and then getting annoyed when they arrive."

"I’m not annoyed."

"You’re doing the arms thing."

She put her arms down.

"There it is."

Halvard found her before she left the yard.

He looked at her for a while. She waited. She’d learned that with Halvard you simply waited, and eventually a sentence arrived, fully assembled and worth the delay.

"Six days," he said.

"Yes."

"You’ve not done cold like it."

"No."

"Ost’ll talk the first two days. Then he’ll stop." Halvard shifted his weight. "When he stops — that’s when it’s started."

He nodded once and left.

She stood with that a moment. Filed it. It was the most useful thing anyone had said to her all week and it had taken eleven words.

Renna caught her at the yard’s edge as it emptied.

"You have questions."

"One."

"Ask."

"How did Sennick get in after applications closed."

Renna’s expression did not change in any way that could be described.

"He submitted a written argument. Four pages. It was extremely irritating."

"Irritating how."

"Two of us read it separately and reached the same conclusion — that refusing him would require a better reason than the one we had." She started walking. Stopped. "Valois."

"Yes."

"You didn’t know his family name."

"No."

"Six days is a long time to spend beside someone whose name you learned this morning." Renna looked at her, briefly, with something close to interest. "It’s also long enough to find out whether that matters."

She left.

He was at the stair. Of course he was.

"Sennick."

"Please don’t."

"Sennick."

"It’s going to be like this for six days, isn’t it."

"It’s going to be like this for three years, Sennick."

He put his face in one hand.

She went up two steps, then turned back. The same two steps. The same turn. She was aware of that and did it anyway.

"Four pages."

"They’re not important."

"They got you onto a closed list."

"They were four pages," he said, "badly argued, and I would rather be dead than discuss them."

"Fine."

"Fine?"

"For now."

She went up.

He stayed at the bottom of the stairs somewhat longer than he needed to.

In a warmer room, Mira turned to a page near the front of the notebook — week one, the first entries, when she’d been collecting names because knowing names was useful.

Eren Sennick.

She’d written it two years ago and never once thought it worth mentioning.

She sat looking at it for a long moment.

Then turned to the current page and wrote a single line beneath today’s date.

Ask him where he’s actually from.