Relic

I: Martius 31 Year 242, A.H.

I stand on the turret, watching the night fall. The Ring looms large in the darkening horizon, and I can’t avoid looking at it any longer. Not if I want to say a proper goodbye to my dead brother before I set off for the Testing. I gaze at its steep, jagged ice-cliffs, but it’s not enough. I need to get a closer look—as eye-level as possible—and stare straight at the place that killed my brother.

Eamon, my twin. I can barely even think his name. I’m not ready yet, but I have no choice.

Lifting up my heavy fur cloak and my long Feast-day skirts, I step up onto the ledge of the turret. I’ve been up here hundreds of times before with Eamon—the turret was our special place—but it takes me a tick to get my footing. My delicate ceremonial shoes don’t have the same grip as my kamiks.

I steady myself, and try to relax. My breath forms an icy cloud in the encroaching polar darkness, and I start to shiver. Not just from the cold. Fear of getting caught out here has got me shaking. The punishment for disobeying The Lex by being here after the None Bell—especially tonight, on the Feast of the Testing—is severe.

But here I stand. I must.

The Moon is generous with Her light, and I can see clearly. The glistening Aerie spreads out before me, like a diamond encircled by the mountainous icy Ring. The Aerie fortress of ice and stone is the place where all the Founding Families live and work and learn and worship. It is home.

I stare out at the frozen land. Just over the turret’s edge, I see the ice walls of the School with its fancifully carved ice windows gleaming in the low moonlight. I spot the imposing ice-spires of the Basilika, the place for worship and instruction on The Lex. Only a glimpse of the Ark in the far distance coaxes a brief, sad smile. The only metal and glass structure in New North, the Ark is our most precious place, where most of the island’s food is grown. Within its warm, humid walls, I had hoped to find my calling.

No more. The innocent Maiden who longed for a peaceful life in the Ark is gone. She died on the Ring with Eamon, and she became someone else. Sometimes I don’t recognize the determined girl who replaced her, the one who insists on pursuing her dead brother’s dreams of Testing. And neither do my poor parents. It’s a cruel trick to play on my father, who is meant to be celebrating his final year as Chief Archon. He’s not meant to be mourning his son and lamenting his daughter’s choices.

I take a deep breath and force myself to take another glimpse at the Ring. I can make out the place from which Eamon fell. It looks oddly beautiful in the pale blue moonlight, not murderous. I stretch out my hands toward it. Then I close my eyes for a brief tick, hoping to imprint the image on my mind forever. As if I could take Eamon with me in the Testing tomorrow.

“Eva! Get down from there!”

Lukas. I don’t need to turn to recognize the voice. Before Eamon’s death, we three were close friends, despite the fact that Lukas served as Eamon’s Boundary Companion. Since Eamon’s death, I’ve spent most of the past few months training for the Testing with Lukas. But it isn’t Lukas’s words that scare me; it’s his tone. I hear fear, and he is always calm.

“Eva, get down now! That snow is quiasuqaq. One more step and you’ll fall.”

I cannot move. Lukas knows snow better than anyone. If it is truly quiasuqaq, then even the smallest false move will send me sliding off the ledge and flying hundreds of feet down. Just like Eamon.

“Stay still,” he orders.

I hear his footsteps running across the turret. His hand clamps down on my arm and pulls me down toward him. We fall backward on top of each other, both of us breathing heavily. I struggle out of his bear-like grip and turn around.

I look into his dark, almond-shaped eyes. “I just wanted—”

“I know what you wanted, Eva. To be close to Eamon.”

He alone understands what Eamon’s death has done to me. And I think I know what Eamon’s death has done to Lukas. Even though we never speak of it. Even though I pretend for everyone else.

“Yes,” I answer.

“You know, Eva, you don’t have to scale turret walls or Test to be close to him. Eamon will always be with you. His spirit is anirniq. Or animus, as you Aerie say.”

His words cut through me. I swallow, my eyes stinging. I won’t sob. I’ve spent the past few months trying so hard to be strong, trying to push down the desperate sadness I feel at Eamon’s death, trying to prove I can fulfill his Testing dream for him. Lukas’s words nearly bring me to the brink. I can’t have that. So I stand up, brush the snow off my gown, and grasp onto the least sad thing I can think of.

“Let me guess, my mother sent you up here to fetch me for the Feast. I can almost hear her.” I raise my voice in a loud whisper, an affectation my mother assumes to sound like the ideal Lex Lady. “ ‘How dare Eva break The Lex tonight? After all she’s done to embarrass this family! And in her father’s last Feast of the Testing as Chief Archon!’ ”

Lukas chuckles a little, indulging me. “No, she didn’t order me up here. I volunteered for the job.”

“No one else was up for the task of the turret at night?”

“Fair enough.” His laughter fades, but his smile holds. “We should go down. They’re all waiting for you to begin the Feast of the Testing. Maiden of the bell.”

I smile back at him. It feels good to have him teasing me again. Since Eamon’s death, he’s been so formal, as if he could avoid the truth by respecting the frozen barriers that are supposed to exist between us.

He offers me his arm. I gather the long folds of my cloak and gown and take a firm hold of his elbow. I look up at him. Despite his dark hair and eyes; flat, high-cheekboned face; and vast height and breadth—none of which fit the Aerie model for handsomeness—he’s somehow attractive. Not that I’d ever think of him that way.

He places his other hand over mine. Together, down the precipitous, winding stairs, we descend.