Scythe (Arc of a Scythe #1)(77)

“What was Rowan like after it happened?” Citra asked Scythe Curie. “Did he seem shocked at all about what he had done? Did he kneel down to me? Did he help carry me out to the ambudrone?”

Scythe Curie took a moment before she answered. Then finally she said, “He just stood there, Citra. His face was like stone. Defiant, and as unrepentant as his scythe.”

Citra tried to turn away, but even though the brace was now gone, her neck was still too stiff to move.

“He’s not who you think he is anymore,” Scythe Curie said slowly, so that it would sink in.

“No,” Citra agreed, “he’s not.” But for the life of her she had no idea who he was now.

? ? ?

Rowan thought he would receive another brutal beating when he returned to the mansion. That couldn’t be further from the truth.

Scythe Goddard was all flamboyance and bright chatter. He called for the butler to bring champagne and glasses for everyone, right there in the foyer, so they could toast Rowan’s audacity.

“That took more nerve than I thought you had, boy,” Goddard said.

“Here, here,” seconded Scythe Rand. “You can come to my room and break my neck any time.”

“He didn’t just break her neck,” Scythe Goddard pointed out. “He unflinchingly snapped her spine! Everyone heard it. I’m sure it woke up the scythes sleeping in the back row!”

“Classic!” said Scythe Chomsky, guzzling his champagne down, not waiting for the toast.

“It was a powerful statement you made,” said Goddard. “It reminded everyone that you are my apprentice, and you are not to be trifled with!” Then he became a little quieter. Almost gentle. “I know you had feelings for that girl, yet you did what needed to be done, and more.”

“I was disqualified,” Rowan reminded them.

“Officially, yes,” Goddard agreed, “but you gained the admiration of quite a few important scythes.”

“And made enemies of others,” ?Volta pointed out.

“Nothing wrong with drawing a line in the sand,” Goddard responded. “It takes a strong man to do that. The kind of man I’m happy to raise a glass to.”

Rowan looked up to see Esme sitting at the top of the grand staircase watching them. He wondered if she knew what he had done, and the thought that she might made him feel ashamed.

“To Rowan!” said Scythe Goddard, holding his glass high. “The scourge of the stiff-necked, and the shatterer of spines.”

It was the most bitter glass Rowan had ever had to swallow.

“And now,” said Goddard, “I do believe a party is in order.”

? ? ?

The party that followed the Harvest Conclave was one for the record books, and no one was immune to Goddard’s contagious energy. Even before guests started to arrive and the first of five DJs cranked up the music, Goddard threw his arms wide in the mansion’s ornate living room as if he could reach from wall to wall, and said to no one in particular, “I am in my element, and my element is hydrogen burning in the heart of the sun!”

It was so outrageous a thing to say, it even made Rowan laugh.

“He’s so full of crap,” Scythe Rand whispered to Rowan, “but you gotta love it.”

As the rooms, and the terraces, and the pool deck began to fill with partiers, Rowan began to rise from the funk he had been left in after his awful bout with Citra.

“I checked for you,” Scythe Volta told him. “Citra’s conscious and has one more day in the revival center. She’ll go back home fully recovered with Scythe Curie; no harm, no foul. Well, plenty of foul, but that’s what you wanted, wasn’t it?”

Rowan didn’t answer him. He wondered if anyone else was insightful enough to know why he did what he did. He hoped not.

Then Volta got serious in the midst of the revelry around them. “Don’t lose the scythehood to her, Rowan,” he said. “At least not on purpose. If she beats you fair and square that’s one thing, but submitting yourself to her blade because of raging hormones is just plain stupid.”

Maybe Volta was right. Perhaps he should do his best in their final trial, and if his best outshined Citra’s, he would accept the scythe ring. And then maybe he would glean himself as his first and only act. Then he’d never be faced with having to glean Citra. It comforted Rowan that he had a way out, even though it was a worst-case scenario.

? ? ?

The rich and famous arrived by helicopter, by limousine, and in one bizarre but memorable entrance, by jet pack. Goddard made a point to introduce Rowan to them all, as if Rowan were a prize worth showing off. “Watch this boy,” Goddard told his high-profile guests. “He’s going places.”

Rowan had never felt so valued and validated. It was hard to hate a man who treated him like the meat rather than the lettuce.

“This is how life was meant to be lived,” Goddard told Rowan as they luxuriated in his open-face cabana, looking out over the festivities. “Experiencing all there is to experience, and enjoying the company of others.”

“Even when some of those others are paid to be here?”

Goddard looked out at the crowded pool deck that would have been far less dense, and far less beautiful, had it not been for the presence of professional party guests.

“There are always extras in every production,” he told Rowan. “They fill in the gaps and make for pleasant scenery. We wouldn’t want everyone to be a celebrity, would we? They’d do nothing but fight!”