The Midnight Star (The Young Elites #3)(39)

In the silence that follows, Raffaele sighs and folds his arms again. He returns my look. “I cannot control how he responds to his alignments. Magiano aligns with joy and ambition. And greed. He needs to come with us, if he’s willing.” He doesn’t mention anything more about the test, or Magiano’s reaction to it.

I let out a short breath, relieved that I will have Magiano with me on this trip. I start to ask what Raffaele must have seen, then stop short. I’ll approach Magiano about this later. Joy, ambition, greed. Ten of the twelve now.

“We need an alignment to Moritas and to Tristius,” Raffaele replies. “To death, for the mortality of mankind, and to war, for the eternal savagery of the heart.”

War and death. I know immediately that we won’t find these traits in the Elites among us, if they don’t already exist in me.

“Queen Maeve,” Lucent says in a quiet voice, glancing sideways at Raffaele. “She will align with Moritas.”

An uncomfortable silence. I can tell by everyone’s expressions that we all know Lucent is right, even without Raffaele’s test; Maeve, whose very power connects her to death itself, is undoubtedly a child of Moritas. But will she travel with our group, with me, who destroyed her fleet not too long ago?

“And war?” Raffaele answers. “What of that?”

Lucent shakes her head. “That, I don’t know.”

Suddenly, I realize something. It hits me so hard that it makes me gasp. Raffaele glances in my direction. “What is it?” he asks.

I know. I know with absolute, searing certainty the Elite who aligns with the final god. But he is no ally of mine—or of anyone else. And he is waiting in chains in Kenettra.

“Teren Santoro,” I reply, turning back to Raffaele. “He will align with war.”





Magiano




In the first memory, the boy was seven years old. When he asked his priest what his name was, the priest told him that he had no need for a name. He was the Boy of Mensah, one of the young malfettos chosen to live at the Mensah temple in Domacca, and this was the only name he would ever need.

He trailed after the priest and looked on as she showed him how to properly tie down and slaughter a goat at the altar in front of the temple. She was kind and patient with him, and praised him for wielding the knife correctly. He remembered looking longingly at the meat, wishing he could eat it to fill the hollows of his stomach. But the malfettos in the Domaccan temples had to be fed very little. It kept them awake and alert, making it so that their senses were always on the prowl, searching for food. When he asked why this had to be, the priest told him gently that it was to strengthen his link to the gods, so that the priests could communicate through him.

In the second memory, the boy was nine years old, and the dark marking on his side now curved from the start of his ribs down to the bone of his hip. He had become friends with the Girl of Mensah, the second young malfetto in the temple, and the two of them played together when the priests weren’t there. They would sneak out to the date orchards or startle the goats into a frenzy. She would toy with his long braids, tying them into elaborate designs.

One day, when they were both particularly hungry, they stole peaches from the fruit bowl left before one of the altars. Oh, how good they tasted! Ripe and fat and bursting with juices. They giggled and rolled around when the priests were otherwise occupied. After all, there were three altars, and they could rotate between them. It turned into a regular habit between the girl and the boy, and they became skilled at it—until the day they stole not one fruit each, but two. That night, the boy saw his priest murmuring about him to three other priests at the temple. Then she found him, dragged him out of his bed, and ordered the others to hold him down. He screamed when she murmured soft verses to him and dug a blade into the edge of his marking.

In the third memory, the boy was about to turn twelve years old. The girl found him and told him about Magiano, a fishing village along Domacca’s Red River. She told him about a boat there that left once a week for the Ember Isles, laden with a cargo of spices. Will you meet me there? Tonight? she had asked him. He nodded, eager to go with her. She gripped his hands and smiled, telling him, No matter what happens, we look forward. Joy is out there, beyond these walls.

That night, he wrapped some fruit and dates in a blanket and crept out of the temple. He was almost beyond the gates when he heard the girl’s screams coming from near the altar. He turned back, desperate to save her—but it was too late. The Boy and Girl of Mensah had no need for names because they were to be sacrificed at the age of twelve, the holy number.

So the boy did the only thing he could. He fled the temple as the priests searched for him and did not stop running until he reached the village of Magiano. There, he huddled in the dark with the cargo until the boat came. As he sailed away into the dawn, he made himself two promises.

One: He would always have a name, and that name would be Magiano.

And two: No matter what happened, he would carry joy with him. Almost as if he were carrying her.





If one’s ship can brave the stormy seas on the path from the Ember Isles to the Skylands, he shall find himself sailing in the calmest waters, so calm that he may be in danger of stranding himself.

—Excerpt from the journals of Captain Morrin Vora





Adelina Amouteru