Arch-Conspirator(10)

We were a rarity among rarities: twins, in a world where siblings weren’t even genetically related, where the living only ever came from the scrubbed, polished dead. We were made of the same substance, two parts of one whole, the most abominable of abominations. One age’s horror is another age’s wonder, my mother said once, mildly, as she poured herself a drink. It was as much of a defense as she had ever offered for her choice.

Two parts of one whole, and I felt the loss of him that way, as the loss of a leg, an arm, a lung, a kidney.

They locked me in my room, but they needn’t have bothered. I sat on the edge of my bed, one sandal on and the other lost by the doorway as I kicked and scratched at the guard dragging me away from my brother’s body.

I watched the sun come up.

A knock came, and for a single, beautiful moment I thought it was him, come to tell me it had all been a ruse, a trick, and the revolution had succeeded because of it, and that was why he hadn’t been able to tell me, because the whole operation hinged on no one knowing, and he was sorry, so sorry to have put me through all that, but we were free now— Right. The knock.

Kreon’s son, Haemon, walked into my room with the air of someone who knew he was somewhere he shouldn’t be. We were betrothed, but the arrangement didn’t include any intimacy. It had been Kreon’s idea, a way of consolidating power. The daughter of his greatest challenger conceding to his rule by marrying his son. An act of mercy, some said, toward a broken, cursed girl. An act of foolishness, others said, to marry one’s only son to someone who might not have a soul.

Haemon was tall and broad, his skin sun-warmed and his face carved from stone. He looked like he had been designed specifically for Kreon to love him, and perhaps that was exactly what had happened—maybe Haemon’s entire being had been Eurydice accepting her husband’s limitations, as she always did, and easing his way for him.

He stood like a soldier. His face betrayed no sympathy for me.

I was glad. I could not have withstood it.

“Hello,” he said, and it was like an apology.

I cleared my throat.

“I assume you’re here with a message from your father,” I said.

“No,” he said. “May I sit?”

I gestured to my desk chair. The wicker strained under his weight when he sat. He looked too big for it.

“I woke to chaos,” he said. “But I wanted to see if you were…”

He trailed off.

“I suppose that makes sense,” I said. “After a destructive event, what’s the first thing people do? Survey the damage.”

“Antigone, that’s not—”

“Well, I’m damaged. You’ve seen. You can go now.”

“I wanted to see if you were all right,” he said, scowling at me.

“You knew I wasn’t all right.”

He sagged a little, like a clothesline weighed down by too many sheets, like a tree after a downpour. He stood and faced the window, his hands clasped at the small of his back.

“Yes, I did,” he said.

“You came to tell me something,” I said. “Better get on with it.”

I tried to see the courtyard below through his eyes. The vines clinging to the edge of the window. The dry roots of the cypress below, bulging from the earth.

What did he love? What did he know?

“My father,” he said slowly, “has decreed that your brother’s body is not to be touched. It will be used as a warning against insurrection.”

“Not to be touched,” I said.

“Not to be Extracted,” he said. “Excluded from the Archive.”

The words were like cold water spilling down my spine.

“What?”

Haemon looked at me. Then looked away.

“That was his decree earlier this morning,” he said. “Violators will be subject to the highest penalty.”

“The highest penalty.”

He gave me a pointed look.

“Execution,” I said.

He nodded.

“Because Kreon thinks Polyneikes doesn’t have a soul?” I demanded. “Or because of his crime?”

“I assume,” Haemon said, “it’s a combination of both. But the stated reason is the latter.”

“Even my father was not excluded from the Archive,” I said. “None of those who participated in the riots were, either.”

“I know. Apparently he feels that a stronger tactic is needed to discourage further … attempts.”

I knew there was nothing of Kreon in Haemon. He hadn’t even provided the vessel in which Haemon grew to term. Still I wanted to hit Haemon and see if his father could feel it; I wanted to lash out as wild as I had been a few hours ago, struggling to get back to my brother.

Instead, I sat on the edge of the bed again. I dug the toes of my bare foot into the stone until it hurt.

“I’ll leave you to your grief,” he said.

The Extractor Polyneikes gave me was still in my bag, shoved under my bed with the spiders. I had not been able to imagine using it, not really, but now the absence of its weight in my hand felt like another thing excised from me. The most zealous in our city would say there was no point in storing Polyneikes’ ichor because it was only cells, with no substance. But I knew my brother had a soul. I knew he was not empty.