Chapter Text
Shane had always loved the light. Ever since he could walk his favourite time of the day was when it stretched sleepily into the house as the sun rose or set over the hills. Golden wisps danced with the dust in the air and flooded across the wooden floorboards of his bedroom from his window. He would trace the sun spots with his feet, following them like they were a map.
Now the light that warmed his face was coming from flames that roared and lashed as they gorged themselves on his house and the people trapped inside. Shane held his breath and did not dare move. His legs were curled up, his knees underneath his chin. It was the only way he had fit inside the old, felled tree. The sky glowed orange above him. At least it was quieter now. The voices of the soldiers who watched the fire rage were only just audible.
“Control the flames.” One ordered loudly.
“Should we check they’re all dead?” Another replied. Shane counted his own fingertips by pressing them against each other one by one.
The rest of their conversation was too muffled for Shane to hear and then with one last hail of “for the Sacrosanct”, the heavy thud of their boots faded into the distance.
Shane lay still until the sky turned black and only then did he unfurl his body to crawl out of his hiding place. He blinked in the darkness. Where his house once stood was a pile of red embers and grey ash. Shane counted again, matching his steps as he walked toward the wreckage.
“Hello?” Shane whispered into the thick, frigid air.
Nothing and no one replied. Shane waited, strung up by hope for a few stretching moments. The wind kicked up some ash and a partially melted shoe materialised by his feet. Shane turned and ran back to the tree.
Chapter One
There were two things Shane hated most - Grigori Rozanov and bind weed. The house he was currently standing outside of contained both. The necessity of keeping work meant that he had to put his personal feelings aside. For a long while he and Rose had been living off of her salary from working in the government library in town. Although she had assured him that she didn’t mind, and that she viewed him as a brother, Shane wanted to help.
“It’s too dangerous… it only takes some stiff neck to look twice at your credentials to find most of your background is made up.” Rose had stressed to him when he had first taken the job. Shane knew the risks. What was he supposed to do? He couldn’t remain forever in Rose’s house, which felt even emptier now that Nani had died.
“The last place they’ll think to look is in their own back garden.” Shane had said, with his coat already on. “As long as you don’t practice magic in their faces or join groups like the Gathering, they don’t care anymore.”
Now here he was, 6 days a week from first light to last. Shane could stay quiet and get on with his work. He loved the outdoors and the pay was good. He had highly doubted that Grigori Rozanov spent much time walking through his gardens. In fact, judging by the weed when he had arrived, he was not sure anyone was spending much time walking through these gardens.
“Ah, you.” A woman was descending the steps of the house and her voice brought him back to the present. Polina Rozanov was younger than Shane had expected. Grigori was already grey and rotund around the middle, his slightly sagging appearance made only more apparent by the scar that ran from his ear to his eye. Polina’s face was smooth and her yellow blonde hair bounced around the shoulders of her suit jacket as she walked.
“Mrs. Rozanov. Goodmorning.” Shane shut the gates behind him. Polina barely spared him a glance before she was walking onto the grass.
“The frogs are back. They’re clogging up the central pond.” Polina said and Shane said a small prayer for their souls. “Get rid of them. We have a garden dinner at the end of the week.
Shane matched her stride as she continued walking. “Yes.”
Polina kept walking.
When Shane had first arrived it had been Polina who had spoken to him. “And you spent two years doing the gardens of three houses on that road?” She had asked, even then her grey eyes never lifted to his.
“Yes. Though only one of those houses could provide a reference. I attached that to my application.” Shane had said. There were still plumes of smoke curling into the air that morning as he had walked into town.
“Yes. Shame.” Polina said. Shane thought that she could be referring to the fact that he was unable to provide more references, or that the other houses he had worked for the inhabitants had been arrested. Their gardens and homes - torched. “I would need you six days a week at first. There is a lot that needs to be cleaned up. Then perhaps it would go to five. The gardens will need to be well maintained, I want to start hosting in them.”
That was in the summer, now the morning was autumnal and the wind was just picking up to the point of becoming uncomfortable through the thin coat Shane had on over a linen shirt. “I will have it cleared by the evening.”
“Wonderful.” Polina stopped by an apple tree and looked up at it for a moment. She toed an apple that had fallen in the grass and pushed it over, revealing a hideously rotted underside. It was a little early for that but Shane could see them littered over the grass and the sweetness that should have been in the air from the trees, had a sickening edge to it.
Shane gave Polina a smile that she did not return.
There was a rolling apple collector in one of the sheds and Shane brushed the new cobwebs off of it. Polina had not stayed with him long before her name had been called from the house and she had hurried away. Shane was glad. The less time spent in the presence of the Rozanovs the better. He knew Grigori by reputation mostly and had only seen him a handful of times in the flesh. Nani had always kept him and Rose away from the town as much as possible. Shane had only seen the government building and Sacrosanct headquarters once. Even to a teenager, the building had seemed like a monster with its towering grey concrete and the huge iron cross that hung over the front gates.
It took him an hour to clear the apples and then he set about clearing the frogs. He could tell that they were disgruntled as he piled them into an old box. “Trust me, I’m doing you a favour.” Shane had said to them quietly. Polina probably expected him to kill them. Or, he supposed, take them home gratefully and eat them. Instead he just needed to keep them alive until it was time for him to walk home and he could release them in the lake that wound round the bottom of Rose’s house. He walked with the box back to the shed and set it on the side, having poked some holes in it.
“Okay. Keep yourselves out of trouble until I’m back.” Shane said to them before he walked back out. A sound by the front gates made him turn and he watched as a sleek black car crawled its way up the drive. He didn’t need to wait for the door to open to know who it would be. Ilya Rozanov was Grigori’s second son. Shane knew that he lived close to the government building now but he still returned home regularly. He was a Commandant now, just one level below his brother Alexei. Shane had noted the change in the crosses stitched across his left shoulder the last time Ilya had visited. Three of them now, one freshly sewn on. No longer an Apocalyte - Ilya Rozanov was moving up within the Sacrosanct.
Shane kept his head down as the door opened and he heard the gravel scratch underneath Ilya’s shoes. He planned to check each flower bed for weeds and imperfections and he used that as an excuse to be knelt down. Ilya did not resemble his father or his brother. When Shane chanced a look up the only glimpse of sun through the darkened clouds seemed to surround Ilya’s lighter brown curls in a halo that made them seem more golden blonde. Grigori’s hair was long gone and Alexei’s was cropped and dark. Shane supposed it was from his mother. He did not remember her from The Cleanse but Nani did. Nani had said she was of an empathetic nature and eventually the blood and fire that her husband had brought to the region had driven her insane. Now, it was a Sin to the Cross to say her name. Shane sometimes wondered if it was painful for Ilya - to be the one that resembled her. For that to be the case though, he would have to be capable of feeling.
Ilya’s head turned for a moment. Shane looked down firmly at dahlias in front of him but the air still felt thick and heavy for a moment. He listened to the car door slam and counted the steps until he was sure that Ilya Rozanov had gone inside.
The dahlias were dramatic this year and Shane was proud of that. It had been hard to get anything to grow in the garden. The earth had been undernourished and sickly when Shane had arrived. Now the fruit of his labour was flowering in deep pinks and reds. If he had to work for them, if he had to conceal himself, then he could at least make his place of work pleasant to be in.
“What happened to you?” Shane said softly to one flower that was curling at the edges, its leaves drooped and beginning to rot into the soil. He pulled it from the earth and frowned. The roots were congealed and the smell hit him instantly, putrid and sour. Shane coughed and covered his nose briefly. An unsettling feeling snaked up his spine and made the back of his neck feel cold as he carried the flower over to a waste bag and dumped it inside. He would have to consult his book at home. He had almost completely rid the garden of bind weed and he wasn’t going to allow something else to creep in and ruin things. Perhaps it was the ash from the constant burnings. It could be getting into the soil and upsetting the balance of things. Shane knew, of course, that he could figure out the problem with a sweep of his hand if he lay his palm down against the soil. Something flickered in his pulse, something that he kept asleep within himself. Nani had spent a long time with Shane in her back garden when he had been small, teaching him to conceal when he got angry or excited and the magic would fizz at the tips of his fingers like an electrical pulse. A deep and tethered connection to the earth that when awakened meant that he could feel it all. Every worm in the soil, every smattering of light on the grass, every small beat of a creature's wings.
The public executions had slowed but the burnings continued. Nani had protected him and Rose as best as she could, though that did not mean that Shane was unaware of the consequences of allowing that part of himself to see the light. Most bloodlines were diluted enough that unless you were callous you could live and work quietly under the watch of the Sacrosanct. Sacrosanct members had special privileges. Better homes, more access to food, and complete access to the town including the Holy areas. Some with blessed blood had even converted, but the process of conversion was long and often fatal. Those who survived it always looked to Shane as though they had been hollowed out. Like a fruit to which someone had taken a spoon, scooped out the centre, and left the husk.
Shane worked until the light left, finding two more sick and dying flowers which he placed in the waste bag. He did not see Ilya leave, nor did Polina come out again. That usually meant that something was happening that required a long meeting. Though, Shane noted that no other Sacrosanct members arrived - not even Alexei. Shane gathered up the bag of waste and the box of frogs that he had promised freedom to and made his way to the back gate.
Balancing the box on his arms obscured his view enough that he did not see Ilya by the gate. In fact he got one step away from him and then heard his voice.
“What are you doing?”
Shane dropped the box and it drooped to the side, allowing one frog to break for freedom. Shane cursed, but though he made a grab for it Ilya’s hand got there first. It was large enough that the frog disappeared completely in his grasp.
“Don’t hurt it.” Shane said and straightened himself up. He kept his gaze low.
“Dinner?” Ilya said. His voice was flat and commanding. All the air around him seemed to be sucked up when he spoke.
Shane did not respond and instead picked the box back up. There was a few seconds that stretched out between them before Shane heard a soft thud and the frog was back in his box with the lid more firmly on.
“Landry. Right?” Ilya said. Shane knew what the frog felt like now, held in Ilya Rozanov’s palm and wondering if you were going to get crushed.
“Yes, Mr. Rozanov. I work in the garden.”
“I know.” Ilya took a step toward him. Shane did not dare let his eyes lift. For a moment, a horrible, cold moment, Shane thought that he was going to speak again. The gravel crunched underneath his feet as he walked away and the further away he got the easier it was for Shane to drag in a breath.
He took the long way home, feeling as though he needed it. Landry, right? The name he was given as a child had sounded odd on Ilya’s tongue, like he could see right into Shane’s mind and knew that it was a lie.
By the time Shane stepped back inside Rose was already asleep. The frogs were in the water down the end of the house and Shane had taken the waste to the local disposal. Although every muscle of his body ached and his eyelids were heavy, Shane lay on his bed and did not sleep.