Rebirth13 min read
The Numbers Above Our Heads
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I remember the bowl—the thin porcelain that trembled in my hands. I remember the cold in the hall and the soldiers pushing people forward like they were sheep. I remember Azariah Gardner handing me the bowl and the number floating over his head: 80.
"Pour it all down," he said, voice as flat as river ice.
I looked at him. "You're sure?" I asked.
He shrugged, unreadable. "The order came from the throne. Drink."
I lifted the bowl to my lips. I could see numbers over everyone: some low, some high, all shining like tiny moons. My hand shook because the thought of being forced, shoved, made me dizzy. Felicity Blair—my little maid—was at my side, her number 85 bright and fierce; her tears wet the sleeve of my robe.
"Don't make it harder on yourself," Azariah said softly. "It's faster this way."
I swallowed, and the poison hit like a cold blade down my throat. As the world dimmed, I saw Azariah's hands tremble. I saw his jaw clamp. I had one last strange urge and I used it—the thing I had hidden since childhood. I opened my eyes and looked at the numbers.
Azariah's 80 was a comet in the dark. I should have understood then. I said one thing, almost as a joke, almost a prophecy.
"Azariah, you will regret this."
He looked at me. For a heartbeat his gaze softened and something wet flashed in the corner of his eye. Then the world closed like a curtain.
I woke to the same wallpaper and the same half-mended curtains, but the calendar showed the old date. I was back before I had married Galen Williamson. I remembered everything: the last look, the poison, the number 80. I remembered my secret, the curse and blessing I've carried since I was ten: I see the numbers above people's heads—how much they love me.
"Miss?" Felicity waved a hand in front of my face. "You're awake. You were gone all day. Are you ill?"
"I'm fine," I said, though my voice was thin. "I need tea."
She fussed and fussed, like she always did, like a bright shawl against my gloom. She had been with me since I was a child. She loved me with a number so high it hurt to look at: 85. I closed my eyes and tried to shut the sight away.
The first time the numbers appeared, I thought it was a trick. Later, I learned: they are the measure of affection. My father's number was forty, my mother's sixty—barely. My life had very few bright digits.
When Galen Williamson had chosen me, I had hoped. He was gentle, kind, reserve like a calm lake. When the red veil lifted on our wedding night, I dared to look. His number was fifty. I ran to vomit. I did not sleep that night beside him. He found other women soon enough, and I understood: I was a political match, a piece on a chessboard.
And among the chessmen was Azariah Gardner. I had always thought of him as cold, dangerous—the kind of man into whose shadow people fell silent. I never understood why his number would ever count for me, until the last night.
Now I had a second chance. I could change things. I could—must—stop the old path that led to that bowl and the breathlessness of seeing someone die with a comet over his head.
"You're very pale," Galen said when he visited. He placed a box of herbs on my bedside.
"Don't send me more," I told him plainly. "Please stop giving me things. I refuse your gifts."
He smiled the old way, always acting as though the world was a polished room and he could tidy it. "You were always too stubborn," he said. "But I only want what's best."
"You want the throne," I said. "You want the glory."
He blinked. "We can talk later."
I watched him go. My heart was hollow and empty of hope for him. I had made a decision: never him again.
At morning study in the hall, Song—no, in my new life I still had friends and enemies—Legacy Koehler fluttered about like a court butterfly. She loved attention and she loved one man openly: Lane Avery, who always laughed too loud and took dares he should not.
"Did you see Azariah this morning?" Legacy asked, bright and cruel. "He's always so suited to the cold."
I said nothing. I had to be careful—knowledge was a small, sharp thing. I had to test Azariah, see if the number over his head in the dying hall was a fluke.
A festival for Yang Avery's birthday came sooner than I expected. Lane Avery hosted it in his gardens. He invited everyone, down to the lowliest companion. I went because Azariah would go. He did. He came like a shadow, and for once my breath caught at how cold and precise his steps were.
"You're here," I said when I saw him in the doorway near the caged birds.
"You're in dangerous places," he replied. "Why would I not be?"
"Because you rarely speak to me."
He looked at me, weight settling into his shoulders. "You must remember, I have my reasons."
The night spun. Dried flowers and paper lanterns. Tea poured shallow into cups. When a stone struck Lane in the knee and he fell with a dramatic groan, the laughter hit like waves; sweets spilled and faces turned.
I found myself staring at Azariah. He did something small and practiced: he stood, crossed the lawn with long strides, and scooped me up in his arms before anyone else could act.
"I've got you," he said.
I felt my chest go strange. "You did not have to."
"It's better I did," he said. His hand brushed my wet hair from my face and the world thinned to only that touch.
Later, he slid an embroidered bundle into my hands. "Keep it," he said. "Take it as proof I was here."
I didn't know what to do with that small, clumsy gift. "You shouldn't give me things," I said, half laughing.
"Then don't accept them."
When the moon rose, I realized my courage had a limit. I had to test the thing that had made my last life end. I had to make sure Galen would not command the soldiers to make a bowl of poison appear again, and I had to know why Azariah's hands had trembled the night of my death. I needed to know who would force the cup on us.
"Don't go to the palace," Azariah said suddenly one night. "It's not safe."
"Who will I be to you if I hide?" I asked. I blinked at him. "If you know of the danger, why didn't you stop it before?"
He looked away. "I thought I could find another way."
"You said—when you handed me the cup—you said my death would be fast."
Azariah's jaw tightened. "Words can be twisted."
"Why did you hand me the cup?" I asked finally. "Why that night? Why your hands shaking?"
He stopped, as if forced to face his own dark. "Because I didn't know you were the one."
Because, I thought, numbers are blind until the mind turns them into meaning. He saw me then, as I watched him look at me. "How much do you love me?" I joked, because I was afraid.
He was strangely not amused. "You won't like the number if I tell you," he said.
"You told me I would regret," I whispered. "Am I to know what you meant?"
He drew close. "No regert," he said awkwardly. "Only this: I will not let them hurt you again."
Months passed in motion, not quiet. The king fell ill. The court changed hands. Galen marched with banners and voices; there were plans and promises and a battle that came like an avalanche. We stood, the family pressed into the hall, and the new ruler—Patricio Lorenz—took the throne. He smiled like a man who had swallowed the moon.
"They all took poison," the makeshift edict read. "For the sake of order, there shall be no rebellion."
We were assembled in the hall. Soldiers prodded, officers barked. Azariah stood in the front, unreadable. He had always given the impression of cruelty; years had made him sharper. When the soldiers shoved a cup at me, a memory of the bowl flashed—a cold, final thing.
Azariah turned to me, and something in his face was too deep. "Will you drink?" he asked.
"I will," I said, mind steelier. I had plans. I lifted my chin and waited. He held the bowl for me. For a moment his hand trembled. Then, as I bowed my head, he spoke to no one: "No more."
Hands moved like puppets. Soldiers tried to force the cup into others' mouths. I heard choking, the sound of someone not wanting to accept what they were given. I could not move my hands. My mind wanted to be brave, but my body was lead.
"Stop!" Azariah snapped.
There was a shock. He crushed the bowl between his hands and threw the poisoned mixture to the floor. The crystal hit the stone and splintered.
"Azariah!" someone shouted.
Patricio Lorenz's eyes cut our assembly. His smile vanished. "You disobey the throne?"
Azariah stepped forward with an ugly calm. "Your orders were to keep order. I will not poison those who were forced into a contest of allegiance."
"You dare refuse the emperor?" Patricio's voice was small but the room listened. The soldiers in the back shifted.
"Yes," Azariah said plainly, and then to me: "You will not drink."
A court murmured. The episode left a mark: Azariah's public refusal had been a sharp blade in the midst of a tyrant's plan. Was it love or pride that made him risk so much? I did not know. I only knew that his number over his head glowed like a comet now in my memory.
Time moved, and Azariah courted me in ways small and mighty both. He left blossoms at the door, he walked past my chambers at odd hours just to see me, he argued with court officials over a line of etiquette or a slight. He taught me how to carry myself so I would not be easily dismissed. He grew softer around me, and warmer.
We married. The wedding was an odd, small sun. When he lifted my veil, his eyes were wet, and I saw him try very hard to be steady. "Julieta," he said once, voice breaking, "I am sorry."
"For what?" I asked.
"For what I did when we were forced," he said. "For not seeing you in time."
I touched his cheek. "We are here now."
The peace lasted shorter than a season. Patricio clung to power like a dog with a bone. He tightened his grip and sent men to take what he suspected was a threat. He used old laws, secret warrants. One evening, a list of names was read in the hall—names to be banished, names to be made examples.
Azariah stood up. "You cannot be allowed to do this," he said.
Patricio laughed hollowly. "How will you stop me, Azariah? You have no title beside your name."
Azariah looked at the assembly. "I have people who will not forget what you do," he said. "I have the truth."
I did not know what he meant until the festival of chrysanthemums, when we walked into the imperial garden and the hush of the court made every footstep loud. Patricio had decided to host a triumph: he would parade his enemies in the public square, show the court that he had weeded out traitors. He would make them grovel.
"You're going too far," Galen said, though he was quieter now. He had been defeated once and his smile was gone. He watched the scene like a man watching a slow fire catch.
Azariah smiled a small, tight smile and nodded at me. "This is where we make them see," he said.
The square was filled. Banners flapped, and eyes burned like sparks. Patricio walked at the head, crown small and certain. He pointed at figures one by one; their names were called, and men were pushed into the center to be shamed.
"These are the traitors," Patricio called. Faces once proud now bent. Some cried. Some tried to shout.
Azariah stepped forward. "I have a proclamation," he said clearly.
"Who gives you the floor?" Patricio barked.
"Your own steward," Azariah replied. "And the steward's ledger. Read it."
Azariah had found proof. He held out a sealed paper. "Patricio Lorenz," he read aloud, "signed orders to coerce the families of men in the north to drink the alleged 'remedy'—poison, to keep them compliant. Signed by your hand."
Silence fell like a heavy cloak. Faces turned to Patricio. "Lies!" he shouted. "Forgery!"
"Then explain," Azariah said, "why several of your closest aides keep ledgers that match these orders? Why soldiers witnessed the forcing of cups in the great hall?"
"You bribe the court!" Patricio cried. "You cheat and you—
"Silence!" Azariah cut across, and the soldiers nearest the dais leaned closer.
Patricio's color drained as men from the crowd—men he had paid, men he thought complicit—murmured. "I saw him sign," one voice outed from the steps. "I saw his hand on the paper."
"Papers can be made," Patricio stammered, but the more he argued, the thinner his authority seemed. He whirled and pointed at a man in the crowd. "You are a liar!"
That man pulled a small, folded sheet from his sleeve and tossed it to the grass at Patricio's feet. It was a receipt, bearing Patricio's seal. The crowd took it in like a wave.
"No!" Patricio's voice rose, then cracked. He staggered. "You cannot—this is treason to accuse the emperor."
"Then prove otherwise," Azariah said. "Your proof is the quiet in the hall when poison was poured."
Patricio's mouth formed a thin line. He looked around, and instead of the fierce loyalty he'd expected, he found faces turned away, people who had lost too much to the emperor's whims.
"Look at them," Azariah said, speaking to the crowd rather than the throne. "They are tired. They will not bend at the sight of cruelty masked as law."
It happened then. A woman from the third row stood, cloak trembling, and spoke—softly at first, then loudly.
"He took my son's land," she said. "For his silence, I paid. He came for our grain. He said to keep quiet or eat from bowls of final remedy."
"Proof!" Patricio yelled.
"Here," she said, and she unrolled a parchment that matched the signature. "He signed for it. He asked for obedience through fear."
The crowd's murmurs stitched into noise. Men began to chant Azariah's name, not in command but in hope. The soldiers nearest Patricio wavered. An officer lowered his eyes. A young page stepped forward and handed Azariah a bundle of letters with trembling hands—letters from families who had been oppressed.
Patricio's face crumbled. He looked like a man drowning, gasping for a surface. "You lie!" he sobbed. "I did it for the realm! For order!"
"Your 'order' is a cage," Azariah said. "And cages break."
Patricio's reaction was a slow, tragic fall. His voice flailed between boasting and pleading. "I have given them peace. I have kept us safe. You will not take that from me."
A woman at the front—an official's wife, who had once been stolen of her dowry by Patricio's demands—stepped forward and spat. The crowd gasped, then laughed, then booed. The mood turned.
Patricio's face went from smug to shocked, shocked to angry, angry to pleading—the exact arc the storytellers had told me about, the one I had thought would never meet a real life. He begged for loyalty; he sought refuge from the eyes that had turned hard. "My lord! My lord! Save me!"
The lord—the new regent—then stood. He had been quiet through the accusations. He was a small man with a steady voice.
"By the evidence," he said, "I find no law protecting one who signs orders that harm his people. The men who carried out these orders will be detained for questioning. The emperor—is he still Emperor in your eyes?" he asked the crowd, and the crowd answered with a roar of "No."
Patricio tried to run. Soldiers moved like shadows and caught him. Hands pulled him down. He was dragged across the square, face red and wet, his mouth making sounds that were lost in the chorus of the crowd. Men took his seal from his hand and flung it into the mud. Women spat and men threw scraps of paper and fruit. Someone knocked his hat off and stamped on it.
Azariah watched, and I watched Azariah. His face did not gloat. He did not smile. He looked exhausted and relieved in the same breath, like a man who had carried a stone up a hill and then let it go.
"See him," I whispered.
Azariah's hand found mine. "He will have to answer in the hall," he said. "They will not let him simply vanish."
Patricio was taken to the dais. His voice had turned to small gasps. The people he had used to fuel his pride were now the chorus of his humiliation. He went from strong man to broken puppet within an hour. No dagger, no prison—he had the worst: the public unraveling.
They made him stand and read out the accounting of his deeds. They let the people speak. They let mothers say what he had done to them. It was not pretty. He tried to shout and deny and then begged in the way of a man who had been taught to think his words alone would save him.
"Please," he croaked. "I did it for safety."
"You destroyed families," a woman said. "You destroyed hope."
"Forgive me," he whispered, and around him people spat and turned away. His guards dropped their heads. His allies passed by in silence. He was not beaten. He was simply shown to be less than he'd pretended.
The punishment was not a blade. It was worse in a single human way: he lost the one thing his pride could never live without—respect. Men who had bowed now tutted and walked away. A few children laughed. Someone took a wooden spoon and beat it against a pot for rhythm. Music strangled.
Azariah did not raise his head like a champion. He looked at me and touched my hair. "They will not forget," he said softly. "But neither will they forgive easily."
"Do you regret?" I asked.
He hesitated. "Only that it took so long," he said. "Only that you had to be hurt."
After that day, the court changed. The man who was emperor had been exposed. He was alive but small. He could never command with the same fist.
Azariah and I lived through the aftermath like two people who had survived winter. He was present, and present in a way that warmed. He learned to laugh where he'd once been stone. He asked me questions like a child at times, and I saw how strange it must have been for him to slow, to let someone else in.
One evening he sat beside me on the roof under the lantern light. "Tell me your number," he said quietly, because I had never told him.
"I never keep it pulled open," I said. "It hurts more than it helps."
He sighed. "What would you see if you looked now?"
I let my sight brush over him. The number above his head did not flash like a comet. It shimmered like a steady lantern: 95. He looked at me, a flash of shock and something like adoration.
"You haven't always been like this," I said, hand warm on his sleeve. "You were cold."
"I learned to be warm," he replied. "Because of you."
We did not need to shout promises. The small moments stacked—a warm silk placed around my shoulders, the way he stood between me and someone who sneered, the way he listened to my complaints about an ill-fitting sleeve—build a life that felt like shelter.
Sometimes at night I would wake and watch him breathe, and I would remember that bowl, that white porcelain, the flash of his hands. I would remember how the last time he stood over me, his eyes had leaked like rain. He had cried then in private, something a man like him rarely did in public.
One night he held me close and said simply, "I would do anything to keep you safe."
I smiled because at last the words matched the number. "Then do," I said, and meant every syllable.
We were not perfect. There were old wounds to tend and people who would not be few in betrayals. But in the small rooms and in the big halls, in the crowded markets and in the hush of the garden, he found a way to be mine and I found a way to be his.
There was one thing I promised myself I would never do again: let a cup be pushed across a table without asking why. There was another I did not need to promise: I would not hide from love when it set a number above a man's head and changed the weather in a room.
"Do you still see numbers?" he asked me one evening, head on my lap.
"Sometimes," I said. "But I don't use them like a map anymore."
He laughed. "Good. Because I don't trust maps."
"Then trust me," I whispered.
"I do," he breathed.
Outside the window, the city breathed a long, slow breath. Lanterns bobbed like small stars. I felt the numbers dim into the ordinary world and took his hand.
We lived, and we were not heroes. We were two people who had been given second chances and who decided, stubbornly, to try again. Sometimes we faltered, sometimes we were brave. Sometimes we watched a man fall and felt the bitter relief of justice.
At the end of it, when the court was quieter and the bread sweeter, I would pick up the little embroidered bundle he had once given me and smile.
"I remember," he said once, in a voice so small I could barely hear it.
"About what?" I asked.
"About telling you you'd regret everything," he said. He smiled then, and the number above his head flickered like a candle. "I do. I regret any time I let fear rule me. I regret any hour you spent afraid."
I leaned forward and kissed him. "Then don't regret it again."
He nodded, a promise folded into the night.
We had our mistakes and our triumphs, our days of waiting and our days of simple warmth. The numbers above our heads were only part of the story. The rest we wrote with small hands and stubborn hearts.
The End
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