The women began serving sandwiches after mass. The men began drinking their moonshine and passing it out to anyone they deemed old enough to get drunk with them while we waited to see if our world was ending or not. Almost everyone was dressed again at this point, but our skin was still raw from the scrubbing and some people had dried blood in their ears or red eyes.

  Drinking after a Fsh exposure probably wasn’t good for you. But drinking wasn’t good for you at the best of times, so when someone passed me a shot gss I choked it down, coughing and handing the empty gss back to the guy. He tried to pass me another but I blocked him.

  Everyone was a little loose now that it was clear that our exposure wasn’t so bad, and someone got some of the old band equipment. They began pying in the background while everyone socialized, and I wandered about with the adults for a while.

  I ate a sandwich or two and spoke patiently with the adults who had the right to hang out in the school during the heavenly battles. Most of them weren’t Ashfords, but they were all Benders, and they were important people in the town, so I was on my best behavior.

  Not that I was normally an insufferable little shit or anything like that.

  Anyway, one of the runners came in through the front entrance while this was going on, spotted me, and came running over. She was a fifteen year old girl, and her left side marked her as one of the Serfs. If it weren’t for the red blotches on her skin she’d have been very pretty.

  “Lord Glen,” she said. “I’ve got a message from city hall for your grandfather. Do you know where he is?”

  “I’m not his secretary,” I said.

  She frowned, hesitated. “I don’t know my way around. Might you help me find him?”

  I sighed, sticking my hand in my pants. My hand bumped up against the Ruger, and the stray thought that I could kill this girl with it popped into my head. I frowned and shoved it down.

  It wasn’t that I wanted to kill her, or anyone else for that matter. Most of the time I completely forgot I was wearing the gun on my belt at all, but every now and then I’d remind myself of it and the power that it represented.

  Thirty bullets.

  Bang. Bang. One less serf.

  Some of the adults thought that it would even be a mercy. That living with the curse was worse than being dead.

  I thought they were full of shit. The serfs weren’t stupid, if they didn’t want to live they’d have found a way to end their lives by now.

  But I did wish they’d stop trying to have kids. Even when they were only marked like this girl instead of missing arms or legs or worse, it still didn’t end up well. In the few instances where a serf did give birth to a healthy child without the curse, they were still marked by the priesthood because it was still two or three generations too soon to start mixing the bloodlines, according to them.

  I pulled myself back from my musings. “Come on then, follow me,” I said to the girl, and we went looking for my grandfather.

  We found him in the principal’s office again. I knocked, expining that a messenger from the city hall had arrived, and he told us both to come inside. I was a little surprised he was involving me, but didn’t bother to question it.

  His wrinkled skin was raw from the shower and he was showing his age. He was close to eighty years old now, I knew.

  Nobody quite knew why he’d been blessed by the Archangel, back during the war between us and the gods, but the way his irises glowed faintly blue gave proof of his divine right. That much hadn’t faded one bit over the years, I’m told, and he remained a stubborn old bastard, even if he did probably have one foot in the grave.

  My father was next in line, of course, but Grandfather was determined to retain control of his little fiefdom right up until they put him in the ground.

  “What is it?” he asked once the door was closed.

  “Lord Norman, I was sent to tell you that the team dispatched to check on the livestock has returned, and I was to tell you that half of the calves from this year are starting to show signs,” she said.

  Grandfather cursed. The girl flinched.

  “Is that it?” he asked her.

  “That’s all I was told to say,” she said.

  “Good ss,” he said. “Get on out of here now.”

  “Yes sir,” she said, and she left me alone with him. I was about to leave too, but he called my name and I stopped. The door closed behind her, and he looked at me.

  “I’ve been thinking about what to do with you, now that you’re a man,” he told me.

  “Yes sir,” I said ftly, waiting to hear what my assignment would be.

  “Your brothers are fine enough heirs. It’s not any reflection on your part that you were born third, but you must understand it’s unlikely that the lordship will fall on your shoulders,” he continued.

  “Yes sir,” I said again when it was clear that he was expecting a response. The truth is that I didn’t want it anyway. Too much responsibility. “I’m happy serving the community however I can, sir. I’ll support my father and brothers however they need me to.”

  “Good d,” he said. “There’s a caravan coming through town in a week, assuming that they’re not caught out by the battle. I want you to go with it and help represent the Bend.”

  I blinked in surprise. “Sir? I don’t know—“

  “It’s a learning experience. You won’t be in charge of anything but jack and shit. You’ll just be in the room listening to your elders and learning the ways of the world outside the bends. Understand?”

  I nodded. “Yes sir,” I said.

  “Good d. Say goodbye to your friends and start getting ready. You shouldn’t need much more than a few changes of clothes, but you can bring up to twenty pounds of gear, understand?”

  “Yes sir,” I said.

  “Now get the fuck out of here,” he said fondly, and I nodded and left him behind.