It should not have taken him until the moment she lifted her chin to notice the scent of blood.
Oh, that is the moment that Acton truly knew he was going soft, that every warning the Ghost threw his way might be coming true. It had been a while since he was reminded what consequences his weakness might hold - even with the gods and the floods and the thunder-birds, he had been living too easy.
But here he was, standing in the moonlight before his queen, who wore dried blood like a necklace of old rubies, a gift from his best friend.
Suddenly things were a whole hell of a lot more complicated.
For a moment he could only stare, and the silence between them crackled the way a fire might, if anything in the room ran hotter than their blood. Acton wondered if he should reach forward and touch those marks - like Thomas, like any man of sin and doubt. In the end he reached his white muzzle for them but only dropped it again, to hang in the air between them like an unfinished sentence. And like any sinner he felt guilty, and angry, and sick.
He said nothing as she spoke, her words like a rebuke, sighing soft as Raum’s blade. How many times had he seen that subtle knife do its bloody work? How many times had he watched it washed clean afterward?
It was Isra who closed the distance between them, and Acton felt something shameful and dark for that, too. Maybe he was no spark, only soot (but the fire building in his belly belies the thought). Each step made clear the rage in the planes of her face, the spiral of her horn finally made a weapon. The scent of blood sharpened as she neared, familiar on his tongue as an old penny. Acton almost did not notice the sound the door made, scraping closed, that made the room a sepulcher.
He did not watch her lips as she spoke; his eyes were again on her neck, the necklace of teeth-marks, the way it rose and fell with each word and swallow. Still he wanted to reach for them (and what? Kiss them? Prove them real? All folly). It was the working of her magic that caught his eye, the spark and shift, and his gaze fell to the floor like a stone, like a flower.
His breathing was very soft, with his eyes on that cutting bloom. One ear flicked forward, to catch her words, as though there was a cacophony around them and not silence like death.
“All the best things do,” he answered, but he did not smile. Acton’s heart felt cut by the points of that stem, the smooth edges of those silver petals. It felt halved, and neither part belonged to him.
At last he swallowed, and drew his eyes away, out to the window and the black, bonfire night. “But Raum has had them for longer. He’s been a weapon his whole life.” Was there pride, in that statement? Or remorse? Or only resignation?
Like so many things, Acton didn't know.
@Isra
