[P] come home to my heart

[Raum]

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

 

Mors. Even the very word meant death and here Raum and Bexley stand, in the deepest dark of night, lit by a moon as bright as Charon’s lamp. The death desert laughs in its shadowy corners, it rejoices in her grief.
 
Raum is silver beneath silver. That lamp of moonlight leaves nothing untouched. It paints all in mercury: bright and dim and deathly beautiful. Even Bexley it washes out. From her it steals all the gold of the sun, the light of her magic, and leaves her argentate. Silver and white, wth her blue eyes blown wide with grief, she is every part a lost soul in this barren Underworld.
 
Raum can hear the darkness of night as it swallows daylight and makes this desert it’s own. Ah, the Crow would gladly wander its sands at night but never in the day, if he thought for a moment that there would not be a rebellion. Yet oh he needs eyes by night and by day, to watch for the rebellion, for those traitorous to the crown.
 
His eyes turn back to the phantom girl. Behind those eyes of hers so many questions drift and he does not hear them, not when they lie so hidden. Yet oh how he feels there presence. They are pricks along his skin each one a hurt that wounds Bexley more than he. If she asked him each hurt – what might he say? Raum is no liar, and the truth he brands upon the hollow of his soul. His answers would be thus:

What did it feel like to kill him?
Like agony and life and a broken spirit, wild and furious.

How did you do it?
With teeth and claws and bitter loss.

I know you're blessed with that stupid knife, I know God let you have it. I'm sure you used it.
I did not. Acton tried to use it upon me.

Or did you strangle Him?  
I did not.

Did you crush his bones just to feel more powerful?
No, but I did it to be quick.

Are you still wearing his blood?
No, but I taste it still. It is a phantom in my mouth, all metal and warm and broken.

Did you say anything or did you do it silently?
Silently – what more was there to say?

Did you let Him suffer?
No, I loved him too much for that.

Were you kind, in the way only an executioner can be?
I did not let him suffer, how much kinder can an executioner be, Bexley Briar?

Did you at least afford him that? Did you afford him anything at all when you murdered him?
I afforded him a death at his brother’s hand. It is an honourable thing.

Did he scream?
He did not have time.

Did He tell you He loved you?
No.

Did He tell you he loved me?
No.

Sometimes we do things to see how bad we can feel. Is that why you did it?
No.

Why did you do it?
Because you made him soft, Bexley Briar. Because you were bad for him. Because he loved an unworthy queen enough to take her side. He attacked me in order to kill me, a Crow turning upon a Crow can only end in death and that was not my Time.

Did you say goodnight?
No.

Who watched?
Isra – would you like to ask her what she thought?
 
Does He look better dead?
No. But he is better off dead.

Did you like it?
Yes and no.

Do you feel good about it?
Yes.

Do you?
Yes.

Are you okay?
Yes.

Are you okay?
Yes.

Are you-
 
‘Are you okay?’ her words are bright sparks. She never asked him any of the other questions and his answers remain as secret as her questions. Never would he speak them and the air remains silent. Raum stands before Bexley, a monster among men. He opens his mouth to speak, yes, yes, “No.”
 
No, he is not okay. No, the world is spinning and he is no longer its master. No, for his grief is a tidal wave and he is drowning. No, because he does not hurt, it was right, Acton was weak – less than a brother at his end. No, because a part of him always thrilled in death. Yet oh how Raum grounds himself in her probing gaze. He anchors onto every unspoken question.

I know you loved him.’ Those words hang heavy and laden with truth. They are a splitting fruit, his sorrow the juice that runs and sticks to his skin. Oh Raum will have to scrub, scrub, scrub himself clean. Before him, the Solterran girl is no longer phantom soft, she becomes skin and bones and bright, bright skin, for beside her stands something other. Acton is gossamer death and spirit vacant. Raum can see through him, to the canyon that ranges beyond. Acton in death has swallowed the world: Raum’s world, Bexley’s world.
 
Yet Raum has sent so many to their deaths and he blinks, slow, slow. Acton’s ghost is no more when his eyes so slowly open. The only Ghost remaining is Raum, and he stands bright and resplendent in the night, here to haunt Bexley Briar every step of her existence.
 
He moves toward her, his lips reaching for her cheek, as if to lay a kiss of apology upon the soft of her skin. He breathes, tremulous, burdened, “I did. I do. I love him unto death for he is my brother.” Such confessions brush her skin and his eyes close, one beat, two, a third, before they open and there is Acton’s ghost again. “You were bad for him, Bexley. He became disloyal.” Raum whispers into the shell of her ear. “It all ended with you.”
 
And this time, he does not blink away his brother’s ghost.

---

@Bexley