[P] all the light we cannot see

[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.

 

When one was not born into silk and pearls, you appreciate it when you get it
 
His hatred is an ember that refuses to cool. He cannot contain it, it is an explosion ripping through him. It is a supernova rippling out, out. There will be no black hole to swallow everything when his ire is done. He will lay fragments into everything, pieces of himself that will grate and itch and sting like a splinter. And Rhoswen’s will be the worst of all.
 
Within him is black. All is full of ink as thick as tar and as vas as a cave.  Anything that falls into him would be lost.
 
His heart, his heart. Never is it mentioned, never has he thought of his heart and what place it might hold within him. Never has he been so sentimental to consider its health. But now he does. Now he feels its pestilence, its fetid wrongness. There is nothing of him in Sabine, nothing of Rhoswen either.
 
The fire-girl does not sway, not when he moves toward her with blood gleaming upon his skin and dead souls haunting his every step. He hears their cry, he sees Acton watching him. But oh, Raum saved him from this, from the danger of Day girls. He warned Acton once but the Magician did not listen. And he paid for it.
 
Each muscle is taught, each inch of him is rigid as a bowstring pulled tight. They say once a lion tastes blood it thirsts for it again and as Raum’s tongue wets, he knows what it is to be a lion. Rhoswen comes to him, a fire consuming all. She chokes him with acrid smoke, she burns him with the weight of their daughter and yet he stands, as if he were stone. But oh how he watches her, oh how he drinks in every piece of her and despises each one.
 
Was this what comes of love?
 
Yes. His heart is a fetid, diseased thing. It decays within his chest poisoning his blood with the bacteria of hatred and violence. Sabine stands as pure as a lily between them, so fragile, so white. Yet there is nothing weak of her. Raum’s black eyes, dim as ditchwater, regard Rhoswen with a bleak stare. “No, Rhoswen. Sabine is stronger than both of us.” And Raum holds on to that, by the gods he clings to it.
 
Then he moves, brushing past Rhoswen for the Steppe awaits. “I will not kill you, Rhoswen.” Raum says, as he stops, head tilting to speak back to her.  “Not today, at least.”
 
But as he steps away, as he leaves Rhoswen as she has left him so many times before, he knows he will destroy everything of importance to her. Then, Raum realizes, then he will return for her.

---

@Rhoswen <3