THERE IS NO SOLACE IN IDLE CONVICTION, NOT HERE; AMONGST THE RUINS OF A CRIPPLED EMPIRE, WE SCRAMBLED FOR REDEMPTION WITH GAWKISH, GHOSTLY FINGERS WAXING APOLOGIES TO LIMPID, LISTLESS SKIES. NOT HEROES ANY LONGER.
I feel dead but—like a soul tethered by some unfinished task—I cannot move on to the afterlife.
There is only this purgatory; there are only long nights looking out toward the splinter moon, trying not to dream of the dark sea.
Yet I still dream of the dead sea., and how salt tastes the same if it is from my skin or the ocean.
When I wander, I hope I do not see her. Through Denocte, through the markets, smelling bonfires and sea I think of war and… and I hope I do not see her, phantom-like and ghastly, red as blood is.
And I hope I do. I hope she finds me, corners me, demands answers and justice. I hope she says something terrible.
There is a sharp, hardened part of me that also hopes that she has found the absence of her new life, carved out as if with a skinning knife. Does she know he’s dead?
Amaroq.
Does she know?
I killed him.
He fought well. Like the lions we chased from our hills behind our estate when I was a boy. He fought like a feral thing, all anger and teeth and ice. I have never met a water horse capable of ice; but it did not save him. It will not save her; and I think of all the gossip I have heard on all the streets of all the cities in Novus, how there was a water horse turning people. Marisam—Marisol… something. That was one. But not the one I care for.
Boudika. That is the one he changed. The one I care for. That is the mistake he made. He touched something that belongs to me—and even as I think it, I feel sick, and there is a poet on the opposite side of the bar, signing of love.
Put out my eyes, and I can see you still,
Slam my ears to, and I can hear you yet;
And without any feet can go to you;
And tongueless, I can conjure you at will.
I listen and watch, quietly. There are many patrons in the bar and they clamour about the band drunkenly, echoing the lyrics. A dark man walks through the crowd and eyes follow him. So do mine.
Break off my arms, I shall take hold of you
And grasp you with my heart as with a hand;
Arrest my heart, my brain will beat as true;
My mind whirls back to the copper-headed mare. I hope I find her, I think. I hope she stumbles upon me as I stand listening to a poet with a voice as clear and sharp as broken glass. I hope she sees me and remembers all the reasons she fell in love with me, but I know, I know, she will not see the same man. And it does not matter, I think. Because she is a lie. What is more—I have fled Denocte after the deed, and found some other Court. Dawn, I think. Delumine. My eyes return to the dark stranger.
And if you set this brain of mine afire,
Then on my blood-stream I yet will carry you.
I finish my drink and close my eyes. It burns all the way down.
I need a distraction, before my thoughts self-sabotage. I stand and saunter to the bar, through the stares. The man is a warrior. I know. I know, because I limp, and bare the same sort of scars. I order a whiskey, because that is what he is drinking. I side-eye him, and then smile, a real smile, a genuine smile. I know only one type of people.
“What war were you in?” I hate myself for how flirtatious my voice is. I hate myself for how, when I taste the whiskey, I think of her, always her, and in my memories she is toasting our last victory and final defeat. "Ey', I haven't ever been in a bar with such bad music." I gesture at them as they transition into another love-song, as if a bar full of drunkards needs another reminder that they are alone.
WE ARE TRAGEDIES OF FIRELIGHT AND FLESH, UNHOLY SACRAMENTS OF BLOOD AND BROKEN BODIES. AT NIGHT, WE SWALLOW BITTER HERBS AND SHAKE OUR FISTS AT FICKLE, CALLOUS DEITIES. WHAT USE HAVE WE FOR FEEBLE HYMNS OF WASTED FAITH; FOR SORDID SONGS OF GLORY?
