A D O N A I
—
“W
hat makes you assume I want to hurt you?”His voice is so sincere that I almost want to believe him. Pilate had never said this: what makes you assume I want to hurt you? because he didn’t have to; we both had each other’s answers memorised.
Mine would be you do, and his would be I do. And then I would say, of course, I will hurt you back.
Even as children, we were always hurting each other back. A thousand sharp needles: in the front, in the back, in the side. Never enough to kill, only enough to sting—to remind the other, I exist. Just as much as you.
If I didn’t have Miriam, and Pilate didn’t have Hagar, would we have gotten along better? Would we merely dream of death and violence instead of acting it out like theatre?
Would we have chosen a different path?
“Force of habit,” I say finally, my voice low and drawling. “Politics. Succession. Sibling rivalries.” My voice is just theatrical enough to be trivial; I drag out my words with care. Though, curious, I eventually level a glance back at him. “Even if we are different sides of the same coin, it must be the same for you, no?”
Quietly, I wonder if he is getting tired of me. Of my constant volleying between solemnity and banter, seriousness and mock theatre. Of meaning something until I don’t, of metaphors on metaphors on metaphors. Is he familiar with the ways of the politician? Of the ways of the fallen prince, in a sea of bright-eyed heirs?
This is how we survive, Vercingtorix. To us, this is essential.
Though to others, it is only tiring.
By the time I turn back to look at him, really look at him, the smile he wears has changed. A shiver trails down my spine, though it is not, I think, unpleasant. I have never thought of myself as weak, even now—especially now—yet there is something about Torix’s expression that is predatory. Wanting.
A lion, a lamb. I am not weak. But isn’t that what weak things tell themselves, over and over and over?
Because the message never seems to sink in.
“I know suffering,” he says softly, and I swallow. Not because I am surprised, but because I have never managed to kill the instinct in me that tenses when a wall is crumbling. When a boundary loosens—when the game ceases to be just a game.
I have bared a part of myself to Vercingtorix because I am the drowning prince gasping for air, and when you are that desperate it is really not anything, at all, to give whole parts of yourself away.
Yet in return—he is allowing me to glimpse something that I know very few have seen. I am flattered. I am intrigued. And I am hesitant, afraid to savour it.
“If I were to advise the prince, I would say martyrdom doesn’t matter. Only justice does; and even an ugly truth is more beautiful than a tragic lie.”
I am about to say something yet immediately lose all semblance of it when he presses close to me, his mouth at my ear, his cheek just shy of mine. I still. “Forgiveness is for saints, martyrdom for fools.” There is only the sound of my breathing, and I hate how it softly rattles. “And you do not strike me as a fool.”
I hate how even this—standing prone besides him, the effort of staying still, the fight against giving in—drains me away to nothing. “I am not,” I murmur, my breath tousling strands of his pale silken hair.
“I think.” And then I sigh. He is warm, and I am always cold. I wish to stay—yet I have always been the best of my siblings at denying myself from what I really want. Miriam, perhaps, is just a little bit better, but dearest Miriam is always better.
“Vercingtorix.” I press briefly against him, a ghost of a touch, before stepping away and coughing. When I look at him, I am almost apologetic. “I am growing tired. Not of your company. Just—”
I look back towards the ivory tower, and hate how beautiful I still find it. How beautiful I will always find it. “—tired.” Hollowly I laugh, and fall silent as the last of my pride empties away to dregs.
“I will regain my strength with some refreshments.” I say this drily yet I do not know why I bother at this point. After the coughing and the water and the way that he looks at me. “Consider this the start of your evening, then. A few hours before true sunset—the Solterran way.”
The cursed prince must return to his cursed tower. When I step back onto the path I came down, I catch my reflection in the skin of water left in the bucket. I do not linger upon it.
I know I will hate what I see.
The words boil out of me,
coil after coil of sinuous possibility.
The cosmos unravel from my mouth,
all fullness, all vacancy.
BRIGHT SPLASH OF BLOOD ON THE FLOOR. ASTONISHING RED.
(All that brightness inside me?)
(All that brightness inside me?)
♦︎♔♦︎
