When he looks back on this moment, he will remember it only in pieces.
He will remember the way the vines that Emersyn had thought long-dead in the planters came suddenly to life again, and how the brightness of Andras' electricity had flashed against their leaves. He will still see the curl of Thana's horn, and how it had promised all the violence he did not know how to form, though oh, how he had thought he did. And he will remember the way the roots of that sentinel tree from her yard had burst through the floor, and dragged the Emissary from the darkness of her home and into the light beyond it. Outside the forest was singing, and weeping, and pressing in like wolves ready for the kill.
He could feel their hunger, and their rage, and the way all of them -- Andras, and Thana, and the forest, and the half-dead vines, and Emersyn herself -- had begged him to turn himself into the weapon to carve out the thing for them to feast on. And when they had wrapped their pleas around his neck like a noose and begged him by tightening it more, and more, and more -- he had wanted to be that weapon for them. Oh, how he wanted to kill Emersyn and leave her there as one final offering.
But sacrifices were meant to be made from things of purity.
Ipomoea remembers every moment of that day, every disjointed piece of it floating like shards of glass in his mind. But the thing that he remembers most, the shard that cuts at him in the middle of the night and wakes him without warning, was how he had turned one last time to look into the cottage --
and seen only a single poppy smiling back at him, its petals still weeping blood.
He will remember the way the vines that Emersyn had thought long-dead in the planters came suddenly to life again, and how the brightness of Andras' electricity had flashed against their leaves. He will still see the curl of Thana's horn, and how it had promised all the violence he did not know how to form, though oh, how he had thought he did. And he will remember the way the roots of that sentinel tree from her yard had burst through the floor, and dragged the Emissary from the darkness of her home and into the light beyond it. Outside the forest was singing, and weeping, and pressing in like wolves ready for the kill.
He could feel their hunger, and their rage, and the way all of them -- Andras, and Thana, and the forest, and the half-dead vines, and Emersyn herself -- had begged him to turn himself into the weapon to carve out the thing for them to feast on. And when they had wrapped their pleas around his neck like a noose and begged him by tightening it more, and more, and more -- he had wanted to be that weapon for them. Oh, how he wanted to kill Emersyn and leave her there as one final offering.
But sacrifices were meant to be made from things of purity.
Ipomoea remembers every moment of that day, every disjointed piece of it floating like shards of glass in his mind. But the thing that he remembers most, the shard that cuts at him in the middle of the night and wakes him without warning, was how he had turned one last time to look into the cottage --
and seen only a single poppy smiling back at him, its petals still weeping blood.
just a closer to tie up some loose threads.
”here am i!“
