not heroes any longer; 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 our feeble hymns of wasted faith, our sordid songs of glory?
A
s young boys apprenticing under lieutenants one summer, we had observed them quietly from afar. Mostly, we tended to their armor and weaponry, and asked them questions on leadership or tactics. The lieutenants we were assigned treated us differently depending on their station and individual demeanor; some were polite, even courteous, and treated us as one would a beloved younger brother. Others were cruel, and forced us to perform petty—and degrading—tasks. I think of this now because we—Bondike, Dagda, Ciaan, Kruor, more—used to take bets on which of the lieutenants killed for pleasure on the battlefield. Which of the lieutenants really loved it, the violence, the bloodshed, the killing. We had treated it as a joke, something to pass the time as we shined brass or sharpened swords. Now, as she begins to laugh so hard she cannot speak, I remember what we became.
The others, they never possessed it—the bloodlust. The genuine love of killing, the power of it. They did not receive the adrenal high. They were honorable, and courageous, and disciplined.
But I was not. I might present a facade; I might pretend so wholly that even I believed it. I knew, however, what separated me from them. The very attribute that made me elite also ensured I became detestable, even to myself. Especially to myself.
The secret—the one that kept me from drinking as my father did, or from falling apart when Bondike betrayed me—is that I loved it.
War did not destroy me as it destroyed other men. It enabled me to be myself without becoming a monstrosity. And in this moment with her laughing in the face of my tragedy, I remember the pleasure of killing. The way you are closer to god in that moment then in any other; when the scales of a life are held in the palm of your hand and you decide.
I am deciding now, Lucinda.
I am remembering the exact angle necessary to drive the point of my horns through the soft underpart of the armpit, where everyone’s skin feels like velvet. Where the heart rests so vulnerably just a few inches away, or arteries snake down the limb. (I think of how when I sleep with lovers, that is my favorite place to rest my head. To hear the thunderous beat, beat, beating of a heart).
Oh, in that moment, I want to kill her.
But I smile instead. I smile a smile that displays each newly altered tooth.
“She came back in a fit of guilt more than once,” I say, derisively, because there are few things I hate more than weakness disguised as mercy.
I cannot blame her, I suppose, for the way she regards me in this moment. She must think me a fool for succumb to such a deplorable example of her—our—breed. Maybe she says, and then extends a wing to brush down the side of my throat.
My violent thoughts remain subdued, a teaming sea beneath a calm surface. I laugh now. “Absolutely bone-chilling,” I say, with enough venom to sting.
“Do you want the real reason, Lucinda? Or the reason that might be more appropriate?” The smile I share then is curt. I glance over her shoulder, toward the sea, and try to forget the way my mouth tastes of blood, blood, blood. “The appropriate reason is that I have never been a fan of the sea. I prefer forests, fields, mountains.” I say it conversationally, nearly—and yet the irony exists there in an undercurrent, caustic and dramatic. “The real reason is that I spent a lifetime eliminating water horses on an island far from Novus. Committing a genocide. I lost friends, family, myself. And to become the very thing I hate? Well, that is nearly unbearable.”
And yet, I bear it. I bear it now with a grin whetted as sharply as a blade, and with eyes as brazen's as a lion. I dare her to challenge me; to take advantage of my truth. To be insulted, or enflamed.
I will not be laughed at again.
