But the hard prey is the one that won’t come bidden.
This is not living.
I want to hate her like I used to, like I did when I drew the arcane marks onto her flesh. I want to hate her like I did when I smelled her flesh burn. But, somehow, I don’t. I only feel the empty pleasure of knowing I had done this, I had exerted the same sort of misery on someone else that forever nests within my own hollow heart.
Then, she says the fucking words.
But you are hardly living, yourself.
She has no right to say them. Whatever smugness I had felt burns away. She draws attention to the most obvious absence. I am alone. A man who had always been flanked by comrades, by brothers in arms, alone.
Somehow, I still manage to sneer. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
The lie is on the tip of my tongue, the explanation she hasn’t asked for:
They sent me here to scout for new conquests.
They sent me here to find new shores to conquer.
My mouth is dry when I recognize that she is the only thing left, truly, of the life I used to live. I should hate her for that, at least.
Instead, I say: “Why are you here?”
My voice does not sound like my own.
@Saphira
