The Shattered Circle

23. Long Shadows

Not for the first time, visions of His ascension plagued me in the night. It should have been a point of pride: a glorious rise of one god from the ashes of another, a violent rebellion against the ones I hated so virulently put into motion after more than a decade of striving tooth and nail, a final sacrifice crowning all the others as if it could make everything I had endured worthwhile. And yet...and yet...I envied them, the chosen ones sent to end me. They had the luxury of a normal life, of contentment, of tilling fields and raising children and growing old, albeit a future they were robbed of by Light and myself alike.

And even then, in defeat, they had the one thing He had denied me, most coveted of things: an ending.

Every sacrifice will be worth it, my rose, He promised me when He was still only him: a man of flesh and blood, whatever his ambitions, the warmth sharing my bed. Now I slept on the drafty floor below the window, knowing full well that whatever my normal rationale about being used to the hard ground of the campaign trail, nothing was harder than facing that bed and all of its ghosts.

I loved them too much to endure their sting, those echoes left behind. They wound around me like chains, biting like vipers, forged by our actions. Sleep allowed no room for escape. The devastation of seeing Him bathed in the light of the blue Flame of Truth, His flesh burning away into ash in the wind as undeath and godhood embraced Him at once, turning away to face His own meteoric rise and leaving me in His shadow...

That was the moment you lost the boy beneath the apple tree forever.

My eyes flicked open in the darkness of my room, catching the glint of steel and the gleam of eyes above me. In the low light cast by the last coals burning in the grate, I saw Shira struggling with herself, knife poised over my heart. My hand still curled around Woe's hilt. In a moment, I could extinguish her as I had all those who had tried to kill me before.

She froze like a little bird in winter at the coldness of my gaze. I let go of my sword and used both hands to seize her clenched hands, pulling the blade close, until I could feel the coldness of its needle tip through my shirt, until a pinprick of blood started to well.

"Do it."

Shira tried to flinch back, but my hold was iron. I held her in place when I felt her grip spasm to release the blade. I knew I could make her my murderer easily. A sharp pull of my hands, a slight twist of my torso, and the blade would go right between my ribs. I was only mortal, only flesh and blood. A blow to the heart would kill me as surely as it would her.

Her eyes welled with tears and her lips parted, but no sound came out. Even in a moment of terror, her vows remained. How could a woman of such conviction quaver at the ugliness of this moment? I couldn't fathom it.

Maybe that was the difference between us. She still believed in something of the Light.

I released her hands and the blade dropped from nerveless fingers. I snatched it up effortlessly as I rolled, knocking her onto her back. I pinned her body with mine, holding the dagger to her throat. She struggled like a mouse in a cat's claws, but I was the better combatant by miles. "You were foolish to squander that chance, Shira. Thousands of knights, priests, and kings would have given their immortal soul up just to have it. Even your peace-loving goddess would have taken it in a heartbeat." A gall of bitterness dripped from every word. "Nothing to say in your own defense, priestess?"

Shira struggled against my hold, trying to twist free from the pin. We were a tangle on the floor and now she was putting up enough of a fight that maintaining a hold on both wrists of hers with one hand, even slender as they were, was a challenge. She managed to slip me with one hand, striking me in the cheekbone with a hammer-fist, just like I'd taught her.