I
grew sicker and sicker. Had it been days or weeks or months? Years? Hours? I didn’t even know who I was
anymore. I felt as if my own body was attacking me, like my own thoughts were devouring themselves. My strange, vivid dreams grew so real that I didn’t know at any given moment whether I was awake or asleep, myself or any of these strangers. Or, most vividly of all, myself or Max.
I spent most of my time sleeping or dreaming or vomiting. Nura was the only one who spent any significant amount of time with me, lulling me back to sleep or attempting unsuccessfully to shove food down my throat. She was in so many of my dreams, too, though she looked different then — rounder-faced, more expressive, her hair in loose waves instead of tamed into those many braids.
So many of my dreams were about him. In my dreams, I
was him. Did I miss him that desperately?
You like his stories the best. I like his the best, too.
The voice curled in my thoughts, lower than a whisper, so faint that it disappeared into my mind like a furl of smoke — gone too quickly for me to identify.
“I’m worried about her,” I heard Nura say one day, at the other side of my door. “It wasn’t this bad when he did it.”
“Worried?” Zeryth’s voice was pleasant, disaffected. “If you are expressing an emotion beyond vague distaste, it must be serious.”
“This isn’t a joke.”
“I know she can do this.”
Can we do this, Tisaanah? Do we want to?
My consciousness threatened to slip away yet again, but I heard something that snagged my interest and I forced myself to stay alert.
“Maybe he can help. You’ve heard nothing from him?” “Why would I?”
“My,” Zeryth purred. “All that moral aggrandizing, and he just up and leaves.”
“Don’t sound so smug, Zeryth. Even you can’t pull off that kind of hypocrisy.”
Do you think he’ll come back for you?
Gods, I hoped he didn’t.
And this time, I could have sworn I heard a small, confused voice say, very clearly, “Why not?”
And it was only then, in the genuine confusion of that question, that I realized the whispers I heard were not my own garbled thoughts.
I sat up.
“What?” My voice was so hoarse that even that one word cracked.
{Why not?}
This time the voice came from within my head. I couldn’t pin it to a sound — it was neither male nor female, unmarked by age, though the word was spoken with the confusion of a small child.
{You like him.}
Shattered pieces of memories ran through my mind, like pages in a book being flipped by a thumb, each visible for only a split second. The first chuckle Max and I shared together – “He could be your apprentice!” — the look he gave me when I saw his decision to train me snap into
place, the first time I heard him laugh at one of my jokes.
“If you go, I go.”
The sound of his voice as he begged me to leave with him. “You have me, Tisaanah.”
{And beyond that, you desire him.}
Another set of images, of sensations, now: my gaze sweeping over his body, the warmth of him the night we fell asleep beside each other in the garden, the trails of fire his fingers brushed on my skin when he gave me my necklace. His lips against the back of my neck. His chest against mine. “I could be made for this.”
{So why would you not wish for him to return?}
My mouth opened. I was going insane.
{You are not.}
My mouth snapped shut.
Silence, save for my pounding heartbeat. I waited.
Nothing.
My head lolled, throbbed. But then, just as I felt myself begin to drift out of consciousness again, I heard it, as if coming from very far away:
{Perhaps he will return for me,} the voice mused.
“Who are you?”
Maybe the better question was… what?
{Reshaye,} it answered, simply. {I am many things.}
I was definitely going insane.
{You are not. Do you frequently repeat yourself?}
The weapon will become a part of you, Zeryth had told me.
You talk about it as if it is a person.
A dawning realization bloomed, scalding up my spine.
{Have you been enjoying my stories? I still have many to tell.}
It swung in and out like a dangling lantern, the light casting garish, shifting shadows on the recesses of my
mind. It was as tired and disoriented as I was. I could feel it.
{Yours feel familiar. You smell like a touch I knew once long ago. Or maybe a story that I have since forgotten.}
Images shuffled through my vision again — pausing at a brief memory of my hands running through those famous Threllian plains, letting the tall grass tickle my fingers. Backwards. Then again.
“You know Max?” I whispered. Stupid question. I knew the answer.
A purr of familiarity slithered in the space between my thoughts. {You do know. So why you do ask?}
Again, that childlike confusion.
{Why?} it pressed. I realized it wanted an actual answer.
“Don’t you see my thoughts?”
{There are many things I see but do not understand.}
“Me too. And that is why I asked.”
The presence sighed — or at least it felt like it. Like an exhale. It made my skin crawl.
{Maxantarius and I have nothing but each other.}
It sounded further away. Every word unleashed waves of pain, as if my own thoughts and blood were rebelling against me.
That isn’t true, I thought.
{Perhaps not anymore. Now, we have each other and you.}
I blinked and struggled to open my eyes again. It took me a moment to realize I was looking at the ceiling. I didn’t know when I had fallen back in bed.
{You and I both grow tired.}
Tired was an understatement. I felt as if I were dying, losing both my body and my mind.
{You are more concerned with what you are losing than what you are gaining.}
A manic smile twitched at the corners of my mouth. I thought of Serel. Of my friends in Esmaris’s estate. Wrong. I was more concerned with what I was gaining than anything else.
I felt curious fingers pause at that thought. Turn it over. Freeze the image of Serel’s face and replay sensation of his goodbye kiss on my cheek.
I felt the question before it was solidified into words. “You see but do not understand?” I whispered.
{I understand what it is to want.}
Not to want. To love.
{To love is to want.} The whisper dipped me into darkness. {I loved Maxantarius very much.}
The bed split beneath me, sending me falling, spiraling.
{Perhaps I could love you, too. What a story we would write together.}
Darkness and flames devoured me.
 |
A DREAM. A MEMORY
Flames devoured me, licking my skin, filling my nostrils with the putrid scent of burning flesh.
Skin bubbled when it burned, and those bubbles burst and gushed beneath the rough grip of hands or the more vicious bite of a blade. This, I had learned, was universally true. It was true of Order Wielders, it was true of Guard soldiers, it was true of Ryvenai rebels, and it was true of the men, women, and children who were none of those things.
It was true of Nura, who — even after what she had done — was the first body I crawled to in the ashes of Sarlazai. I was certain that she had to be dead. When I handed her off to the healers, I was so relieved to hear her
release a little, agonized whimper as sheets of her skin clung to the toothy fabric of my jacket.
Relieved. Ascended, what a fucking word to use.
I watched my fingers pick apart layers of fabric, threads fraying between my fingernails—
“Max, I thought you might want to see—”
And I was back. Back here, in my bedroom on the Western shores, lying on my stomach on my bed. Looking down at that red bedspread and melting right into it.
I blinked and looked up to see Kira standing in the doorway, smiling at me with an unusual hesitancy. She held one of her glass boxes in her hands.
“Look. I raised this one. Just came out of its silk today.” She lifted the box to show me a little red butterfly, fluttering anxiously at the top of its enclosure. I barely glanced at it.
“Pretty.”
“I thought you might like it because it has a reasonable number of limbs.”
Her words faded to the background. I made a noncommittal noise of acknowledgement.
Kira’s barefoot footsteps padded forward. “You know… I’m happy you’re home for a break,” she said, quietly. “Even if you aren’t.”
Before I could stop myself, I let out a violent scoff. A break.
“A break” really meant, “You’re clearly going to lose your mind at any moment and we certainly don’t want you here when you do it.”
“A break” meant, “You were responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Order soldiers, so go hide for a while, while we decide whether you’re a hero or a war criminal.”
But most of all, “a break” meant, “My name is Zeryth Fucking Aldris and I’m a power-hungry bastard who wants every other candidate for Arch Commandant as far away from the Towers as possible.”
Well, that was fine. He could have it. Suddenly it seemed so damn trivial.
“How does it feel to be a war hero?” Kira asked. “He’ll never say it, but even Brayan is impressed.”
There was a very recent time when even Brayan’s unspoken approval would have been worth more than gold to me. But now, like the title of Arch Commandant, it meant nothing. I wanted to tell her, “It feels like children’s bones snapping in my hands. What a thing to be proud of.”
{You should be glad that he’s finally recognizing what you are capable of.}
My heart stopped.
I ran my fingers over all of my mental walls and doors. None of them felt as solid as they once were. Nothing ever seems quite the same in there after a Valtain gets in and starts moving things around — and even beyond that, my head had become a messier and more confusing place than ever in this past week.
“I need to be alone,” I snapped, and I didn’t look up to see whatever pitying look Kira might have given me before I heard her pick up her glass box and back out of my room.
I stood. Closed the door. Locked it. Then crossed the bedroom and jammed myself into a corner, resting my forehead at the apex of two walls.
{You are angry,} Reshaye observed.
Of course I’m angry. I tried to grab hold of that mental door, replace it, but it was suddenly impossible to find.
{You are angry at me.}
You killed thousands of people.
Thousands. The scale of it still made my hands go numb. And, save for a too-small handful of people, the world thought I did that.
{I made us war heroes.} Its unnerving, childlike confusion rippled across my temples.
Us? I spat a scoff aloud. There is no us.
A spiral of hurt clenched around my mind — so genuine and pure that it threw me slightly off balance.
{Of course there is an us.}
Ascended, how I hated it. Hated it. From the depths of that hate, my mental walls began to take shape. There it was. And if I could coax it back, swing the door closed —
There is no us. You did that yourself.
Distract it. And then…
A sharp impact reverberated through the back of my skull. Like an abruptly-caught heavy door, stopped mid movement. Then all of the hairs on my body stood upright at the sensation of fingernails dragged across metal.
{I gave you everything that you desired. I gave you the power that you so desperately wanted to fulfill your ambitions.}
I did not want that. That was— that was horrible. I didn’t want that to happen.
{You can not lie to me.}
You used my body to do terrible things. MY body. This is mine. Now get out of my head and let me enjoy my time with my family.
I couldn’t do this. Standing here in the corner hissing at
myself like a lunatic, knuckles clenched against the wallpaper. No, this was not going to be my life, or anyone else’s. The first fucking thing I was going to do when I got back to the Towers was get this monster out of my—
{Monster?}
The word shook me from the inside out, lit me on fire with fury and wounded hurt.
In a furious rush, I tried to hold onto control — tried to slam that door closed—
{I gave you everything. I took on your ambitions as my own. I swallowed your weaknesses. And I gave you love that you do not deserve. Even now, I do. Even as you call me a monster. If I’m a monster, what does that make you?}
White, eviscerating pain slid beneath my skull. My mind began to slip, but I fought it, throwing myself around every thread of control.
{You belong to me, Maxantarius. Me alone. And you prefer these people to me? These people who will never understand you the way that I do? These people who will never love you as deeply?}
I am not yours. I am not fucking YOURS.
Those were the only words my mind could form through that all-consuming effort, and they were quickly drowned out by a wall of rage and my own mounting dread.
I felt Reshaye rise and rise and rise, until we were at the same level. Until it was as if we looked at each other straight in the eye, perfectly matched for one terrifying moment. Each clawing onto control with equal strength.
And then it said, in a sad, slithering whisper, {You forgot what you are, Maxantarius.}
I felt my back straighten. My fingers unclench. No.
A door slammed in my face.
Stop.
I had made a terrible mistake.
My feet crossed the room. My hands unlocked the door.
Opened it.
{You force me to do this.}
I threw myself against my own mind with frantic intensity, meeting only a wall.
STOP.
The word echoed, first as a command, then a plea. I fought and fought and fought.
But the steps just kept going.
Atraclius’s room was first, next door to mine. I would remember the perplexed grin he gave me as I first threw open the door, and the way it barely had time to sour into fear before his blood spattered the gold carpet. I would
remember the crunch of his warped eyeglasses under my boot.
Marisca’s came next, then Shailia. I would remember two sets of chestnut curls singed and burning.
Stop stop stop stop—
Still, I fought. I clung to my muscles desperately, clawing, leaving gauges of horror. You won’t do this, you can’t do this—
My father. I would remember how he grabbed the fire poker before he saw my face, raising it with a graceful hand molded by decades of his own military experience. How a morbid hope leapt in me at the sight of it, how I threw everything I had into grabbing one fraying thread of control and making my body seize for a moment — just one split second. Do it, I prayed. Do it fast.
But when he recognized me, he hesitated, only long enough to tilt his wrist and redirect the point from my throat to my shoulder. Too long. The thread slipped from me, and I would remember the sickening angle at which that poker extended from his throat.
Then Variaslus. I would remember the way he grabbed my wrist first, slender fingers too startled to push back.
My mother. I would remember the single confused wrinkle between her dark eyebrows, the way her fingertips brushed my face as she fell.
And then I walked out to the entryway and stood there in massive, echoing silence. My fingernails still weakly clawed at the glass wall that separated me from my body.
You killed them all. You killed them all.
The sentence looped in a frantic, lungless breath.
My eyes stared at the door, watching waning sunlight burn through the stained glass semicircle that adorned it. Together, we smoldered in the remnants of Reshaye’s anger, standing on the precipice of eerie, tentative calm.
I hoped that my despair would mask my untruth. But then it whispered, {You cannot lie to me, Max.}
And as my fingers curled around the front door, my fight started all over again, with renewed desperation — unrelenting with every step that my body took through the forest, towards that familiar shed.
Please. Please. I had never begged anyone for anything before. Not once. Not even in Sarlazai. I’m sorry. I was wrong. You were always right.
My hands threw open the shed door.
Kira sat on her knees on the floor, the green snake winding its way up her arms.
Please, I begged. I will never fight you again. Don’t do this. I will do anything.
There was a moment of stillness. I felt Reshaye’s attention shift toward me, in quiet consideration.
In that moment, I seized upon its brief distraction. Made a mad rush for control of my own body.
My left finger twitched.
My head snapped to observe that hand, lifting it to my face.
Anger. Rising anger. {I told you, you cannot lie to me.}
And a force pushed me back, shoving me to the back of my own mind.
I would remember that Kira was the only one who tried to fight back— the sting of the lightning that leapt from her fingertips the moment she hit the ground, even as flames crawled up her clothing.
I would remember how quickly that green snake lunged from her arm to mine, burying its fangs in my wrist.
Most of all, I would remember her face — my face — as she stared back at me through tendrils of long black hair.
And I would barely — only barely — remember the crushing weight of my own consciousness being thrust back upon me. The shiver of Reshaye’s whisper, {Now you have no one but me.}
As we tumbled together into darkness.
