Delilah Waan

“Humans never deserve our grace,” she said, “but we give it anyway.”

Astride the north bank of the lake, the ancient monastery sprawled. No one of its roofs was quite aligned with any other. They tumbled down like slate skirts around the monolith of the central tower. Between the parapets of old blue stone, a hundred prayer flags fluttered in the wind. Balconies leaned down precariously. High balustrades enclosed rooftop gardens. Over everything wheeled a great ring of birds, black against the overcast sky: crows and doves, magpies and miners, swallows and cockatoos.

It was a silence studded with sounds, yet all the deeper for them: the gregarious slide-whistles of the currawongs, the lofty warbling of the magpies, the trickling chatter of the fairy wrens. The bird calls rose in chorus with the dawn and subsided as the light grew strong. But today that light was blotted by the rain that fell through the canopy, making the sprays of the she-oaks hang heavy with droplets.

“Six days and six nights he stayed in the Rain House,” she had said. “And on the seventh day he was married...

“Then the people will come down from their hiding places in the mountains. All they will have is what they can carry on their backs, and all will labour together to restore the valley. There will be a jubilee, all debts wiped away, and each man and woman will begin anew. You see, children—the flood washes everything clean.”

My daughter is a demon who lives in the forest. Her muscles are lean; her claws are long; her teeth are a broken mass of pulp and enamel. Her fur is a testament written in scars, a dark scrawl in the incomprehensible calligraphy of violence. When she comes for your children, she eats only their softest parts; she tears the tenderness from them as it was torn from her; she takes their stomachs and lungs; she leaves their muscle and bone to fester on the forest floor. My daughter is a poem written in blood. My daughter is a reckoning. My daughter burns like the sun and you will never catch her.

“Everything changes, all the time,” she said. “I can’t even trust the ground beneath my feet. I don’t want the world to be certain, but I’d like mine to be. Everything is out of control; I want to be in control of as much of it as I can. I want things to be clear, because even if they’re obvious, if you don’t say them, then they’re only half-real and harder to hold on to. I like answers, because even if they’re not what I want to hear, at least I know where I stand.”

“No,” said [REDACTED], “I’m sorry, that’s bullshit. It doesn’t matter what we say, it matters what we do. Some things are so obvious that you only say them when you’re scared they’re over. If you need it said, it’s because you’re worried it’s not real.”

“Exactly,” said [REDACTED]. “Exactly. How do you get it and not get it at the same time?”

“...And I don’t need to forgive you. Nobody should forgive you. That’s not the point. I don’t give a damn about whether you’re redeemed—I care about whether you’re still hurting people. You’re not forgiven; you’re just getting started, and it doesn’t matter. Justice, forgiveness, they come when you fix what you broke, and you can’t fix everything you break, not even close, but you’re not staying here, because wallowing is selfish. If you have any fucking integrity, you’ll fix what you can, because the end was never the point, redemption was never the point. Redemption is fucking selfish. We care too much about the soul who inflicted the damage and don’t stop to think about the victims. You’re going to help me save the world, and when you’re done, we’ll still call you a monster, and you’ll be happy with that, because despite all the fucking evil, in the end, you did what you could. ... You’ll never be redeemed, and it doesn’t matter, because the only moral thing left is to act as if you could be. Start with me. It’s easy, I’m right here. Now help me.”

“...I’m not playing your game. You want my help? I give you instead the strongest curse of my people: yeah nah, I’m good.”

Hope was a persistent caprice, an insane ferocity that defied the ruled stasis of logic.

Fractured rainbows flared off solid objects, while his perception of sound shimmered into distortion that rang in his ears like brass chimes.

The sun's glint off the herringbone patterns of flattened stems wore ruffled foam at the high-water mark.

“Love does not breathe or survive without risk. Freedom's nature is wild, else it withers, extinguished. Your prince cannot be smothered in shielded protection. He must grapple his doom without interference. Triumph or tragedy, no safe-guard exists. Only the bitter wisdom of courage, brandished like a torch in the night.”

“Success demands what the heart knows already. You must stay the hard course. Perception confirms the forked path of your dread. No second alternative exists to be found. Act with the needful courage to break things, and forge your fate without surety. Or else abandon the effort untried.”

‘Give me torture and loss, give me death, before I become the instrument that seals your utter destruction.’

Not all men rose to the calling of fate. Some threads snapped under load. If one flawed vessel failed in the flesh, must the whole cloth tear asunder? Did the stumble to ruin destroy the future for all generations?

“Of the volatile pair, right now I'd suggest [REDACTED] is the more stable spirit.”

Unmoved, Sethvir deferred the bricked impasse by peering into the tea mug cradled in his lap. His jaundiced survey dissected the dregs, as if the kaleidoscope patterns of augury mapped impending destiny in the tepid sediment.

“Demolishing a frocked batch of dullard priests wasn't the murderous fun topping my list.”

Darak side-eyed the offering with offence. “That's a damned talisman wrought for a cat!”

Elaira interrupted. “Before you run on, I have a significant line of inquiry.”