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by
Sabaa Tahir
Read between
September 2 - September 5, 2020
“The touch of a child brings a mother comfort.” I can barely hear her. “But I’m no mother, girl. I’m a monster. Monsters don’t merit comfort.”
“Why should Laia and the Shrike pay for what a Scholar monster did a thousand years ago?” There is a price for greed and violence. We do not always know who will pay it. But for good or ill, it will be paid.
Because I know this feeling sweeping through me far too well, the feeling that all my effort, all I have worked for, means nothing. That everything and everyone is a lie. That all is cruel and unforgiving and that there is no justice. I have survived this feeling before, and I will survive it again. In this fiery hellscape of a world, this mess of blood and madness, justice exists only for those who take it. I’ll be damned if I’m not one of them.
The wealthiest of the Martials left here weeks ago. They gave up on their capital and left the soldiers and the Plebeians and the Scholars to die.
You are all that holds back the darkness. For the Empire. For the mothers and fathers. For the sisters and brothers. For the lovers. For the Empire, Helene Aquilla. For your people. I grab at my face and tear. I claw at my skin, howling, wailing, begging the mask to release me. I don’t want you anymore, I just want my people to be safe. Release me, please, release me. For the Empire, release me. For my people, release me. Please—please—
You came for me. You and Laia dragged me from the claws of Death himself. You have more of your father’s goodness in you than you will ever acknowledge.
Curse this world for what it does to the mothers, for what it does to the daughters. Curse it for making us strong through loss and pain, our hearts torn from our chests again and again. Curse it for forcing us to endure.
Visions flash across my mind: a scarred soldier cries out, reaching for daggers that will not help her. A newborn babe awakes, howling. A girl I once loved gasps, wheeling her horse about to gaze with gold eyes at the crimson sky over the Forest of Dusk.