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The air in my lungs saws through my chest painfully, but silently. I have become practiced at silence just like I am practiced at listening to the constant drip of the rain and schooled in remaining still in the ever-present darkness of the closet.
“All swords are evil, Ilsaletta,” he said gently. “For they are made for one thing only – to slice the cord of a man’s life. But some evils are necessary or there will be no good.”
Cowardice is the friend of fools.
In time, your pieces will weld back together – stronger in the places where they broke.
I have lost much. My memories are moth-eaten and they crumble to dust in my hands.
Your sorrows I will borrow, your pain I will bear, the lifting of your head shall be my glory, and the light of your eyes my delight. To the last drop of my blood, I will defend you, screaming defiance into the depths.
What a beautiful promise.
“This blood tells you that I will deal fairly with you,” I whisper. “That I will treat you with the value of my own blood.” I’ve never made a vow before and mine feels clumsy and childish next to his. You honor me too much. His mental voice sounds breathless.
His mind caresses my name like fine silk.
An interesting simile that speaks to the smooth sound of the name and the analogy brings to mind the experience of running silk through your fingers over and over. It gives texture to the description.
She blazes like a lost star. Bright and full. It draws from me a burning hope – a sense of opening and blossoming that makes my pulse speed. I feel as though I am remembering something lost, as though I’ve finally found something I have been searching for all along.
In my tattered memories, there are none that fit this shape. This is new. And I am made new by it.
Deep breaths. Do not think of the next task or the task after that. Think only of what you do now. As the feather drifts upon the air, so you drift. Right now, in this moment, there is no threat here, there is only a long hallway to walk down. Take a step. Breathe.
And then what do you want, my Vali? Your dreams are my future.
The silence eats into my bones.
My heart is a lump of ice and I want it to stay like that. Don’t melt. Don’t smash. Don’t beat at all. It’s not worth it.
Jealousy is the one that clouds my thoughts and chokes in my throat. Relief is like a calm sea and a breath of fresh air.
You fear being an afterthought? Death makes afterthoughts of us all.
It is pride that destroyed me. Only humility can restore me. He doesn’t sound humble at all. I didn’t claim to have it – only to want it.
But inside I am mulling on this new revelation. I do not want to live in history because I know what history is. It is a lot of people dying messily with no real result. It is endless misery with brief moments of heroism. And the heroes die horribly and are not remembered. Living that myself carries no appeal at all.
You are not an afterthought and you never shall be. You do not see it, but you are my sun now. I orbit around you. To me, you are the opposite of an afterthought. You are a bright light in the darkness. My north star. My guiding vow. And though you are new to being a sovereign, still you are mine – mortal girl though you are.
“What did you have to know?” It feels wrong to ask – but she’s answering me and I can’t help myself. I’m the kind of person who always has to know. I’ll lose hours of sleep trying to read to the end of a book because I must know. I will spend days skimming through tomes searching and searching. If something is a secret, or tricky to decipher or tough to understand – well, it draws me like a moth to the flame. Everyone needs something. I need to understand.
Revenge like that will leave you hollow – or worse, you will like it and it will sicken your soul.
You are not breaking. You are adapting. It feels much the same but it is only a shift that will make you able to bear what comes next.
Ignore the flustered duke. He’s just falling in love with my morning star.
Firsts are overrated. Best is what matters.
I have no confidence that he can do this. After all, he screamed like a girl back there in that fight. I bite down on the leather and grip the pommel of the sword with both hands. I don’t understand why ‘scream like a girl’ is considered an insult. Have you been to a childbed before?
Many women scream in childbed. Scream with such power and might that they defy pain and bring into the world vibrant new life. There is power in their screams. Strength and defiance. They show that being afraid need not conquer you and that agony is not the end but a beginning.
So, I am valuable for what I possess? We all seek value in that – whether it is because we possess our own wits, or our own wills, or armies that number in the thousands. It’s a human thing. And even a non-human thing.
bitterness is best swallowed a little at a time. Too much and you will grow drunk on it.
It makes me uncomfortable, but I hold his gaze the way I wish someone had held mine when I first realized what was happening.
Justice is a horrible thing. But it is also right in the way that sunlight is right and the thick veins of rock that run through the earth are right. I am glad for my deaths. I am glad for my suffering. I have deserved every hour of torment since that day. Even if I am no longer that person.
“But I have the favor of the all-seeing father to guide me. Maybe. He tends to choose his own side in things, and I may or may not be on it. But I definitely want to be. As long as it’s respectable. Which of course it will be.” He sounds like a ship captain trying to convince himself to take a journey over rough seas.
The priest looks uncomfortable. And I don’t like that. I’m not convinced that he’s on our side. He doesn’t want to be ripped apart by monsters but that only keeps him with us for now. At the first sign of civilization, he might bolt to pour his troubles into the first respectable ear he finds. And then we’ll be betrayed. That’s the problem with religion. It tries to sand down all the rough edges. And it often works. And then when you go to try to grip onto it for dear life there’s nothing to catch hold of because it’s been made so inoffensively smooth.
“Because the safest place in a storm is directly in the eye of it. If I stay close enough to you, I may avoid being swept up in the chaos you spin around you.
Anxiety is a worm that eats through my bones, constantly there, reminding me that all is not well one bite at a time.
I don’t want to make you more nervous, but in my experience, people don’t shut themselves away from the world because they are good. They do it because they are clever enough to realize that they are evil, and yet they still have enough compassion to try to shield the world from it.
Something tells me that even pain of death wouldn’t have been enough to keep you from reading books.
I can relate...
And I will hold onto you, Ilsaletta. I won’t let you face it alone. I will walk with you and though I may not touch you, my arms will shield you, and though I cannot carry you, I will carry your burdens. Though I cannot feed you, I will not let you go hungry. Sick or well, dying or vibrant, destitute or rich, beautiful or withered, innocent or drenched in blood – I will cling to you and guard you, I will honor you and lift you up.
Every part of me wants to relent. All but one. That one part of me where duty is housed raises its walls and screams. It doesn’t matter what I want. It matters what I must. And I must not betray someone who trusted me.
Good people don’t always agree on the right course. Just because he is good doesn’t mean he’s on your side.
He thought she needed his loyalty. Good people are easy to use and manipulate because they expect good in others. It’s a flaw.
