Ishtar growled out a string of curses that would have had me grinning any other day, but I didn't have it in me to smile. Hardt shook the metal knuckles, slick with blood, from his hands and reached out. I helped him up. I say that, but there was little I could do to help him. Sometimes it's the intent that counts far more than the effort. He made his way over to Ishtar. Hardt was our berserker and healer rolled into one and he could wound or mend as easily as each other, but he always preferred to help people where he could, rather than harm. I let him go and went a different way.
Silva's body, dressed in her white robes under leather armour, lay where I left her. I approached slowly, dragging my left foot and bracing myself for the pain of seeing her face one last time. Cold closed around me in a way I hadn't felt for a long time; a cloying, freezing thing that tasted of despair. I don't think Ssserakis did it on purpose, I think the horror was trying to pull away from me, either to give me space or maybe just hide from my grief.
My shadowy blade had caused a wide wound in her chest and her robes were stained red. Her skin was pale, no real colour left to it. Even Silva's hair seemed less vibrant than it had just minutes ago. It felt like so much had happened since I killed her, but in truth it was no time at all. I knelt over the body of the woman I loved, and tears dripped from my chin onto her face. She was gone. Every bit of her. The way her eyes lit up when negotiating a deal. The frown that always crinkled her brow whenever I found the right spot as we made love. Her love of favours. Her love of her family. The kindness she showed to everyone, even those who didn't deserve it. All of her, gone.
I remember a story, a romantic fable I read once back as a child. I was devouring fantasies in the library when I should have been studying. The story was about a prince, handsome as they always are, as well as ferocious and charming. He fought his way across a battlefield to find the woman he loved. The prince challenged her captor, a Sourcerer with designs on his kingdom, and somehow overcame all odds and won the fight. But the Sourcerer was a petty man, and in his final moments he struck a killing blow on the prince. Hero and villain died together. The princess ran to her would be saviour, amidst all the carnage and cried for her lost love. The stories always have the prince and princess in love, true love, despite never having met before. The princess's tears fell on the prince, and miraculously he came back to life, all mention of the fatal wound forgotten. They lived happily ever after, as people often do in stories.
Those stories are nothing but lies. True love takes time, not serendipity. No amount of will and skill and luck can defeat a Sourcerer without magic of your own. And all the tears in the world can't bring the dead back to life. Even knowing this, I still wept for her. My true love.
"I'm sorry, Silva." The words tasted like lies.
Are you? She was a weakness in you. You cut that weakness free in return for a promise of power. Real power.
I shook my head, weary from exhaustion and grief. "Not now, Ssserakis." I couldn't take the horror's accusation, but I couldn't help but consider the possibility. Silva was dead, killed by my own hands, and in return, the Djinn had promised me Sources, and the knowledge of how to truly use the power they contained. I'd be lying if I said the promise of power didn't feed a hunger inside of me, but these days I wish I hadn't paid the price. It was too damned high.
Chapter 4
Collecting ourselves and treating our injuries took some time. We were, all of us, wounded. The Djinn grew bored with observing us, and vanished, the rocks that had formed its body falling to the floor of the amphitheatre and a gust of wind blowing past us all.
Hardt laboured at binding our injuries. I think the work took his mind off other things, but I could tell by the glances he kept sending my way that we had a conversation coming. There were so many things for us to talk about, so many of my secrets to air, I wasn't sure which one was eating away at him. He snapped the haft of a discarded spear and used it to form a crutch for Ishtar but warned her the ankle was broken and it would take time to heal, if it ever truly did. A Biomancer would have been able to help, but I doubted we'd be seeing either Josef or the Iron Legion again any time soon, and I knew no other Biomancers. Tamura's arm was reset, the bone making a sickening crunch as it snapped back into place. The old Aspect hissed in pain but didn't scream. I think I would have screamed. Hardt bound the arm in a makeshift sling formed by tearing a dead soldier's tunic.
Horralain was another matter entirely. The giant thug had some cuts and scrapes, but no serious physical injuries despite the beating we'd all taken. But the Iron Legion had trapped him in some sort of nightmarish prison, a use of Empamancy I had never heard of before. It certainly wasn't one they taught at the academy or I'm sure the bitch-whore, Lesray Alderson, would have tested its effects on me. His fear was a cloying miasma around him that I longed to devour. Ssserakis drank it in from a distance, and begged me to move closer, but I wouldn't. The temptation convinced me I might lose myself in the intoxication. When I asked if Ssserakis knew how to snap Horralain from his fear induced stupor, the horror only laughed and asked me why we would do that, when the big man was such a hearty meal.
Imiko moped, and I had not the will to draw her out from her melancholy. I could barely keep my own head above the waves of grief that threatened to drown me. Only the thought of the power I would attain, and the idea that Josef was still alive, kept me from succumbing. Only her little ringlet, Kazh, seemed to brighten her mood as the little beast wound its way between her legs and perched on her shoulder, feeding itself something it found within the sand. Even Ishtar, normally so irrepressible, seemed beaten, depressed. She didn't even bother to insult me. It's not surprising really, she had just lost her entire company, so many of her friends were dead. Career soldiers and mercenaries expect to lose their comrades, but I think the mark of a true leader is when they still feel the pain of it, no matter how many losses have passed by.
We made a camp of sorts, right there in the amphitheatre. Once Tamura's wits had returned to him, the old man set about pulling together a shelter made of cloth and spear hafts. How he managed it with a broken arm, I don't know, but I'd already long since stopped wondering at Tamura's many talents and odd abilities. I tried to help him as best I could, but I feel I only got in the way, especially when he said: The rain is wonderful when you are thirsty, but a nuisance when you wish to cook dinner. I didn't let him push me away. Much like Hardt's ministrations were keeping him busy, keeping him distracted, I needed the same. Anything to keep me from slinking back to the corpse of my lover. There were buildings nearby we could have moved to, some were ruins and others were dilapidated at best, but any of them would have provided some shelter from the wind and blistering cold. However, we couldn't leave Horralain, nor attempt to move him, and I wouldn't leave Silva's body. I wasn't ready to say goodbye.
Snow started to drift in, small flakes at first, but they settled all the same. The sphere had sheltered the arena from the weather, but now that it was gone, I knew the cold would soon turn even that place into a frigid ruin. I collected my Sources and placed them back in my snuff pouch, all except the Pyromancy Source. I turned it over and over in my hands, rubbing my thumb across every surface time and time again. It was a small Source, the size of grape, and smooth on all sides except one; that side was rough to the touch like unvarnished wood. I rubbed it again and again until I knew it's every curve and contour. I gripped it in my hand so tightly my bones protested and my palm bruised. I pressed it against my chest, and even picked open one of my wounds and pressed the Source against it until it was sticky with my blood. However, Josef had absorbed the Source from Neverthere, the ability seemed beyond me. Perhaps he really was the chosen one, fulfilling the Auguries. And I was once more just the deviant child holding him back from greatness. Eventually, I popped the Source in my mouth and forced it down. It was too soon, really. Only hours since I suffered from late stage Source rejection, and I had neither rested nor recovered, but I needed the warmth. I needed the fire inside to chase away all the icy pain.