The Broken Pieces(39)

Valessa bit back her retort. She eyed the boat, thinking of what had happened the last time she tried crossing a river. The water had torn at her being, tried to sweep her along without any true form. Her body had shifted and changed with the current, incredibly painful and beyond disorientating. But if she were careful, she could stay within the boat, though she wondered how long until the thing sprung a leak, and down to the bottom of the Gihon they went.

Slowly, carefully, she lowered a foot into the boat, followed by the other. She pulled out the lone oar as Brute untied the boat.

“Why?” she asked him.

Brute shrugged.

“No matter what he says, he’s not supposed to die here. Elsewhere, perhaps, and at a later time, but not here. Not when he’s got no chance to change anything. Row as fast as you can. He’ll wake in a few hours. I suppose we’ll all be dead by then.”

The boat shuddered once as it drifted out into the heavier current. Valessa guided it with the oar best she could. Her experience with them was limited, but she was strong, and that helped immensely.

“He’s almost here,” Valessa shouted to them as the Blood Tower started to drift further and further away. “Don’t let him know you’re afraid, and don’t you dare bow your knee.”

“We won’t,” Brute shouted back.

He and the others turned their backs to her, and just like that, they were alone on the river, drifting south in a sudden calm that felt almost threatening. Valessa looked to the sleeping Darius in the center of the boat. A sensation came over her, like a tightening of her focus. If she still had a body, it would have been akin to the speeding up of her heart.

Darius lay alone, unguarded, and without his sword in his hand.

Dropping the oar, she picked up the blade by the hilt. It had once been consumed with the dark fire of Karak, a cleansing flame to burn away the weakness and filth of the world. It had been replaced with the holy light of Ashhur, pushing away the shadows, revealing the ugly nakedness of man. But now it was neither, just a heavy hunk of metal with one side sharper than the other.

The tip hovered a foot above his neck. Over and over she imagined plunging it into his flesh, slamming it down with a primal cry of torment and fury. Just like that, his life would be over. The red star would shine no more in the sky. In her hands, she thought, the blade was in her hands. All she had to do was use it.

The boat drifted on. The Blood Tower looked like a child’s toy in the distance, just a tiny thing illuminated with torches no bigger than the light of the fireflies.

“Why?” she asked aloud as she sat down beside him. “Why do I let you live?”

She had to know. The blade rested atop his chest, the hilt still in her hands. A hard shove, and it would slide upward, through the lower half of his jaw and into his brain. But not until she knew why she felt such a terrible impulse to spare him. She would not act against it, not in ignorance. She did not love him. That was easy to discount. She wasn’t even sure she cared much for him. But something about being in his presence comforted her. She wanted to hear him speak to her, even if she had nothing to say back. His arguments for Ashhur were uneducated and shallow. But he’d turned anyway.

He was a man who had endured similar turmoil, who had even knelt at the foot of the prophet, Velixar, and yet through all that he’d emerged whole, sane, and relatively happy. It was a future she could not see for herself in any way. Was that what she thought he offered her? But that was a happiness she could not take.

Could she?

She remembered when she and Cyric fled from Darius’s glowing blade at Willshire. Valessa had been threads of shadow barely held together by magic she did not understand. Cyric had towered above her, condemning her. Every bit of hate in his eyes had shone clear, and still she’d seen the love of Karak surrounding him, blessing him. What had happened to her god? She’d cursed Karak then, swore against him. Was that the same god Darius had turned against? Did she really want to find peace and redemption through Darius’s blood bleeding out of his neck and onto her hands, forever staining them the same shade of red as the star that shone above him?

“Stop it,” she said, standing. The motion rocked the boat, and she fought for balance as she lifted the blade high and screamed out again. “No doubt! I am faithful, I am faithful, I am…”

Tears of silver and tears of blood ran down her face, the only liquid seemingly capable of touching her ethereal flesh. They fell upon Darius’s armor with soft plinks, like rain. She knew her purpose. She knew her place. Was it not to kill the mad priest Cyric? It wasn’t Karak’s love she’d seen about him. It was hatred. It had to be. He was blaspheming, he was evil, horrible. He condemned her, called her unfinished. Doubt was killing her. Doubt was destroying her. She was faithful, she’d always been faithful. Ever since she was a child old enough to speak words, she’d knelt before Karak and called him lord. He wouldn’t abandon her. She couldn’t abandon him. Faithful, faithful, Karak help her, she was faithful…