“Pyrre…” Ruc began.
I ignored him. My whole being was fixed on the priestess and the Nevariim strangling the life from her.
“You cannot have her.” I hurled the words before me like spears. “You cannot have her.”
Sinn smiled wide. Ela’s arms and legs, starved of air, started to jerk. The Nevariim turned to me, opened his mouth, and roared. The sound throbbed in my heart, my lungs, as though my organs were drums, as though my skin had been stretched tight over my frame for a single purpose: to tremble when it was beaten.
“No,” I said again, forcing myself to step forward, so close I could feel the heat radiating off of him. How was it possible a living thing could be so hot? My voice, when I found it again, was shredded to a whisper. “She is not yours.”
The Nevariim raised a fist.
Kem Anh’s growl stopped him. I glanced past Sinn to find her gliding forward, her eyes on me, curious, searching.
“I need her,” I said, speaking directly to the creature of my dreams. “She is my Witness.”
It couldn’t have made sense. No one raised outside of Rassambur would have understood the words. I didn’t even know if the Three were capable of speech. None of them had spoken since entering the clearing. It was madness, trying to explain, but my own death made me bold. I could hear my god, his million hands winnowing the air, his nimble fingers already at work in Ela’s failing flesh. My whole life Ananshael had watched me, guarded me. I wasn’t ready yet for him to take me, but knowing he was near annealed my will.
I put a hand against the chest of the Nevariim. It was like pressing against a wall of living stone.
He bared his teeth, but behind him Kem Anh growled again, louder this time, and finally, with a furious hiss, he tossed Ela’s twitching body to the dirt.
It took the priestess a dozen heartbeats or so to open her eyes. When she did, she looked momentarily confused, as though she’d never seen the delta before, or the sky, or the reeds. Then she focused on me, on my face, and smiled as she forced herself to her feet.
“Pyrre,” she said, shaking her head, “you can’t save me. I have been ready to die for a very long time.”
I stared at her, stared into those wide, joyful eyes, then leaned down to kiss her on the lips. Despite the pain, she raised a hand, taking me by the back of the head to pull me closer. When I finally pulled away, she was smiling, and I realized, to my shock, that I was smiling too.
“I’m not trying to save you,” I murmured, then drove the knife into her still-trembling flesh. “I’m finishing my Trial.”
Give to the god the one who makes your mind
And body sing with love
Who will not come again.
She doubled over the bronze blade, groaned, coughed a splatter of hot blood across my chest, raised a broken hand to her lips to wipe it away, then slowly straightened. For a moment I thought she intended to fight on somehow, despite the mortal wound. Then I saw her smile was still there, even brighter for the blood.
She put a hand on my cheek.
Her words were wet, ragged. “I didn’t know … it would work.”
I put an arm around her waist to hold her up. I was crying. The tears were hot as blood but leached of all sorrow. She was so light.
“Didn’t know what would work?”
“Kossal kept saying … I was too old.… You’d never … love…”
I stared at her, stared past her, through her eyes into the weeks we’d shared together in Dombang, the nights she’d insisted I stay up drinking, talking, that day on the deck in the rainstorm when I’d tried to kill her over and over and over while she laughed. I heard her whispering again in my ear: Love is like killing. You do it with every part of you, or not at all.
“You knew…” I managed weakly. “You knew it would be you, not Ruc.”
She shook her head. “Didn’t know … hoped.”
“You planned it.”
Blood seeped between her teeth as she smiled.
“Why?” I demanded.
“Thought you’d make a good priestess … Just needed you to stop … being so … serious all the time.”
Her eyes were vague, gazing at something far away, as I lowered her to the ground.
“Live…” she murmured.
“We’re about to die,” I protested.
“Live anyway … Live more … That’s the trick.”
Her face was beautiful even now, even flecked with blood, but her breath rattled in her throat. Each time she inhaled, she winced. “It hurts,” she whispered. “Sweet lord, it hurts.”
I brushed a smear of mud from her cheek.
“Not anymore,” I replied.
I cut her throat with the sacrificial knife. Blood gushed over the blade, flooded my hands, soaked the ground around me. Her body went gradually slack as the life drained out. It was impossible to say how much pain I had saved her—maybe only moments. It didn’t really matter. Her whole life she had been ready for its end. That’s what it is to serve the God of Death.
She was gone, utterly gone, but that didn’t matter either. Love is not something you can keep. It is something you do, every day, every moment, regardless of who is dying.
I smoothed the sweat-soaked hair back from her brow. Slowly, I straightened, wiped the blade on the leg of my pants, reclaimed my spear, then turned to face the Three.
“Seven,” I said quietly.
Their gazes were grave, ancient, inscrutable.
A few paces behind me, I could hear Ruc shift.
“What the fuck was that?” he demanded. The words were quiet, as though he didn’t have enough breath for the question.
“I’m a priestess of Ananshael,” I replied without turning to look at him.
Wind sifted the rushes.
“You’re a monster,” Ruc said finally.
I turned the statement over in my mind, tried to understand what it might mean.
“She was happy to go to her god.”
“No one is happy to die.”
“You’re wrong.”
Ruc stepped up beside me, put the blade of his sword against my cheek, turned me to face him.
“The only people who want to die are the ones who hate their lives.”
I shook my head. The bronze sliced my cheek. I didn’t mind. Ela’s voice sang in my ears.
“Notes or moments—you can’t hold on to them.”
“So that means you give up?”
His eyes were a deep, baffled green.
I leaned forward, kissed him full on the mouth. He didn’t resist.
“No,” I replied, when I finally pulled away. “It means you listen. It means you play.” I nodded toward Sinn, who watched us with venomous eyes. “Will you play with me, Ruc Lan Lac?”
“You’re insane,” he said for the second time that day.
Instead of replying, I gestured to the Nevariim once more. “You like to fight, Ruc. This is a good fight. A great fight. Will you fight it with me?”
He was silent a long time, then shook his head. “Kiss me one more time,” he said quietly.