Chapter Text
It is on the sixth day that he knows he will have to choose.
That time is slipping away from him, that its thread grows taut, it will snap, and he has to decide. He and Lissa have discussed nothing else for days, he has watched her face growing ever more tired, ever more lined with worry, until her eyes have become blank, half-dead.
They tread the same circles around and around, the same arguments go back and forth between them, the same words, the same sentiments. They cascade like water over a fall, swirl around each other and get caught in the same eddies again and again, and time passes.
He is exhausted by it, they are both exhausted. There are times when they have to just stop, there are times when the words dry up altogether and they share the misery of it then, the same hopeless feeling in both of them as they sit beside Soren’s bed and wipe the fever from his brow.
Then she will forgive him, the argument will be forgotten. Lissa has never been someone to hold a grudge, and she will take him in her arms and he buries himself in her, they bury their pain in each other.
They have been to this place before. Soren was a weak baby, he might have died then, and Viren could have accepted that, terrible as it would have been, because he didn’t know him then. He hadn’t had the pleasure of his smile, his first babbling words, the way his little fist would pull on his beard and he would drift drowsily from consciousness to slip off to sleep in his arms. His own son, a living embodiment of the love he feels for Lissa, the sweetest reflection of her.
Now they have had years of fear, years of dreading the sicknesses of winter, it’s cold grasp, the way a cough will turn to croup, the way the croup will turn into a battle for breath and he will lie sick with it for days, every minute a fight to survive.
There have been times before when Viren has come close to making a choice, when he and Lissa have wandered through the same maze of rationality and ideals that snakes itself away to emotion and anguish and love.
His wife is always the same, sad, implacable and fair. She accepts the lot of the world in a way that he simply can’t. Perhaps it is because she cannot change it, perhaps it is because he can.
It is the sixth day now though and Soren is worse than ever before, doctors have come and gone, always with the same sad shake of their heads. Time passes with the steady inevitable ticking of the clock.
“Viren...” There is the raw edge of desperation in her voice, as if she knows what choice he will make, that it has already been made before the motions are even put into place. As if she knows it will always be the same in the end. “We have to leave it to fate, we have to accept this. If it’s his time to go, we have to let him, however painful it is.” He cannot meet her eyes, it is almost unbearable to look into them. “This magic… this magic is too much. You know it, it will change us, I think it will break us. It will break you.”
She knows him better than anyone, knows the things that gnaw away in him, the things he has to fight to conquer, there are times he thinks it’s only her that makes him strong enough to win.
The rain splatters in its ceaseless path against the windows, the room is grey and cold and the fire gives no warmth. He stares into the dead light of its orange flames, watches their shapes flicker and change.
“It won’t change me. Even if it does it’s a price I’m willing to pay. I have to, for Soren. It’s one thing, I can do this one thing… and then… it will be all right Lissa, I’ll make everything alright.” He says it with conviction, but the uncertainty flares in him, this path is fraught with danger.
She takes his hand, holds it in her own, strokes her fingers along the lines of his veins. Her hands are so warm, she is every warm thing to him and he watches her blink back her tears, feels the itch of his own behind his eyes.
“And what of the next thing Viren? What if Claudia gets sick, or I get sick? What if the King comes to you with a problem only you can fix? What will you do then?”
He shivers, and her arm goes around his shoulder. He cannot think of the next thing though, only of this thing, only of their son lying sick. Dying. Nothing that medicine can fix.
He is a man who skirts boundaries, he knows this about himself, he has learnt these skills form a master of them and he has chosen his own path through them and there are twists in it and turns but he will only ever take them for good reasons. He will only ever choose what is right, but some choices, this choice, blurs in front of him, becomes impossible to see.
“He will die Lissa, he is our son and he will die. I cannot… you can’t ask me to stand back and do nothing.”
He knows that the wreck of losing Soren will be total, that there will be nothing but splinters left and the rage of the sea will dissolve them, it will strip the flesh from their bones.
“I know, I do understand Viren, death is terrible, it will be awful, I won’t be able to bear it either, but still it is a part of life. It is part of nature and this is not, you will go against the fabric of life and it won’t ever be the same. I think it will lead you somewhere very dark. There is… you know that place is in you don’t you?”
She strokes slowly at his cheek. She knows these places in him, has seen him left bare, she covers them with love.
It is simply a matter of will though. He has been strong, he has survived. Now is not the time to think about himself.
The rivers of death are ever there, they sweep away empires with famine and disease, they roil red and dark and rank across the land. They live in a world of death, but this death, Soren’s death will be out of its natural time. There is a way to avoid it, a way that has been given to him. Why would it exist otherwise?
Soren should live to grow up, strong and smart and beautiful like his mother. He simply can’t imagine his small bones lying in the earth mouldering away to nothing while they live on.
“Lissa… please, you have to let me try.”
He wants to pull away from her, but it is impossible for him. He wants her love, he wants the love of their son. The world can be harsh and there is never really enough love in it.
“Viren you know what I’m asking you, I’m asking you to choose me. I love you. I know it doesn’t seem fair to have to make a choice like this. I wish you could see, I already chose you. It’s the hardest choice I could ever make, but it will always be you, you’re the man I love and I will help you survive this.”
Her words beat against his heart. There is no time.
There is a part of him that understands, that knows he doesn’t really deserve a love so complete and unreserved, she is every good thing he could ever imagine and yet still she is asking him to choose.
Either way they are broken.
She is asking him to abandon their little boy, the son who brings out all the best things in him. The child he carries wrapped in his arms to bed every night, who sits listening with his little sister to his wild stories of dragons and magic. The son who crawls into the warm space in the bed between himself and Lissa when dawn is just a crack behind the shutters and who falls back to sleep on his chest. That is the warm place in him that will turn to ice without him.
He cannot bear the thought of a world that doesn’t contain the sweet open nature of him, the look of perfect trust in his blue eyes as if he could never let him down. There is no other person in the world who looks at him with such unbeguiled belief and he cannot betray him. He feels that it would break a part of himself that he could never mend.
It is impossible.
He stands up and walks to the window, leans his face against the pane as the rain rolls down, the drops mingling slowly together. Katolis stretches out before him, the narrow streets busy with people going about their daily lives. They seem to have no cares or worries, no decisions to make and he has the greatest of them all.
It is a strange thing to hold the power of life and death in your hands, without that there would be no choice to make, the world would turn and fate would decide everything. Perhaps that would be better.
She walks over to him, puts her hand on his neck. He doesn’t want to feel it, it only makes the choosing harder.
She is right beside him, so far away, and he shuts his eyes to it all.