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“You are with me, then?” Leonar asks, the same abhorrent, abysmal question, the same sombre solemnity to his tone as always. Denam does not know how many times he has heard these words and still they send a shiver straight through him, sharp, sickening. “It is the only way. The future of our people depends on it!”
“Stop this madness! What virtue can there be in taking innocent lives!?”
“You are yet young…your heart is pristine, though I daresay your hands have seen their share of bloodshed,” he scoffs, drawing closer. “All that is required of you is to plunge those hands deeper. Bloody them not for survival, but for your cause. If you cannot do that, you do not belong in this battle!”
Denam darts backwards, scarcely avoiding the blunt side of the blade being swung towards him by sinking swiftly onto the slick stones at his back. Leonar looks surprised by this seemingly new-found dexterity – he could not know it to be rooted in the repeat after repeat of this encounter. The first few dozen times he cut clean Denam’s sleeve; the resulting wound was always slow to heal, bound on the bend of his elbow as it was, ever-eager to reopen at the earliest opportunity.
The door, now. He knows where to look, immediately catches Vyce’s eye – does he seem any different? Are his eyes set in a glare or a gaze? He cannot tell for a moment, though it is very quickly made clear to him in the stillness of his childhood friend, in the stalling, in the stopping short: no, he is no different. Denam’s fingers curl around the card kept safe in the cloth of his gloves. What good does it do to stay any longer? Might he not leave before the worst of it? Has he not played his part in this pantomime more than enough?
He shakes his head to himself, banishing these wilfully weak wants: each time he returns to this point is a new turning of the Wheel – what is to say this one will follow the tracks of its predecessors? Has he always held such little faith?
Catiua has crossed to him in the time he has wasted on such thoughts. “Denam! Denam, are you alright? Vyce, with us, quickly!” Her hands feel for fresh injuries along his arms and soon come to a halt, finding none. “Vyce?” Has she noticed, too? “What are you waiting – no!”
“Kill them, Vyce.” Leonar’s fatal order. What way will the scales tip? “All three of them!”
“What good are kinsmen who won’t lift arms for our cause?” Denam’s heart sinks as he scrambles backwards – no, no, no good, no good at all, not this time either. “I’ll tell you: they’re as good as dead. If it’s retribution you fear, fear not – they’ll all be in their graves, thanking you for martyring them!”
I will fear no retribution, Denam thinks. I will fear nothing more than this.
He closes his eyes, fingers folding into a firm fist around the card, and focuses only on what he can feel: the cotton of his glove hanging heavy around his wrist, sodden and saturated, the cool of the rain-soaked cloth made clammy with the heat of his hand; the edges of his card digging deep into his palm, bent and bloodied, the shine of the filigree-filled paper grown grey with the friction of his fighting. He has kept this card hidden here since his going from Golyat. It was his mother’s once, some many years ago. A childish thing to carry about – he can see Vyce chastising him for it, in another life – but it is a fitting symbol nonetheless, the Wheel, saviour of the sorrowful.
Denam in truth does not quite understand what strange forces form its innermost workings, nor does he care – all he knows is that when he clutches the card so and thinks on nothing more than its soft shape in his hand, he can move himself to another time, another place, his mind and memories untouched. He has seen more than any should ever see. He has lived half his lifetime more than what his body would show. He has gained more than he deserves and has done his best to see these gains used for the benefit of all.
So once – just once – might he not seek the gain of Vyce’s heart, without losing his own?
A faint chime sounds, drowning all other noise; in the next instant he is surrounded by a wavering warmth, the air around him shifting unsteadily, barely a breeze. He feels no weight save for that of the card in his fist. How strange a sensation, to swim in nothingness, and he so averse to the water. He listens carefully for the silence to give way to the same strong rain from a moment ago before opening his eyes: Balmamusa again, and Leonar before him. Vyce’s voice from within. He has gone back far enough – he must thank the gods for small blessings.
“You are with me, then?” The question draws his attention to the present – this present, that is – and he braces himself for the answer he knows he must give. “It is the only way. The future of our people depends on it!”
He will assent this time. “I see what must be done,” he says. “I will bloody my hands.”
“Do not worry. We will not let their sacrifice be in vain.”
The door, again. He does not look up to meet the galled gazes of those who step out into the storm, for knows each by the sound of their feet alone: it is, he knows, Ravness who leads, Vyce harrying her heels, almost toppling her in his rush to his side; Catiua, uncharacteristically quiet, remains by the doorway. He stares at his boots. His cheeks flush with shame. This is not the choice he would make here. It is not the choice he made the first time he came here. He would fall on his sword before raising it in Ronwey’s name.
But it is not him who will fall on his sword if he refuses this order – it is Vyce.
The very one calls to him. “Denam, are you mad? You’re going to go along with this!?”
“The duke gave such an order, Leonar?” Ravness, here. “And you would carry it out?”
“Open your eyes,” Denam mutters, squeezing his own shut, shying away from Vyce’s searching stare. Perhaps he will recognise his reticence in the matter this time – perhaps he will remain with him. “We cannot win if we are unwilling to dirty our hands.”
“Ours is to follow orders. I swore an oath before the duke. Before the realm.” Leonar, this time, diligent and dutiful as ever. Does he know, Denam wonders, how such diligence and duty will be repaid?
“Listen to you!” Vyce shouts, shoving at Denam’s chest, sending him stumbling back onto trampled grass that squeaks and squelches beneath his weight. “If I closed my eyes, I’d think I spoke with a Galgastani!”
No, no…isn’t this what he wanted? Isn’t this what he sought to do? To have the Walister live as men, no matter the cost? Ravness and Leonar fade into the background as Denam’s heart hammers haphazardly against his ribs, a dull pain radiating from that last point of contact, lonely now for the heel of Vyce’s harsh hand. He would take his touch even if only in violence, but even that may be too much to ask for now – oh, the shame of it all, to say he would stain his shield with unblemished blood. He may well be sick where he stands.
Dare he steal a glance?
He does – a peak, nothing more, and even that too much, gods, oh gods, how hateful, how horrid to see those hazel eyes stare at him with such confusion and contempt, as if at a stranger, a sick stranger. Does Vyce not know him better? And in his eyes – what must he be in his eyes? – and in his eyes such terror, such turmoil. How many times must he be made to see those eyes look on him him so? What kind of curse is it that allows him mastery over the Wheel in all manners besides this? He truly may be sick. Does Vyce not know that he would never do such a thing unless he had no other choice? He has seen this scene so many times and feels himself the fool for continuing to hope that the Wheel’s turn will ever be anything other than a wretched repeat of the same and the same and the same. It is his heart here or Vyce’s. They cannot keep them both.
Is it not the better kindness, then, to offer up his own?