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The lord cradled the golden goblet in his almost-trembling hands, swirling it gently by the stem as one might coax the aroma of a fine wine, summoning forth the scent of sin—not hers, but his own. His gaze lingered on the dried thread clinging to the curve of the goblet’s side from when it had kissed her arm, her very life spilling from the fresh cut in that moment of taking. Dark and thick, in these scarlet depths could he see no reflection; though if he could, he would see only the sunken face of a shell of a man staring back at him, waiting not with anticipation but disgust—and not for the blood.
Blood should be disgusting. Blood was foul, and never once a stranger to him. Not the blood on his own hands since his first kill at fourteen and all that followed, nor even the taste of his own—spilled in those days of roughhousing and training, when nosebleeds dripped copper into his mouth to later be washed down with a jug or two at the pub—bitter, the booze and the memories both. So what more from the girl, long since marred and malnourished, only to become even more so in that corner of dust, dirt, darkness and desolation?
Yet it was he who felt unclean as he was. Taking her blood, corrupting her flesh—soft underneath that roughness, pure and innocent deeper beneath her skin—with his filthy hands was one thing most despicable (though a deed he never followed through, never could stomach doing himself, instead leaving that burden to be borne by those two). Taking her blood to consume was yet another.
He claimed no right to keep what he had stolen from her, to carry any part of her grace within his wretched frame, and surely not to a feeble attempt to—what?—cleanse himself from within? He did not believe in God, nor in His angels or saints, nor was he sick—or sick enough?—to wish for such a miracle. But, oh, how he did long for one.
Long to be cured, long to be saved.
Long for her.
This was no holy rite. This was something more pitiful than a sinner seeking salvation—nothing more than a non-believer’s blasphemous worship of Her, a sinner’s godless yearning to consume her: primal, profane, pathetic.
If he tried, then he might be able to convince himself it was but a curiosity—or better yet, a punishment: a way to implicate himself at last in the responsibility he had been working so hard to disown. Even so, it would be the only time.
Come tomorrow, the sick and needy, who believed enough for the rest of them, would be betrayed in all their hopes to be healed—that the witch was but an ordinary girl. Yes, then he would have no use for her. So he would have to set her free. And she would want nothing more to do with him. But at least he would have known her—would have had her—even if for the shortest while. He might be able to live—if not die—with that.
…Or how goes the miracle he ought to have been hoping for. After all, he had never been of the faith, had never had faith.
The lord tasted her on his tongue, and she was as bitter as he had known her to be—dense of iron, yes, and much heavier of something beneath: tears left unwept, perhaps, doomed only to crawl out from her flesh through those raw gashes. Chilled by his restless wait, she was long cold as death, slipping past his teeth, but still she stung, sliding deeper down his throat—warm, and terribly so, as though it had only just left her veins; hot, even, as if hellfire burned him from within, the price of guilt. Long before it even reached far enough, his stomach had already been turning; he nearly retched before forcing it back down with a hard swallow, knowing well he could not let himself lose any more of her, down to the littlest drop. To reject her would be to deny his sin. To reject himself would be to waste his guilt.
And then, too swiftly than not, disgust gave way to desperation. As if already drunk on this wine of the body, he drank what remained of her through a grimace—slowly, yet at the same time, too quickly to savour her as much as he might have wished. Iron on his tongue, and gold to his lips. Before he knew it—and not that there was very much to begin with—the goblet had nothing left to offer him. From bowl to rim, to the ridges where that streak of dark red had once clung, all was wiped clean in a stroke of madness.
Clarity came with the echo of the goblet striking stone beside his feet—or perhaps it arrived a moment earlier, loosening his grip as it passed—leaving only a hint of madness latent, just as the taste of her lingered in his mouth, coating his sharpened teeth with a hunger unsated.
As he had become, the lord knew very well this was as close to her as he could be now—and never again.