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It felt as if Thaisha were four years old again, hearing the story of how Azgra fell for the first time.
“When I was a girl,” Thaisha said, “I wanted so badly for the pariah blades to be talking swords. Like in the wonder-tales. They could kill a Shaper, so it just made sense that they’d be able to talk to me. But of course they can’t. It took me years to really accept that.”
“As someone who’s done both,” said Bolaire, “I’d say that between killing a god and entertaining a young girl, the god-killing’s the easy one.”
Hero. Of course.
On one of the bookshelves in the living room where they both sat, there was a ceramic bookend, shaped and painted to be a bust of Bolaire. When Thaisha noticed it earlier that day, Bolaire had smiled fondly and said that Shadia had made it. Thaisha looked at it again. Her heart squeezed. There was some number of hours she’d spent with Shadia. At some point, Bolaire’s tally of hours spent with Shadia would surpass hers. Maybe it had happened already.
“I know this is a lot to ask,” Thaisha said. “But the question I most wanted to ask the pariah blades was… not what it was like to kill a Shaper, but it was like right after. In those first moments of being free.”
Bolaire held his body perfectly still. Thaisha could see it now, the way the stillness started at the mask and moved downward. The only movement was the flicker of steam wafting up from the tea Thaisha had brewed and placed in his hand. “I wasn’t free, right after,” he said, very gently. “Killing Rauwyn was only the beginning of my abject servitude.”
Thaisha could have kicked herself. In her childhood dreams of talking to the pariah blades, they were always proud, loyal, self-assured, partners in adventure with their wielders. But when Bolaire had told her his story just now, he’d kept saying the word used.
If the pariah blades could have talked to her, she might not have liked what they would have had to say.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I keep comparing you to my family’s legend instead of letting you just… be.”
“It’s only natural you’d take an interest.” Bolaire took a sip of tea. “I do spend a lot of time around your children, after all.”
At first, Thaisha barely understood what he was saying. Then she caught sight of a protection charm at Hal’s window, one that Thjazi had put there, and she realized that Bolaire was using Thjazi logic. It seemed even hating the man didn’t make you immune to his brain worms. “Bolaire, my children are adults. They have been for years. If you were any kind of danger to them, they’d have figured that out by now. They’re nobody’s fools. And Hal! He may not have known your history, but he doesn’t keep anyone so dear as he keeps you if they’re not good to his kids.”
(Thaisha noticed the blue lights in his eye sockets flare when she said keep. It figured that an object might have some feelings about being kept.)
“You trust them,” Bolaire said slowly.
Thaisha smiled knowingly. “Exactly the way Thjazi didn’t? Yeah. I do.” She laughed softly. “Honestly? Trusting Alogar’s judgment about Julien felt harder than this.”
“The nature of my existence,” Bolaire said, “goes against your beliefs as a druid of the Old Path.”
“Does it?” Bolaire hadn’t traveled the journey with Occtis that she had; he didn’t know how far she’d come. Thaisha leaned across the table between them, laden with tea and playbills. “I hope it doesn’t happen. Believe me when I say that. But if your clay is ever shattered beyond what Azune can mend, I will lay your shards out on this table, and I will sing you to your next life. I don’t know if that path is open to you. But if it is, I will guide you there, and I will pray it takes you to a life more peaceful than the one you’ve lived.”
“The Old Path is for souls. I don’t think my creators gave me one of those.” Bolaire couldn’t cry in the mortal fashion, his tear tracks fired and painted in his clay, but Thaisha caught a quaver in his voice.
“Maybe not,” Thaisha said. “But I’m the expert on souls here.” Especially after having broken Occtis’s, she didn’t say. “And I think, just maybe, given time, you can shape one of those yourself.”