Page 60 of A Broken Promise

“So, besides the fact that you are thinking of murdering him, what else should I know of Florian Casteol?” I curiously asked.

“That you will probably get an STD just by standing too close to him.”

“Very funny,” I sarcastically said and stuck my tongue out.

She flipped me off with both of her fingers.

The never-endingbarren fields were now getting broken up by occasional cabins. Finally, we were approaching the village.

The tall grassy road turned into half-dried mud. The village was small, with just a few barely noticeable smoke streaks coming from the mud-covered chimneys.

A handful of young women passed in their patched up, worn-out cloaks, eyeing us with concern and interest.

I adjusted the crossbow on my back, my cloak covering most of it.

“This stench. Gods. Would it kill them to plant a flower or two or pick up this shit once in a while?” Priya cursed as she had to dodge, yet again, another large pile of cow shit. I was too deep in my flooded memories to tell her that planting flowers or cleaning up shit would be the least of their concerns when they were simply trying to survive each day. It was easier to adjust to the smell of wet cow shit than to find the strength to clean it up.

I knew that because I too had to survive that.

Not that long ago, I was in a village just like this, covered in mud and shit, laying on the frozen ground, completely numb from pain. I was barely eighteen, kicked out without being paid yet again, with nowhere to go, no money to my name, and nobody. Not a single soul in the whole wide world to care. My mind drunken, blurred with grief, unable to cope with the loss of the only family I had ever had, loss of the future, loss of hope.

It was so oddly chilling to be back now, when I was well dressed, my belly full of food and my pockets full of coins. I was a different person now; my body strong, my mind, though scarred, craving life more than death.

But familiar notes of grief played within my soul as mud spatteredacross my winter boots. Yes, I was a different person, but that aching, soul crushing grief had never really gone away. It had torched my soul leaving just ashes in the previously flourishing Eden.

You don’t survive grief. You don’t overcome it. You get used to it. Just like you get used to the wet cow shit smell. One day, you just wake up not feeling it. Its mark had never left, you just have adjusted to it.

I pulled my brand-new cloak tighter, reminding myself that though I was broken, I was no longer floundering in an abyss of pain anymore.

My boots were splattered in dust and drips of nasty mud, but my feet were warm and cozy, the boots fulfilling their purpose, doing what they were meant to do. I kept my eyes on the mud below my feet.

What was my purpose, really? That question had nagged me for a while now, though I masterfully ignored it. When my energy was spent keeping haunted memories at bay, that thought consumed me.

Why was I here?

I was here to kill.

I killed before, and I would surely kill again. That didn’t bother me. It mattered to Priya for it to be specifically Bornean Miteno. In some way it probably mattered to me too.

But why was I here? Fate or no Fate.Why was I here?

What was my purpose?

The quiet numbness stirred in me, purring, calming the rising storm within.

My eyes trailed off the mud, up to the horizon. I halted. My mouth dried out completely as I saw the pile of dismembered, half-burned bodies thrown together in a heap.

I didn’t move. I wasn’t sure if I could. Even the tiny mosquitoes plastered on my forehead and neck stopped sucking my blood. The world paused for a minute, sorrow and anger flooding my thoughts, like pent-up water through a broken dam.

The charcoaled, clenched fingers and half-burned faces were forever frozen in agony, in their never-ending scream.

No, the world was silent in the moment, but I could hear them still. Just like I did years ago. Those soul wrenching screams.

The heap of bodies was cold, not even an ember of fire, yet I could still smell it; the human burnt hair, the burnt smell of blood and flesh. There were no ashes floating in the air, no smoke suffocating me, though my lungs burned.

Breathe. I needed to breathe. But how could I?

“You look pale,” Priya nonchalantly said as if she didn’t see those bodies. I didn’t reply. My eyes were unmovable from the lives forever lost. Gods, a couple of them must have been less than ten years old, their small, half-burnt feet now forever exposed to cold, never to run through the green fields again, never to laugh or to smile. The world darkened around me.

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