Page 63 of A Broken Promise

Though my eyes were heavy, my soul was weary.

I watched the small golden and red embers of fire of the giant stove slowly wither away with each breath, the only color now left in the dreary, dark room. The cold draft of wind from the large gap beneath the front door embraced me, taking away the last chance of settling my rancid mind down.

Have a better life. Tuluma’s dying wish for me.Mypromise to her.

Was it a better life now?

Have I been surviving for so long that a part of me forgot what I was living for?

The small, half-burnt feet flashed in front of my eyes with each blink.

Maybe I was just a piece of dust, a little speck of nothing, useless and foolish with nothing to offer, but if we all were to die in the end, I would rather die knowing I stood up for something good, than wasting my entire life wishing I had.

32

Iwiped my knife clean against his limp shoulder. Blood soaked his black linen shirt. Knife to the heart. Quick and easy. I had gotten much better at aiming and my draw to action speed had increased significantly. Though each time, it still surprised me how human flesh, usually so resilient, was nothing against the sharpness of a blade.

“You never said that he was a SulnGod priest,” Priya said from the adjoining room of the small house-turned-church. She was finishing up her carving of the letter S on the dead priest’s wife.

Bornea Miteno didn’t have a chance to run as I shot him with a crossbow arrow the moment he opened his door. I had no speech for him, nothing to say to his familiar face.

Just pure justice. Maybe not even justice, considering I was still alive, and he was not. His dead body now left forever to rot.

Karma was a bitch.

“I never took you for a religious one,” I shouted back to Priya. She laughed.

Miteno was a priest, but he and his wife were more rotten than the demons of Hell itself.

It was easy to find him once we got to the village. His woodenchurch with a brick step was the only building with the circle at the peak. Worshipers of SulnGod.

He didn’t even recognize me. But then again, I didn’t give him a chance.

The whole day walking down here, to this village, I thought about what was I going to say to him. Would I ask him why? But the truth was I stopped caring about why a long time ago.

So, when I saw his face, I dove into the familiar numbness. Shot, punch, slice. His wife only had a chance to scream once before Priya claimed her life as well.

“I am just curious, why him though?” she shouted back from the room.

“He sold me into slavery. He took me in at my lowest, I opened up to him, trusted him, and then when I questioned him about receiving wages, he sold me off.” I sheathed the knife. My face filled with revulsion as I took another look at Miteno’s body. Even now, the deep wrinkles on his face made him look so comforting and welcoming. A wolf hiding in sheep’s skin. No more.

“Remind me to never sell you into slavery.” Priya’s laugh echoed as she came out from the room, but I didn’t share the sentiment. I should have felt relief, victory. I made it out of slavery, despite the odds, and came back to take his life. A sweet revenge. But there were no celebrations held, because deep inside, a part of me was just as lost as the day I showed up on Miteno’s porch asking for work and shelter.

“We should’ve buried them,” I finally said, verbalizing the thought that had been truly on my mind all day.

“What?” Priya asked, confused, going through their drawers and shaking out the books in search of her trophy.

“We should’ve buried those bodies.” I paused. “Those Rebel sympathizers,” I clarified.

“Oh hell, Freckles, is that why you’ve been so quiet today? It’s a pile of dead bodies. Above the ground, under the ground, they will all rot and turn into dirt eventually.”

I should’ve buried them.I should’ve, but I didn’t. It took all my strength to just glance one more time at the frozen, tangled arms andlegs, hands and feet exposed forever to the elements, and walk away. I had a million valid reasons not to bury them. I didn’t know them, I could’ve been easily killed for helping Rebel sympathizers, plus the ground was frozen rock solid by the morning, and hell, I didn’t even have a shovel.

But valid reasons don’t clear up a guilty conscious.

I should have clawed the frozen ground with my bare hands, ripping my nails apart. I should have buried them.

Should have.

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