Page 75 of The Book That Held Her Heart

“Mayland hid himself in the past. And me…I signed up to a code, not a code of honourper se, but one that was rigid enough to hold me up, keep me standing when nothing else would. Kerrol said I’d detached myself from emotion and fabricated disposable replacements. Also a form of madness according to him. But he’s the most lost of all of us, so what does he know?”

“It’s an odd conversation to be having here, and now.” Evar looked around. “But I suppose thisisa dead end, so maybe it’s appropriate after all.” He paused and looked at his brother, small and dark and deadly, as if seeing him for the first time in a long while. “Why aren’t you drunk too?”

“I was tipping mine on the floor when you weren’t looking.”

“But you let me drink…”

“Why didn’t you have the last one?” Starval asked. “Didn’t even so much as taste it.”

“I don’t know.” But Evar did. At some level, down where the thoughts that never surfaced swam, he had seen a truth and acted on it, all without properly acknowledging even the action, let alone its source. “Because something was wrong.”

“It’s good to see that my training wasn’t completely wasted on you. Who’s easier to kill than a child who hates you?”

“A warrior that trusts you.” Evar had given this answer many times before.

“And you thought that lesson was for the outside world that we would never reach, rather than for the four square miles that were our universe?”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you drink your third ale then? Why do I never turn my back on any of you?”

“I don’t understand.” Evar’s hand understood, though, and it went hunting the hilt of his knife. The weapon had been taken.

“I escaped into a code, Evar.” Starval magicked a large gold coin into his hand. “Mayland was the only one who understood that. Well, maybe Kerrol too. But Mayland was the one who used it.”

“I don’t understand.” Evar repeated the words like a shield against the truth.

“I’ve been paid to kill you.”

“But you don’t have to.”

“I’ve built myself around a transactional world view. It made my existence bearable. And now it’s part of me.” The hand without the coin held a knife.

Evar strangled a laugh. Starval was very far from joking. “You poisoned the last ale.”

“I did.”

“You could have stabbed me in the back before we even got to the tavern.”

“I wanted you to have a nice time first. You’d never had a proper meal. You missed out on a lot of things.”

“You could have stabbed me in the back when we entered this square.” Evar found himself in a strangely bifurcated state of mind. He could both believe what was happening, and at the same time be shocked, horrified, and saddened by it. Starval had always worn a mask. He’d not even lied about it. But Evar’s brain had always chosen to forget that fact as swiftly as it could. Starval was a nihilist to his bones, the sunny smile painted on.

Starval dropped the coin to the muddy cobbles. “The money means nothing. It’s a challenge token. And this…this is like a true believer being martyred for the faith or offering up their firstborn to a demanding god. That piece of gold is a question. It’s saying ‘Do you really believe that nothing matters? Or are you going to give the world a stick to beat you with? Are you going to open your door to every deed you’ve done, every life you’ve taken, and let them march into your heart with their pale faces andtheir accusations?’ Mayland wants you gone, brother. And he’s paid me to do it.”

“You could have stabbed me in the back,” Evar repeated, and with a deep breath he turned away from the knife. “But you couldn’t because we’re brothers.”

The knife hurt going in, but as the blood began to flood around the steel, betrayal was the deeper pain.

Life is full of moments where we get to choose the blue pill or the red pill. Only there’s no pill. And no choice.

Matrix Multiplication, by C. F. Gauss

Chapter 33

Livira

Livira and Carlotte followed the canith woman through the streets. Despite the earlier urgency in her voice, the canith led them at the calm and gentle pace of the innocent, as if they had no particular place to be.

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