Page 68 of Children of Fallen Gods

Reshaye picked apart my anxieties as if unraveling a piece of embroidery.

{Why do you so fear what you are capable of?}it whispered, confused.

I’m not,I replied.I just believe we can be better. And it is easy to destroy.

It was a poor answer. Still, I felt it consider the thought.

The night before we arrived at the next city, I pulled Sammerin far enough away from camp that no one could hear us.

“If I lose control, tomorrow,” I told him, “do whatever you need to do to make sure I stop. Do you understand?”

Sammerin gave me a long, serious look, and nodded grimly. “I do.”

“Promise me, Sammerin.”

He put a firm hand on my shoulder. “I promise.” He made it sound like an unshakable truth, and I was grateful for it.

That would become a ritual before every attack. Before the crest of dawn, I would go to Sammerin, and ask him to make that promise one more time. And to his credit, he always did.

But he never needed to fulfill it.

I showed these cities exactly what I was capable of doing to them. My spectacles embodied the shattering of their greatest strengths. I collapsed the stone around the most fortified district, as if to whisper to them,I can tear your walls like paper. In the one sheltered by the sea, I roiled the waves until they were ten, twenty, fifty feet high, to show them,I could swallow you whole.I made mountains shudder and fields wither; I filled the sky with smoke and snarling eyes.

Upon every target, I unleashedhell.

Or at least, I appeared to.

Some of it was a facade. Zeryth gave Eslyn those vials before every fight, and each time, she would support me, drawing Stratagrams to bolster my magic and protecting me while I was distracted. I couldn’t have done any of it without her help, enhanced by the power Zeryth fed her. Each time, I came so close to the breaking point — the point where my skin and muscles and blood were burning, and Reshaye clawed for more power, a hair’s breadth away from breaking out of my control.

With each performance I would have to fight harder, dig deeper, sacrifice more of myself. Sometimes I would look down to see the ground itself withering to rot beneath my feet, as if death literally surrounded me. I would look at my arms and see the darkness crawling over my veins, spreading by the second.

Every time, I would have to cede more to Reshaye, and I would think,This is it. This is the one I fail.

But in the end, just when I thought it was over, our opponents would surrender.

The battles, though, were far from bloodless. Yes, there were dozens of corpses instead of hundreds; sometimes hundreds instead of thousands. But the armies still clashed. I became a target quickly, and when you’re a target, it is impossible to survive without killing.

I wished I could say that I remembered the faces of every person whose flesh rotted beneath my magic. But the truth was, they blended together quickly, struck down in panicked moments of barely-tethered control. Sometimes, those deaths were the only thing that kept Reshaye’s hunger at bay.

Still, I would dream of decaying faces.

For days, I would dream.

Reshaye grew more and more restless, and yet, it was also more withdrawn than ever. Our performances exhausted it so much that I would often go days without hearing it whisper. But at night, our dreams would tangle. I had the strangest, most vivid nightmares — dreams of blinding white and betrayal. I dreamed of Reshaye as I had seen it in the Mikov estate, in the deepest level of magic. And I dreamed that someone was reaching for me, and for reasons that I could not understand, that was the most terrifying thing of all.

The battles took their toll. I was careful to make sure that no one saw anything but strength, there or after, but as soon as I was alone in my room, I would collapse. The sickness was stronger every time. The deeper I dug, the higher the cost.

Nura would always be there, holding my hair back when I vomited or forcing water down my throat when I wasn’t. I never asked her to. Once, I croaked, barely conscious, “Why are you doing this?”

She’d given me a cold stare. “Would you rather I leave you here on your washroom floor?” she said, dryly. “Or would you prefer I call someone else to help wipe up your vomit?”

I’d had nothing to say to that. The truth was, I was too sick to be alone. And I didn’t want to letanyonesee me that way — not even Sammerin.

We never spoke of it again.

Between battles, I remained in Korvius. I attended Zeryth’s meetings, though they grew more frantic and less measured. His own carefully-cultivated performances were disintegrating. Sometimes, when we were in close proximity, my magic could feel something strange pulsing off of his — like a song that was off-key in a way I couldn’t pin. As time passed, the notes grew more sour. After one meeting when Zeryth could barely string a sentence together, I noticed that his wrist — the same arm where my curse was tattooed on his forearm — was bruised and swollen. He was always in the worst condition after our battles, although he himself never fought.

I thought of the vials he gave Eslyn before each battle, and concocted a weak theory.

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