Page 146 of Mother of Death and Dawn

But I couldn’t.

—and so many of your friends are dying here. The death has begun to weigh on you. You do not wish to hurt these people.

But you remember the rest, don’t you? The silver gaze of someone you thought loved you. How easily she betrayed you. The blood of thousands on your hands.

So easy. A single moment and so much changes.

* * *

I saw Tisaanah now.I was close enough to make out her silhouette, kneeling in the water. The wild stream of magic tore from between her cupped hands. It was so out of control that it stretched the stitches of the world that surrounded us. If she didn’t have help, and fast, it would burn her up.

I approached her, wincing as several more memories flooded my mind. She looked up at me. Her face was burned, the skin blistering at the tip of her nose and the curve of her cheeks.

I fell to my knees before her.

Crack.

You are at home. Drunk. You are gardening. You find it satisfying to clip away dead petals the way that you wish you could clip away the dead parts of yourself.

An old friend, lover, enemy arrives. She has brought someone with her. You turn around and see for the first time a young woman with spotted skin and mismatched eyes, wearing a ridiculous nightgown. You do not know it yet, but your whole life has now changed.

And changed again, with every secret you tell her.

And changed again, with every day that you fall a bit more in love with her.

We had tried to do this, or a much smaller version of it, at Klasto’s shop. Even that had hurt her. What if I did the same thing here? What if I couldn’t control what I offered her, and the force of it killed her?

It’s possible,a bodiless voice said, and I recognized it immediately as Kira.It would not be the first time you destroyed what you loved most.

But I looked up to the sky, and the tear in magic that stretched its length. If we didn’t control this, the resulting eruption of power would kill everyone here. And yet, I still hesitated.

Why are you afraid, Maxantarius?the voice asked, and this one… this one, for the first time, was myself.Do you hope that you might never see the moment when everything changed, the moment before meets after?

Perhaps such a moment is in the Arch Commandant’s office, with your blood on a contract.

Perhaps it is in the ashes of Sarlazai, with your lover in your arms.

Perhaps it is in the moment when you let yourself believe in a foreign stranger’s dream.

Or perhaps it is here, right now, in the choice that you make today.

A realization came to me, one that I had been grappling with for the last ten years. There was no single moment when everything changed. No single before and after. There was just… life. A million decisions and a million consequences.

All this time, I had thought I had been erased of my past. But I had been wearing it all over me, as permanent as the tattoos on my skin.

One final door remained in the back of my mind. One final barrier I could not break.

How much does a memory weigh?

Too much to carry alone.

Tisaanah looked into my eyes and took my hands.

CHAPTERFIFTY-THREE

AEFE

The condition of the ruins grew worse the further I fought. By the time I cut through the northern part of the city, I had to slow down just to make it through the broken stone. I was soaked in human blood and my own. None of my wounds, though, compared to the headache. My skull felt like it was shattering. I knew I was close.

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