Page 231 of Mother of Death and Dawn

“Sentient?” Brayan’s brow furrowed. “As in it, what, talked?”

It sounded so fucking ridiculous out loud. “What I did in Sarlazai wasn’t me. Reshaye did that.”

He scoffed. “I knew you had some guilt, but—”

“Believe me or don’t,” I snapped. “You wanted the truth and I’m giving it to you. It wasn’t me. It acted with my body. But it wasn’t me. Before, I’d always managed to control it. But that day, when we were overrun in the city…”

Suddenly I was there again, soaked with blood and melted snow, my consciousness waning, Reshaye thrashing in my mind, and Nura—Nura looking at me like she had back then, her fingers caressing my temple seconds before she betrayed me.

And I didn’t even realize that I was talking anymore, but the words were pouring out of me.

“I never wanted to do that. I wanted to retreat. But when Reshaye took over, I lost control. I was conscious for every second of what it did to those people. With my magic. My hands. And then… then it was over and everyone was around me calling me a fucking war hero. Celebrating that.Youwere celebrating that.”

I drew in a breath and when I let it out, it trembled.

“That was why they discharged me. Because I’d killed thousands of Ascended-damned people, many of whom were my own. They discharged me because I was a fucking mess and I, being the— theidiotthat I was, just wanted to go home. I just wanted to hide and pretend that none of it had happened.”

A mistake. Such a mistake.

How many times had I thought about that in the years since? There were so many moments to regret, but I’d pinned most of them on that decision—the decision to return home, when Iknew, when I should have known—

I opened my mouth, but the rest of it, now, strangled me.

Brayan said, “And?”

So much came after that word.

And.

I barely felt Tisaanah’s hand clutching my arm, barely heard her murmur, “Max, you don’t need to—”

“I was so fucking angry at it. And it was possessive. I should have known that I wouldn’t be able to control it this time. My mind was—everything was rearranged. I couldn’t lie to it. I couldn’t lock it away.”

I was ten years in the past, staring at the bedspread, arguing with Reshaye in my head.

You’re a monster, I called it.

{If I am a monster, what does that make you?}

{You make me do this.}

“I wasso stupid. I made such a stupid mistake. But once I realized, it was too late. I couldn’t control it. It was angry at me and it wanted to—I don’t know what it wanted.”

{Now you have no one but me,}it had whispered to me, while Kira’s body burned.

Tisaanah held my arm so tightly that her fingers shook.

But I only looked at Brayan, not breathing. He didn’t move. His expression didn’t change.

“Clarify,” he said, the way he would command a soldier for a debrief.

“I—”

I had never once actually said the words out loud before. “It wasn’t rebels.” My voice was strangely choked. “It was me. It was me.”

“Reshaye,” Tisaanah said, quickly. “It was Reshaye. It was not you.”

But neither Brayan nor I seemed to hear her.

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