Page 19 of Vows of Sacrifice

“When you put it that way, it sounds strange.”

My gaze met his. He was lighting that thing he called a cigar again.

“I’ll give you all the work you want, if it’ll make you smile like you just did,” he promised, before setting the cigar ablaze with a tiny splintered stick covered in sulfur that he struck against a stone.

“Is this your, uh, medication?”

“Yes, it’s a drug that clouds my mind and stops me from killing everyone I look at,” he said flatly, as if he were talking about the rain and shine.

“I . . . I see.”

A heavy silence fell between us as he drew a long puff of blue smoke.

“You have nothing to fear.”

“You’ve just told me that you absorb this . . . thing to avoid killing. That means you were feeling the urge to slaughter innocent people, right?” I snapped, cursing myself for trembling like a leaf.

Dovah didn’t answer immediately.

“Strangely enough, when I’m with you, I don’t really feel like ‘slaughtering innocents,’ as you put it. It’s just that . . . I don’t know. I live in constant fear of losing control, so I work on the principle that prevention is better than cure. That’s all there is to it.”

Is that all? That’s all, that’s all!

“If the smoke bothers you, I can step outside.”

I looked up at him again with the firm intention of scolding him, but something in his eyes stopped me. A kind of sincerity tinged with sadness. An immense weight on his soul.

“It doesn’t bother me that much,” I end up muttering, irritated.

Why was I incapable of being angry at this man? I should have hated him so vehemently! Yet I smiled stupidly at his jokes, even started to feel compassion for him. Compassion for the man who killed my father! Did he have magical powers? Had he bewitched me, just like those black drawings on his skin?

It wasn’t part of our culture in Muvaria. Magic. Sorcery. We had body healers and spiritual healers, but that was as far as it went. My father was against all those old beliefs, and I had grown up without them.

Just as I was about to grab an apple for dessert, he beat me to it.

“I’ll do it.”

I stared at him for a moment without saying a word.

“Are you trying to be gallant?”

A crooked smile curved the natural fold of his lips.

“Yes. It’s quite rare, so appreciate your good fortune.”

He pulled out a huge hunting knife to peel the apple. My eyes widened.

“Are you afraid the apple might revolt if the blade is smaller?”

“It’s only very sharp,” he laughed.

“Enough to slice a mountain bear into thin slices, yes, I imagine.”

He glanced at me briefly, still smiling.

“I don’t need a knife to kill a mountain bear. I don’t need any weapons, in fact.”

What could I say to that? I simply watched him peel the fruit with a skill that commanded respect. Were I to imitate him, I’d certainly have cut off several fingers. The meal ended on that note.

---