Page 97 of House of Dusk
“How did it start?” she asked.
He frowned at the porridge. “Well, in the beginning the world was tumult and void, and Chaos ruled all.”
She rolled her eyes. “I meant collecting the marks.”
“Ah.” He took a spoonful of the oats. “Are you sure? Did you know that in the Bassaran tellings, Chaos births five children, not four? But the first is wicked and selfish, and devours his younger siblings rather than share creation with them. They escape—messily, I imagine—and cast the firstborn into the abyss for all eternity.”
Sephre waited. His humor melted away, leaving only a tense jaw, eyes that fixed on the middle distance.
“About four years ago,” he said. “My brother was living in Helissa. We had word he was sick. By the time I reached the city, he was already gone. His wife was ailing, too, and Gaia was only five, so I stood the tomb vigil alone. That’s when it happened. When he...came back.”
A cloud passed over the sun, the shadow making her shiver.
“At first I thought it was a miracle. Or a mistake. The physicians were wrong. He hadn’t been dead, only asleep. He even knew my name. But it wasn’t him.” Nilos grimaced as he spoke, as if the words were rancid.
“A skotos,” said Sephre.
“He said I was marked. He touched me, grabbed my arm, and—” Nilos paused, setting his bowl down. He tugged up his left sleeve to reveal a familiar seven-sided ring.
“And then?”
“And then he tried very hard to kill me. It was probably a good thing I didn’t know how to fight back then.” He gave a bitter laugh. “I couldn’t think of anything better to do, except to toss my lamp in his face. Not quite as effective as the holy flame, but it works, in a pinch. He burned to ash. I killed him.”
She managed to keep her voice steady. “It wasn’t your brother.”
“I know,” said Nilos. “I know, but it doesn’t...” He broke off, shaking his head.
Her heartbeat thrummed in her ears. She gripped her bowl, knuckles pale. “It doesn’t make you feel any less guilty. I...understand.”
He met her gaze for a long moment, then nodded.
“So, that was that,” he said. “I really did collect stories, at first. Legends of the skotoi, of the Serpent. It was only later I learned how to find others like me. The first mark I took was from a little girl, in a fishing village on the southern coast. I was a blundering fool, and nearly got myself gutted and smoked by her family. But with each mark I understood more. I learned tricks to make it easier, like the dreamfast.”
“But why you?” Sephre asked. “What made you so special?”
He laughed. “We all want to think that we’re special, don’t we? That the Fates chose us for something great?” He shook his head. “It’s why so many soothsayers can make their living telling people that they’re this or that hero reborn. But we’re just mortals, Sephre. All we can do is to act based on what we know. What the world gives us. If I hadn’t been so curious, if I hadn’t started looking for answers, maybe none of this would have happened. Maybe someone else would be here in my place. Sometimes I wish...”
She held her tongue, waiting. But he swallowed whatever he’d been about to say, and continued, “There were others before me. I found records, most of them useless, but enough to scrape together an understanding of what the mark meant. There was a scribe in Tarkent accused of a series of murders, thirty years back, who claimed it was the work of demons and that she had been trying to save the victims by cleansing them of the Serpent’s mark. She was executed,” he added, grimly. “I knew that might be my fate, as well.”
“But you didn’t let it stop you. You became a traveling crusader. I ran away,” she said, bleakly. And she’d once been so convinced he was a villain. “Do you know what I did? Before I came to Stara Bron?”
“Do you want to tell me?”
The question took her by surprise. That he was giving her a choice. Her past had never felt like a choice. “I poked my nose into your life,” she countered. “Spied on your family.”
He regarded her steadily. “Maybe you did run. I can’t judge that. All I know is that you didn’t stop caring. That you’re here now. Because you refuse to abandon the boy with the big ears and all the questions.”
“Timeus.” She set down her bowl, gripping her knees instead. “I thought if the flame accepted me, if I could just be good enough, it would...make things right. But it never will. Saving Timeus won’t balance some set of cosmic scales. It won’t change the fact that I killed my best friend. That I helped destroy a city.”
“No,” agreed Nilos.
She flinched. What had she expected? That he would argue with her?
“But you’re doing it anyway,” said Nilos. “You could have let your agia burn this all away. Forgotten the pain.”
Like the Maiden. Yet how could it be so wrong to remove pain and suffering?
She felt something building in her, an understanding, as if someone had been showing her bits and pieces of a horse—a hoof, a mane, an ear—but only now was she seeing how they formed a complete creature. Maybe there was a difference between the pains that were donetoyou and the ones you inflicted on yourself. The pain that was pure suffering, and the pain you could learn from.
