Page 125 of Architecti
And it will stand long after we are gone.
Interitus, in an unusual bout of politeness, lets me step in front of the mirror first.
The Crowned Moth flutters from my shoulder, dancing around the mirror’s gilded frame.The surface ripples and shifts, flickering with an infinite number of futures, made bigger by the fact my moth dances with the mirror.Its starry wings flirt with the blanket of stars shimmering beneath the mirror’s surface.
A tower appears, I stand atop it, my hands twining with the stars, weaving possibility and futures.Tears fall down my cheeks.
I don’t understand.
My hands weave a tapestry of souls and civilisations, love and art and the most beautiful memories.But the longer I stare at myself, the more I realise I am not crying in sorrow.It is because I am burdened.Burdened by the weight of choice, of carrying so much free will.For every thread I weave and cut, there are an infinite number of others.It’s too much.My power lies not just in creation, but in the responsibility of that creation.
This is not the future I thought I had.
The mirage trembles.
Interitus has stepped into the mirror’s view.
I swear the tower I am standing on flickers, one moment I stand on it, the next I am trapped in it.But as soon as the vision appears, it’s gone.
Interitus laughs.“Such nonsense.Look.”She pushes me out of the way, and my fate dissolves.In its place, a ruined garden.Dead plants, a derelict castle.The stars I so carefully weaved fall from the sky like hail.
Interitus appears in the mirage, her wings are fully blackened.She smiles next to me, her teeth sharper than they were, I swear.
Every step she takes another path crumbles and dies.And she smiles harder.
It makes cold slip down my spine and into my wing tips.
“You have the gall to stand there and judge me,” she spits.
I huff at her.“You’re a destroyer.”
She snaps her head towards me.“And you’re naive.I am not destroying anything.I am not causing the end of things.Merely acknowledging them.”
“Not if you’re choosing to end them for the mortals.”
She snarls.“And you’re doing the same by providing a predestined future.You’re creating the illusion of free will but you’re no better than me, sister.”
“You’re deluded, I don’t choose for them, I give them possibilities to choose from.”
“AND THEY CHOOSE THEIR ENDING.”She shakes, but I realise too late it’s not fear or frustration.
It’s fury.I gasp as I scan along her outstretched arm.
“Interitus, what have you done?”
She tilts her head at her hand, which is buried deep inside the mirror.She grips the mirage between her clenched fingers.
“Be careful, you could?—”
Her smile cuts me off.It’s vicious, and toothy, and full of venom.
“I am so tired of your self-righteousness.I don’t want to be at war with you,” she says and slowly pulls her hand out of the mirror.
“And yet you fight with everyone.”
I realise my mistake a heartbeat too late.The rage starts in her eyebrow, one sharp arch that filters into her eyes.They grow cold and hard and dead.
It makes me swallow.
