Page 40 of Architecti
I can’t do it.
My muscles seize.
My vision spots.
I lean forward and hurl.Blood splatters the floor, making the same pattern so many before me have.
My nose ruptures, hot liquid rushing down and spilling onto my chin.
Ignatius flutters into my mind.
Then Aurelia.
Hatred, thick and oozing, seeps into my mind.It’s the fuel I need.Most people are driven by joy and positivity.
Fuck that.
Rage.
Hate.
Obsession.
I will break my contract, no matter what it takes.I grit my teeth and push up off my knees until I’m standing.I will face my judgement on my feet.
I grab hold of the blade buried in my chest and despite the searing pain, despite my jaw clenching so hard I crack a molar, I tear it from my chest.
A dark smile curls the corner of my mouth as I stare upon the thing Ignatius wants to take from me.
“You can’t have this piece, motherfucker,” I whisper.
It’s a beautiful thin strip.Both regal and divine, it shimmers and floats in the air.
Deep inside me, I am bleeding in a place where I cannot reach.I cannot stem the blood loss, and I cannot heal what I have harvested.
This must be what they meant when they said we wouldn’t leave here whole.Such a thin sliver for how gargantuan the chasm is inside me.It gapes like an angry, endless maw I’ll never be able to fill.
I’m about to slide my scythe back in my pocket when it shivers in my hand.It trembles harder, quicker, the hilt cracks and the blade extends until it’s no longer a scythe but a needle.
Whoa.
I thread my soul through the eye of the needle.It’s texture is soft, silken and delicate like a petal.The shadowy arms lunge for me.I grab them and stitch my soul inside the foundations of Finis.This is easier than the tearing.It hurts but it doesn’t hurt more than the raging heat in my gut or the aching emptiness that I can’t seem to catch hold of.The silvery shimmering thread nestles against the darkness of Finis like a star buried in the night sky.
None of it matters because I will do whatever it takes to win back my soul.
When I’m done, the ribbons of magic coalesce and form a sooty replica of the tower the academy is named after.
“You bleed like you’re already dead.I remember you,”it says.
The words aren’t uttered out loud, but not exactly in my mind either.It’s as though I think them, as though they are stitched inside me.
No.
It’s not inside me, I’m inside it—inside the campus itself.It’s alive?Sentient, I think.
“I’m not dying until I’m good and ready,” I say.
“Tell me your truth.”
