Shall we try?
Not the place.
I could feel myself rocking back and forth, though the numb fingers of madness had already sunk into my arms and legs. Snow began to fall around Winter’s form, each flake disappearing before it touched the ground. Her face, so different from mine, yet hauntingly familiar, was etched with an ancient sadness I’d never fully understood.
No, I thought desperately.Not here.
The madness that had nearly consumed me in that stone room lurked at the edges of my mind, waiting for a crack in my sanity to slip through.
One, I counted, trying to ground myself in the present, in my own skin, in my own life.
Three to die.
Winter’s hollow eyes, twin to my own, found mine, and I felt the weight of her centuries pressing against my temples. She wasn’t me, had never been me, but her pain echoed through my soul like it belonged there.
Two.
The temperature plunged, though the gods around me noticed nothing, too absorbed in their argument. My breath should have fogged in the air, but I couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t break Alastor’s command.
Three.
Winter’s lips moved, forming the words that haunted my dreams:He cannot save you.
The madness scratched at the back of my skull, whispering of past lives and future deaths, of endless cycles and inevitable ends. I clung to my count, to the present, to my own name.I am Paesha. Just Paesha. This life. This moment.
Four.
The sword materialized from the empty air, its blade gleaming like starlight before it plunged into her stomach. I felt the phantom pain, sharp and cold, even though I knew it wasn’t real.
Winter faded like morning frost, taking the snow and the sword with her. But the madness lingered, humming beneath my skin, waiting for another chance to pull me under.
The clash of powers continued around me, but I remained perfectly still in my chair, fighting the urge to scream. Notfrom the phantom wound, but from the certainty that one day, I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between Winter’s visits and my own fracturing mind.
Five.
Who was counting? Was it me?
Why were the walls bleeding? Where had the light gone?
Six.
Six.
Time lost all meaning in that void. Seconds stretched into eternities, and centuries passed in the space between heartbeats. I drifted, untethered, my sense of self eroding with each passing moment until I couldn’t remember my own name, my own face, my own life. There was only the darkness and the voices, taunting, mocking, promising oblivion.
And then, like a miracle, a sliver of light pierced the black. It was faint at first, a glow that I thought might be a trick of my fractured mind. But it grew steadily brighter, warmer, until it resolved into a beam of pure, golden sunlight. It washed over my face, gentle as a lover’s touch, and with it came a rush of sensation that jolted me back to myself.
I blinked, disoriented, as the world slowly came into focus around me. I was sitting on the floor, my back pressed against the cool stone wall, beside a large, arched window. My bedroom at Alastor’s. But I hadn’t felt the sun on my face. The warmth had come from the golden book clutched in my fingers.
I opened the clasp, no longer feeling like I was betraying myself by reading his words. Everything mattered in these moments. Every bit of knowledge. Every piece of information I could use to escape. But his words were not an escape. They were only a different prison with shinier bars.
Dear Paesha,
I’ve written this letter a thousand times in my mind, trying to find the words that might make you understand. But I am what I am, a god who has lived too long, loved too deeply, and lied too often. My truths come wrapped in thorns, much like my name. So let me bleed for you now.
You’re right to hate me. I’ve earned every ounce of your fury, every curse you’ve hurled at my name. But know this, every lie I told, every truth I buried, every bargain I struck was to keep you breathing. To keep your heart beating. To keep you in this world, even if it meant losing you in it.
The bands that bind you to Alastor should be mine. My sin to bear. But they are not unbreakable. Nothing in all the realms is truly eternal, not even the chains of gods. You once asked me why I chase you through lifetimes. The truth is, I don’t chase you at all. I follow. I follow you into death, into rebirth, into every new life because that’s what the soul does when it recognizes its other half.
