"Niceness isn't so bad, considering the alternative at home is burning at a stake," she agrees. "I just can't get past the thought of being seen as some kind of monster. I don't know maybe that's stupid of me, with all the people we've got here. And Bill."
She blows on his wet toes. "Who else is okay in the new group? Jedao seems cool if we both like him. Anyone else?"
"It is not a stupid thing to fear, one of those signs that you are not a monster." He's firm on that point, at least. He knows plenty of monsters. "Is Bill the triangle demon? He is less irritating than some." Probably not something people say about Bill a lot but he has different standards for demons.
He shrugs. "I believe Jedao's warden is also new. There is also another god-touched boy." He doesn't know if either of them are 'okay' but he also doesn't know who's new, really.
"God-touched?" He's told her what that means, or what it means in vague terms, but she watches him with her eyebrows raised. "What makes you say that?"
"Huh, I haven't met anyone like that. Is he nice?" She has so little time for people who aren't. (That people would say Horseriver is not 'nice' would astonish her.)
He half-shrugs, his definition of 'nice' wouldn't be particularly complimentary and he's sure he doesn't know what hers is. "He has been used by the gods, it does not seem to have made him cruel." He smiles slightly. "I have met many young men who would refuse to claim such a word, most of them were fools so I suppose that is one test."
"No, but it means a hard path, none who walk such roads come out unchanged. Sometimes it opens one to a new understanding, sometimes it is a wall, sometimes it is the destruction of all that was once worthy of merit. Sometimes it leaves them mad. This is true whether one has followed the purpose of the gods or gone through war or torture or any of a thousand different types of suffering."
"How do you know if you're being used?" She asks, not looking at him, not looking at his toes, but rather at the first day she became a wolf, and all the death and fire and torture that has come from it.
Horseriver doesn't touch easily. In part it's the disconnect between his mind and body, in part it's just his general reserve and sardonic distance from others. So there's more weight than just his hand when he rests it on her shoulder a moment. "Those who are tools of the gods may never know or might see in the ending as they realize the shape of the purpose they have given so much to. Yet, life is often simply hard and cruel, empty of any purpose but that you can see with unchanged eyes. For the ones who lives, there is no great difference, the pain is the same."
"The hunt is done, I am now subject to the grasp of a different god." He is free of his gods, but he's not free. And not just because of the Admiral. "There are some curses that cannot be undone, even when complete."
"Curses aren't a thing in my world, I don't think." Unless being a wolf is the result of a curse. But if it is, it's the best thing that's ever happened to her anyway.
"Can you tell me?" All of it, she means, but leaves it open-ended for whatever he will share.
"They are not...frequent, not usually to great extent." Small curses are different. "The curse that kept me chained to existence, it is broken now but that does not change what my soul has become, does not remove all that has happened. I will not give my soul to the gods who let such a thing happen, I just wanted an end."
"What is your soul now?" She has never believed in such things, even on the barge. But with him, it's impossible to deny that they are real, even if just in his world.
"It's a corrupted thing, not even truly my own. It is the remains of all those whose souls were eaten by the curse, a mass of my dead, trapped ghosts that make what once might have been there less with every addition."
"The curse... Every time I 'died', my soul took over the body of my heir. First my sons and then their sons and then down through the long line. Sixteen generations of souls sacrificed unwillingly to mine." He ate his children, it doesn't matter that it hadn't been his will either, he knows what type of monster it has made him.
"That's horrible," she says, softly, scarcely forming the words. She's not horrified of him, but rather for the sort of weight that must put on him. Her hand rests on his, though she can't tell if he even remembers it's there.
Which makes more sense now. She knows full well that some losses don't ever heal, don't ever even get numb.
He's too lost in the past to notice, even as he gives her his most ironic smile (the distance it offers might only be an illusion but it's one he holds to).
"It was to be a salvation. Our lands had been invaded, my people killed as they tried to destroy all that we were. We begged the gods for help but they turned away, prayers left unanswered. A spell was to be worked, one that would allow us to fight, immortal, against our enemy. A great ritual, three days and nights we worked and sang, I stood at the center as king and anchor. But they came upon us before the magic was complete, Audar and his men. They slaughter all who were there, warrior and camp follower alike. I feel that day, for the first time, and what was to be a spell twisted into a curse."
"You must hate the gods," she says, her voice still soft. What he describes is so large it's hard to even claim sympathy--that implies being able to understand it on some level. She's been desperate, she has done horrible things to try to save herself or her people, but she's never had it so thoroughly twisted back on her.
"Yes, I hate the gods and I spent four hundred years fighting their will. In the end, there is no victory over them but I could at least deprive them of their desire." The hatred had kept him going, in some ways, kept his mind together in focused rage as he saw everything lost. "Time is even crueler than the gods but it, at least, makes no promises."
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She blows on his wet toes. "Who else is okay in the new group? Jedao seems cool if we both like him. Anyone else?"
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He shrugs. "I believe Jedao's warden is also new. There is also another god-touched boy." He doesn't know if either of them are 'okay' but he also doesn't know who's new, really.
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"Are you free of your gods yet? Or is being dead the only way?"
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"Can you tell me?" All of it, she means, but leaves it open-ended for whatever he will share.
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Because she can imagine a lot of dead in his life.
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Which makes more sense now. She knows full well that some losses don't ever heal, don't ever even get numb.
"How did you get cursed?"
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"It was to be a salvation. Our lands had been invaded, my people killed as they tried to destroy all that we were. We begged the gods for help but they turned away, prayers left unanswered. A spell was to be worked, one that would allow us to fight, immortal, against our enemy. A great ritual, three days and nights we worked and sang, I stood at the center as king and anchor. But they came upon us before the magic was complete, Audar and his men. They slaughter all who were there, warrior and camp follower alike. I feel that day, for the first time, and what was to be a spell twisted into a curse."
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But she also can't fathom why a god would handle its subject this way.
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