Into the Nanten: the Record of My Exile

Day 194 - Entry 318

He stepped through the foliage and into the firelight like a ghost. He is still is a ghost, the ghost that haunts my every step.

Brin Salisir walked into my camp last night as if it were his own. He spoke to me as if unsurprised by my presence. He spoke to Inifra as if she were an old friend. All of my fears, all of the torture of this voyage, the pain, the death, all of it negated in gravity by his cock-sure swagger.

The way he sat on that stool as if he were in his own home lounging...

I didn't even hear what he said over the crackling rage that built within me. I wanted to lunge across the fire between us and strangle him. I wanted him dead, hoped him dead.

I had believed that Brin Salisir was dead, and that was as I wanted it.

Then he stepped into life. There wasn't a care that burdened him, nor any crack in his comfort among the Nantese. Not only did they recognize him, but immediately they began to speak to him as if he were a long-lost friend. The bastard speaks Nantese.

He didn't bother asking why I was there. He didn't care to find out that Slad Bolton and Roos "Starlark" na Crestward – the son of the bloody Scepter of the Realm, I should add – had died searching for him. He didn't give two shits for us.

Brin Salisir didn't ask me a single question until he looked at me and requested I join him. The bastard asked me for my help.

I walked away then, because if I didn't leave I would draw my sword and kill him sitting. I would shift. I would freeze time itself, walk up to him, and slide my blade between his neck and collar bone until it pierced him to the bowels and pinned him to that stool. I wouldn't let anyone see me do it. To them it would appear to have happened instantaneously. But they would fear me for it.

This entire jungle would fear me for my wrath.

I walked away so that the ghost before me could live another day.

Inifra came to me later but I turned her away. Ididn't want to hear his name on her lips. I hated that she recognized him eventhough she had never seen him with her own eyes. I could not... I don't know thatI can handle this.