warning: descriptions of violence/gore (imagined)
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viii. the knight and the suitor
heretic
// hate is the constant—the comfortable resting state, humming just under the skin. hate is the starting place; hate is the eternal mind. it is immortal. continuous. endless. it will never die.
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Isil had left the castle. He'd taken his riding horse and slipped out through one of the back gates—one of the old, conspicuous exits he and Adalleth and sometimes Princess [Name] used to busy themselves with finding. Back in former times, when there was freedom in the pause—in the empty times between lessons and duties.
Back when dreams were natural and nightmares explainable—when eyes saw only fact in waking hours and young, naked hands could hold and be held without fear of corruption. When he was blind and ignorance was his shield and armor—before he saw. Before they pried open his eyes and made him see—made him stare into the cruel, smiling jaws of truth. Of knowing. Of being aware of what he wished was still unknown.
But the gods didn't care if the truth harmed; the gods didn't care if fact kept him awake at night, or if it twisted his stomach into knots and made him tremble at the sight of his father's sword.
They didn't care if they caused their believers to suffer—if they were the source of their disciples' anguish.
The gods didn't have to fear retribution or punishment. They were the ones who chastised—who doled out harsh penalties and firm justice. They were in the right; they were correct and fair. They were truth and good and their believers were not. Their believers were wrong; their believers were unfair and false.
Always false. Always wrong.
Even when the gods were the ones at fault.
Twigs and decaying foliage crunched under the soles of Isil's boots—all the dead, forgotten things that had been buried beneath verdant shoots of spring. All the things that had yet to be decomposed—yet to be devoured by the forces of decay.
The sweet, syrupy scent of blossoms and new life drowned out the smell of rot, pressing down on it until it became but an unpleasant undertone—a simple memory of distasteful things. The smell—sweet and sickly—filled Isil's lungs. It was in his mouth, bathing his tongue and chasing away the hot, burning taste of anger.
The rage fled to his throat, where it settled like heavy stones in the back of his mouth, pressing against the base of his tongue, waiting for the taste of new life to subside. Rage and anger and hatred, for the gods—for all they allowed and all the promises they failed to keep. For their threats—for their selfish, hypocritical decrees.
Hate. It was all he could do. All he could feel for them was hate, and all he could do was feel it. All he could do was despise them and curse them and scream heresies in their places of worship. Renounce them and turn away from them and hate them for what they really were. But none of that would change them—none of that would stop them from manipulating their worshipers.
Hate wouldn't bring justice—not to the gods.
And knowing that made him hate them all the more.
He was near the front path now—the one that led to the castle's entrance. The reigns to his riding horse were in his hands; he'd dismounted from the beast when he'd reached the woods, and now he stood just at the edge of the tree line, looking up at a castle more familiar to him than the house in which he was born.
He stared up at the stone walls and the parapets where the guards walked and the towers that rose high, high above his head—so high that when he was young he could swear they pierced the sky, and when rain fell he used to think it was because the towers had torn a hole in the fabric of the clouds. But such thoughts were ridiculous—foolish and unreasonable, like honoring one man for the glory that belonged to a hundred.
He stared—stared and stared and stared, and as he stared he thought. He thought of Adalleth, of all the games they'd played in the halls of that imposing castle. Of all the chores they'd completed—all the responsibilities they'd tried and failed to shirk.
All the reprimands they'd received; all the fun they'd had. Because Adalleth had always had a way about him—a positivity that seemed to turn even the grayest, most horrific of moments into a time of delight and joy. It was something about his voice—about the way his eyes always seemed to smile. Even when the future was bleak; even when the present was barren and hopeless.
And it was—so hopeless. So gray and hideous and empty. Like the eyes of a corpse, staring at nothing. Reflecting a sky it couldn't see.
Something pressed against the backs of Isil's eyes—an emotion, richer than his anger and stronger than his enmity. It wrapped its fingers around his throat—brought a heavy, burning taste to his tongue. It made the picture of the castle sitting atop the hill merge with the sky and the field around it; it made all the colors pool together into one blurred, ugly hue. It climbed up his throat, and like a heavy, towering wave it crashed against him.
Isil's legs buckled out from under him and he fell, his knees digging into the fresh, rich dirt. The colors in his eyes were bright and ugly, and he brought his hands—his terrible, terrible hands—to his face to block out the disgusting hues. To wipe away the feeling that poured out from his eyes. That was choking him—suffocating him.
The knight of Tys didn't cry. The hero of the Alaimore kingdom shed no tears. He was not man. He was not human. He was a champion—the servant of the king and the divine. There was no room in his life—in his destiny—for emotion. For fickle attachments and terrible love.
But he was not the gods' champion. Not anymore. He hated them. He despised them and all they stood for. The only man he bowed to was his king—the only woman he desired to serve was his princess.
He would die for her—only her. She was his princess—his goddess. She was his ruler and his deity and the only higher power he praised and prayed to.
And for her, he would be a champion. For her, he would've killed anyone. He would've executed the innocent and the guilty and he would've done it without batting an eye—without flinching or wondering the morality of his actions. He would've abandoned all emotions—whatever empathy and humanity there still existed in the cold shell of his body—if she'd asked him to.
And it was for her he cried. It was for their friend—their wonderful, cheerful friend—that he sobbed. Adalleth. Adalleth, lover of the princess, surrogate brother of the heretic—of the loathsome traitor who'd turned his back on the gods. Who'd betrayed them and scorned them and openly despised them.
The traitor should've died that day; the traitor, for all his sins and crimes, should've been the one gutted by the tyrant king's sword. He deserved it. It would've been just—so wonderfully, terribly just.
But he hadn't died. He had survived. And what did he have to show for living? For surviving when Adalleth hadn't? He'd promised to keep Adalleth alive, and he'd failed. He'd sworn to protect the princess, and he'd failed at that, too.
He was worse than a traitor—he was a failure. A failure and a heretic and a pitiful, sad man crying because he had lost. Crying because he had run—from his home, from the only person who still pitied him enough to care for him.
Why had he run? Why had he run from her—from the shrine? The incense—he could still taste it, in the back of his mouth. As suffocating as despair—as sweet as the newborn blossoms, now crushed under the weight of his body.
He hated the incense. He hated the way it smelled—the way it filled up the space of the shrine, making everything smaller. Tighter. He hated the statue of Mitemis—how human it looked. How emphatic it made the goddess appear. Like she'd cared—like she'd had any feelings whatsoever regarding the life in her hands.
Isil doubted that she had. Isil knew that she hadn't. Gods were too selfish to care for mortal life—to care for anything ephemeral.
Transient beings were the gods' tools and toys; they had little use besides.
But they didn't know that—his princess and that caretaker were as oblivious as children when it came to the gods' true feelings toward mankind. They thought the gods cared. They thought the gods wanted the best for mankind.
How could they think that? How could they expect empathy from beings that had had no qualm imprisoning one of their own thousands of leagues beneath the sea? That had turned a blind eye to the suffering of hundreds of mortal people at the hands of King Orelus?
No—the gods cared little whether or not his princess suffered. And still, she trusted them—still she placed all her misguided faith in them.
And Isil hated that, too. Isil hated how trusting she was of them—how cruel they were, to lead her on. To make her think they cared. If Isil could he would grab them—wrap his fingers in their hair and throw them to the ground. Make them understand; make them know how it felt to be the one at the bottom, looking up into cruel, unfeeling eyes and hoping—hoping beyond all belief—that those eyes would somehow become warm and amiable and emphatic.
But they wouldn't. Not even for her, who deserved only to be regarded warmly. Who deserved happiness.
And Isil wished he could give such to her.
Adalleth could've.
Adalleth had.
But now the memory of him made her cold. Made her pull away; made her put on that smile he hated. The one that was fake but looked so real—so forced and still so genuine. The smile she gave her mother. The smile she gave to strangers, like it was an offering and they were gods.
Isil wished she wouldn't smile—not if it were fake. Not if there was no real feeling behind it. He wished she never needed to fake a smile. He wished she smiled all the time, and that all the time she smiled it was honest and genuine.
Because she was beautiful when she smiled. She was pretty when she didn't smile, but when she did was radiant—divine.
She was everything the gods wished they could be—pretended to be.
Isil wondered if the gods knew that—if they knew that there lived in this world a woman a thousand times more holy than them. More perfect and sacred than them in every way possible. If they knew were they jealous? Were they hateful? Did they wish to destroy her? To take from humanity its one chance at redemption—its one hope for a better, fuller future?
If they did then they would. Selfish beings always acted hatefully.
Isil would know.
He was as selfish as they came.
The sound of hooves—many, many hooves—wound its way down from the hill. From the place where the castle sat, overlooking its precious land. The sound startled him, and he opened the eyes he hadn't known he'd shut.
The feeling that had poured from them had weakened—it receded back into his chest and dried on his cheeks, and he wiped away what he could with the back of his gloved hands. The ugly, terrible colors that had blinded him had vanished, and now he could see once more the castle and the sky and the fields—all independent of one another; all sure and firm in their existence.
Separate of one another.
No bleeding colors—no merging shapes. Turning many into one, terrible shape. A shape that chained—that bore down on his throat and tried to drown him.
A shape with ugly, glaring fangs.
Isil's gaze fled to the road that led up to the castle's main gate, and there he saw a procession—a line of horses and men wearing foreign colors. Familiar colors.
Ugly colors.
Recognition picked Isil up by the shoulders, and he scrambled to get to his feet, horror and bitter hatred clawing their way up his spine. He knew those colors. He knew what they looked like when they were torn and soaked in bright, arterial blood.
The colors of the enemy.
The colors of Orelus.
Isil's eyes followed the procession as they advanced down the path, away from the castle. His gaze caught on the shape of a carriage—one of two, both heralding the presence of some important character. A lord? An ambassador?
A king?
Isil narrowed his eyes, and the hatred that had climbed up his spine settled in the space between his shoulder blades, nestling up to a cold, venomous disbelief. That couldn't be King Orelus's carriage. It was impossible. They were early—too early. Two days too early.
And it was springtime—rivers and roads flooded in the springtime. Visitors from Ceorid were only ever late in the springtime.
Never early.
Never early.
But—
No. No, it wasn't possible.
But—
No. It couldn't be King Orelus. His princess had two more days; the gods owed her two more days.
But when had the gods cared to make good on their debts?
Isil's fingers curled into tight, seething fists, and he glared at the shapes of the Ceorid men, advancing calmly down the path—bearing their ugly, hateful colors for all the world to see. How could they look so peaceful—so at ease—when a monster sat on their throne? How could they bow to him—take orders from such a despicable creature?
Perhaps they were as immoral as the man they called king—perhaps they were all mortal gods, selfish and cruel, hoping only to survive to the next day.
Incapable of empathizing with any creature that existed outside of themselves.
Isil's gaze fixed itself upon the most ornate of the carriages. The one that all but screamed that it was host to a king—to a man who must've thought himself as great as the sun.
Isil glared at the gaudy thing, and the anger—the comfortable, well-worn anger—started to rise again. It started to press up against his skin, bubbling and boiling and as red as the blood that covered his hands. His fingers drifted to the sword hanging from his hip, and the pads of his gloves ghosted over the familiar hilt.
His riding horse hadn't wandered too far off, and the path to the main gate of the castle wound close to the edge of the woods. If he was quick he could be on his horse in under a minute, and if he was even faster he could be there, at the edge of the path waiting for them in under the same amount of time. He could kill the three nearest the carriage and severely wound the fourth in three minutes—throw open the door to the carriage and pull out the king in two. Fend off the two who'd try to come to the king's aid and then dismount from his own horse in another three.
And then, to kill the king, he'd take three more. Because he wouldn't just kill him—no—he'd mutilate him. He'd gut Orelus like the king had gutted Adalleth—like a fish, like the animal he was. He'd gut him and then he'd cut off his hands and then he'd go for his face. First, he'd gouge out his eyes—his cruel, empty eyes. The eyes that had looked at Adalleth and had filled with such a horrific light—a disgusting brightness once they'd seen the light fade from his friend's eyes.
And after the king's eyes were gone—torn and mutilated by Isil's sword—he would shove the blade into the man's mouth, force it down his throat until the cross-guard brushed against his teeth. And then, while he choked on cold metal and his own blood, Isil would lean down—down, until his face was just beside the king's—and he would whisper in a low, even voice, "This is what justice tastes like, Your Majesty. This is what it feels like to die."
And then he would lean back, so he could watch the light fade from the mangled, gaping holes that used to be eyes. And he would stare into them until an arrow from a crossbow or a blade from another guard's sword pierced his chest in the fourth minute.
And then—if he hung on long enough—in a fifth, he would die.
In his last moment, he would think of his king and family, but his mind would linger on memories of Adalleth and his princess. And those of Adalleth would be joyful because he would know he would be seeing him again. He would think of only the happiest of the many memories he shared with Adalleth, but then when he thought of [Name]...
Of how alone she would be without him...
But happy! She would be happy. She would have to be happy, eventually. Because Orelus would be gone; she would be free. Free to be arranged to marry a duke or another king.
Or a champion.
And she would thank him—thank him for sacrificing himself. Thank him for finally finding some use for his life. Because he'd failed her so totally in all his other attempts.
Because he couldn't protect her.
But now he had. Now he'd saved her and she could be happy.
Without him.
And he'd never get to see another of her smiles, or hear her laughter. Or see her eyes—see them fill with bright, wonderful light. Hopeful light. Because of him. Without him.
In spite of him.
His eyes followed the procession of men and horses and carriages, and his fingers curled around the grip of his sword. If he moved now he could still do it. If he moved in another three minutes he could do it.
A minute passed. Then two—then three and four and five.
The procession drew closer to the space where Isil would've ambushed them from and then passed it.
And he watched them. His eyes followed them as they passed, but his body didn't move. All he could see was [Name], smiling without him. Happy without him.
Crying because of him. Like she'd cried three years ago—like she'd cried four weeks ago.
He should've broken his promise; he should've gone straight to the king and asked for her hand in marriage. Even though he'd said he wouldn't; even though he'd promised.
If the gods could break their promises, why couldn't he?
Maybe then he wouldn't be standing at the edge of the woods, watching his one chance to rectify all his mistakes—all his awful shortcomings—vanish down the road.
But he was a failure. And a traitor. And a pitiful, sad man who couldn't even gather the courage to avenge his beloved friend.
And now he was a coward, too.