Senne knew that Sonsedhor had been found. There was a twisting feeling in her gut, followed by an emptiness, and there wasn’t a doubt in her mind that Cheyne and his sword had been reunited. Before her stomach had even had a moment to recover from the twisting feeling, and before the emptiness had even really completely settled in, she heard a voice she recognized and feared more than anything else.
“You still haven’t found him?! You are without question the poorest choice I ever made in my servants.”
“But Dark Father…”
“Don’t you dare call me by such a term! I deny you as a child of mine! I deny you even the freedom of the grave! The dead belong to me, and I will not have you! I dismiss you from my servitude and my presence! I cast you away! You, failed servant, are condemned to live on with your failure, knowing your inadequacy.”
In her bed in the middle of the night, Jo began to toss and turn as if in a nightmare, though her eyes were wide open. Her whimpers and screams were wordless, and slowly, her frightened expression and screams gave way to tears and sobs. After nearly a half hour, she stopped thrashing about and awkwardly curled up on her side. She stayed there the rest of the night, completely oblivious to the staff who had rushed to help her.
The void left by the Dark Father’s dismissal ate at Senne at first. She knew that the blessings he had first bestowed on her when she pledged herself to his service had been ripped away from her. Part of her wondered if she was now vulnerable like any normal person, if her longevity had been removed and her body made weak again. For nearly a day she considered testing that though; she even went so far as to place the point of a dagger to her own breast.
But as a hole is meant to be filled, the void inside her began to fill. With her freedom from the Dark Father came an openness to something inside her she had forgotten long ago: ancient memories from before she had pledged her life away. Her old life, her former self, Masithina Crasier. She recalled ages ago, lives far back, dozens of lives, and in every one, she and Cheyne Firdin– both of them under many different names, of course– had been involved. Life after life, they knew each other, often as colleagues, sometimes as lovers.
Masithina was the one who had, for a reason Senne still couldn’t remember, pledged her soul to the Dark Father– even the evil deity’s name returned to her, but she refused to think it or say it aloud. It was Masithina who had made the damning oath and then died, only to be reborn again as Senne Moyers, the woman who betrayed Cheyne Firdin to the Father of Evil and Lies.
She cried.
No comments:
Post a Comment