The Serpent and the Wings of Night

“So many mistakes in the end,” he choked out. “Never you.”

And when I wrenched him close, when I prepared my killing blow, that one remaining eye met mine, as if looking into a mirror. “I’m glad it was you,” he said, quietly.

My anger made everything certain and easy. My love made everything complicated and difficult.

My tone was downright vitriolic. It was undeserved. He had done nothing but be kind to me. But I only knew how to fight.

He offered his daughter no comfort, no tenderness. Why would he? The world would offer her none, either. She should learn this.

“I can’t take credit for everything that you’ve become, Oraya. Even if sometimes I wish I could. But if I’m responsible for just one small piece of that, it will have been the greatest accomplishment of my life.”

And then I realized. I realized that fear, when embraced, hardens and sharpens. That it becomes rage. That it becomes power.

Sometimes I thought Nyaxia must have a hell of a sense of humor. Did she word it that way, I wondered? Go build a temple to show me how much you love me. Make it nauseatingly beautiful. And then go inside of it and stare at the wall for fifteen hours at a time.

“Do you miss it? Humanity?” It was only after the question left my lips that I realized how oddly intimate it was. I thought he wouldn’t answer. He was silent, watching the patrons laugh and drink. “I miss the sun,” he said at last.