Heart Made Of Glass
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The sun had long ago sunk beyond the mountains to the west when I heard her footsteps in the corridor, and I could feel my throat tightening as I stood watching the doorway from behind a pillar.
She stopped at each landing along the stairs, and even after she reached the second floor—even then, for all I knew she might just walk out of sight forever—”I don’t know if it’s safe,” she said, her voice coming through like a faint whisper.
“Maybe we should go back.” But the thought never occurred to me that I would be denied any chance to see her again; I wanted only the opportunity to tell her how much I loved her before it was too late.
It felt as if every eye in the castle observed us as we stepped into the hall. The first thing I noticed, however, was not their eyes but the faces on them, which had changed somehow since last night. When they looked at us now there was something different about the way they looked; they looked less alive than before, with more distance between them and what lay outside.
As though some part of them had died or been taken away. And I realized that all this time they were looking at me—and yet not really seeing me. For they did not see me. They saw my sword instead. And it frightened me that no one else seemed troubled by that fact.
Perhaps they thought it a weapon, rather than a symbol of death—a thing that could destroy life rather than create it. It was an idea that took a while to come to me.
My hand still trembled as I drew it from its scabbard. She stared at it with wide eyes. Then she turned to me and put her hands up against mine, pressing herself tightly against me—as though trying to prevent me from doing what must be done. “Don’t,” she whispered. “Please… please…”
“I’m sorry.” She pushed harder, but I did not let her move, not even enough for her head to come free from my grip. Her eyes burned into me as fiercely as ever, as though she were begging me not to do what I would have to do: kill her.
Yet the look in her eyes was not fear or sadness, but resignation—for the world had lost its color, leaving everything black and white, as though she had fallen into a deep sleep. And perhaps that was the truth of it. I was certain, however, that it meant she was dying.
There is nothing quite like the feeling of having a woman die in your arms; the softness of her skin, the warmth of her breath, the smell of her hair, the sense that she will soon be gone. And yet it does not matter, for she has become so close that you feel her heart beating against yours, and it feels as though hers can never stop until it beats only within yours.
In that instant, the world falls silent. Everything slows down. Nothing matters except what lies within your hands and her lips pressed against yours; it takes only seconds for her to slip away, and there is no need to speak or think further than what’s between your hearts.
And then there comes a time when you realize you’ve grown old, and there are many things you haven’t accomplished; there is work undone that has always waited for you; and your friends, who have stayed young, have already passed away.
That such thoughts could occur in those fleeting moments between heartbeats, or that I would ever have thought them at all, was another thing that came later; the moment was too short and the future too far off for such concerns to be possible. And then, suddenly, my own heartbeat begins anew, and the woman in my arms fades away with a sigh.
There was a strange feeling then, as though a thousand years had passed between the end of the kiss and the sound of footsteps behind me. And yet it felt so sudden; it was as if a door had opened, releasing a flood of light into the shadows.
I felt the heat of a lantern as someone placed it on a table nearby; the air filled with the scent of burning wood. And I looked up from where she fell, my hand still gripping her shoulder—not to touch her once more but to keep myself from falling beside her. To stand upright among the ruins of our love. To face the new day.
The man was young; I could tell by his voice and the shape of his features, although I couldn’t see his eyes because he wore dark lenses. He had curly hair cut into long locks above his shoulders and a clean-shaven face that gave him an odd resemblance to a goat.
He spoke quickly, as though to cover the sound of the footsteps approaching us. “Forgive me if I don’t kneel.” His words were clipped like his mouth was set firm and rigid. “But I know this must happen, and I am glad to finally meet you.”
He said no more; perhaps he did not wish to speak again in front of her body. But I did, asking him to explain why this happened. And then, just before she had fallen away, I remembered something else. What was it? Something I should ask… Yes! “You said you were her friend?”
“Yes,” he nodded, taking out a dagger from somewhere inside his robes—a simple steel blade with a sharp point, and a hilt carved in the likeness of a wolf. The handle had been fashioned from a strip of bone. This was the weapon, I saw, that had struck her through the side.
A strange weapon indeed, since wolves usually attack with their teeth, but I suppose this one had not seen fit to use its fangs on a human. Not unless there was some reason. Perhaps he had wanted to save her life.
And now, as he took the knife from its place at his waist and lifted it to slice open her throat, I realized it had already begun. It seemed to be happening everywhere—that same slow motion as if all the world had stopped moving while he drew back his arm.
Only I could sense his heart beating, the blood pulsing through his veins, the heat coming from the tip of his blade, and I heard the crackling of his fire. I felt his sweat dripping onto my skin, the faint stench of his fear.
It was the last time I would ever see him alive.
***
I knew how he died because there was nowhere else to go after that first day; I’d followed him here and found myself lost inside this ruin of the house. It was as if we had both wandered too far in the darkness of our lives and the walls of this building had closed in around us and swallowed us whole.
And so I watched him die and wondered about what it means to live, or whether it matters if a man dies alone in the dark. I tried to understand why a person might do something like this. How much pain could a man endure until he reaches such a point of desperation that he thinks no other way will help but to strike out blindly at anyone who comes near.
Perhaps there was no answer. I was young, and my understanding of the world was limited. I had been sheltered, and yet not protected enough to shield me from reality. And I saw his death—the way his hands clenched upon the hilt of his dagger as the blade sliced across his neck—as I stood in the doorway and stared into the night.
Then I turned away, knowing my presence would only make things worse. She would not want this—this terrible, ugly, violent death. So I ran off into the night. In those days I had learned that running away often proved less painful than standing still and trying to fight against fate.
The future is made by people, and sometimes they have to choose between right and wrong. Some are more powerful than others, and some are weaker. I was neither; I could run as fast as any beast, but I had not known the power to strike at the heart of a thing and twist it with my fingers. I was still learning.
She had chosen for herself.
A short distance down the corridor, there was a room where two wooden pillars supported the ceiling of rough, unpainted beams. There was no sign of light within the shadows, but I pushed the door open and stepped inside.
My eyes adjusted quickly; there was something about being underground that meant everything appeared darker than it should have been. This was true even here in the house of a dead man, for there was little natural sunlight to penetrate the narrow tunnels and passages.
Here, in the bowels of the earth, everything was blacker than usual, and I began to wonder if the man had used his skills to create this gloom, or if something else had caused it—perhaps a curse laid down in a ritual of dark magic.
There was a smell—faint and sweet, like perfume mixed with the dust of ages past. It reminded me of the scent I had sensed when we had walked through this place together, and my stomach lurched as if to remind me that we had once been close friends. I was not sure if that had changed, or whether it could change again in the midst of the horror that had just taken place. I did not feel safe.
The room was empty, save for an old table and a bench beside it. I sat on the seat, feeling the warmth of the wood on my bare legs. I leaned back; it was not uncomfortable, although I could imagine how it would become unbearable in summer.
The floor beneath my feet was thickly carpeted with straw; the air seemed cold and stale but not unpleasant. It felt clean in this enclosed space, which had somehow preserved itself, like a tomb hidden deep within the ground. It was hard to believe this was part of the same city, and yet I knew that it was.
And so this must have been one of the places that had sustained the family that had lived here. And I thought about that for a moment; how many times had this very room hosted a meal? How often had children played here, and grown men argued about politics?
What had they spoken about, these men who had lived before me, and what kind of futures they had hoped to build? Did they think about the children who would come after them? Had they believed their dreams were real or had they simply seen themselves as actors in a grand play and nothing more? Were they better than me? They must be.
The future is built by people, and they can only achieve it if they stand up. If they are stronger than others or cleverer—better than those who came before them—then perhaps the dream may survive for another generation. But without effort, the vision will fall away, until there is nothing left but a pile of dust and the silence that comes after the end of things.
I looked around me. The wall was painted green. There were faint cracks along its surface, which I imagined were the result of age rather than anything else. On the table, there were some books: bound leaves that had been made out of paper probably gathered from trees grown nearby in the forest.
A bowl of fruit rested there; I took a slice of apple and ate it slowly, savoring every bite as I stared into the darkness beyond the window. The room was large. There was a bed set beside a fireplace where there might once have been logs burning to heat the chamber, but there were none now.
Only a handful of candles burned on the table, and one on a shelf. I could not see her, and so I wondered whether she had already returned home. Or perhaps I imagined she would return; I had seen something in her that I hadn’t before, and I could not help but remember all the times we had spent together.
But I had chosen to go elsewhere; this was her choice too. Perhaps that would make us less alike.
I turned over the pages of the book, which was bound in leather and had the title “The History of the City.” It was well worn, and the cover was cracked where someone had tried to pry it open. I opened it and glanced at the first page. It contained a single sentence.
“When the gods were young, men were born of clay.” The writing had been done in ink, and I wondered who had written it—the author himself, perhaps, or his daughter, or a scribe hired to record this work. Whatever the case, it had been penned long ago.
It was not a secret that the gods were not immortal, nor that they were merely a creation of men—but this was not a prophecy. It was the simple truth that was hidden in plain sight as if the world were a story being told by someone who didn’t want people to understand.
It was strange that the book should say such a thing. It seemed obvious. Was there anyone alive today who still thought otherwise? No, I decided, because the idea had died with the gods. The idea of immortality faded as humanity grew more powerful. We knew our own mortality.
That had been a good thing. If you could live forever then perhaps there was no need to fight, to struggle against injustice; why bother making changes when you could simply wait and see who emerged victorious? But I saw in myself a desire to change things even though I did not believe the future could be altered.
This was why I had stayed in Sarmizan when everyone else had fled, why I had fought and killed when my comrades-in-arms had fled, and why I would keep doing so if I could find the strength to do so again. And perhaps it was that same drive that would bring me back here one day.
“Are you awake?” I asked the girl beside me, and she nodded briefly. She was looking at me; perhaps she could feel my attention. “What are you thinking about?”
She said nothing, but her silence spoke volumes. For a moment it seemed she wasn’t going to speak to me. But then she reached out and placed her hand on mine. Her palm was cold, and her fingers were small and thin.
When she lifted them, they trembled a little, and I wondered if this was always so—perhaps she suffered from fever or some other illness that had caused her hands to shake. But it didn’t seem possible, for she smiled at me. Then she closed her eyes, and I could tell that she was drifting away again.
After a while, she began to snore softly.
***
There was snow on the ground when I woke, and the air smelled crisp and fresh. I pulled the cloak tight around me and shivered, for I was naked beneath. But that was not unusual in these northern lands, where it was colder than anywhere else on Vralia, and it felt like I was in another world entirely.
The land was green here, although much of it had been cut down by the lumbermen and their axes. They had left piles of wood, and many of the trees that had not yet been felled were already dead and stripped of branches. It was as if an army had marched through here and left its tracks behind.
I looked up and saw that there was no clear sky above, only dark clouds; they rolled past overhead without moving, as if they were stuck between the heavens and earth.
I found myself wondering whether the others had returned, and I waited for them to come back. I hoped that the girl was all right and that the man had not harmed her. Perhaps he would take care of her now. He was kind enough, I thought, despite his gruff manner.
She hadn’t been afraid of him. Maybe it was only me whom she feared, as she had been hiding from me all those days, and had refused to eat the food that he had set before her. In fact, there had been moments when she had seemed frightened of everything. She had been silent and withdrawn since that night in the cave.
But it is foolish to blame someone else for your fear. I remembered how the soldiers had taken my knife from me at the city gates when they came to arrest us, and how they had forced me to stand naked beside my friends and wait to be taken into custody.
There had been a dozen of them. Each time one approached me I tried to hide behind one of them, to crawl away if I could, but it was impossible. My mind had been numb and confused with pain and fatigue. I couldn’t think clearly, and my thoughts raced ahead of me as if racing down a steep slope.
At first, it hadn’t seemed real, but later it seemed as if I had lived it for years, for every hour of my life felt etched on my body. Even after two weeks, it seemed too vivid. And I thought I understood why: because it was the last time I would ever know freedom.
The soldiers had dragged me across the square. One held each arm; the rest surrounded me and pushed me forward. A woman was there too. I didn’t hear what she said, but it must have been something terrible because my friends all turned and looked at her with hatred.
It is strange how people will hate a person they never met or even talked to, merely on account of being part of a group of people. It seems to stem from the way we think about things, I suppose; a single bad apple spoils all the other ones. I had seen it often enough when I worked in the kitchens at the palace.
Then one of the men grabbed me by the hair. His fingers were long and dirty; they hurt badly—not just on my scalp, but everywhere they touched me. As he pulled me closer, his breath stank of fish smoke and rotten meat, and I wanted to spit at him, but I knew that if I did he would beat me until I bled.
That was always the way with soldiers—they hated prisoners who spat at them. They believed that spitting meant a prisoner had lost hope.
He threw me face down onto the ground, and I cried out as the cold stone bit into my shoulder blades and spine. Then he stood over me and kicked me hard, three times, in quick succession, each time harder than the last, and I heard him laugh as he walked away.
It wasn’t a nice thing for someone to do, so I decided to make a point of remembering every detail of this day. For it might be the last day I had anything good happen to me.
They dragged me toward the gate and threw me headlong against it as the guards opened the doors. One man caught my legs and lifted them high, and then he was dragging them through the door. He was trying to break both of my ankles.
He was stronger than anyone should have been. Another man was holding my arms behind me. My shoulders were burning where they held me so tightly. The next man took the knife, and I screamed at him, “Don’t! Please don’t!”
“Shut up,” he said. And he put my hand in a lock as the blade sank deep into my flesh, and then I was stumbling along between them with my arms stretched over my head and my hands bound together by rope. We passed through the courtyard.
The soldiers kept their distance from the crowds; it is always easier to get rid of someone when you are not in front of an angry mob. People stared at me—some looked away quickly, but many of them had been talking of nothing else for days. Some were still calling me names, which made me feel worse.
And then we were outside in the street. A crowd was gathering. The noise grew louder; it sounded like children at play, shouting and laughing.
The soldiers led me past the shops and homes. The people had come out too, drawn by the smell of food cooking, to see what had happened to those who were arrested before they were allowed to sell their wares, and perhaps even to hear a word they thought they would never again hear from a free voice.
When we were close to the docks, a boy ran across the road toward us carrying a basket. His mother shouted at him, “Come back here!” But he wouldn’t turn around. The boy was only twelve, but he had grown taller since I had seen him last.
In fact, he was almost as tall as I was now, and his skin was darker than mine. He ran straight through our line, and the soldiers grabbed him before he got to me. They dragged him back and threw him against the wall. The basket slipped from his fingers and fell to the ground.
We marched past a row of empty ships and a dockyard that stretched far beyond my sight. There were hundreds of men working there, loading or unloading cargo. Many were wearing white shirts with blue stripes above their elbows; others wore black coats with silver buttons.
They watched us pass without saying a word, looking at me—at my scars—and wondering about the meaning of it all. Perhaps they had heard rumors; maybe they’d guessed. They would tell their wives, they would tell their sons, and they would whisper to each other when no one else was around.
Soon people would know who I am: that the Archdemon’s son has returned home, a man with a price on his head. And they would ask me what I did with my life while the Archdemon was hunting me.
The streets began to slope downward, and the air turned colder. The people grew more numerous. Their voices grew louder. The houses were smaller, and some were boarded up. At first I didn’t notice the stink, because there was another scent on top of it: the salt smell of the sea.
The people were staring at me, and then suddenly I knew why they were staring. The scar on my forehead seemed to swell as I looked out at them. It made me want to cry. They would say things in passing. If I was alone, one of them would come forward and shout at me, making sure I heard them all.
“You’re a coward, you bastard! You let yourself die, so the Archdemon could save your worthless hide.” Or sometimes I’d walk by a group of children playing in a field near the edge of town and one or two of them would run after me with rocks and stones.
I’d have to dodge their missiles; otherwise, they would pick up sticks and start throwing them at me too. And sometimes I saw the soldiers watching me from the walls.
It was getting dark by the time we reached the river, and the city’s gates loomed ahead of us in the distance. The water lapped against the quays and the shore and then washed back into the bay. I wondered if this was the spot where I had thrown myself overboard and drowned when I left Alia.
The men walked me up to the portcullis, and I saw the Archdemon’s crest painted on its surface. It was just the same as it had been the first time I had seen it—a black eagle flying above three stars.
The gate guards nodded and opened the doors, but then one of them stopped me before I was pushed inside. He took off his hat and bowed his head to me, and asked, “Do you need anything?”
“I’m fine,” I replied.
He put his hat back on and said, “Well then, good night.”
But the Archdemon must not hear about this, I told myself because it would mean trouble for him and his family. That was the last thing I wanted, especially because I was thinking about Alia now. She is in a terrible position because of me; I can’t leave her with these consequences hanging over her head.
I climbed onto the wall with the others and watched as the Archdemon’s men carried the bodies into the fortress. The wind blew in my face and smelled of fresh fish.
The End