Chapter Thirty-Three #2
Desperately needing to focus on something else, I reach for Casimir Vivaldri’s journal, sliding it out from beneath my pillow and setting it next to me.
I lean over and relight the oil lantern next to my bed, praying to the gods I dimmed it enough to where it won’t wake Marcella up.
Then, I prop myself against the small headboard, slide my feet back to cradle the journal in my lap, and thumb through the pages until I find where I left off.
A quick glance at the page shows me it's another short entry.
I read it.
I fear Magaius is beginning to walk a treacherous path.
I cannot be certain. There is much he has been hiding from me lately. But he appears to be…different.
There’s a caged power surging within him.
I can sense it. But this power is different than how it once was.
I know he loves his newly founded kingdom, and I know he will do whatever it takes to preserve it, but I fear that perhaps he has crossed a line that cannot be uncrossed.
Has committed an action I don’t even want to cement in ink.
I spoke with Sitara privately about the matter. She plans on speaking with him, for he will not openly speak with me—or anybody else for that matter. But if anyone can get Magaius to tell the truth—to see reason or even to turn for a new path—it is Sitara.
She consistently reaffirms that my beliefs in humankind are not misplaced.
Casimir
I search my memory, trying to place the names.
That’s right—Casimir said Sitara and Magaius were his two closest companions. He had also written about Magaius before, claiming that Magaius was openly supporting war—supporting stopping those they called the “Restorationists” with swift, brute force.
I wonder what Casimir meant by treacherous, and I wonder what line he suspected Magaius had crossed.
He mentioned a surging power, something he did not want to write about.
Could it be that Magaius corrupted his wielder’s mark?
Began wielding forbidden magic? What if the “treacherous path” he was on was becoming an Abdite… or something like it?
For some reason, the thought sends an icy chill skittering down my spine.
With a new wave of curiosity, I read the next entry.
War is here, officially.
I am filled with too much heartache to write about it. To discuss the politics surrounding it. But it is here, and I am forced to swallow the acidic truth that perhaps Magaius may have been right all along.
Yet even now, with the pointed future threatening to plunge through me, my mind still wonders:
Was this truly the only way?
My mind can’t help but echo the question.
Was it? Was there truly no other way for them to find peace?
My eyes start to grow heavy. But I push past the sleep now threatening to claim me and read on to the next entry .
Today, I saw rivers of blood. Saw glazed over eyes staring up at a sky they will never see again.
My sword plunged into a boy—just a mere child. Life faded from his eyes like a retreating wave returning home from a shore. My stomach twisted, and the only sounds I could hear were the stuttering attempts at my own breathing. Nausea coiled in my gut, and I was overcome with the urge to vomit.
Once the battle was over, many clapped me on the back and praised me for my performance on the battlefield.
They call my skills “unrivaled” and “astounding”.
Yet when I flick my eyes down to my blood-soaked palms, my lip curls with disgust. Are mortals so barbaric that we praise the murders of innocent children?
They didn’t ask for war—to be placed on that battlefield.
They were probably goaded into false excitement, offered promises of honor, glory, and wealth.
If I had plunged my sword through that boy’s chest in the street, I’d be labeled a vicious murderer who deserved to hang.
A disgrace to the gods and our mortal race.
But under the terms of war, a child’s murder is seen as a necessity over an atrocity, and I am praised instead of hanged.
Perhaps there is little hope for our existence, after all.
At that, I close the journal, my eyelids no longer able to withstand the weight threatening to shut them. I slide the journal back underneath my pillow, and I fold my hands together, laying my cheek upon them as thoughts that I’m too tired to fully process crash into me.
And as I am swept into Kala’s, the goddess of dreams, realm, I begin to see a portrait of the words I just read.
Of a man bound by duty and dedication to his kingdom plunging a sword through a child’s chest, despite wanting peace.
Of crimson—deep and rich—staining the otherwise unblemished hands.
I see him scrubbing those stained hands in a river, again and again, the vomit coming after the panic.
The scene shifts, and when I flick my eyes down again, it is I who am on the battlefield, my hands painted in warm crimson.
Then, like a passing traveler humming a distant tune, Casimir’s words linger softly.
Perhaps there is little hope for our existence, after all.