32. The Heart of Who You Are
Chapter 32
The Heart of Who You Are
12 th Day of the Blood Moon
Aravell – Winter, Year 3081 After Doom
Farda held his breath, his eyes closed, the water cold around him. His fingers gripped tight at the edges of the rock pool, holding him in place. The sound of the small waterfall drummed in his ears as though horses trampled on his head, and yet somehow it was comforting.
In his mind’s eye, he saw the boy, now a man, standing in the corridor. Even in that suit of pristine plate, still and calm as a statue, Calen Bryer’s eyes had betrayed him. They were the eyes of a man who could not keep fury and sorrow from intertwining. Staring into them had settled another emotion on Farda that had not touched his soul in a long time: shame. Gut-wrenching, heart-swallowing shame.
Strangely, the feeling was almost a relief, as though a signal to let him know he was still human, still alive, that his heart had not completely withered, that his soul – what was left of it – wasn’t all black and empty. The shame wasn’t born of killing Calen’s mother. Though the act had not been without its own burden, the shame came from never giving it a second thought.
That loss had so clearly consumed Calen Bryer’s every waking moment, and yet Farda had genuinely forgotten about it until the night the young man had reminded him. Even in Ella’s presence, it had barely surfaced in his waking mind.
“He killed Mam.” Calen’s words sounded again and again in Farda’s head, his lungs burning as he kept a fresh breath from them, submerged in the pool. “He set her on fire…”
Spoken so plainly, the words had sliced into the soft black flesh of Farda’s heart.
“He set her on fire…”
In the moment, almost two years ago, Farda had barely thought of the act. He hadn’t been happy about it, but he’d had little choice. Calen had attempted to kill an Imperial Inquisitor, and when Farda had stepped in, Calen’s mother had intervened. Examples needed to be made. Actions had consequences. That was simply the way of things.
Freis Bryer was not the first mother to die in war. She would not be the last. Her death was a consequence of the rebellion.
Now, though, as Farda held himself beneath the water’s surface, his heart did not feel the same way. He was not the same man he had been two years ago. Something within him had shifted. He had Ella to thank for that. Ella, the other child of the woman he had killed, the woman he had murdered in the empire’s name – one of countless. She hated him now, to her very core, and that hate had been borne entirely from his own actions.
After Shinyara’s death, after his soul had been shattered, his joy stolen, his bones filled with nothing but apathy, Farda had been lost. Truly and completely. He had been a shell that had continued to move through habit alone.
But that moment in the Eyrie, when Ella had looked at him, the way her eyes had turned to molten gold, the way the sound in her voice had been nothing but hatred… that moment had led him to a realisation that had been hundreds of years in the making.
A realisation that he had always known but in truth had cared little for.
He had become the monster he had sought to destroy. He had become worse. His hands were bloodier than any others. The weight of a hundred thousand souls bore down upon him. He was death, he was loss and murder. He was darkness incarnate.
The burn in Farda’s lungs rose, searing through his chest and up his throat. His hands gripped the edges of the rock pool tighter, forcing him to stay below the surface.
Ella had given him back his purpose, given him back something to fight for, something to live for. She had allowed him to feel – something he had never thought possible. Every time he looked upon her, he saw Hana and Valyianne. He had failed them, and now he had failed her too. History repeating itself, a cycle unbroken.
Farda’s hands shook, his throat closing, his lungs begging him for a breath.
He had lived a long life. A long life with far too little joy. A life of failure, and loss, and poor choices. By the gods, choices so poor he could hardly understand them now. He should have pushed harder when Alvira had told him no, when the council had refused him. He should have torn the whole place down… but he hadn’t. He had done as he’d been told. He might not have killed Hana and Valyianne and all those others in Hakar, but they were dead by his inaction, and that was the same thing.
That choice had cost him everything. If he had been stronger, if he had been better, the world would be different.
After staring at the darkness in Calen’s eyes, Farda was sure of only one thing: this world would be a better place without him in it. There was no place left for him. He had nothing left to give.
The shaking in his hands settled and the burn in his lungs spread, his vision blurring. He pushed himself back so a jutting rock held him in place.
And then, for a moment, a sense of calm washed over him and the burning in his lungs seemed to fade as a warmth flooded his veins.
A roar sounded in the back of his mind, a touch he had not felt in centuries, a wholeness that had been ripped from him.
For all the gods in the world, he swore that in that moment Shinyara’s heart touched his once more, her broken half of their shared soul enveloped him, and the world faded. His head lolled. His heartbeat slowed.
He was ready.
But then, just as peace embraced him, Shinyara’s roar grew louder. It thundered, defiant and furious. Every memory that had ever touched his mind cycled through him. Every battle he had fought, every life he had saved or taken. All the good, all the bad, all the sweet and sour, and Shinyara roared again. And again, and again. Rage consumed him, a dragon’s rage.
Hands grabbed at Farda and hauled him upwards. The water broke around him, the sounds of the world crashing into his ears. He coughed and spluttered, collapsing forwards, gasping for air, shaking. Everything about him was still dark and blurred, lights sparking at the edges of his vision. The same hands that had heaved him from the water now dragged him over the edge of the rock pool and slammed him onto the ground.
A sharp slap struck his right cheek and his vision came flaring back, his mind focusing. Another slap and he covered his face with his hands.
“What in the gods were you doing?” Farda knew the voice; he knew it well.
He slowly lowered his hands to find Tivar standing over him, her face and hair soaked, her eyes raw and red, her chest heaving. Several guards stood around her, none moving to help, none caring.
“What were you doing, Farda?” Her voice shook, as did her hands as she grabbed his wrists. “What were you doing?”
An hour or so later, Farda sat on a low ledge near the edge of a cliff. The area had clearly been carved with the Spark as a viewpoint over the valleys for whomever had once lived in the place that was now his prison. He leaned forwards, resting his forearms on the tops of his knees, the cold wind nipping at his bare chest and back.
“She wouldn’t let me do it,” he whispered, staring up at the red moon that tainted the sky.
“Who?”
He and Tivar had sat in silence for quite some time, but the anger radiating from her had said enough.
Farda swallowed hard and ran his tongue around his top teeth. He knew what she’d say. “Shinyara.”
Tivar snapped her head around, disbelief in her eyes.
“I know what it sounds like,” Farda said before she had a chance to speak. “But she was there. There was a point where I could feel the other side and Shinyara waited there for me. She was so close.”
Tivar sat in silence, turning her gaze to her feet.
“She refused to let me cross.”
“Why?” Tivar asked, looking back at Farda once more.
“I don’t know… She just?—”
“No.” Tivar shook her head. “ Why ?”
Farda drew a long breath and once more looked up at the Blood Moon. “There is nothing left for me here, Tivar. My time in this world is through. I have lived long enough to become the monster I fought to kill. And it should never have taken me this long to realise that.”
“And that’s it? You face what you’ve become and just accept it?”
“What choice do I have? I can never take back the things I’ve done. I can never right the wrongs… I’m tired and she waits for me.”
“What about me?”
“What about you?”
“Do you think you are the only one who has done terrible things?” Tivar shifted, turning her body towards Farda. “Do you know how many Draleid I’ve killed? Thirty-seven. Thirty-seven who should have been like brothers and sisters to me.” Her jaw clenched, the muscles in her throat tightening. “And I didn’t have an excuse like yours. My soulkin’s heart still beats. Shinyara took your love and your joy and your empathy… She took everything with her. If I’d lost Avandeer, I don’t know what I’d have done. But I wouldn’t have done that.”
Farda knew she meant what he’d intended to do in the pool. “What is it to you what I do with my life? What claim do you have to force me to stay here? I turned my back on my friends, on my kin. I betrayed everything I’d ever fought for to try and break what The Order had become. I gave everything . My blood, my honour, my worth. I gave half my soul. Everything I’ve ever loved is gone. What have I left here?”
“There was a time,” Tivar said, letting out a soft breath, “a time when you and Eltoar were both the brothers I’d never had. And then you lost Hana and Valyianne, and I would say if anything we grew closer. What would they say now?”
“They would despise me for all the things I’ve done, for what I’ve become?—”
“A coward?”
Farda narrowed his eyes. “You think what I tried to do was cowardice?”
“No.” Tivar shook her head, answering swiftly. “Not at all. That is not a cowardly act. It is the act of someone who is tired, someone who sees no path forward and can carry the weight no longer, but it is not cowardly. Your cowardice lies not in that choice but in your unwillingness to stand now, to make a choice not because you will be lauded for it or because others will look upon you differently, but because you know it is right. You taught me that.” Tears glistened in Tivar’s eyes. “When I was only an apprentice. Do you remember?”
“I remember.”
“I can never right the wrongs I’ve done. I will never wipe the stain from my soul. I will never be the hero I always dreamt of being. But I can be something.” Tivar stood, looking out over the ledge. “It is never too late to make the right choice. Never. When Coren and Farwen reach this city, they will pass judgement. And if they judge that I am to live, I will give every drop of blood in my veins to fight the darkness we created. Because it is the right thing to do. I will give my life for the people of Epheria. Not those who sit on thrones or stand on the parapets of the highest castles, but those who want only life and peace and love. Because that is all I’ve ever tried to do, all I’ve ever wanted to do. And I will guide Calen Bryer and teach him to not make the same mistakes I did, because he has greatness in him. He has a hero’s heart. I know because he stirred mine. And if they sentence me to die for what I have done, I will accept that too. Because what is right comes before my desires.”
Tivar stepped away from the cliff edge and walked slowly towards the opening in the rock that led back to the main chambers. “Your eyes are open now, Farda. Your cowardice lies in your refusal to face the things you’ve done and stand anyway. The man I knew would never see what is coming and leave the rest of us alone to face it without him. I know you’re in pain, and if you face everything that you are and decide that in your heart you think it is the right time to join Shinyara, I will stand beside you and I will help you pass. But if instead you choose to stand and be counted, to once again fight for the right reasons, then I will stand beside you in that as well. You will not be redeemed, nor will I. That is not possible. But you can still do good in this world. That is why Shinyara would not allow you to cross. Because she knows you are a better man than to leave us alone in this. She knows that the man who taught me what kindness was deserves better than to leave the world this way. Whatever your choice, do not make it alone. I will always be here.”
Tivar’s footsteps echoed through the passage as she left, and then Farda sat in silence.
Those were the first words to pass between them since they’d been taken prisoner. She’d left her chambers to sleep next to Avandeer and little else.
Farda leaned forwards and stood. He walked to the edge of the cliff and looked down. The drop looked to be over a thousand feet, nothing but trees visible below, illuminated by the shared light of the Blood Moon and the evening sun.
The wind howled, whipping at him as he stared down.
He reached into his pocket and produced the thick gold coin he’d carried for hundreds of years. He ran his thumb across the worn crown face and nicks in the metal before turning it over and doing the same to the other side.
To live or die. To finally rest or to stand one last time.
Farda drew a long breath, then flicked the coin into the air.
He watched its flight, watched it glint in the yellow and red. And then, as the coin started its downward arc, he turned and walked away.
He never heard it land. It would have taken a while to hit the bottom.
As he walked, a part of him swore that he once again heard Shinyara roar in the back of his mind, his heart skipping a beat, his hairs standing on end.
One last fight, my love. If they let me. I promise you.