Chapter 11 Only Death Remembers Me
Only Death Remembers Me
Desdemona
A
woman holds a mug to my mouth, the weight of blankets pressing against me. The liquid is nutty and smooth, warming my chest as I swallow. Each sip pulls me further into consciousness.
Normally when I regenerate, my strength comes back with me. It takes effort for me to sit upright.
“What happened?” My voice is weak.
“Burnout,” the woman answers. “It happens to all of us.”
For a moment, her words are comforting. But… I’m not “all of us.” I’m supposed to be powerful—the most powerful, like Mial. I killed seven people with my mind. Can this woman do that?
“What else happened?” I ask.
“You defeated your opponents,” she says, setting the cup on the nightstand. “Tore their hearts from their chests.”
My hands rise to my eyes. They’re there—my eyelids and my eyeballs, intact.
“They exploded,” the woman says, reading my movements. “Your resuscitation mended you.”
My fingers trace the bone around my eyes, over and over. “Then why am I still tired?”
She offers me a pitying smile. “Burnout. You defeated six Phoenicians on your own.”
Right. Ripped their hearts out of their chests…
I glance at my hands, searching for blood stains. There’s hardly any red left under my nails. Someone must’ve cleaned me. My gaze lingers on my hands, not because of the lack of blood—but the burn on my palm. The patchy skin, just like the Arcanes. I close my fist.
“I can take it from here, Maeve,” Mial says from the doorway.
The woman sets the mug down, rises, and silently leaves. She nods to Mial as they pass one another, and he sits at my side. I try to tuck my burnt hand beneath the blanket, but he snatches my wrist, raising it to his gaze. I stiffen, watching him carefully.
“You do not favor the burns, I take it?” he asks.
“Does anyone?”
Mial releases my wrist. “I can cover them, if you wish.”
My eyes widen at the possibility. Could the burns on my hand, arm, and neck really be covered? Why hasn’t he offered this to every Arcane?
“Is that what you did?” I ask. He’s the only one here without the burns.
“No.” Mial releases a short chuckle. “I was too mighty to bear scars.”
Again, I frown, biting the inside of my cheek. Mial had implied I was as powerful as him. If I bear the burns, how can that be?
“Yeah,” I finally answer. “Cover them.”
?
The needle presses into my skin. Mial asked me what I wanted, and I didn’t know what to say. He started tattooing lines, almost like veins or roots, spiraling around my hands and connecting at my forearm.
“Does it hurt?” Mial asks.
The pain of the needle isn’t so bad. I can’t imagine any pain competing with death.
I shake my head. “Not really.”
His attention is fixed on my skin, but I see the hint of a smile as he says, “Mine did.”
“Yours?” I ask. I never noticed any tattoos on him. “Were you… covering something?”
The tips of his fingers turn white as he grips the needle. “I wasn’t truthful earlier,” Mial mutters, “about being unscathed.”
He doesn’t continue, and I don’t push. The needle moves up my arm, then stops.
Meeting my gaze, he says, “There was one burn.” He lifts his shirt, baring his torso. A tattoo of a rosebud sits right at his ribs.
Quickly, he pulls his shirt back down.
“I know not what the scars mean to you,” he says, “but to me, they mark my weakest hour. The ink is a metamorphosis.”
I nod, looking at my burns and the ink atop them. “I like it. More than the alternative.”
Mial nods and picks the needle back up, returning to his art. I watch the ink sink into me. Shared weakness, transformed.
“Your weakest moment,” I whisper, my chest tightening. My hands clench slightly, the urge to pull back rising, but I force myself to stay. “What was it?”
Mial sighs, and I expect him not to answer. I wouldn’t, either. But I want to. I want to try.
He surprises me. “It was the day I failed my people, and we were sent here.”
I nod. It makes sense he’d want to cover that. It’s much grander than killing a man and burning myself on the blade—more noble.
“Is that when everyone was burnt?” I find myself asking.
“Not all.” Mial focuses on my arm. “Some of us were taken before that day, and the burning served as torment.”
The pain of my few burns was awful. I focus on the jabbing needle, trying hard not to imagine burning on every inch of my body. It reframes the way I see the Arcanes—they didn’t choose this. It was torture.
“And you?” he asks. “What are you covering?”
I don’t look away from the black lines he’s tattooing into my skin. “The memories,” I whisper. “I’m trying not to let them all change me, but I’m not the same person I was before.”
“How so?” Mial looks up, meeting my gaze for a soft moment.
I press my lips together, staring into the distance, daring myself to answer. “I hurt so many people.” My words falter, but I push myself to go further, to say the whole truth, in case it’s the only chance I get. “I’m scared I don’t care anymore.”
Where I once held guilt in my heart, where I once harbored grief, I feel numb.
Mial lets out a long sigh, and fear prickles at me—fear of what he thinks. But he’s a thousand years old; he must have been through worse.
He has to be worse than me.
Time doesn’t heal wounds—it only dulls them, making bad things easier to swallow. I wonder if anything’s still stuck in his throat.
The needle stops poking into my skin. “Don’t be so harsh on yourself, child,” he says. “It takes time to grow used to things, so grant yourself that grace.”
I scoff, raising an eyebrow. “How many people have you killed?”
Mial laughs, then chokes on a cough. But there’s no humor in his voice. “Far more than you.”
I go silent, my question pressing against my chest. Then, “And when did you stop caring?”
His eyes meet mine, his shoulders dipping slightly. Grief flickers in his gaze. It’s the last thing I expected to see. My throat tightens.
“Early on,” he admits, but even if that’s true, it doesn’t explain the sorrow in his tone. “You do anything enough times, and it grows monotonous.”
It’s not the answer I wanted. I wanted to hear that it comes back; my humanity will come back. I swallow my tears, wishing they were because of guilt, the hope of humanity, and not just because I’m finally realizing the inevitable. I’ll never be who I was again.
“I would not have wished this fate upon you, Desdemona,” Mial offers.
It’s the worst thing he could have said: recognizing that this is bad, confirming there’s no hope.
I thrust my arm forward, a silent demand. No more talking, just keep tattooing.
?
Hours later, Mial finishes the tattoo.
I raise my arm to the light, examining the skin, once burnt, now covered in lines of ink. I flex and relax my hand, staring at the dark lines, the cracks like veins that extend across my skin.
Mial’s eyes find mine, and his are wide, almost glossy. Proud, I think.
“Do you like it?” he asks.
For a moment, I think I see my reflection in him.
Or his reflection in me. I imagine him tattooing himself after his friends and family were tortured and sent here.
I picture him alone—just as alone as me.
Powerful and powerless at the same time.
Opposite mirrors, but the same weight. The same story.
I swallow my tears, eyes stinging as I wrap my arms around him. He stiffens, but I don’t let go. I hold on until he finally hugs me back.
“It may return, child,” he whispers against the top of my head. “The memories your mother stole, the life taken from you… it need not define you. Had I let circumstance undo me, I would have ceased to exist long ago.”
My lower lip trembles, and I bite it, choking back tears. Against his shoulder, I nod. I want to believe him. I have to believe. If I don’t, then I’m already lost.
When I pull away, Mial offers my shoulder one last squeeze. “How do you feel about your mother, now?”
He catches me off guard. For a moment, I don’t know what to say or how I feel, but when I meet his gaze, I see nothing but compassion.
Compassion and the man who’s killed me again and again do not belong in the same sentence.
But compassion and the man who wants to make sure I can use my power—protect myself—do.
Compassion and the man who tattooed my skin because he knew I hated the scars make perfect sense.
“Angry,” I say, entirely forthcoming. The world blurs for a moment, and I swipe the tears away. “Rage, actually.”
“Why?” Mial probes.
I look past him, at the patterns on the wall. “Everything bad about me is because of her.”
“Why do you wish to see her?”
I don’t.
I do.
I want my mom to tell me why. Better yet, I want her to say it wasn’t really her. Someone else did this to me. Someone else took my memories and accidentally molded me into a monster.
“Because I miss her.” I gulp down tears. “And I want to say goodbye.”
“Your mother did despicable things, Desdemona—but she did not make you wicked. She helped forge your strength.”
I nod. But I don’t think bad things make us strong.
“I would not forgive that, were I in your place,” Mial says. “In my eyes, love stands above strength. I would ever choose the former—and I daresay, looking back, so would you.”
I try to swallow this lump in my throat. “I would.”
“Would you like to see her now?”
The question takes me by surprise. I’ve been waiting for him to say this for so long that I almost forgot it was my only goal. I’m scared I won’t get any of the things I want from her.
But still, I say, “Yes.”
“Tell me first… what is the worst memory that came back to you?”
The story is on the tip of my tongue—pure instinct. No. Why would he want to know? My ribs lock tight around my lungs. Flowers bloom, rising in my chest and climbing up my throat, sealing my voice before the words can escape.
“If I tell you,” I say, “you let her go home.”
Mial considers me for a moment, arms crossing over his chest. “She’ll forget you.”
“I don’t care.”
He makes a low sound, nodding. “I am not sure if you do this out of selflessness or reproach, but I will concede. Answer my question, and your mother will be free.”