Chapter 22 – Edgar
EDGAR
There were so many ways that I imagined this day going, but I never thought that in saving my life, I’d condemn my son’s. He has fallen in love with a monster. His standing in our community is gone. Not only has he lost his honor, but he has lost the faith of all of us.
How could he make such a dire mistake?
“They will need to be watched,” Galena speaks softly to my side.
It’s just the two of us in the throne room now, me and Galena, my most trusted advisor. I sent the others away after a time. Their excitement about returning to their old bodies, combined with their disgust at our gargoyles, was too much. I couldn’t think.
“Agreed,” I tell her, even though it makes my chest ache in a strange way.
My son and his most trusted friends must now be watched. We don’t have faith that they won’t try to free the monster.
Somehow, I've failed him.
Galena takes my hand in hers in a way that feels almost practical. “I can’t imagine what you must be feeling.”
No, she cannot.
“But this Medusa…” she begins.
I know what she’s going to say. I replay the events since the monster appeared before us. It does not make sense. She is unlike any monster we’ve encountered before.
Her kind are tricky, vile creatures who are capable of doing anything to survive.
But—and I swear to the gods that I will not voice these thoughts to anyone—she seemed so genuine. Even in my stone-form, I saw her cry when she thought I was dead. I could feel her sadness and regret.
“What do you know of her?”
Galena is quiet for a long time. “Very little. Until recent events, I believed her dead.”
We’d received communication from a detective in The Special Unit in her city. He’d informed us of her killings, and the need for the city to be rid of her. The revelation had been a blessing to us, and we hoped for a chance to save our lives. We had told Peter we would take care of it.
We had sent the team we felt best suited for extracting her and retrieving the artifacts.
“Each pregnancy takes longer to achieve,” Galena begins, and I already know where she’s going. “If the artifacts do not help significantly, we’re doomed. These three babes may be the last of our kind. And with us turning human in our old age… our people will simply cease to exist.”
“Unless the babes are female.”
She sighed. “We haven’t had a single female child in three generations.”
“And so what are you saying?”
“Perhaps we should not kill this Medusa. Perhaps we should simply keep her indefinitely as a prisoner, so that she may renew us each time we turn to stone.”
“No.”
She releases my hand. “How many times have you said that the survival of our people trumps all else?”
“If we stop having babies… if we need the help of a monster to remain immortal… I would sooner let our people die out. We would have no hope at new babes, at any kind of a future, except one that hinged on a monster’s abilities.”
“Edgar, be reasonable.”
I clench the handles of my chair. “The decision has been made.”
She doesn’t understand. The three females will give birth very soon.
If there is not a girl among them, our fate is likely sealed.
That’s even if the babes survive. It took ten years for these pregnancies to take root.
The last three pregnancies resulted in one early miscarriage, one stillborn child, and one healthy boy.
I pray every day that we have three healthy babes this time and that the magic of the statue and the necklace will give us what we need to continue as a people. But I’ve calculated our odds… and they don't look good. I believe this is the end of us.
We have been renewed. For how long, I don’t know. But truly, all we needed was to know the sex of the children. My only purpose for continuing to live was to see if our people have any hope at all.
If we don’t, we should allow ourselves to grow old, to become human, and to die. There’s no reason to stretch it out and to fight against the inevitable.
Even if this Medusa bothers me on a level I don’t understand, she’s still a monster. Eventual death is preferable to relying on an enemy to save us.
So, we shall see.
“Do you think they love her?” Galena asks.
I stiffen, and remember their faces. “Perhaps.”
“Then, we should do all we can to keep them from her. To remind them of their true loyalty—to us.”
I nod. “If we keep them from her, I fear their patience will come to an end, and we’ll be forced to do something that we’ll regret. But we can make it hard for them. We can do everything we can to distance them from her.”
“Perhaps reminding them of Ashunda will help. Seeing that soon she will be free to choose them, as I know she wishes to do.”
They’ll know she’d never choose them now.
“We can try.”
But as I stare blankly into space, I know a few things. No matter how this ends, I will lose my son. You cannot kill the woman your child loves, no matter that she’s evil, without his hatred consuming him.
I just hope that in three months, on the night of the blood moon, they will have come to their senses.
Because one way or another, blood will be shed that night.