Chapter 31 #3
I had not shared the sentiment with Esiree, but I was quietly intrigued by the prospect of meeting her father and brother again.
A thread of fear remained at the back of my mind; a worry that they would never truly thaw toward me.
It had taken considerable time to break down the walls of prejudice Esiree herself had built; one could expect nothing less from the humans.
I had, after all, whisked her away to the Heart, and they had not seen her for nearly half a year.
Her family had every reason to be cross with me, even beyond the natural distaste for my kind.
Still, I held out hope that I might carve out some semblance of a relationship with them; or at the very least, that they’d trust she was safe in my keeping.
Leto was one of the more populated territories, and the census would prove it. Far removed from the initial outbreaks and the Hive of the Forlorn, they had resisted my protection for centuries. But the landscape of risk had changed for them. Nests were now scattered all throughout Devana.
Food scarcity and the Watch were the primary catalysts.
The Forlorn’s instincts inevitably rendered them monsters; what they craved above all else was human blood.
Everything the Parcaetes uncovered indicated this was no longer a conscious choice.
In the early days, before we pursued a weapon or even a cure, we had sought only to understand our enemy.
Countless trials and rigorous investigations helped us map their weaknesses, their strengths, and their singular motivation.
Discovering they could no longer endure even muted sunlight brought a fleeting sense of relief, though we remained unsuccessful in redirecting their cravings.
My scientists tested blood from every source imaginable, desperate to find a substitute that might curb the carnage, but nothing we offered could quell their hunger for flesh, living or rotting.
During the first centuries of our struggle, I had stayed close to the cause, fueled by a youthful conviction that victory was a matter of when, not if.
But as the eras bled into one another with no meaningful progress, that fire sputtered into cold detachment.
Hope was a dangerous luxury for an immortal, and so I traded it for the grim reality of survival.
I withdrew into the steel of the Watch, obsessing over defensive measures and carving safety into the very stone of our cities.
My people despised me for it. They saw the curfews, the rising walls and spiked fences as the bars of a cage rather than the shield of a savior.
I tried everything to staunch the bleeding of our losses, even if it meant becoming the tyrant they feared in order to protect them.
Though losing a wife every 40 to 50 years was heartbreaking, losing a Master of the Parcaetes was its own great loss. The legacy approach to our succession protocols made it somewhat more manageable, but it was still a heavy blow.
Every time we welcomed a fresh novice, I found myself noticing the soft, unblemished lines of their youth with a heavy heart.
I knew that, under my command, I would be forced to watch the slow, cruel erosion of that smoothness; their skin withering into the deep, etched maps of age while they toiled in the sunless depths of the Hollows.
They were children of the light, destined to spend their limited years carving a future out of the dark, tethered to the very monsters they were born to fear.
It was no life to live, and yet it was a necessity.
During my brief years with Kesna, I became even less involved with the Parcaetes’ efforts.
The time I spent in the Heart was dedicated to her, though the majority of my days were still in the territories.
I had harbored the hope that if the people saw me more often, I might earn something more than just blind allegiance.
I was wrong. And in the process, my brother stole the only thing I had truly cherished.
The grief following their deaths was unbearable, and in its wake, I knowingly took a wife who could not have been more disinterested in me.
Yet, Adria’s compassion, patience, and persistence slowly mended me; through her, my hope for our work was reignited.
Tyber was gifted, had been even as a novice.
His optimism was infectious and his ingenuity boundless; it was he who first proposed we pursue a weapon, and his idea to use smoke as a delivery mechanism.
I had never shared the details of my late-night labors with Adria. Not for a lack of trust, but because I could not bear to raise her hopes prematurely. Besides, she spent most of her evenings sneaking away with Laila, never concerning herself with my whereabouts.
But not Esiree. She alone refused to look away.
She hunted the secrets behind my teeth and stripped the polish from my history, interrogating every scar, every hesitant remark.
But as she laid my soul bare, the expected shame did not follow.
In its place grew something fierce and unfamiliar, turning my dark secrets to dust.