Page 114 of Thing of Ruin
He didn’t recognize her voice. He turned away from her, hiding his head between his knees.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“My name is Briar.”
Briar. It sounded familiar. Yes, Seraphina had once told him about her. Briar was her friend from the convent, the one who’d trained her and broken her finger.
“Leave me alone,” he said.
He didn’t know why she was here, how she’d found him, if she was looking for Seraphina, and he didn’t care. Seraphina was gone, which was the only right thing that had happened since they’d met, and that meant he had to remove himself from anything and anyone associated with her. An absolute break was what he could offer her. He would not seek her or mourn what they’d had, he would not think about her, and if his brainconjured up dreams of her, he would crack his own skull, pull the blob of matter out, and squash it under his boot.
Briar crouched before him with a soft grunt.
“Rune,” she said. “That is your name, isn’t it?”
“No. That is the name of a Norwegian singer who died in an inn in Augsburg.”
“Rune.” She said it firmly, as if his observation had confirmed it, not denied it. “Come with me.” She reached for something on the ground, and he heard the scrape of wood over stone. It was the walking stick. “I will teach you what I taught Seraphina.”
“Kill me,” he said.
“I don’t think I can do that,” she whispered.
“Then give me a weapon. I will do it myself.”
She sighed. “I doubt that will work.”
She let the words sink in, and they did. Men had shot him, he’d been without food and water for days, he’d slept in a freezing cell and barely felt it when others perished of frost sickness. He wanted to die, but he’d been built from death. And he’d been built to last.
“I shouldn’t be alive,” he said, his voice desperate. “I am not. I am a walking pile of rotten flesh.”
“You’re not rotten,” she said. “I’m looking at you, and while you’re not the handsomest face I’ve seen, you smell better than most fellows.”
He shook his head. “I am an assemblage of others, a cluster of bits and parts, I am an abomination.”
“That... you are.”
“I am... I am...” he groaned. “Who is this I?”
Briar’s answer was a deep sigh.
He lifted his head and turned to her, letting her see the extent of the damage he’d done to himself.
“Do I have a soul?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I have no answers for you. I’m not even going to attempt to understand who or what you are. I am just doing what I think is right.”
“What is right?”
“The High Harvester wants you, and I can prevent him from having you. So, come with me, and I will teach you what I taught Seraphina. How to navigate the grief of being in this world blind.”
Briar placed her hand on his arm, then slid it down to his wrist. Her fingers stroked the back of his hand, and Rune waited a few beats before he rolled his wrist, so her hand slipped into his palm. She squeezed his fingers, he squeezed back, and then she was standing up, and he was following her. She pushed the walking stick into his free hand.
Rune held his head bowed low. His black hair fell around his face, long enough to hide the holes where his – her – eyes had been. He would have to find a scarf.
THE END
