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My belly feels cold. I can’t even feel the knife in my gut. Not anymore. I can’t feel the pain, either. Everything just feels…really cold. And distant. I try to move my good hand, but it’s like trying to communicate with a block of ice. It doesn’t respond.
I fade in and out again. Right now, it’s not a question of which of us is going to die. We’re both going to die—the only question is which anchor will outlast the other in her death-throes. Will I bleed out before she burns to death? Who knows.
Who…cares. It suddenly seems to matter very little.
My heart throbs slowly. Painfully. My gut does, too. Belly wounds are bullshit.
I want to vomit, but I don’t have the energy. Oh god, everything hurts. I moan, and I can feel sweat on my skin. This is a horrible way to die. I think of the man with his throat cut. I think of the woman, burning alive under Godsfire. I think of poor Vitar. And Solat.
Fuck, there are no good ways to die, it seems. Just a lot of awful.
The woman. I turn my head, trying to look around the tent. One of the rugs is on fire, I notice belatedly, and her charred, unmoving corpse is atop it. She’s not screaming anymore. She’s utterly silent. The Godsfire keeps going, though, and as I watch, the bed lights up, the silks zooming with fire and crackling like they’re covered in gasoline.
Huh.
Won’t be long now, at least. If the gut wound doesn’t take me out, the fire will.
I close my eyes and think of Aron, and I’m…content.
I did it. I saved him.
I hope he remembers how much I love his arrogant ass.
Because I do.
I shouldn’t. There’s nothing normal about the guy, nothing humble, or easygoing. He thinks the world belongs to him, he’s bloodthirsty, and he can be a jerk. But he’s also protective and tender and good to me and I’m going to miss waking up in his arms and seeing that smile of his. I can’t imagine a day without him, without his laugh, his arrogance, his self-assurance.
That’s what I’ll miss the most about this place. It’s not that I’m dying in a strange land. It’s that I’m dying after I just found the man who makes me want to live.
To me, he’s always been more than a god. He’s Aron. My Aron.
And he’s going to win.
I clutch my burning, wounded stomach and I’m strangely at peace.