was nothing, the life she’d tried to live, all her father’s lessons ringing hollow in her head.
Remorse was for weaklings.
Regret was for cowards.
But they were lies, and she knew it.
In truth, she’d always known it.
She knew what she’d taken from this boy. She knew why. Extinguishing all he was and could have ever been. She knew how hard it must be for him, returning to a world so changed. To see the girl he loved in the arms of the girl who murdered him. And though he had every reason under heaven to hate them, to lash out in his rage and break everything around him, he remained true. Loyal to his love. Loyal to the last. That was the kind of boy he was.
That was the kind of boy she’d killed.
“… I’m sorry,” she whispered.
Tric hung his head. Closed his eyes.
Hot tears spilled down Ashlinn’s cheeks, her bottom lip trembling. The heat of her anguish was like a flood in her chest, spilling up over her lips in a bitter sob. Her body was heaving as the tears took her. She slithered down onto her knees amid the broken glass, the puddled goldwine, arms wrapped about herself, walls crumbling.
“T-Tric … I’m s-sorry.”
The Church was silent but for her sobs.
“I w-wish I could take it back,” Ash said, face twisting. “I wish there had b-been another way. We were killers, Tric. Killers one, k-killers all. I did what I had to. I did it for my familia. But I w-wish … it wasn’t you. Anyone but you. And I know it’s just a f-fucking word. I know how little it muh-means now. But … I’m sorry.”
She shook her head, closed her eyes.
“Goddess, I’m so sorry.”
She hugged herself tight, trying to hold the grief inside. The things she’d done, the person she was … it was hard to believe anyone might love her at that moment. That there could be any point to this at all. The elation of her victory, so clear a moment ago, was now bitter ashes on her tongue. Because when you feed another to the Maw, you feed a part of yourself, also. And soon enough, there’s nothing left.
Weakling, she heard her father whisper.
Coward.
She knew the words weren’t true. She knew the shape of the lie. But there on her knees, it felt so real, so sharp, it cut her anyway. Bleeding her onto the stone beneath. How easily a parent can make a triumph of their children, gentlefriends. And how easily they can make a ruin.
Ash heard the scrape of a boot on broken glass.
Felt a warm hand on her shoulder.
She opened her eyes and found him on one knee in front of her. His pale and beautiful face framed by locks as black as the sky above. His eyes were as deep as the night itself, flecked with tiny points of brightness. She took a strange comfort in that—that even in all that dark and all that cold, a pale light still burned.
“YOU’RE A FUCKING BITCH,” Tric said.
Ashlinn blinked.
“… And you’re a fucking maid,” she ventured.
He chuckled then. Short and sharp, his dimple creasing his cheek. Ash found her mouth twisting into a tiny smirk, mixed with bitter sorrow, the taste of her tears still on her lips. Then she was laughing, too, and the warmth it brought to her chest went some small way toward banishing the chill around them. Wiping the tears from her eyes and letting the grief melt away. They looked at each other, there on their knees, one foot and a thousand miles apart. Both killers. Both victims. Both lovers and beloved.
Perhaps not so far apart after all.
“I do love her, you know,” Ash murmured.
“I KNOW,” he whispered.
“There’s nothing I wouldn’t do to make her happy.”
“NOR I.”
“… I know.”
Ashlinn slipped her arms about Tric’s shoulders, pulling him into a soft embrace. He tensed at first, hard as stone. Resisting with what little rage he had left. But finally, ever so slowly, he closed his eyes, and she felt his head dip gently onto her shoulder, his arms encircle her waist. He felt warm under her touch, not the unfeeling statue he appeared, not within or without. They knelt there on the floor in each other’s embrace, broken pieces all around them, the Abyss open above them.
They stayed there for an age. All about them, silence. Ashlinn kissed Tric’s cheek, light as feathers, gentle on his skin. And then she pulled back to look the boy in his eyes. She