Pure Requiem - Aja James Page 0,21

But then, I think, everybody knows I’m a weird, unstable headcase anyway. Hair-brushing is simply not in my repertoire.

I stand in front of the bathroom mirror admiring the gorgeousness that sprouts from my scalp. I think it’s my best feature. After all, I got it from Ishtar Anshar, Heaven’s Brightest Star.

I cock my head a little in consideration.

On second thought, maybe I like my eyes best. Because they’re from Tal-Telal, the General of the Pure Ones.

Everything else about my body is probably my own, so I don’t like that as much. But the features that are from…them I absolutely adore.

It’s highly possible that in addition to being a nihilistic psychopath with multiple-personality-disorder, I may also become a narcissist in the near future as well.

I am the angry fruit salad that keeps on giving.

My apartment doorbell chimes at that moment to cut short my escalating self-admiration. I rush to open the door, thinking it could be Benjamin or Ishtar again. Or even Tal. Or maybe Inanna. My mind is boggled with all the potential people who might actually want to see me.

“Hello, E—Wow! What disguise are you wearing today? I’ve never seen this version of you before.”

It’s not any of the people I imagined, but someone who’s still a favorite.

“Come in, lovely Sophia,” I invite, trying to curl my lips into my signature squirk but faltering because she’s looking at my real face for the first time.

I feel naked and flayed without my disguises.

She enters my apartment, never taking her rounded eyes off me. They meticulously scrutinize my face first, then roll unblinkingly over the rest of me.

It must have been a full two minutes before she speaks again.

“You’re…you’re…” she clears her throat, apparently too overcome by the sight of me to form coherent thought.

“That’s some amazing hair you have there,” she finally ekes out.

“It’s my real hair,” I say with pride.

“Wow,” she breathes. “And…the rest of you?”

“The real me,” I say more tentatively.

“Wow,” she repeats on a breathless whisper.

We regard each other in pregnant silence, standing in my living room.

I want to ask her if she likes what she sees, but I don’t. I may be needy and insecure in my own mind, but I try my best not to open that kimono to the world at large. Sophia’s opinion matters to me; hers is one of the handful of opinions that does.

“You’ve never shown me your true self,” she murmurs, staring up at me, tilting her head back, as I am quite a bit taller than her. “Not in all the incarnations that I’ve known you.”

I frown a little at her words.

I know her now as Sophia. I knew her before as Kira during the Persian Empire. But it sounds almost as if there’s more.

Fragments of images flitter in my mind, elusive like tendrils of smoke scattering in the wind.

I’ve always known, deep down, that Sophia and I had a connection even before the Persian Empire. In fact, I’ve resented Dalair’s claiming of my wife because of this prior connection. But… I can’t recall exactly how I knew her. Those are part of the memories I know I have but can’t access.

“What should I call you?” she asks gently, as if coaxing a wild, woodland creature, maybe even a shy, magical faerie.

“Erebu,” I respond, “It means—”

“My favorite time of the day,” she completes my sentence (though that definitely wasn’t what I was about to say), her dark eyes glittering with a watery sheen.

“The gorgeous sunset right before a star-filled night. Darkness can be beautiful too.”

Blood suddenly rushes into my head, pounding against my eardrums, and an incessant buzzing swarms through my skull.

I’ve heard those words before. She has said them to me before. But when? When would she have said them?

I gasp in pain as lightning splits through my brain, rendering me breathless and nearly blind. I stagger back, clutching my head in my hands, and collapse into the nearest chair.

The fragments in my mind stab like serrated daggers into my brain, as if long-forgotten memories are fighting to surface but also trying to stay hidden. I’m tearing myself apart inside. My consciousness trying to pull apart while also merging together.

Cambyses. Binu. Creature… all the roles I’ve played. All the faces I pretended to be.

And…Ere.

Erebu.

I barely feel Sophia’s hand on my shoulder, her words like a distant echo.

Your nose is bleeding profusely, Erebu…Stay there. Let me get some paper towels. Let me call for Rain—

I blindly reach out and grab onto her wrist, keeping her with me.

“No,” I croak,