Pure Requiem - Aja James Page 0,7

and I decided to visit the Shield for a time.

Now, surrounded by family and friends, and most of all, by the innocence, love and pure joy of children, my demons have receded like shadows chased away by the brilliance of sunlight.

The Healer’s silence spoke volumes. I didn’t fool her.

“Lie back,” she instructed, “I will use my zhen now.”

What she meant was that she wouldn’t touch the most shameful part of my body with her hands; she never had. Only Ishtar had ever seen the scars, for I would not hide any part of myself with her. She deserved to know the broken male she’d tied herself to for eternity.

That’s not entirely true either.

I’d hidden the worst of myself from her. My recurring nightmares of the millennia of torture suffered under Medusa’s hands. The vile, unspeakable things she did to me. I’d tried to protect Ishtar from that darkness, even when it tore me apart inside. All over again.

Over and over and over…

“Papa…”

My son whispered in my daughter’s voice, his hand tucking gently into mine, as if to hold me steady, reminding me to breathe.

And I did. I soaked in the aura of his beautiful soul.

There is unfathomable darkness within him, but there is also light. He warms me. He lances through my doubts and demons with hope.

I’ve finally found him. I will never let him go. I will always protect him. Love him. Support him. And to do so, I must get stronger. Medusa will not win.

I gave him a slight smile and patted his hand before lying back, forcing my body to relax as the needles of the Healer’s zhen inserted into my pores, hundreds of them all at once.

Rain was mostly silent as she probed me, keeping her assessment to herself. She was infinitely gentle; I barely felt it, merely a tickle here and there. This was a vast improvement from when I was first freed by Inanna from the prison in a land called Japan. Back then, everything hurt. But after a year of recovery here in this very same healing chamber, the pain was borne more of the nightmares in my mind than real physical trauma, though there was that as well.

I took another deep breath, filling my chest.

I was stronger now. I will get stronger still. The physical pain, whether phantom or not, I knew how to deal with. It was my soul that needed to heal.

And I am. Slowly but surely healing.

“When will you tell him, General?” the Healer asked, jolting me out of my reverie. “He deserves to know.”

I darted a nervous glance at my son in the guise of Inanna. I felt the tension in his hand that still gripped mine loosely. I didn’t even realize he was still holding me until that almost imperceptible twitch.

“He does,” I agreed. “But do you think he will believe us?”

“DNA does not lie,” Rain replied.

“A person who wishes to believe something will always seek evidence that reinforces their beliefs,” I argued.

“True,” she murmured, and I felt the subtle retraction of her zhen from my body. “But he must know the truth to start healing. It is the only way for him to know himself, as well as the family who loves him.”

My son’s hand in mine tightened, even as his skin grew clammy and cold. I suppose we were telling him the truth whether we planned to or not.

Perhaps it’s best to “rip off the Band-Aid.” There was no going back now.

I didn’t know much about Binu. Or Ere. Or the Creature, as we used to call him. An undefinable “it.”

I will rip out the throat of anyone who ever called him such again.

I knew he was smart, logical, cunning. He had to be to survive Medusa. She did not suffer fools in those who served her, whether voluntary or not. I tried to give him the facts now, and leave him to draw his own conclusion. Perhaps this was the best way to reveal the truth to him, when he pretended to be someone else.

“Explain to me again about this DNA test,” I requested of Rain. “I am not certain I completely understand the magic of modern medicine.”

She continued to flutter about me, checking this and that. I could feel the slight breeze from her movements and sensed the soothing gentleness of her methodical approach to healing. It seemed like an elegant dance in my mind, a delicate hummingbird hovering over a wounded flower.

“Shortly after Inanna came back with…our guest, I took his blood