Page 142 of Of Empires and Dust

For as long as Tarmon could remember, Calen had walked with a weight over his head. Even in moments of joy, the young man’s eyes had betrayed him. But now there was nothing but pride on his face.

Vaeril thanked him, then drew a long breath and sheathed Dawnbringer, dropping to one knee as he did. “I accept, Myia’nari.”

Chapter 32

The Heart of Who You Are

12thDay of the Blood Moon

Aravell – Winter, Year 3081 After Doom

Farda held his breath,his eyes closed, the water cold around him. His fingers gripped tight at the edges of the rock pool, holding him in place. The sound of the small waterfall drummed in his ears as though horses trampled on his head, and yet somehow it was comforting.

In his mind’s eye, he saw the boy, now a man, standing in the corridor. Even in that suit of pristine plate, still and calm as a statue, Calen Bryer’s eyes had betrayed him. They were the eyes of a man who could not keep fury and sorrow from intertwining. Staring into them had settled another emotion on Farda that had not touched his soul in a long time: shame. Gut-wrenching, heart-swallowing shame.

Strangely, the feeling was almost a relief, as though a signal to let him know he was still human, still alive, that his hearthad not completely withered, that his soul – what was left of it – wasn’t all black and empty. The shame wasn’t born of killing Calen’s mother. Though the act had not been without its own burden, the shame came from never giving it a second thought.

That loss had so clearly consumed Calen Bryer’s every waking moment, and yet Farda had genuinely forgotten about it until the night the young man had reminded him. Even in Ella’s presence, it had barely surfaced in his waking mind.

“He killed Mam.”Calen’s words sounded again and again in Farda’s head, his lungs burning as he kept a fresh breath from them, submerged in the pool.“He set her on fire…”

Spoken so plainly, the words had sliced into the soft black flesh of Farda’s heart.

“He set her on fire…”

In the moment, almost two years ago, Farda had barely thought of the act. He hadn’t been happy about it, but he’d had little choice. Calen had attempted to kill an Imperial Inquisitor, and when Farda had stepped in, Calen’s mother had intervened. Examples needed to be made. Actions had consequences. That was simply the way of things.

Freis Bryer was not the first mother to die in war. She would not be the last. Her death was a consequence of the rebellion.

Now, though, as Farda held himself beneath the water’s surface, his heart did not feel the same way. He was not the same man he had been two years ago. Something within him had shifted. He had Ella to thank for that. Ella, the other child of the woman he had killed, the woman he had murdered in the empire’s name – one of countless. She hated him now, to her very core, and that hate had been borne entirely from his own actions.

After Shinyara’s death, after his soul had been shattered, his joy stolen, his bones filled with nothing but apathy, Farda hadbeen lost. Truly and completely. He had been a shell that had continued to move through habit alone.

But that moment in the Eyrie, when Ella had looked at him, the way her eyes had turned to molten gold, the way the sound in her voice had been nothing but hatred… that moment had led him to a realisation that had been hundreds of years in the making.

A realisation that he had always known but in truth had cared little for.

He had become the monster he had sought to destroy. He had become worse. His hands were bloodier than any others. The weight of a hundred thousand souls bore down upon him. He was death, he was loss and murder. He was darkness incarnate.

The burn in Farda’s lungs rose, searing through his chest and up his throat. His hands gripped the edges of the rock pool tighter, forcing him to stay below the surface.

Ella had given him back his purpose, given him back something to fight for, something to live for. She had allowed him to feel – something he had never thought possible. Every time he looked upon her, he saw Hana and Valyianne. He had failed them, and now he had failed her too. History repeating itself, a cycle unbroken.

Farda’s hands shook, his throat closing, his lungs begging him for a breath.

He had lived a long life. A long life with far too little joy. A life of failure, and loss, and poor choices. By the gods, choices so poor he could hardly understand them now. He should have pushed harder when Alvira had told him no, when the council had refused him. He should have torn the whole place down… but he hadn’t. He had done as he’d been told. He might not have killed Hana and Valyianne and all those others in Hakar, but they were dead by his inaction, and that was the same thing.

That choice had cost him everything. If he had been stronger, if he had been better, the world would be different.

After staring at the darkness in Calen’s eyes, Farda was sure of only one thing: this world would be a better place without him in it. There was no place left for him. He had nothing left to give.

The shaking in his hands settled and the burn in his lungs spread, his vision blurring. He pushed himself back so a jutting rock held him in place.

And then, for a moment, a sense of calm washed over him and the burning in his lungs seemed to fade as a warmth flooded his veins.

A roar sounded in the back of his mind, a touch he had not felt in centuries, a wholeness that had been ripped from him.

For all the gods in the world, he swore that in that moment Shinyara’s heart touched his once more, her broken half of their shared soul enveloped him, and the world faded. His head lolled. His heartbeat slowed.

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