He shook under the flat glare of her eyeshine. The writing on her skin began to change, glimmering: “Speak,” she said.
He choked. Words gasped themselves out of his throat. “I heard only whispers. But… he is an infant. He will never come back…”
“Tell me where, prince.”
“He is protected. Your magic cannot harm him.”
“Where?”
His hands shook as he clutched his prayer beads. His breath shuddered, and when he spoke, it was as though against his own will:
“East.”
The woman made a slicing movement, like a blade across his heart. He jerked, pale, gasping. “Take the sword,” she whispered. “Take it.”
So he did.
Suddenly, drawing a vicious hate from within himself, he slashed at her, but he was clumsy with fear, and only the tip of the sword caught her across the jaw.
The moment it did, he fell back, clutching his own jaw with a hiss of pain. The sword went clattering to the wood. His fingers were covered in blood. The moment he struck, his own jaw was sliced open, as if an invisible knife had cut the skin, exactly where he tried cutting her.
The woman, on the other hand, remained untouched. The spellwork marks that crossed her features shifted into different words. Then faded.
He held his face, blood already seeping through his fingers. “Whatareyou?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” she said. “When you look at me, what do you see?”
“I see a monster—”
“A monster?” she echoed. “Maybe. Yes. Maybe.”
“The gods will strike you down,” he said, shuddering. “And you will die. Your body will burn.”
“Burn?” She repeated him again. “No. I don’t think so… but, in truth, only time will tell. I don’t know what will happen to this body. Maybe it will burn, as you say. Maybe. Either way, what does it matter? One day it will die, as all things die. Then I will return and find another. Such is the way of things. Now take the sword.”
“I will not…”
“You must take it.”
Under the power of her words, he reached for the sword again. His hand moved as if on its own; he gasped, his arm following her command, shaking and convulsing as he tried to stop it, but he couldn’t, he continued. She whispered:
“Do it.”
He impaled himself in the abdomen, slicing through his own belly, then up toward the heart.
“This is what you want,” she said. “Accept it. This is what you want. This is how you end your disgrace…”
He made a heavy, choking sound, drowning in his own blood.
“Higher,” she said. The hissing of her voice hung in the air. He tried to saynoagain, but his arms obeyed, pulling the blade up, and with a thick, wet gasp, he cut through his own ribcage, fat and tissue, organ, bone. His body trembled. His hands shoved higher yet again, forced by her spell. Blood bubbled through his lips. He continued until there was a final shudder, and the sword in his hand reached his heart, and he stopped. Viscera pooled in an ocean before him.
“Thank you, prince,” she said. “As you see, I am a mirror. You wanted to die, for the guilt, deep down… and so, you did. Such is the will of the gods.”
She wiped her hands on her white robe. He fell forward. His intestines, or what remained of them, spilled out over his legs; his ribcage, sawn almost in half, opened awkwardly as it landed on the floor. The sword remained where it was, where she’d made him bring it into himself, jutting from the gory blossom of his bones, and organs, and his heart.
Quietly, she stood, and turned from the folded body on the oak. The floor and the hempen mats were a mosaic now, red and white and brown. She drew her sword from the mess, began to clean it with a cloth,before sheathing it again. “Not yet,” she whispered. Then a second time in the stillness, “No, not yet.”
A wash of embers and bright ashes from the hearth had spilled onto the wooden floor, but she ignored them. She crossed instead toward the thin sliding doors, and when she stepped outside, she found the child waiting for her on the steps. “Come, child,” she said. “It’s time to go.”
