Helspira pulled her knees against her chest. “You don’t seem like a monster to me.”
“You didn’t know me as a kid.” The shift in Sikras’s voice happened suddenly, steady poise crumbling to erratic inflections, each shallow breath looking more like a panicked gasp for air. A muscle twitched in his jaw, and he let out a strange, raspy laugh. “Any good in me was all him. He saw dry sand and still planted a seed. He always believed in me.Always. I want to believe in him too. That he’ll come back. That he’ll get better, the way he helped me get better.”
Instinct compelled her to grab his forearm, and his tensed muscles gave away his stress. When she squeezed, some of his tension relented.
“He stopped me from killing my parents, you know,” he continued, fixated on the shadowy tree line. “Can you imagine that? Little ten-year-old Sikras, plotting to stab his mother and father in the eyes as they slumbered.”
Helspira couldn’t hold in her gasp, and she withdrew her hand. “You wouldn’t have—”
“Oh, I would have. I had it all planned out. Durwin first, because he was stronger than Udelle. I needed the element of surprise to get an upper hand on him. Udelle was the heavier sleeper too. Slimmer chance she’d wake mid-assault to stop me. Dark clothes to blend with the shadows. Rusty blade coated in a concoction of toxins I’d made from various plants. If the swings didn’t kill him, the poison would.”
Madness coated his words the longer he spoke, and Helspira’s heart thundered with each additional sentence. She swallowed. “Back in Everferd, y—you said they were dead, your parents. You didn’t ...?”
He arched a brow, a brief look of confusion on his face before he looked away. “Right. No. Thanks to Vessik, they were spared death by my hand. Vessik was a child himself, but he showed me how to be ...better. He was such a good person, Hels. My inspiration. And then everything just”—he gesticulated an explosion with his hands—“burned to the ground. Physically and metaphorically. Shortly after I had returned from the latest war Saelihn offered me up for, I discovered the almshouse had been torched. Vessik used to read to the children there. I remember being terrified that he had been hurt, or ... I didn’t feel his soul in Enos, so I knew he had survived, but I couldn’t find him anywhere. It was chaos. Displaced families, acolytes and clerics sent to lend aid, defenseless children, all ash and dust.”
The almshouse? Helspira had heard tales of the one that stood before she and her parents had occupied the current building, but beyond learning that it had burned in a fire, she hadn’t heard much else.
Voice raw, Sikras continued, the words spilling out, as if he had bottled them inside for years. “Vessik arrived at our home later that evening, covered in blood. I thought he’d been attacked. I tried to usher him inside. He said, ‘No, no, Sikras, you’ve got it all wrong, I’m not the victim this time. I’m the hero.’ And that’s when I smelled the smoke on his clothing.”
A shudder rattled Helspira’s core. She said nothing.
Sikras’s jaw tightened. “‘What did you do?’ I asked him. And he whispered with a smile, ‘I gave them peace.’”
The wind carried the eerie phrase away. Helspira gave his arm another comforting squeeze. “I’m so sorry.”
He pulled his focus from the darkness and favored her with a smirk. “It may surprise you to know I did choose the people over a friend once. Save for merging with the Cat’s Eye, confessing Vessik’s sins to Saelihn was one of the hardest things I’d ever done. I felt like I’d betrayed him. Saelihn demanded his arrest and was fit to send the whole of the Red Sentinel upon him, but I begged her to let us talk to him one last time. We were practically family, after all. I was convinced that Imri, Benjamin, and I could make him surrender, make him turn himself in, spare him death at the hands of the R.S.”
Her stomach sank. Gods. The only reason he, Imri, and Ben were alone with Vessik that fateful night was because Sikras had requested it.
“I sought him out,” he continued. “We went to his hiding place. We talked. Vessik sounded so broken, so remorseful, said he’d turn himself in but that he wanted one more night with his dearest friends before rotting in a cell. I thought we’d done it, fixed it. So, we drank. Promised we’d figure everything out. I got up to take a piss, ran back when I heard screaming.” Sikras trailed off, frowning. “I’d seen blood before. Seen battles. It always looks like so much more when it’s leaking from the bodies of your loved ones. Imri was on the ground, motionless. Benjamin was bleeding out but still fighting, still swinging his sword with everything he had. I should’ve helped him fight Vessik, but my senses were so disorganized, so sloppy, so dulled by booze. All I could think about was Imri. I hit my knees, crawled to her, tried to call her soul back, but I felt ... nothing.”
A chill raised the hairs on the back of Helspira’s neck.
“Her soul wasn’t in Enos,” Sikras said. “And when her eyes shot open, and her corpse sat up, I knew Vessik got to her first. I couldn’t raise my hand against her, couldn’t strike my—” A strained, bleak laugh left him, and his throat bobbed when he swallowed. “Under Vessik’s command, she killed me. Grabbed a poker from the fireplace and ran it right through my heart.”
Helspira gasped. “I ... I can’t imagine what that must’ve ...”
“I came back, of course. One of the perks of playing host to the Cat’s Eye. By the time my spirit settled back in my body, and the Cat’s Eye healed my wounds, Benjamin was on the floor, gasping, gagging. It should’ve been impossible for Vessik to best him. Vessik wasn’t a fighter, never was, but he kept casting spell after spell, barely affected by the magical backlash. When Ben fell, I couldn’t help him. Never learned healing spells. That was always Imri’s domain. To this day, I’ll never know why my resurgence from death startled Vessik. But after he looked at me, he and Imri just ... walked out of the room. Nothing said. It was the strangest thing. I couldn’t dwell on it, of course, I had to focus on Ben. Had to get to his soul first. I held his hand until he died, and ... I never let him go again.”
“Sikras, that’s ...” Helspira sat back on her palms and blew a stream of air through her lips. “That’s a lot to take in. To think Vessik could betray you like that.”
“I know it sounds stupid. I’ve heard it for four years. It should beeasyto kill him. Vessik is a tyrant. A murderer responsible for the deaths of thousands. But even after everything, I still see the boy who dove into a rushing river to save a dog from being swept away. I see the young man who gave a beggar the last coin in his pocket when he, himself, was on the brink of starvation. I see the man who saved me. Saelihn asks me to kill a tyrant, but she also asks me to kill the man he used to be. And that man was a dear, dear friend.”
She stared, lost to the difficulty of imagining a man she had only ever known as a murderer to harbor any redeeming qualities. “Vessik really did all those gallant things?”
“Once upon a time, yes. Life knocked him down so many times. At first, I thought he just got tired of standing back up, so he decided to drag the rest of the world down with him. But it wasn’t life’s little punches that made him a monster. It was me. All he ever wanted was the power to help people, butIgot us kicked out of our wizardry apprenticeship,Irobbed him of the Cat’s Eye, and then I left him alone. I wasn’t there to stop whatever darkness was spreading inside him. I should’ve been there to talk to him, to say whatever it was he needed to hear.” He trailed off and sighed. “I should’ve been there. He would’ve been there for me.”
Helspira shook her head. “You can’t blame yourself for words left unsaid.”
“I can, and I do. In the battles I fought for Saelihn, I witnessed every weapon imaginable. Halberds, crossbows, toxin-tipped spears, enchanted flails, blades infused with the power of ice and flame. There isnothingmore powerful than words, and not just the ones that initiate spells. Words can start a war, or break someone’s heart, or turn children into monsters. They cut deeper than any metal. Spread faster than any poison. Perhaps most frightening of all, anyone can wield them, and precious few know just how powerful they can be. But words can heal as much as they hurt. And I let him suffer in silence.”
“It’s unfair for you to take responsibility for his actions. Don’t you think it’s possible that Vessik changed for the worst, and you just misread him?”
All traces of Sikras’s vulnerability vanished with a smirk. “There are countless things in which I lack skill, but reading people is not one of them.”
“Any chance you’re not as good at reading people as you think?”
“Nah. It’s one of the few things of which I’m sure these days.” His playful expression shifted into a sincere smile. “I was right about you, wasn’t I?”
