- This is over. I never want to see you again.
Over
Never
Over never
Never over
Over
Over
I hear those words in her voice Over and Over. Over.
Just like her life, Odette’s diary ends in madness.
Claudia throws the diary into the wall across her room. She rages for hours, tearing through books, searching for solutions. Can she break the bargain? Can she kill Sidarphion instead?
No star, no poem, no ancient philosopher can help. She stares at herself in her vanity mirror. Her reflection fills her with disgust.
Bishop bumps against his enclosure. She pulls him out and lets him loop over her wrists. He slides up her arms and nuzzles into her neck.
If she’s gone, who’s going to take care of him?
Dread creeps in—is she going to die? Is she going to let herself be killed?
Being good is no longer an option; either she can be evil, or she can be dead.
STARLAKE
The Gods were all once scholars. Human, messy, soft. Through extensive study and bloody rituals, they found the edge of all knowledge and wanted to fall further, to blink at the unknown below and see what blinked back. And fall, they did, through time and aether and death and life, until they emerged immortal.
An excerpt fromDivinity: An Occult History
Claudia hides herself for days, waiting on her battle wounds to heal enough so that she can move without wincing. She manages about fifty-two hours without sleep before she can’t withstand it anymore, but she’s made herself too exhausted for fear to overtake her. This method is her best bet to avoid the Realm of Nightmares and stay as far away from Sidarphion as she can. If she trusted herself more, she would askCassius for more essence of dreams, but every time she thinks of him, her imagination seizes her mind. She sees visions of herself choking him, stabbing him, pushing him from a great height. She has lost all faith in her ability to be good, even when her love’s life depends on it. Maybe she was never good in the first place.
Maybe it’s time to admit it.
She spends the next week isolating herself from everyone—even Alistair. Cassius has kept his distance after their fallout in detention, and Marcherie had only just become a friend anyway, but Alistair has been trying to break down the impenetrable walls Claudia has built around herself.
It hasn’t worked—she won’t let it. Not when he came knocking with a new treat for Bishop. Not when he brought her flowers from the greenhouse. Not when he slid a note under her locked door that read:Dearest Claud, I miss you. If you’re stressed, tell me. If you’re mad, let’s fight. If you’re sad, I’ll be there for you. Just let me in.—Alis
It breaks her heart to push him away, but she can’t face him, or anyone at all right now. Not when she’s going to either kill Cassius or die trying to save him. She’s trying to spare them all from the inevitable, imminent, unavoidable grief. Slowly, almost passively, she’s coming to terms with what she’s known deep down since she discovered the truth about her bargain: She is the one who is dying. She is the one who has merely days left alive.
Unless she kills—
She shakes her head.No.No. Every time that ugly thought rears its head, she shoves it down.
She will not kill him. She will not.
But shecould—
NO. Don’t think about it.
What is wrong with her? Why is she wondering what would be the easiest method? Poison, probably. No blood, no weapon. And then she could—
FUCK. STOP.
