Now, deep into dark, the fishy smell is gone and the air tastes like warm mulled wine. Na-sprin no longer works, but we still have ice water. Not so bad a thing. I think I want to enjoy what little's left of my hangover.
My face only hurts when I touch it, and that's just a patch between my ear and eye. Nothing broken, not a bit, and if it wasn't for the bruise and what remains of the swelling, no one would know that I'd been slugged into oblivion. Fine strategic move. Take her down, and take her down quick, and for the Lady's Blessed Sake, don't break her dainty little nose or scar her pretty face. I doubt the false Osrat thought that though, or much beyond taking me down quick and packing me off to the false Castle. Quick was the necessary word. I am faster than he is. I am now so much more faster than he should remember, given he doesn't care enough about me to have me spied upon. I am assuming this. I could be wrong.
What did Selm tell them that kept them from breaking my arms and legs? That I was nothing more than Finndo's creature? That I was Finndo's favored mistress (and wouldn't Sybil be amused to hear that?), holder of the keys to where some of his bodies were buried, and thus, it was better to keep me intact to use against him? That I could be sympathetic to their cause? That perhaps I could be used against Pappa, who was loose and vengeful in the Androsian countryside doing Lord-Knows-What? That I should be given to him to parade before the restored Andros, and there given a proper execution as the daughter of a traitor? That I should be given to him to parade before the restored Andros and there repent for my father's sins? That I should be given ... that I had been given. That I was his, and no other's.
He knows my heart. He saw it when I woke. The bastard probably has suspected all along, and arranged it so that Benedict would be between him and me when I awakened in the cell. He wanted to see my gaze, awakening in stupor and pain and softening under hazel. He wanted me then to see him and know although my beloved was my rescuer, he was my true salvation. Were it not for Selm, I would not have awakened at all, ever again, for Benedict or anyone. I saw him, I knew this, and everything became different. Benedict could have kissed my throat, and I would have seen nothing but Selm.
He loves me. He loves me, even when it is inconvenient. He risks everything that he is and holds dear for me. Perhaps it's familial, but somehow I doubt it, and ... Lady's tits, none of it was real! None of it, none of it, none of it! That Selm was a Selm cooked out of our collective brains. The true Selm? Perhaps I once intrigued him a little more than other women. Perhaps it was another mask, useful to wear while he was mapping me. I knew that then. I know that now. I have always known I make a better obstacle as a dead woman than I do as a live one.
I can also see why Dworkin gave me that idea of Selm.
The prickly blonde one, the one slowly turning herself into a martyr because she cannot joke away or explain away something that happened in an unreal darkness. Give her, in another unrealness, give her a candle in the dark. So simple.
So simple to make her believe that she is wrong, that she is worthy of love as she imagines it, that hers would not be the only sacrifice made in its name. Let her soul fill with flame. Let her remember that she is the end child of Kings and Queens, and that her blood, little diluted, was sourced from the Lady's ancient heart. Let her remember that. Let her not dismiss it again, in favor of dim memories of tumbling in the dark. That is Darkness, and this is Light. There, she was nothing but a common whore. She would be nothing but a common whore again, were it not for the flames within. They stayed her. They know she is a Queen. They know she is Fire, pure. She is proof against the Darkness.
In retrospect, I imagine Dworkin discovered what I suspect about Benedict. Amazing what you can learn in libraries, ain't it? Amazing what gets left out of a young lady's education these days, ain't it?
My ancestors brought Andros together against the whims of the Pale, who fled easily enough, and in the teeth of the Dark, which fled deep into the mountains. Both were mostly forgotten as lives and years passed, but we remained vigilant, more so after Eagle's Peak was opened too deep by the damned fools to the north, and this occasionally taken advantage of by the damned fools within our midst.
The Dark had become One. The Dark had become Darkness. We held it back, we fought it back, we scoured the countryside of its touch. We were Fire in its most blessed sense. All benefited from us, though there was little love for us outside of the realm's heart.
There was a journal in the stacks of Bran Brasil, blue and silver, marked with the sign of a flame. A beautiful book. Something I would have chosen. Geller's book, tossed there before he went to embrace what we had fought for so many centuries. Would I have made my uncle's choice? He caused much pain. He delayed Oberon for much time. He bought Bran Brasil many precious hours to prepare for a siege. I know that much of history, even though the lessons were presented differently.
In the end, he was destroyed, perhaps even by what he had harnessed. Perhaps, hell. More like likely. He had anticipated as much on the day he committed his journal to history. "Better I become Dark," he wrote, "Than for Andros to fall to Someone Who Knows Not the Difference."
I am proof against the Darkness? Where in the friggin' hell are these thoughts coming from? I'm sober, damn it all! I am in no way, shape, form or fashion going to plunge a poisoned blade into Benedict's...
Maybe Dworkin left something in my head. Right. That was the real reason I was left undamaged. Just enough for show. Just enough to get these doubts into my head. Just enough to begin to turn me.
Valor, honor, bravery, my ass! I have none of that! None of that, you hear me! I'm a stupid scared whiny little girl who'd cut your guts out if she thought it meant she got more candy! And I don't like candy that much! I don't give a shit about the fate of the universe! Well, I do, but not like that, even if I could have everything I wanted and know that it was real and true and not just some more shit that some jackass made up to fuck with my head. No, I don't! I don't care! I don't fucking care!
I need a drink.
I need to go check in on Sybil.
I need to stop writing these.