He felt so tired. The pain wasn’t even that bad anymore. It was an overwhelming, distant force, but so generalized now that Scorio simply felt a deep need to sleep. To rest, for just a moment. He’d regain his strength, and then rise and continue fighting. Was that such a bad idea?
Instead, Scorio grimaced, bowed his head, and forced himself to banish the thought. He’d rest when he was dead.
Scorio took a deep, shuddering breath, and tried to stand.
His body didn’t respond.
Blood seeped from countless wounds. He felt light-headed, his vision narrowing to a tunnel.
“Get up,” he whispered. “Get the hell up.”
But his legs felt as if they belonged to someone else, and a terrible weight pressed down upon him, holding him to the spot on which he knelt.
Again he tried to rise, and he felt his muscles tense, but again he failed to move.
The pain. It might be distant, but it was overwhelming his ability to command his body. It was all he could do to hold onto consciousness. To remain lucid, in the moment, and not surrender all volition.
It felt like only a few moments ago that they’d all stood together. Naomi, Lianshi, Leonis. How had they fallen so quickly? Had they done well, compared to the rest of the cohort? Surely they had.
But Scorio knew with cold, blasted certainty that even if they’d performed well compared to most of the class, they’d fallen short of what Jova would have accomplished. If she were in his place right now, her power would allow her to rise and resume walking.
Whereas he could only kneel here, shivering, in pain, and alone in the dark.
The profound unfairness of it all grated at him. If he’d only been able to ignite his Heart a second sooner, he’d have been able to save Lianshi, who’d have made a difference in this chamber, perhaps acting as a shield for Leonis so that he’d not have had to sacrifice himself for Scorio.
Of course, he’d have been able to ignite without a problem if his Heart hadn’t been so fractured.
It all came back to Praximar and his wretched bias. That one, single moment when he’d irrevocably changed the direction of Scorio’s life by casting him through the Final Door. Everything had led with its own terrible logic to this moment, here and now in the dark, where Scorio lacked the strength to rise and continue.
It was Praximar’s fault.
The world’s fault, even. The deck had been stacked against him from the very moment he’d drawn his first breath.
Shame and helpless fury consumed him, so that his eyes prickled and his hands bunched into fists upon his bloody thighs.
And then, unbidden, from the depths of his mind, a memory bestirred itself. He heard his own words, offered up, half in desperation, half in hope, to the Imperator who had come to destroy them all in her madness: “It’s not your fault. What happened to you. You didn’t deserve this. None of it. All your pain, your outrage. I might not be able to understand it, but because of who I am, I can respect it. I can respect what you’re doing, and why.”
Scorio stilled. Why had he remembered those words now? He’d been manipulating Imogen, playing to her weaknesses, trying just to survive.
Something dark within him curdled and recoiled. But… could those words not now be spoken to him?
“It’s not your fault. You didn’t deserve this.”
But he didn’t deserve this. Had never deserved to be treated as Red Lister, to be cast out—
Another memory, Imogen’s response, which in the moment he’d ignored, glossed over: “Your titles were always well earned.”
He went to refute that, but a second voice spoke in his mind, Kuragin’s, these words fresher, laced with scorn: “It was you that betrayed your brother and caused his execution.”
Scorio’s lips writhed back in anger, in disgust. Nonsense.
Jova’s voice, joining the chorus, cold and crueclass="underline" “You’re a Red Lister, Scorio, which means you have proven in every reincarnation that you imperil those around you, bring danger to our most sacred institutions, and care nothing but for your own goals.”
His heart ached and he felt dizzy. It wasn’t his fault. He’d been forced to react.
Even his original life? Or the lives of which Imogen spoke?
He’d have secured patronage from House Chimera if Praximar hadn’t gone after him, never even had to steal for Dola if Praximar hadn’t sentenced him to die—
No more voices spoke in his mind. His protests were cast forth before an empty audience hall. The spirits, the memories, having spoken their part, returned to the depths of his mind.
Leaving him panting, alone, aghast, and wretched.
Was it his fault? That Praximar had sentenced him to die? That was grotesque, made no sense. But Praximar hadn’t made him a Red Lister, had he? Praximar had simply reacted to the actions he’d committed in past lives. Actions committed by another Scorio, to be sure, but still himself, his own soul.
Scorio began to thrust the thought away. Would have done so, locked it away, and dropped that line of inquiry if one last thought hadn’t impinged itself upon his mind: he’d betrayed his own brother.
Had gone from risking everything to save him to turning him over to the king.
The impossibility of that connection rankled, and Scorio’s soul screamed in outrage against the possible plausibility of that deed.
How had he gone from that loving brother to betraying the man he’d risked everything to save?
How had he earned his titles? The very ones that had earned his place on the Red List? What if those Scorio’s had felt equally wronged? What if their heinous actions had been reactions to perceived injustices?
Did they make the crimes he’d committed any less evil?
Scorio stared down at his blood-stained hands. How far back did he have to go before he’d find an action of his own that he could take responsibility for?
It was Praximar’s fault, he thought, but the thought now rang hollow, gave him no comfort. The old rage was banked. Naomi, Leonis, and Lianshi had sacrificed so much for him, for his cause, at the altar of his rage. Sacrificed their own hopes of advancing as far as they could go to protect him, to help him.
His mouth tasted sour, and his shoulders shook. He raised his bloody hand and pressed his knuckles to his lips. Tears stung his eyes again.
It was Praximar’s fault, he thought one last time, and then with a wrench, he tore that excuse, that critical fragment of the architecture of his soul, out of his being and cast it aside.
It’s my responsibility. The words sounded alien, and he wanted to reject them, but they sank into his sense of being with a powerful sense of rightness. A deep and awful tension he’d not realized he’d been carrying relaxed; he felt a knot within his spirit undo itself, and said again, realizing the truth of the words: it’s my responsibility.
The old anger guttered and died. The outrage slipped away like a dismissed shadow. The strength it had given him evaporated, leaving in its place a quiet, sober calm.
He was Scorio the Scourer, Lord of Nagaran, Master of the Black Tower, The Bringer of Ash and Darkness, the Shadow of Spurn Harbor, the Abhorred, Quencher of Hope, and Unmaker of Joy.
He couldn’t remember what he’d done to earn those titles, but it had been him that had done those deeds. He was paying for that legacy today. And like a criminal who has had a change of heart in jail, he’d been furious that he still had to pay for his original crimes.
Scorio’s shoulders settled, and he raised his face, closed his eyes as tears ran down his cheeks, and felt a deep and alien peace settle over his spirit.
Fine.
No more excuses. No more running away from his past, remembered or not. But if his past had been dark, there was no saying his future couldn’t be different. That he couldn’t change. Be worthy of the friends who believed in him so, and strive to atone.