“Or, we play their game for now, and we look for a way to stop them. And when we find it, we destroy everything made in this place. Because if we don’t, then who will? Shall we let them succeed without us and leave someone else to face the demons they create?”
She looks like she’s bitten into something sour. “I’ve already crossed too many lines. I was hoping not to sully myself with this.”
I nod, but I stay silent. Sometimes people just need to talk an idea through.
“I don’t like compromises.” She looks torn. “I know you likely don’t believe that after the dog, but I don’t want to take another step in the wrong direction. And what about next time? How many times will you say, ‘Just one more thing. Then we’ll stop them.’”
“Only this time,” I promise.
“Likely, that’s what the people of the past said the first time. When the first denizen of hell was drawn up from the earth.”
I nod. How can I deny that this is a terrible idea when it so plainly is? And yet, here we are.
“Principles are good things. Worth standing on. Worth dying for. But sometimes, if you want to achieve a thing you must be practical.”
“Says the man who took a vow of celibacy because a girl died, even though her death was not his fault.”
I let out an exhale that is almost a rueful laugh.
“I am no Saint, Lady Paladin,” I murmur. “Did I not prove it by kissing you? But I have been in enough sickrooms and on enough battlefields to know that sometimes there are two good things and you may only choose one, and sometimes there are two bad things and you must choose one, and today we are faced with two terrible choices, and my brave Vagabond, I fear we must choose one.”
“I’d already chosen death,” she says steadily.
I nod. I understand. I do. But I would rather have her with me.
“I’m asking you to choose otherwise. Come with me. Help me stop the others. Help me stop what they are making.”
“And afterward?” she asks a little wistfully.
“After we are all dead?” I ask wryly.
And this earns me a startled laugh. “Yes, after that.”
“Then walk with me in Paradise,” I say softly. “I have never been very good at being alone. I fear that even the halls of the God may be lonely places.”
“Shush now,” she tells me, and places a finger over my lips. “No blasphemy.”
“As you say, Lady Paladin.” When she removes her finger, I try to be gentle with my words. “I have vowed myself first to the God and now to you. Do not ask me to sit and watch you die.”
“You may yet see it, if we fight,” she says, but she retrieves her sword from where it lies.
A slight smile edges my lips as I lift my own sword, check the blade — shockingly, it is undamaged — and return it to its sheath.
“We will fight. Side by side,” I tell her gravely. And I am both regretful at the thought of what we must do next and excited for the challenge. I’ve always been like that — pawing the earth at the mere suggestion of a race, sniffing the air at the hint of a hunt. “And I must build back my faith and focus. I dare not let it slip again.”
She nods gravely. She knows. I doubt she has a coin to her name. How could she not know?
“After this last kiss,” I say, and when I lean in, my breath catching in my throat, I let my lips brush hers as I plead, “Just one more. For a blessing.”
“Bless you, then, supplicant,” she whispers the formal words and lifts two fingers, but her words dissolve as her tongue meets mine and we taste each other with exquisite slowness. And I know we are both savoring the embrace that is likely our last, drawing from it fortitude for what comes next. When it eventually must end, it ends in her huffing laugh.
“Go with my blessing,” she murmurs.
“I feel very blessed,” I say somberly. And it is worth teasing her to get a second dose of that laugh. “And now what do we do here?” I ask her. “What ingredients go into this terrible brew?”
She faces the altar with a glare.
“We’re supposed to give something up. I think the High Saint gave up his voice.”
