This is what you see in the footage captured from hundreds of feet overhead, blown up to a grainy focus.
The roof is an orange square, and Sashen and I are two figures pressed against one another.He breaks away as Spade arrives; Spade draws him close, and then a spray of blood slashes across the ground as Sashen is thrown.It is a spatter in an arc curving away from his body.Bright, violent.
Then Spade advances, and I do as well, but not quickly enough.I wait too long.I hesitate.
More blood spatters the ground, angry red against the orange, and then I am upon Spade.He snaps back and I use his body to paint a bloody canvas of my own.I break him in so many ways that when he falls, it is into a pool of his own blood and he does not move again.He is not dead, but he will wish he was.I will wish he was as well.
Then I am kneeling by Sashen's head.His blood soaks through the thin fabric of my pants; you cannot see that in the footage, but I recall it.I pull him to me.I cry out.I hold him, but I am terrified that I will harm him.The air smells like metal; I can hear only the sound of Spade whimpering in the distance, and the slow beating ofSashen's heart.I can feel his pulse beneath my fingertips, and that is what keeps me anchored to the moment with him.
He is alive, he isalive, but I kneel in his blood.
I understand this particular clip has done very well with abayan audiences.They see a sinnenthi stepping forward to defend an undeclared virra, and they understand my actions as morally correct.I am fulfilling my purpose, my role.They do not see my shame, because they do not understand that Sashen had already allied himselfwithme.He was not declared, but he wasminein every way that mattered.My responsibility, mine to cherish, to defend, to protect.
I ask you this: what good is a protector when he does not protect?
Later, whenSashenwas in medical stasis and I was not permitted see him, Andiri of Creche Ena came to me and asked why I would choose to court a weak virra when I might make a stronger alliance.She said that if I offered for her, she would forsake her creche and join my own.She told me that I could not truly believe that a human virra could serve a meaningful role in my creche; I could not imagine a human virra would ever be able to meet my needs as sinnenthi.
What she did not understand – what none of them understood – was that Sashen has always been precisely what I needed, and I am the one who was and who continues to be entirely unworthy.I have never deserved him.
I was furious – at Grigor Spade, at Seraphim, at Andiri of Creche Ena, and most of all, at myself and my repeated failures to embody the role I claimed for myself as sinnenthi – and therefore I was foolish.I told Andiri of Creche Ena, and so I told the entire abayan audience who watched everything we did and everything we said, that Sashen Solar was a treasure and that I would offer for him when he woke.
It was said, the promise made; what else could I do but act?
I am reminded again and again, over and over, as we listen to this account that Sashen has a generosity of spirit that is unparalleled.He would have done anything that I asked of him – but I did not ask.
I decided, I manoeuvred, and in doing so, I hurt him.Again and again.Over and over.
I should have realized that I needed to protect him, first and foremost, from myself.
Chapter 20 –Alone on a Platform
I blinked my eyes open and found that I was in bed.The blinds were all drawn, dark rectangles outlined with a line of light from the sun outside.I shifted and winced, anticipating pain – but there was none.
I laid there for a moment, waiting for the hurt to catch up with me.
I'd been punched.I was pretty sure Grigor had broken my nose, and then he –
I drew one hand out from under the covers and touched my lip, and no blossom of pain followed.I prodded my nose, my cheekbones, the skin around my eyes.
All fine.
A long, shaky breath left me.
Somewhere in the dark of the room, I heard the sound of a body moving."Araxis?"I ground out.Although I wasn't in pain, my whole body felt stiff, my throat dry and disused.
"No."The familiar, high voice of Silver Sea.
My heart sank as I realized in a dizzying, disorienting moment where I was.I let my head tilt away and tried to stop the tears rising behind my eyes.Stupid.Of course it wasn't him.We were stillhere.We were still pretending.
"How bad is it?"I asked after a long, silent moment.
"That depends on what you're referring to."On the distant wall, a faintglowpulsed to lifeas she called up her wristband.Her fingers made soft ticking sounds on the digital interface, humming with haptic feedback."Shall I catalogue all angles?"
My traitorous tear ducts had won.A hot tear beaded at the corner of my eye, sliding down toward the sheets below.Another slipped over the bridge of my nose, and landed with a soft patter.Somehow, thatsoft sound and the heat of the tears tracking down my skin made me feel even worse.I cleared my vise-tight throat as best I could."Sure."
"How bad was your medical state when we found you?Quite bad.You were taken to the medical suite and treated for several dangerous conditions.It was physically taxing for your body, but you will be fine, so how bad are you now?You are mostly fine."
I didn't feel fine, so I didn't say anything.
