How could I explain? To Sam, none of my past would make sense. He died long before I ever took up the mantle of Rudderkin. But I couldn’t resist the urge to continue our conversation. To share how I’d turned this hellish experience into something worthwhile.
“I got stronger, like you said. Got bigger. Made a lot of decisions, some of which I regret. But they built me from the ground up. Turned me into the man I am today. A man who leads through the strength of compassion, not the threat of violence. I first learned that from you.”
We crested the hill, and I realized my breathing had evened out. Sam looked up at me—now several inches shorter than myself—the same fang-ridden smile spreading.
“Look at you, short stack. Guess I can’t call you that anymore.”
I looked down at my hands, familiar callouses back in their proper place. I was no longer the scrawny boy I had been when I’d first run Rudderkin’s Gauntlet.
“You’re not real, are you?” I asked the boy, my mind becoming clearer with each passing second.
“Not in the ways that matter.”
There was a sadness running beneath his words. Like he knew that our time together was limited, and the end barreled towards us at a breakneck pace.
“You don’t make it to the end of this Gauntlet,” I told him, resting a hand on his shoulder. He felt thin at my touch, like he was comprised of shale and paper. “But you’re the only reason that I do. And I’ll never be able to thank you enough for that.”
“This seems enough,” he replied, his dark eyes shining at the edges. “I got to see what became of the boy I pulled from the muck. Tell me this, Azrael. Did what I do make a difference?”
“A world of it,” I answered, the swell of tears causing my vision to blur.
“Good. That’s all I could ask for. I’m glad that the future is in your hands, and not that man’s. He signed his name across the Expanse in blood, hoping to leave a legacy. But blood can only leave a stain.”
Sam moved then, wrapping his arms around me and tucking his head against my chest. And though I knew not what magic had summoned him, whether from the Ether itself or from the depths of my mind, I hoped that he would remember the difference the strength of his kindness made for our people.
“Someone’s looking for you,” he said, lifting his chin from my chest to gaze up at me. “I’m not supposed to let them find you.”
“Cirian,” I muttered, the moments before the darkness crashed around us taking hold of my thoughts. “That’ll be him. He said that he would come for me. Are you going to try and stop him?”
Sam’s gaze drifted over my shoulder, back towards the wooded area at the base of the hill. “I don’t know if I’ll have a choice.”
“What is this place?” I asked, fighting the urge to follow the direction of his stare. “Do you know?”
“It’s a piece of you,” Sam answered, his sights set on something in the distance. “And a lot of something else. Something dark.”
“A piece of me? Are you saying that it’s using my memories to make this place?”
His gaze returned to me then, his eyes wide and wet at the edges. His hands pressed against my chest till I stumbled backfrom him. “He’s close. Once he breaks through, I don’t know what will happen. I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You could never hurt me, Sam.”
It was a piss poor attempt at comfort, years too late. But I needed him to know how much his kindness had changed the course of my life. Overhead, the clouds seemed to draw closer by the second, the rumble of thunder coming at regular intervals now.
“Can you grant me one more question, Azrael?”
The yellow-haired boy was so small now, his body frail enough that I thought he’d blow away if the wind whipped past. But his eyes stayed the same, holding me with a murky depth that I’d long forgotten.
“Anything you wish.”
“You made it through the Gauntlet. You played Rudderkin’s game. Was it worth all the pain, in the end?”
My chest squeezed, as if Sam himself had wrapped his nimble fingers around my heart.
“I’ve done terrible things in the name of our Rebellion, Sam. A lot of them under the orders of the monster who made us. And when I’d killed him with my own hands, I wept. I wept not because he was dead, but because I’d taken away any chance of him knowing the power that comes from kindness. So, I took on that mantle. I confiscated his name, because I would not allow the hero of our people to be remembered as the blood-soaked tyrant who took your life.”
“What will they remember you for, Rudderkin?”
The gruff voice drew my attention back. The original Rudderkin stood beside Sam now, arms crossed over his broad chest as he scowled in my direction.
