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“No, because you’ve been exposed to one man’s ideology where kindness, goodness,loveare weaknesses, and cruelty, hatred and violence are strengths. You’ve been brought up beneath an entirely different set of rules based on a cycle of abuse that has occurred over countless generations.”
“That began because a woman waskind.”
Five shakes her head. “That began because a man feared a woman’s ability to heal, to do good, and so he called her a witch and hung her from a tree to prove just how evil she was. Only the true evil was the man who used fear, hate and violence to intimidate and murder. Marie was never to blame.”
“But that’s your view based on what ideals and rules you were exposed to.”
“Precisely.”
“And your point?”
“And my point is, which is right and which is wrong? My views or yours?”
“Kindness started all of this,” I say adamantly.
“And kindness will end it.”
I fall silent for a moment, ruminating on what she’s said, a sick kind of feeling brewing in my stomach. It’s unfamiliar and I have the sudden, very desperate need to purge it from my fucking system. Five folds away her knives and ties up the leather pouch, securing it with a bow before tucking it under her arm and meeting my gaze.
“The way I see it, the question you should be asking isn’t why the human heart has made your brother turn his back on you, but why a man with a heart so broken, soevil, so filled with endless darkness can save the very person he was supposed to destroy. Is it an invisible force called fate moving all the pieces? Is it because of a legend written hundreds of years ago predicting it will happen?”
“I don’t believe that, no—”
She dips her head, before locking her gaze with mine. “Then could it simply be because one man decided to embrace the feelings that he’d been forced to ignore his whole life? That after years of being indoctrinated,trainedif you will, to behave a certain way, to believe another man’s ideologies, that he was finally brave enough to go against all of that, and act withkindness?”
“I—” I begin, cut short by her continued frankness.
“Or perhaps you need to ask yourself this question: Why, if you are so completely your father’s son, are you now having a conversation with me about the human heart, about good and evil, right and wrong? Perhaps it’s not Leon’s heart that you need to concern yourself with, but your own…” Her voice trails off as she regards me. Then with one final dip of her head, she says; “I shall see you at dinner this evening, Master. Good day to you.”
I watch her walk away, my thoughts reeling.
