--- related: - "[[2021-08-18 The Offer (DRAFT)]]" ---%% universe:: [[Verraine]] year:: status:: published market:: [[Corvidae Courier]] [Vol I, Issue 3 July 2018](https://indd.adobe.com/view/949c5c25-cb26-4767-b787-1546fc2e20c9) *nonexclusive* protagonist:: mentions:: location:: length:: flash fiction pitch:: character-arc:: analysis:: [[were ancient wars fought in summer]] analysis:: [[2021.08.18a Wars are won in the hearts of men]] %% Winter was no time for war. Mother would say no time was. I held my guts in with my hands and tried to ignore the _I told you so_ echoing through my memories. They spoke in her voice, but I’d been so sure my magic would protect me. Make the nobles notice me. Win me a place in at court. It hadn’t. Leave glory to the lords, she’d begged. I hadn’t. Now, the vermilion dregs of my power gained me only suffering as I tried to staunch my bleeding guts. I couldn't think beyond that, tried not to scream. There was something about the silence that made me fear to break it, and besides. I couldn’t trust that the battle was won. My skin prickled and the cold sweat of fear drenched me. Gods beyond, I didn't want to die. Not like this. Eventually, the agony broke my will. A woman found me writhing on the ground after the battle was over, weeping, screaming please and in the half-second before she moved me, I was pathetically grateful she couldn't know I was crying for my mother. Then, pain—pain so bad I couldn’t fight the black unconsciousness anymore, though I tried. I didn’t want to die. - - - As soon as I woke, a priestess entered the room, the orange of her aura a fiery nimbus. “Good, you're awake. I was starting to worry.” I was mender-mage enough to be worried too. My stomach had been sealed, but any relief was cut short by the wrongness of the healing. The long winding tubes that should have lay within me were nothing but shredded flesh. “What did you do to me?” I asked. “Saved you from bleeding out.” I considered the smooth skin of my stomach, like casing over the sausage of my damaged organs. “This death is worse.” I’d poison myself with my own waste, if I didn’t starve. “Ah, but what if you could live?” I stared at her. “Nobody survives this kind of injury. Not even with magic.” She barked a harsh, bitter, breaking laugh. “Not many mages are willing to pay the price.” “What's the price?” The flicker of an approving half-smile twitched across her features. “If I do this, you won’t ever die.” _That's a bad thing?_ I wondered, then remembered tales of ancient gods standing chained to stones beyond the veil, eagles dining daily on their hearts. I considered the battle I’d just fought, my mother’s brittle fury at having lost both father and sons to the portmaster’s war; imagined a lifetime of lifetimes spent watching people I loved wither and perish. I didn’t want to die, but never dying? I shuddered, then pictured my mother’s face again. Would it be worth it, to spare her the pain of another son’s death? I never should have left. She didn’t deserve to suffer for my mistake. “I accept.” ## References