Let the shadows fall behind us [open]

[Cordis]

There are some things she would know anywhere. Some of these are sweet, like the exact architecture of Spyndle’s body, the lilt of her voice, the way she smells like flowers Cordis has no name for. Some of them, well – they are not so sweet. Other things she would know anywhere – the chuffing, wet breaths of a hellhound, the sound of heavy paws on a pine-carpeted forest floor, the way His laughter reminded her of rats scampering on broken glass. All this, and – the way His brand looks. It doesn’t matter that it’s different on each of them, she knows it, the way a body knows a fever, it’s a visceral and disgusting knowledge, and the kind of knowledge she cannot unsee. She shudders when she sees it embossed upon this woman. She sees other scars, too, wonders if they are His. It shouldn’t matter – He’s touched many, He has no limits to what He exacts on Beqanna’s population. She can do nothing to change it, and nor would she, even if she could, for last time she drew His attention He walked away with her daughter, and it was the last she ever saw of her. And furthermore, she shouldn’t care, because she is not the caring type – she is the loner type, the type who dresses herself in lightning and walks too fast, eyes flashing and fixed on some distant point straight ahead. She shouldn’t care that the girl wears a brand so like the one that graces Cordis’s own hip, because that is her past, and even if she can recall all too well the fetid, rotten-meat stench of His breath as He told her awful, wretched stories, it’s the past. It doesn’t matter. But it does – it must - because Cordis slows. She stops. And she looks at the woman on the riverbank. “Hello,” she says, then, “I didn’t mean to disturb you.” But I am already so disturbed, she thinks, but doesn’t say. Instead, she is quiet, save for the faint hum of lightning on her skin. c o r d i s I’ll touch you all and make damn sure that no one touches me