Creusus's Arc

Chapter 16 of 21

Creusus took another step back. The stone hall held its shape. Diablo sat on the seat with his wrapped hand still open, waiting for a piece that would not come. Behind Creusus, the knight stood near a pillar, silent, his black plate catching no light. Creusus looked at the knight and remembered the hum. In the arena, the armor had rung under his fingers, and matching that ring had given him his body back. The armor still carried it now. He could hear it under the quiet, low and even, like water moving under ice. Diablo did not have it. Diablo had only the pull, and the pull had thinned. Creusus crossed to the knight in four strides and set his wrapped fist against the breastplate. The hum climbed into his teeth. He held it, matched it in his throat, and let it fill his chest. Then he turned and drove his fist into Diablo's jaw. The ring passed out of him and into the seated man, and the stone hall answered. A crack ran up the nearest pillar. Diablo's head snapped sideways. His mouth opened, but no sound came. Creusus hit him again. The wrappings on Diablo's hand went loose. A third punch, and the skin at Diablo's temple split without blood, showing a dry seam beneath, like a pot fired wrong. Creusus kept the hum going. He hit the seam. Diablo came apart along it, shoulder to hip, in a slow tearing that made no noise the ear could name. What lifted out of the broken shape was not a body. It was a weight, a wanting, a shape that had used a face. Creusus opened his mouth and drew it in. He did not decide to. He only stopped refusing. It settled behind his ribs and lay down there, heavy and quiet, and he knew the will inside it was his now, not the other way. The pillar stopped cracking. The seat was empty. The knight had not moved. Creusus lowered his fist and looked at his own hand, still wrapped, still his. Something else was his too…