Creusus's Arc

Chapter 39 of 43

Creusus kept his feet set, but Malachai made no move to rise. The man only held the woman closer and waited. Kallista came up beside Creusus and touched his arm. She did not know this face. She did not know what he had done. Creusus loosened his shoulders and let her stand there. "Sit," Creusus said. "Talk." Malachai sat up in the grass. He laid Deborah's head on his folded knee and smoothed her hair once. His hand shook doing it. Creusus had never seen his hand shake before. "I took a thousand souls," Malachai said. "Not near a thousand. A thousand. I fed them to him one by one. A boy first. His father last on that count. Forty more in a temple. Villages after that. I found what a person wanted and I became it. Then I took them." Kallista's fingers tightened on Creusus's arm. Creusus did not look at her. He watched Malachai's face for the old smile and did not find it. "Why tell me," Creusus said. "Because i owed a debt, he gave me until my 35th birthday and I gave him 1000 souls" Malachai said. "He wore me for the last of it. I watched from inside. I strangled her with my own hands and I could not stop them." He looked down at Deborah. "And now," Creusus said. "Now he is gone," Malachai said. "Whatever he put in me went with him. The hunger. I woke here and I could not feel it. I have not felt it since." Creusus studied him. The wrappings on his knuckles stayed cold. If Diablo were still in this man, they would have warmed. They did not warm. Kallista spoke first. "He killed people?" She stepped back from him. Her face had gone pale. Creusus turned and took her hands. He kept his voice low. "Look at me," he said. She did. "He cannot hurt you. I will not let him. If he lifts a hand I will end him here." "You promise that." "I promise that." She breathed out. She did not smile, but she stayed. Deborah stirred in Malachai's arms. Her eyes opened on the wrong sky and did not flinch. She looked up at Malachai and touched his jaw with two fingers, calm, like a woman greeting a husband at a door. No fear. No memory of the hands that had killed her. Malachai bent and pressed his forehead to hers. He wept without sound. Creusus watched them and knew the thing he had been braced to kill was not in this grass. Four of them now, in a world with two moons. He let his fists open at his sides.