Scales covered every inch of his body. He did not move. His eyes, piercing and white, were dead. There was beauty in this death. There was… something more. Something vast in those eyes.
Pain. There was pain, and it filled them to the brim.
For what more is there for a man in life if he is unable to die? There is no fear. Only the never-ending passage of time, as years blur into decades, and decades melt into centuries, until even centuries feel like moments rather than lifetimes. That pain… it was desire. Not a desire to die—nothing so simple. It was the desire to live. The heartbreaking wish to live, and not be bound by what others deem godhood.
And yet, he had placed himself here. He had accepted it. He had kept it. And all those who said otherwise… they had long since entered oblivion.
Lonely, Kalma seemed so lonely.
Since the very beginning—beneath that mask of terror, of absolute control, of power not understood by the meager minds of others—there was terrible loneliness.
"So dreadful, yet so beautiful…" Ignar spoke at last, shaking his head, "He is... well... was a tyrant. Violence and death incarnate. But somehow… you can't help but be enthralled by him."
"One either fears him so much that they will never reach his eyes, and see the beauty in them, and thus become a slave to fear… or," Ignar paused, "you look. You see past his power, just for a moment, and in those eyes, you see loneliness. You feel empathy. You swallow your fear and, for a moment, think: he can be hurt just as I can…"
His voice softened.
"He once shared with me a memory…"
"A hut he had once called home. Behind it, a garden filled with flowers. A singular apple tree that shared its fruit with him and his family. Such a rich memory to have—but such destitution hidden within it. For he could not remember his mother. He could not remember those he called family."
"He could only remember himself… lying beneath the shade of that tree, on a bed of flowers. All alone. He, beneath the lonely apple tree. A vision where there is nothing else. No one left to love. Just him."
Ignar fell silent for a moment.
"And then he asked me three questions… 'What does it take to forget someone you love?' 'Did I even love them?' And finally… 'Ignar, tell me, am I then a monster?'"
His brows furrowed, "Then he… he cried."
"And I had no answer to his questions."
"And now I ponder them myself."
"Yet I still have some solace. Something he didn't have. I still remember the ones I love. But even then… I am a monster. Memory has not redeemed me. It has only condemned me further." His voice wavered, then he swallowed.
"We had to believe that the things we did were worthy. We had to believe that the cost of our actions would be repaid by the freedom we gave our people."
"We had to be just. There is no other way to exist with this guilt."
"And yet, in deepest moments of my dread, I've asked a question—I've asked it an innumerable number of times…"
"If we had not rebelled against Kalma… would there have been fewer deaths?"
"Would our species still exist—and thrive?"
"Kanrel… did we doom our people to extinction? And for what?" He spat, "Freedom?"
Ignar turned away from the god who sat upon the obsidian throne and walked toward a door, which was smaller than the grandiose entrance to Kalma's palace. It was another set of doors, faintly familiar to Kanrel. They were the doors to Adrian Estate.
"During my years as part of, and as the commander of, The Knights of the Order of the Dragon, we conducted hundreds of raids," Ignar explained. "And as you may remember, it was my first…" He lazily gestured toward the door. It burst open. Wood splintered past him as he stepped inside.
"It is the one I most regret."
Only one guard stood on the other side. Ignar approached her, and with another casual wave of his hand, her head vanished. Her body collapsed.
"We were his hounds."
He walked down the corridor into a vast hall lined with pillars. Down the center ran a maroon carpet, embroidered with golden symbols—two-headed crows, crowned by the sun. It led to a throne at the far end.
Ignar halted. "Apparently, it wasn't Karen Adrian who sat on this throne. It wasn't he who held court… it was my father, Kalla."
"Here, many of the wealthier members of the rebellion knelt before him and vowed to form a new order for all Sharan. Long before Kalma exiled him from his court." He turned around, making his way back to the estate's entrance and up one of the two staircases.
The decapitated guard lay where she had fallen. Ignar stepped over her.
"Two of my fathers, both of them had accepted me as their own, both of them had taken part in this, both of them had caused it. Three generations. One could say… none better than the other."
"The lonesome tree in Kalma's memory… its fruit never fell too far, did it?" he muttered.
He climbed the staircase in silence, reaching the library whose doors stood open. Shelves upon shelves of books surrounded them, but Ignar paid them no mind. He walked through it all, to the west wing of the second floor. At last, he reached the door to the apartment section. He stopped and placed his hand on the handle, "Killing… the act itself is far too easy."
"Anyone can kill."
"But most need a certain state of mind."
"We were taught to kill without question… so we could just kill."
"It is easy, after all…"
He pulled the handle down and stepped into a lavish living room. Five Sharan sat, sipping tea and indulging in idle conversation. Unaware.
They did not have time to react as Ignar stepped through the door. He ended them with the same lazy gestures, one by one. Their heads vanished. The woman in blue was just about to sip her tea—now the cup lay in her lap. Tea stained her dress. Whatever she had meant to say would never be finished.
"There may not be a required state of mind for what we did," Ignar said, "but I would like to believe we all regretted it. We all looked at what we had done… and slowly rotted in the inside."
"Withering away as questions clawed into us: 'Why do I feel so… empty?'"
He stared at the bodies for a long while. Then, finally, he turned to the master bedroom.
On the door, there was a number… 309.
Kalla's room. The same number from the famed brothel known by its historical name: the Gates of Urul.
Why were they here already? Did Ignar not want to show the rest? Why was Ignar the one to execute all these people and not Kalla? Was this his memory—or someone else's? Had Kanrel's version always been his? Or had it been Ignar's?
Ignar stood frozen before the door. He hesitated, then opened it. No magical lock. Just a creak and a thump as it touched the wall. He inhaled deeply, then exhaled. Finally, he dared step in.
The room was divided into three sections. One for shoes and coats, with three couches and a low table. A second, with a large bathtub beneath a grand window that overlooked the street below. And then the third, final section: a bedroom with a king-sized bed, silk sheets, and plush pillows placed all over the bed. A door that led to a balcony for an even better view of the street below. Multiple wardrobes on the sides, and last but not least, subtly erotic paintings adorned the walls.
But Ignar looked only at the carpet before the bed.
There should be a body there.
But there was not.
There should have been blood.
But there was none.
Only the carpet.
He stepped toward it, stumbled, and fell to his knees. His hands trembled as he touched the fabric. "Why did I do such a thing?" His voice was barely there. Fragile.
"Why would he…" He broke off, swallowed, and tried again. "Why would he send a son—his son—to kill his own father?"
"Why?" A tear escaped eyes that had not cried in time immemorial. It rolled down his scaled cheek, leaving a streak. It fell. It landed, becoming a dark spot on the fabric. A single drop of blood.
Silence.
"All I wanted… was to serve."
Rain began to fall. One droplet at a time.
"I wanted to be useful."
At first gentle, then a torrent. A monsoon soaked the carpet and the room.
"And what did I do?" His question lingered in the rain, "What… have I done?"
Through Ignar's eyes, Kanrel watched. Where did this flood begin? Was it rain from above, did they come from within, or from the outside? Were these the tears Ignar had never been allowed to weep?
The rain gushed in with such force that the whole room began to flood. Everything was submerged. Everything was dark.
In this newfound darkness—submerged in tears or blood—Kanrel was, at last, free from Ignar. As if the separation was what they both needed. For a moment, they drifted apart, like two planets locked in orbit, passing each other in the endless void, never touching, never facing one another. And yet, the same sun of suffering pulled them both along.
Kanrel had lived through this… hadn't he? Even when it was not his memory, it had become his. It had been forced to be. And within these memories, not truly his own, he had found both a strange kind of solace and a guilt deeper than any held in the truth of his past.
He had not killed his father. But on the threshold of that carpet—that carpet now forever tainted by blood—he felt as though Ignar's tears were his own. As if Ignar's hands had once been his. He knew that feeling, the wish to serve, to be of use, and to make a parent proud.
Even the killings… they mirrored each other with their nigh-perfect efficiency.
And in this darkness, they orbited their sun. If only one planet could touch the other, if only they weren't just passing by at this moment, as the other might never be ready to accept the pity of others, even when it came from empathy, from a shared experience.
But… Even with all this. All this… sameness… Something gnawed at Kanrel's mind. A warning. To empathize with this… thing—this monster—even if Kanrel thought of himself one too… He should not compare. One had killed a few. The other millions. Billions, even.
And yet… even then.
Should he not? Was he not allowed to? When they were so similar... when he could not always tell which memories were his and which were Ignar's?
Who am I, truly?