Only A Killer

Renard collects his horse a short way down the path. Even the mercy that she is okay feels like a sublime mockery.

How funny Renard always thought himself to be!

Grunting through his teeth, he follows the mountain trail down to a bend. The panorama shifts — the dense forest breaks into a flat, vast, grassy meadow, in the middle of which is a small town. Signposts aside the road wear that town’s name proudly, adorned also in the seal of Lacren’s royal family, as would a hound soil a fencepost. Renard rides to the town and locates its well.

Usually faces from Pilamine rise when Renard stares into Lacrenese wellwater. But this time, the only image reflected on the black surface of the water is Renard, who coolly reaches for an empty wineskin.

Fear, sadness, pleading, anger, begging, begging, begging — no part of Renard wishes to do this. You don’t understand me, his heart insists. I am fragile; helpless and weak, what I am is a foolhardy boy desiring of comfort and love. I wished to see something bad made into something good, tell me, is that wish wrong? My mistakes were innocent and my penitence is honest. I am not actually cruel.

But as it was a long time ago, the cold resolution of where he must go and what he must do quiets that lightness into unfeeling iron. Renard scoops the wineskin full.

There is no penitence. The Queen, Pleione, Orpheus, Verdan — these were paths shown to Renard only so he would understand that they were moot. Because it is true, he did kill himself on Kingslayer. But the brightness of Lacren in the wake of his death does not mean he is sanctioned to begin a new life.

It means what is left is a corpse. Corpses have no need for love, masters, families, salvation, future, hope, or nation. They wear memories of these things, but they have none themselves. Lacren’s brightness may be shown, but it will never permeate to him. For a corpse that still moves is only a puppet for the slaver who owns their soul, and in Renard’s case, that is Kingslayer, who he exists merely to hold. A dead man — that is what I shall be.

Renard takes the wineskin to his lips. For how bitter and disgusting is the sin that crosses his tongue, it flows down remarkably smooth. His throat spasms and kicks, as though the Pilamines were punching him from inside, yet he swallows it all, knowing that he has done evil and imbibed it deeper into himself once again. Renard laughs, wipes his mouth, and lets the dark aftertaste simmer, gulping back the vomit until he is still.

So perhaps his true heart is just a murderer.

But at the very least, there is a purpose that will bring this villain he is to his end.