That catches Paul up in a pause. His shoulderblades flare as he pulls them back, his head tilting as if he might look back.
"Maybe.” He doesn't.
He starts as smoothly as he stopped, pushing on through the house and towards the open front door. His explanation flows from him lightly and with sureness. He knows these gods as he knows any adversary.
"There's a ritual to call her. A sinner's blood spilled alongside a punishment, and she can be appealed to by her supplicant to intervene on their behalf. Most people inflict it after a violence against them. We're going to use it to prevent a violence against someone else. It's not as though she doesn't have reason to scourge the head of this House. All we're asking for is a more specific set of conditions."
He's practiced deference here, sheathed his most decisive actions in discretion. He's doubted himself, mistrusted directness. All of that exists somewhere outside of him now. His marrow hums with rightness.
“I can’t call on her. You’re right.” He pauses in the open doorway, his hand resting on the frame. “But if someone else does, if they punish me first, she may accept it. And if not, if I’m wrong – if she curses me, or kills me – she’s going to do that whether she comes here or not. The Reckoning takes her due. It might as well be worth something.”
“It doesn't have to be you,” he says, softly, and this is when he looks back, eyes shaded like the dark, lonely green water of a mountain lake, because we is more a broken hope than it was a promise.
no subject
"Maybe.” He doesn't.
He starts as smoothly as he stopped, pushing on through the house and towards the open front door. His explanation flows from him lightly and with sureness. He knows these gods as he knows any adversary.
"There's a ritual to call her. A sinner's blood spilled alongside a punishment, and she can be appealed to by her supplicant to intervene on their behalf. Most people inflict it after a violence against them. We're going to use it to prevent a violence against someone else. It's not as though she doesn't have reason to scourge the head of this House. All we're asking for is a more specific set of conditions."
He's practiced deference here, sheathed his most decisive actions in discretion. He's doubted himself, mistrusted directness. All of that exists somewhere outside of him now. His marrow hums with rightness.
“I can’t call on her. You’re right.” He pauses in the open doorway, his hand resting on the frame. “But if someone else does, if they punish me first, she may accept it. And if not, if I’m wrong – if she curses me, or kills me – she’s going to do that whether she comes here or not. The Reckoning takes her due. It might as well be worth something.”
“It doesn't have to be you,” he says, softly, and this is when he looks back, eyes shaded like the dark, lonely green water of a mountain lake, because we is more a broken hope than it was a promise.