Chapter Text
Lambert had one hoof off the pulpit before they had cast their eyes across the rest of the temple. Their sermon was as unfinished as the crowd of kneeling worshippers: curtailed by the last few blessings that their followers had heard every single day since the only one absent had reattached their head to their shoulders.
Narinder missing a sermon wouldn’t have been that uneventful a few years ago. In fact, back then, Lambert would have been more surprised if he did attend one. But, out of both courtesy and fear of what they’d find, they dared not breach his mind to find out why the first day he made a habit of attending sermons came after they bound their life-thread to his.
They suspected it was another way of offering the same penance he felt he had to atone for; they wouldn’t disagree with him if he did. That didn’t explain why the past four months of prayers he’d made in their name sustained their devotion more fervently than the rest of their flock combined, why they suddenly became aware of the crushing emptiness that engulfed their cult, or why they hadn’t noticed it until their unholy congregation was a few prayers away from dispersing.
The minute of silent prayer stretched into two, then a few more. Even a couple of their disciples peeked through the gaps in their fingers to crack an eye open.
Lambert let the stillness echo through the gaps until their ears rang. Then, finally, their voice cut through.
“Has anyone seen Narinder?”
A sea of hands parted to reveal the faces of their followers, and their unobscured discomfort before the collective shake of heads brought dread to the surface of Lambert’s skin.
Lambert swallowed it. Upon the dais, preaching their sermons cleansed their tainted soul, a daily ritual of burning to ash and rising from the cinders that cradled them. Unconsecrated, they stepped down before their closing words could anoint them in oil and light the flame. “He has been diligent enough to make up for the many sermons he has missed since his indoctrination. We will search the premises until he is found.”
Before their disciples could even stand from the front pews to lead the other followers out, Thornajul closed their eyes and held their arms outstretched, indicating their request to speak.
Lambert’s chest was already beginning to strain. “Yes, Disciple Thornajul?”
“Uhh…” Thornajul folded their hands in front of them, pursing their lips. “So, I didn’t want to bother you right before sermon, but one of the missionary packs was taken without being signed out.”
Lambert fought to keep their expression neutral as they lowered themself from the pulpit. “And you didn’t consider this important enough to report immediately?”
Thornajul shook their head. “I didn’t want to disrupt anything,” they reiterated, wincing at the futility of their own words.
Lambert felt their panic threaten to break the surface, but channeled it into their heart, where it would stay until their followers were far behind them. “I expect more from a Disciple of mine.” Their frigid calm struck more fear into their followers than outward anger, and they placed it wisely. “Thenana, what do you know of Narinder’s whereabouts?”
Without hesitation, Thenana shook her head and signed, “I believed he was working in the morgue. He’s… he’s probably fine.”
For once, Thenana’s optimism stung more than it soothed. “Fine? Why would someone who is fine take off without saying anything?” Lambert hissed. They’d had that question answered once before, though, and they had already thrown open the temple doors before they waited for their next question to invite further silence.
They didn’t bother to dismiss the sermon. Those prayers would have to remain unanswered until Lambert could fulfill their own.
Their hooves carried them with rehearsed ease until they reached the stone-walled edge of their cult. Only when they escaped the pressure of leadership was their urgency permitted to guide their actions. Heart racing, ichor screaming, Lambert dashed to the doorways of the forsaken realms before pausing for a moment they didn’t have. They didn’t know where Narinder would even have gone, or if he’d entered one of the doors at all.
The stardust-strung eyes of the being that oversaw each threshold dissected them, a palpable pressure against Lambert’s skin. They didn’t lift their chin to meet its gaze. They didn’t need to– in the back of their mind, the presence of another sacred authority softened the points of their fangs long enough for them to take a breath.
Lambert, whose loneliness was a blade lodged deep in their chest, had never acted alone. They grasped its handle, but this time, forced themself to wait before exposing the gaping wound beneath.
The Red Crown’s voice danced around their skull. You’ll find the answers you seek in Darkwood, Lambert.
Lambert didn’t need to hear another word. Their hoofbeats sounded against the foliage as they ran, keeping tempo with each wave of fear that crashed into their shore.
Narinder hadn’t crusaded alone since they poured each other mercy from a teapot. The tension didn’t dissipate that day, but it did relent into a malleable sort of peace. It allowed the placid smiles they exchanged and fragments of friendly conversation, pieces of each other they were putting back together one by one.
Surely he could not have left them behind after he extended his hand to them first. But outside the bounds of the cult, Lambert’s panic had room to rise. They still had to mend what had broken between them, but reconciliation didn’t seem too far away– which made Narinder’s sudden disappearance so alarming, so confusing, so off.
They called out the name they gave him and received only its echo in return, a scenario Lambert was beginning to tire of. He left again so soon after he swore not to– were they not enough of a reason to stay?
But no, that didn’t make sense. He offered his repentance in prayer, prayer so fervent that it could sustain their own godhood on his worship alone. Godhood was a role they, even now, were too small to fit into. And they’d always known that they weren’t enough, but it hadn’t mattered until they began to love Narinder this much. It was why a small, timid part of them kept trying to believe they could get over their feelings for him, as well as why they knew they never, ever could.
So they kept running. Their fleece snagged on brambles and thorns; they pushed their way through Darkwood’s overgrowth anyway, torn clothing and all, until they finally stumbled and collapsed to the moss-blanketed ground.
Lambert let themself linger against the earth for a minute. They didn’t indulge in entertaining their own misery very often– the damage they’d seen that do swallowed them with guilt, even now– but they held the feeling for the short time it was comfortable. But it passed quickly, and as they always did, they got up again.
When they stood, though, their eyes met someone else’s.
Lambert didn’t even have the energy to be embarrassed at having a witness to their surprise pity party. They simply dusted off their fleece, and though he’d seen them in much worse condition, muttered an apology. “Sorry, I should’ve known that handling this myself would’ve been too much to expect.”
“You came seeking another.”
True, Lambert didn’t intend to seek Clauneck, but the answers they chased led to him anyway. Their acceptance was immediate; the tarot cards appeared only when they needed to.
“He is the only creature who chooses to pull me up when I fall.” Through the cracks in their constructed self, they sucked in a breath. The air around them still hurt.
Clauneck watched the prophesied Lamb’s eyes shine with that determination that never died, and chuckled. “Not even you are as alone as you think, crownbearer.”
The Lamb hadn’t quite burned down yet– part of them wanted to exist here in the red-hot veins between the coals before they could rise anew– but the flame was already lit. Someone held the torch; they hadn’t decided who.
They retrieved the tarot card that they’d kept hidden in the Red Crown since the day they first wielded its power, allowed themself to remember who had held it before them, and placed it in front of Clauneck. “She doesn’t need this anymore.”
Hidden wishes, water choked out from lungs, and the word “coward” on each other’s lips were the promises the Eight of Cups foretold. Yet Jehovah couldn’t get rid of it, couldn’t take it from Juno. The card made them remember what her laugh had sounded like, back when she still had it, and the way it echoed off the trees when their branches shook. They had been too afraid to give it back, in case they dared to forget.
A smile appeared on Clauneck’s black beak, and faded only when he reached to place the tarot card back in Lambert’s lap. “Perhaps your sister does not, but I believe you might.”
Lambert stared at the card and tried to see the same desolation that Juno had claimed to read in it. They couldn’t, of course, even though they’d believed they had for a while. They refused to abandon their own spirit, because they had to hope they could carry enough for the two of them. “I can’t forget her. I’ve tried too hard to ever be able to.”
“And that was what you wanted? To forget her, to repress her memory?”
Lambert held the tarot card in their hand delicately, as if it would melt over their wool. “No.”
“Then I trust that you understand why you must carry this.”
A dark shame spread across Lambert’s features. It felt more comfortable there on the surface, when they allowed it to stay. After a moment, they took the tarot card back, and stared at it until they accepted it wouldn’t answer for them.
They were fluent in self-deception, trying to coax Narinder out of his thousand-year misery so they wouldn’t have to watch the blood seeping out of their own body. A grandiose charade, indeed– one that fooled them only until their untended wounds grew infected.
In the middle of that forest, among the towering trees and trampled flowers, Lambert understood the reading Clauneck had given them a decade prior.
Narinder deserved to be loved better than this, deserved a love that felt more than a warped substitute for their worship. Still, they had to ask: “Narinder’s not the problem, is he?”
Clauneck wasn’t the one Lambert had hoped to find here, but that was an easy fact for him to accept. That his readings were insightful didn’t always mean that they were well-received, but today, he could feel Lambert’s hunger for the same truth they had been evading.
“I’ve always thought I was a few steps ahead of him, trying to help him with everything he repressed before he would even acknowledge he was struggling,” Lambert said, an ugly ache settling in their chest. They didn’t push it down. “And that was a compelling distraction for a while.”
“Perhaps, young god.” Clauneck let his hands hover above his cards for a moment, then retracted them. “You speak the answers you sought years ago, wrapped up in the guise of questions. What, then, do you still fear?”
Lambert pondered Clauneck’s response a second too long, their own fingers occupying the empty space he had left above the tarot spread. They shivered at the thought of receiving the same clarity they sought from the cards. “I’m a hypocrite, you know. I wanted to help him so I could pretend I didn’t have to help myself.”
“Hmm.” Clauneck tilted his head forward and scrutinized Lambert without so much as opening his eyes. “I would not consider you unchanged from the moment that crown became truly yours.”
Lambert realized they were still standing when they met Clauneck’s piercing gaze for an uncomfortable moment. They sat, staring at the unturned spread of cards before them, tempted by the unmatched pull of arcane wisdom. “Do you think that I’m broken?” they asked, unsure who the question was meant for. “That I’m irredeemable?”
Red plumage rose behind Clauneck, then fell against his back. “I would urge you to rethink which answers you intend to seek.”
Whenever Lambert sought safety from Clauneck, his divinations always left them feeling more exposed than before– and yet, they would return to the comfort of that danger as they always had. They came to him to find the inverse of their expectations, and still forced themself not to recoil when faced with their own reflection.
They missed when being in love tasted sweet in its ripeness. Now, they bit into it and held its astringent sensation on their tongue. Lambert, who had no one to blame but themself for letting it fester too long, hung their head in shame. “I can’t unmake the harm I’ve done, Clauneck.”
“No. You hold it still.” Clauneck brushed his hand over the tarot card he’d given back to them. “Your choice of what to do with it remains.”
“I don’t know what I can do to be someone worth keeping.”
Clauneck remained agonizingly silent.
Lambert didn’t even know what they would be able to say to bring Narinder back home. They shook their head. “How can I figure out how to be enough?”
“Enough for whom?”
Lambert opened their mouth, but no name came to their tongue. Instead, they sighed out the remainder of their unplaced prayers.
“You could not tell your eternally beloved how to mend what is not broken.” With a wave of his hand, Clauneck’s cards aligned themselves into a single stack. “Nor can another tell you how to find what is not lost.”
Lambert wanted to be angry. They couldn’t. “Please just give me a reading.”
“Truthkeeping is a sacred duty, Lamb. I will not defile it by claiming that your answers can be found within the cards.”
Lambert looked up from the deck, catching their own reflection in Clauneck’s black eyes. They were so close to freedom that it practically permeated the air they breathed. “I am nobody, Clauneck. I’ve tried to be so many selves at once that they all overlapped and I became nobody at all.”
Clauneck’s talons folded together in his lap as he chuckled. “I regret that I cannot beckon the answers out from you, but you keep them inside of you, where they wait for your permission to appear.”
“I can’t– I’ve been the God of Death for years,” Lambert asserted, their voice starting to shake. “I’ve been a refugee, a stowaway, a sacrificial lamb, a vessel. I’m a leader built from all the lies I’ve told. A lamb, I think, still, but there’s no part of that left to save. I never got to be someone other than the roles forced upon me. I’ve been around for more than a century and I’m still barely even a living being. And suddenly, for the first time ever, I have no direction, no one to tell me who I am or what I’m supposed to be, and I don’t kn–”
Lambert couldn’t even finish before burying their face in their hands. Of course they couldn’t be Narinder’s yet; they couldn’t even figure out how to belong to their own self.
“I… I have no identity. I’m nothing.” Their voice had never sounded so weak. “I can’t figure myself out on my own.”
“Lambert, the guidance you seek will not help you here.” Clauneck spoke in a whisper, but even that rang too loudly in Lambert’s ears. “No one has the power to create you other than yourself. You are alive because you refused to give that up. Though whether you have unraveled the parts of you still waiting to be uncovered will not dissuade the one at the other end of the thread, I’m sure.”
Lambert shut their eyes, plucking the forbidden fruit and biting into its supple flesh.
Their tongue had grown numb to speaking every invented identity of theirs into existence, but they could taste the flavor that spread over it: the initial sweetness, then the rancid rot they’d spent their immortal life atoning for. But instead of spitting it out, they dared to let it linger. To their untrained palate, it stung.
“He waits for you even now, Lamb of many names. He always has.”
Lambert held the fullness of their intricacy in their mouth, sour and sharp until they could savor the smooth fermentation of the fructose. A wine like this, the gentle tug on their finger told them, could only be consecrated in communion. Hot sweat and cold tears dripped down their cheeks.
“Clauneck, I’m afraid of myself,” Lambert murmured, feeling the gentle embrace of the afterlife ease them below its surface. They leaned into it, but only long enough to see their thread leading them back to their sanctuary.
When they opened their eyes again, the tarot cards and the bird who unlocked their secrets had vanished into the immense blackness of the forest.
***
Secretly: that was the only way Narinder could, for the past thousand years, hold love for another.
He had a two-hour window to look through Silk Cradle, if time was generous to him. Luckily, the deranged old bird wasn’t too difficult to track down through the cobwebs and cackles, but he discovered quite quickly that finding her was the easiest part of his journey.
Narinder had known of Chemach’s descent into lunacy, but hadn’t witnessed its extent until he unwrapped his severed claw and presented it to her. She cradled it, muttered something about offerings and divinity’s rise and fall, lost herself in the relics and their voices only she could hear, and answered questions no mortal remembered how to ask until she noticed the claw again. Whispers like this had hidden his name, a few short years ago, cloaked in someone else’s voice.
Sunlight didn’t reach these caverns, and he couldn’t risk another reprise of the same conversation if he was going to make it back before Lambert started their sermon. He pushed his outstretched hands a bit closer to Chemach, still holding the relic yet to be. “Please.”
The light in Chemach’s eyes glistened when she snatched his severed claw. “Fallen God, you will keep the relic I make,” she commanded in a brief moment of clarity, before turning her back to him and whispering a chant.
Yes, secretly did he love– only until it unchained him.
Apologizing had never been Narinder's strong point. Now, holding the relic sanctified of his own flesh, the measures he took to prove his penance would require an apology in itself.
So of course he was acutely aware of multiplying his own mistakes when he returned to a huddle of cultists around the shrine, whispering amongst themselves. Heard their susurrus funnel into silence when they noticed him approaching, and felt the weight of his shame when they turned to stare at him. Felt the evening sunlight, dappled through the overhanging leaves, singe his fur.
Narinder’s ears pinned back. “Where are they?” he asked, because he knew they wouldn’t be here.
To the others, his question sounded aimless, but the follower who knew it was meant for her emerged from the rest. She tried to take Narinder’s hand and pull him aside, but when he didn’t budge, she frowned and signed, “You weren’t at today’s sermon.”
The burning shame didn’t show beneath Narinder’s fur. He unfurled his fingers to show Thenana the relic, then slipped it into his pocket to answer her in the hand-motion language she used. “I did not realize how long I had taken.”
Thenana frowned. “You went on another mission, didn’t you?”
When Narinder could give Lambert his claw, they would understand. Still, he lowered his head. “I had to do this alone. You know why.”
“Narinder.” Thenana addressed him with the sign name she had given him, a combination of the letter “N” with the sign for a cat’s whiskers. “Our leader couldn’t even finish their sermon today. When they realized you were gone, they left in a hurry. I think you need to apologize to them.”
“I– I need to apologize for every mistake they should hate me for.”
“They don’t hate you.”
Therein, of course, lied the problem. Whether he pursued Lambert’s heart or granted it peace, every step he took to correct his last was in the wrong direction. Fool that they were, they refused to leave him behind.
“If you need help to apologize, I will help you. But you need to reassure them you’re home at the very least, yup.”
If Narinder had to give Lambert his claw sooner for them to understand, he would have to figure out a better proposal.
Thenana put her arm around him and rubbed consolatory circles into his back. “I thought things were pretty settled after that, well, tea date,” she signed with her one free hand.
The suggestion of their communion as a date quickened his pulse, but Narinder couldn’t figure out how to disprove it. “We have talked, yes, but the regret is palpable between us. Every time we are together, the silence hangs longer than it had before. I’m– love and I are not compatible.”
“Oh, please, Narinder. When they get back, go talk to them. I know you, and I know that you have so much love to give.” She reached under his veil to brush it away and stood on tiptoe to touch her forehead to his. “Locking it away hasn’t helped too much.”
“I suppose not.” Narinder’s heartbeat kept racing. If Thenana saw past his guise so easily, then eluding Lambert would be impossible. His thoughts gravitated to the half-finished crochet project in his shelter; a pang of guilt struck his chest, but he could only right one wrong at a time. “I will not delay what needs to be done,” he said, verbally this time. “Thank you, Thenana.”
The air was thick with Lambert’s absence, but Narinder carried himself to their tent anyway. He dared to let himself in; it was easier than leaving himself unguarded for Lambert to make their home within him first.
Narinder checked the stock of their pantry. He found it predictably bare, save for a few small bags of staples. But if his memory of the recipe was accurate, he wouldn’t need more than simplicity.
***
Through their peripheral vision, when they closed their eyes and watched amorphous shapes dance behind the blackness of their eyelids, Lambert could sometimes notice those little bursts of light arrange into a familiar, joined life-thread. The afterlife had never been this easy to reach, but neither had it felt so close as when it led them back to Narinder.
The afternoon was fading into evening by the time it led them all the way back to their own doorstep. A comfortably stale smell trickled out of the cracked window. The inviting warmth beckoned to cocoon them from the outside chill, but they would rather find themself folded in the arms of the only one they wanted to think about.
Yet their hooves stopped in front of the door. Their walk home tucked in their earlier anxiety for a brief nap– but now, with only a wall separating them from their devoted, it was beginning to reawaken.
Before that feeling could rub the sleep-encrusted barrier from its eyes, though, Narinder pulled away the curtain-door between them.
Rebellion was in Narinder’s nature; Lambert knew better than to try to stop it. But when they heard a hint of hesitation peek through his voice, that safe “Lambert?”, they wanted to forgive him before the conversation even began.
They were still mad at him, of course, but the relief of seeing him safe compelled them to crush him in a hug.
When Lambert pressed their face into his shoulder, Narinder felt a spot of his robe dampen against his fur. “Lambert, I'm sorry,” he breathed, and pulled his arms around them.
No world existed outside of them yet. The two lingered there for a full minute, holding each other, until that fresh-baked scent realigned them with reality.
Lambert’s voice cracked. “I’m pissed at you, by the way.”
Narinder pulled away from the embrace, but kept his hands on Lambert’s arms. “You are right to be so.”
Hunger and fullness warred against each other in their stomach, a sickly havoc, until Lambert couldn't tell the difference between the two. When Narinder led them to the privacy of their couch, the unleavened bread of a bygone flock comforted them before he took his seat at their side.
Silence hung in the air for a moment. Lambert and Narinder stared at the food between them, since neither wanted to take a piece before the other.
Lambert spoke up when they couldn't stand not to anymore. “Why do you keep running away?”
Narinder held the truth in his chest, even when it threatened to burst out. “I have… worries about having hurt you,” he admitted, because it was the furthest thing from a lie that he could manage.
“Worries?” Lambert forced a laugh that sounded more like a choke. “You have worries? That’s your reasoning for pushing them onto me?”
Narinder crossed his legs and tucked his tail around them. “That’s not what I meant to–”
“It doesn’t matter that you didn’t mean it.” Lambert was past raising their voice with Narinder, but their fresh frustration brought a quiver to their words. “What if you get mortally wounded, never make it back, and I can’t find you?”
“You always do,” Narinder blurted before realizing he should have kept his mouth shut.
“I…” Lambert pursed their lips, too desperate to have him back to argue. To fill their throat with something other than anger, they reached for a piece of unleavened bread and let a bite dissolve in their mouth before they went on.
“I lost everyone, Narinder,” Lambert breathed, hugging their fleece around themself. “And of everyone I know, you should understand what that’s like. But I’m a lamb, and I need my flock. My other followers come and live and die, and I’ve accepted that, but you’re the only constant I’ve ever had and–”
Lambert paused to recollect their breath and reached up to grab at their wool, but Narinder’s hands caught theirs first. “I can’t lose you too. Bearing this crown… would mean nothing.”
Narinder wanted to hide, but he had made too many mistakes already to afford another. He looked upon the damage he’d wrought upon them, his destruction of everyone and everything he’d ever loved, but cradled those thoughts before they consumed him completely.
An impulse seized him– not quite courage, but its herald. He acted before he had the chance to deny it. “I’m sorry, Lambert. I’ve betrayed you too many times.”
Lambert’s breath was heavy in their chest. Their fingers twitched against their lap and curled against their fleece.
They looked up at Narinder. In the sickening softness of his eyes, they wanted to rediscover the innocent type of love they had felt for him in the beginning– light and fluttery and promising. Their breath was shaky as they inhaled a few broken sips of air, but they forced it out of their lungs with a steady rhythm. “I… I don’t…”
Every safe choice Narinder seemed to make had turned out unstable; perhaps he could regain some stability by taking a risk. Despite having every reason not to be gentle, he pulled his arms around Lambert and rested their head against his chest.
Stunned, Lambert forced themself not to flinch. They had known how to be taken care of, once, but it no longer felt natural. Tending to the needs of their flock made it easy to forget that they had their own. But since Narinder was there to remind them how to be cared for, they allowed the burden of leadership to slow to a standstill.
“I don’t… deserve you,” Lambert finished, their words still choked. “I cast you aside.”
“So did I.” Narinder’s voice was barely above a whisper. Lambert could hear him swallow. “But I still have need of you.”
Head spinning, Lambert pressed themself deeper into Narinder, trying to ignore their guilt at doing so. They needed him too. They were sick of pretending they didn’t– but what other option did they have?
Their scar burned. Shaky hands fidgeted with their collar. Their heart hammered against their chest knowing it was close to Narinder’s. The lump in their throat refused to sink.
Narinder brushed a steady hand over Lambert’s wool at the back of their head. “You’re tense,” he breathed.
It wasn’t wise to pretend this moment was anything more than what it was supposed to be, but Lambert allowed themself to be momentarily selfish. They let their eyes flutter closed and leaned their head back into Narinder’s touch. They turned their face away from Narinder’s chest once they noticed the tears rolling down their cheeks.
Narinder, of course, noticed them anyway, and swiped his tongue along the trails they left. When their face was clean after a few licks, he moved on to the top of their head, in the space between their horns. “…You’re filthy too,” he explained in between early rumbles of a purr that was springing to life at the back of his throat.
Lambert’s face was burning. “Sorry.”
Narinder’s heart threatened to rupture his ribcage, but he quieted it to let out the gentle purr that was already beginning to escape. His skin had craved their absent touch for so long that holding them in his arms brought the same pain he tried to soothe, but he couldn't bring himself to let go.
Lambert kept their breaths even so they wouldn't break into a full sob, focusing on the vibrations of Narinder’s purr and the rhythmic thump of his heartbeat. The combination was perfectly soothing. Their head was pounding, mind threatening to drift away, but they grounded themself by entwining their fingers with his silky fur.
Narinder brought a gentle hand around to the back of their head. “I will not leave you behind.”
Lambert’s ear angled towards his chest in answer. His purr grew loud enough to resonate through them, held them close enough that he could feel the tension release from their muscles fiber by fiber. It was the same technique he had learned while helping Shamura raise his younger siblings; when they became overwhelmed and near inconsolable, he would cuddle them to his chest and purr until they quieted or drifted off to sleep in his arms.
Lambert glanced up at Narinder, whose eyelids were heavy with comfort, before their surroundings began to fade into cozy abstractions. They let their eyes unfocus– once carelessly vulnerable, now a submission to safety. “You scared the shit out of me earlier,” they chided quietly.
Narinder’s voice, too, rumbled a little when he spoke. “What’s that sound, Lambert? Can you tell me?”
The question coaxed a gentle smile onto Lambert’s weary face. Their eyes fluttered shut. “My favorite sound in the world.”
Narinder accepted this answer but none of the hopes that followed it just yet. “Listen and you will know I am with you.”
Lambert gave him a light squeeze. “I do know. I just wish I understood.”
Narinder held the truth– an ugly, multifaceted thing– and kept his silent vow to show it to Lambert. Someday he would, when he was more deserving of them than this.
They existed together, bodies and fates intertwined, for a few more minutes before Narinder went silent. A long-missed quietude settled between them.
Narinder helped Lambert sit upright. He wasn’t ever going to be ready to give them the honesty they deserved. When he took a piece of unleavened bread, he forced it out of him anyway.
Lambert closed a hand around the other end and broke it with him: the body of their unspoken love, equally divided. “Is it okay to talk with you now?”
“Taste,” Narinder commanded, lifting his own piece to his waiting lips.
The commandment was a nostalgic comfort– brief absolution from their place at the top. More of a brittle sheet than a slice, the unleavened bread broke along the holes pricked into the surface. They reached for Narinder’s free hand, let their fingers lock, and ate of it in unison.
Matzah, their mother had called it. The bread of affliction, of fleeing their own captivity, of a family held together by their own strife. In times like this, they returned to its sterile taste to remember they were alive.
The moisture from Narinder’s mouth was gone when he opened it to speak. “I am… truly sorry I hurt you. No fault is yours.” He forced himself to look from his half of matzah to his fated lamb. “I have committed a lifetime of sins against you already and still cannot understand why you continue to absolve me of them.”
Lambert took another bite of matzah. This time, it tasted of forgiveness, both given and taken. “I can only admit that I am guilty of the same. You’re here because I betrayed you and I don’t think I’ve ever apologized for that. For taking the Red Crown from you.”
Narinder didn’t speak. Even if he could, he wouldn’t have known what to say.
“You saved me from my own sacrifice, so to lose my life over and over again for you only to be expected to return to that same position…” Lambert tapped their fingers in a drumming motion against their legs, then squeezed them into a fist. “I never thought of myself as above you, or that I deserved the crown more than you did. I thought you betrayed me and I bit back.”
“I did betray you.” Narinder looked at his hands: one folded into Lambert’s, one in his lap beside his half-eaten matzah. “I have continued to betray you by putting myself in danger. That stops here, I swear to you.”
Lambert stared at Narinder, waiting for him to finish the thought. They didn’t have to read his mind to hear the honesty or the hesitation that followed it.
Narinder never imagined he’d be capable of an admission like this, yet it fell out of him, a desperate triumph over his own ego. “…I miss you.”
“I missed you too.” Lambert pressed their head into Narinder’s shoulder again, angling their ears back so he wouldn’t notice the red tint to their skin. “I’ve wanted to say that for too damn long but I’ve been too much of a wreck to do it right.”
“You are not the wreck you insist you are,” Narinder eased, feeling a bit of Lambert’s exhaustion slip away as he held them. “Whatever premonitions you have of godhood, it will never be neat and organized.”
“It’s not…” Lambert started, then frowned. “Being so much just gets exhausting.”
Despite the flesh of his wrists rubbed bare, Narinder was unafraid to admit: “It is a burden better shared.”
“Yes. Well. We’ve dealt our fair share of hurt,” Lambert answered, swallowing the sour sensation that spread across their palate. For months, they had mourned Narinder before he was gone. Allowing that feeling to recede let a retrospective grief take its place– a scar as irreparable as the one their collar hid. “Have you ever hurt someone… not because you cared too little, but because you cared too much?”
Narinder paused, his mouth suddenly dry, and traced his claws along the outline of their back. “Millenia have passed. The world moves on.”
“I… lost my sister.” Lambert just wanted the truth out of them so they’d have somewhere else to keep it. “I tried too hard to keep her safe. Beyond just death, I’m the one who lost her.”
Three empty days had filled the space between Juno’s death and their own capture. They spent them sitting by her body, waiting for fate to catch up to them, because they had succeeded. They had outlasted every lamb, their own flesh among the fallen. And in return, they’d won their sister’s dying resentment, unable to resign their own ego to their love for her.
They didn’t lay a finger on her corpse, even to bury it. Jehovah watched her progress through rigor mortis: the stiffening of her muscles, the patches of red-tinted skin against the dirt fading to purple, the stench of rot. It was all the time they had to grieve; three days, a deal struck, and a century later, she remained untouched.
That nauseous feeling came back for them. This time, Lambert let it swallow them whole. “I’ve told you about Juno.”
“Briefly.”
Lambert pursed their lips, felt their reanimated shame wrap its hands around their throat. “She was all I had. I did want to be your vessel, but… I couldn’t let her go.”
Narinder kept silent. Somehow, it was the most comforting response he could give.
“If I had just listened to her instead of pretending our world wasn’t falling apart, maybe it wouldn’t have.” Lambert stared into the wall, eyes expressionless. “She was my best friend. I took life by the horns and she let life happen to her, and we made it work. I lifted her spirits when things were hard. But when we lost our mom, she just didn’t want to try anymore.”
Lambert gave an almost imperceptible shake of their head. “What else could I do? I did everything I could to keep her going, because I didn’t ever want to see her hurt. I fed her when she was too overwhelmed to even lift a spoon to her mouth. I lost sleep so she could get through the night. I pulled her out of a freezing river to keep her from drowning and I…” That hundred-year-old chill gripped them with its icy talons, even now. “I didn’t even let myself think she’d fallen in on purpose.”
“But she kept getting worse, and we kept getting more distant, and everything I did to try to fix it just made it worse somehow. Those last few months, she just… lost her mind. Hallucinations, yelling out to nobody, horrid nightmares. I didn’t know why, I just knew it was my fault.” When Lambert took their next breath, it fought them back. “I couldn’t change that sheepkind was done for. I knew I was going to die. I wanted to last long enough to make it mean something. She fought me on that in the end, tried to tell me how horrible it was to give the genocide any sort of legitimacy, but…”
Lambert sat up. The cool rush of air almost stung where Narinder’s warmth had been a second before. “She was tired. That was really all it was. She wanted to be at peace, to have our family all together again where we wouldn’t have to suffer, but my own determination to outlast the others kept that from happening.”
When Lambert had to pause, slipping their fingers beneath the fabric of their collar, Narinder felt his own losses echo. His eyes followed that feeling out the window for a moment before looking back at Lambert.
“Juno didn’t want the prophecy to be fulfilled. She didn’t want to let the Bishops say they killed us off for a purpose.” The story’s end flashed in the endling’s mind; they shook their head, willing it back. “So she brought us back to the wreckage of our hometown and gave me back one of the daggers I forgot I gave her, kept the other, and tried to convince me to do a double suicide. If we died together, there wouldn’t be a last lamb at all.”
Lambert, who had toppled gods, had no right to mourn someone they’d lost to their own weakness. There was nobody left to forgive them. “We fought. I tried to convince her it wouldn’t work, but I couldn’t appeal to a life she thought wasn’t worth suffering through anymore.”
Narinder watched them quietly. His eyes swam with something lonely, something shared.
“She wasn’t walking away from that alive. I wasn’t going to die that way after keeping the two of us alive for so long,” Lambert said flatly. “We both knew that.”
Juno had always found a way to come back to them, ghostly anger running beneath their every attempt at loving another. Scraps of regret they couldn’t bury while her corpse fed the earth, the water that flooded her lungs to prove she was already suffocating– Lambert couldn’t forget them if they tried.
Lambert closed their eyes and released a breath of fresh grief. “She stabbed herself in front of me as a last resort,” they forced out. “She begged– she begged me with my own weapon in her chest. She’s already dying, I can’t save her now. I tried so hard to make sure this never had to happen, and now you can’t stop it, Jehovah. If you loved your twin, you’d do what she wants. Don’t leave her alone. Don’t let yourself be alone. Listen to her for fucking once because she’s had to suffer through everything you wanted her to. She’s already done it, Jehovah, you don’t have a choice but to do what needs to be done.”
Narinder’s response was brief. “There’s no winning that kind of battle.”
“No, there’s not.” Lambert shook their head, still tracing the scar encircling their neck. “No second chances to even try.”
The talismans still waited beside their respective crowns. Narinder kept his guilt to himself– they’d given him a choice they never had, and he hadn’t even attempted to take it.
“She spent her last breath calling me a coward,” Lambert said, tightness closing around their throat. “My last words to her were calling her one back.”
The silence went untouched for a moment.
Lambert should be crying. They didn’t have to wonder what was so wrong with them that they weren’t. “She hated me in the end.”
Narinder’s tone went soft. “I doubt she fully hated you.”
It was meant to be a comfort, they were sure, but Lambert’s shoulders stiffened with quiet resistance. However tempting it was to want to believe him, they shook their head. “You weren’t there when she stabbed herself.”
“Certainly not. But I did see her like any other soul bound for the afterlife before I sent her on her way.” Narinder took another piece of matzah and broke off a piece, then split it again to share a paltry half with Lambert. “She knew she would never see you again. She did not ask me about the family already waiting for her, had nothing she wanted to know about the afterlife. Her only questions were about you.”
Lambert pressed their tongue against the tender flesh of the inside of their cheek. It was raw where the growth of their fang kept pricking. Once they tasted their metallic reward, they placed the bit of matzah in their mouth.
“She wanted to know what I planned to do with you, demanded that I keep you safe. Indeed, she spoke of you through her own anger, but she crossed into the afterlife only when she understood you would join her there after you were relinquished from your service.”
Lambert swallowed the sour sensation that spread across their palate. It was easier to believe she hated them than to know they had abandoned her twice.
They forced themself to keep talking. “So, when followers died, you got to meet with them kind of like how I met you?”
“Not– not only followers.” Narinder cast his glance towards the floor at a diagonal. “I did meet the rest of your family, if that is what you mean to ask.”
Lambert didn’t even know what they meant to ask. They wondered, though, when they’d be able to hone a similar power. “I just heard that and… I don’t know. Curious who you got to–”
“Did Shamura weep?”
Stunned, Lambert felt the air halt in their lungs.
The question had slipped between Narinder’s lips before he could stop it. A shiver coursed through his body. One thousand years of regret had stayed in its place, a tender bruise he couldn’t bring his chain-bound hands to touch.
“When you killed them,” Narinder whispered. “Did they know it was their end?”
The strange feeling in Lambert’s stomach didn’t subside, but the bare display of Narinder’s grief did soften their own ever so slightly. They couldn’t remember their first fight with Shamura, other than the sensation of feeling more alive than they’d ever felt, so they responded with a gentle hum.
Narinder halfway wanted to pull Lambert towards him again, as if the contact would alleviate the multitude of reasons time was slowing. He didn’t, but he felt his discomfort slip away as he spoke to them. “I sought resurrection for their sake. They took my gift to them and forged it into the chains with which they bound me.”
Never in the century and a half of knowing Narinder had he discussed his family so openly with them. Lambert tried not to look too enthusiastic when they nodded.
“That’s why… When it was their plan to forsake me all those years ago…” Narinder pondered the half-formed thought, unsure how to end his sentence. He didn’t always have much of a conclusion to draw other than pain and anger. But Lambert’s fear, too, of losing their own sister had stolen her away, and they sat before him unaware of how loved they were. “You sent the disciples of Silk Cradle to me, one by one, and each had a story to tell.”
Lambert reached for Narinder’s hand to give it a gentle squeeze. They dared to ask the question he was hesitating to answer: “Did you see Shamura?”
Narinder’s stomach churned, and a thin sliver opened between his lips. The memory beckoned to him; he let it sleep a little while longer. He felt his ears fold back a little. “...Forgive me. I meant to be here for your sake.”
“No, please,” Lambert encouraged. “Promise me I’m not alone.”
Narinder went still, a dangerous sort of calm. He would never be prepared to process the enormity of his desolation, or the role he had played in the collapse of his family.
Closing his eyes, he let the first fragment of grief emerge on its own. “Disciple Valefar told me that Shamura sometimes thought I was still with them, despite that it had been their decision to banish me. That they saw the wounds I had inflicted on my siblings and looked for me, afraid I, too, had been hurt.” Exposing a truth like this made Narinder want to vomit, but Lambert had shared their own. The opportunity had never felt so safe.
He paused beside Lambert for a long moment. “I used to wonder what Shamura would have done if I had shown up during such a lapse. Would they remember me fondly? Would I be able to pretend that nothing had torn us apart?”
Lambert kept their hand over his, palm against palm. “You know you haven’t lost them for good, Narinder.”
“No.” Narinder couldn’t think of seeing Shamura– he would have to right one wrong at a time– but the temptation was there. Their gift, too, was still caught in limbo, two lost kits waiting to be found. “I failed to protect them once before, a mistake I do not intend to repeat.”
Lambert’s eyes flicked towards their lap, then back to Narinder. “Well, at least I don’t have to spend eternity with someone as perfect as I pretend to be.”
“Certainly not.” Narinder gave them a soft smile. “Your sins are mine.”
Lambert had to fight their own heart to keep it under control. Boldly, perhaps to taunt themself, they reached for him again to soothe it with the scent of his fur. One arm draped over his shoulder, one around his waist– they held him as closely as they held their own everlasting life.
Sweat began to collect on the underside of Narinder’s chin. He had held them many times before, back when they could fit in his skeletal hands. None of that came close to being able to feel their pulse enveloping his whole body.
Lambert hummed. “Can we stay like this for a while?”
Narinder hoped that Lambert couldn't feel his cheeks burning against their wool. “If you wish it.”
Lambert gave a contented sigh and nuzzled their nose against the curve of his neck. For now, they could at least imagine he loved them the same way, skin against unforgotten skin. Because they couldn't stand the space it took up, they forced out the question that clawed at their insides: “Who am I to you?”
More than his own freedom when he was chained, more than his ambition when Shamura shoved it back into a reopened tomb, Narinder wanted to tell them the truth. “Don't ask me something so dangerous.”
Lambert was afraid to ask what he meant, but they feared his silence more. “I’m just… tired of trying to be everything and amounting to nothing. Trying to be someone worthy of godhood, I guess, but… I don’t know.”
Narinder guided Lambert’s hand back towards his chest, right where his desolate heart fought to escape its confines. “You do not need to do anything to earn it. It is already yours.”
It was a nice thought, but comforting enough that they knew it couldn’t be true. “I’ve fit into every role and expectation placed upon me so well that when I finally got the freedom I fought for, I didn’t have a clue what to do with it.”
“The growing pains of godhood will become far more literal,” Narinder warned, motioning towards his third eye.
Lambert gave a half-assed frown. They’d planned to follow that up with a lament about their own flaws and a crumbling image of perfection. Now they couldn’t leave their curiosity unsatisfied. “Will I get another eye?”
“It’s impossible to know. No two gods grow into their divinity in the same way.” Narinder’s voice was soft. “Whoever you become, you will not have to be on your own.”
His prophesied lamb looked down at the moon pendant they’d carved for him years ago, still worn proudly on his chest. It hadn’t been their first act of love, but it had been their first of many in penance for their own self.
The confession was there, tightly clinging to their lips. “Nari, I should tell you something.”
His hand was still atop theirs, the soft pads of his fingers tracing their veins. Even the light pressure made the ichor running through them pulse with excitement, so close to the fervor they’d bled for.
“I–”
They opened their palm to his and seized that hand like a lifeline.
The words Lambert needed to say came out scattered. “I would hurt you. I… don’t know how not to.”
“I would deserve it for leaving you alone.”
Lambert tried to laugh at their own cowardice, but the dull ache of their scar silenced it, begging to be set free. “Well, I don’t know if that makes this any easier,” they said, unlatching the hook of their collar. “But thank you for letting me make this old scar hurt a little less.”
The collar slipped away, exposing the jagged, gray scar carved around their neck mere inches from Narinder’s face. He refrained from tracing it with his claws, afraid it might still be sore, but he dared to tempt himself. “May I?”
Lambert was a coward. They couldn’t even pretend they weren’t ashamed of their scar, despite fighting so hard to earn it. Other than the lonely light of the moon, they couldn’t bring themself to reveal it to anyone. But Narinder felt so careful, so safe, that they scarcely hesitated. “I trust you.”
It didn’t take them long to realize that the answer they had given was not for the question they thought he had asked. Narinder’s nose nudged against their scar. This was fine. Once his breath came out hot, another warmth followed and left a gentle cool in its wake.
Narinder felt Lambert’s neck tense below his tongue, so he kept licking. It would take a moment to get used to the sensation before it would soothe their scar.
“W-wait. I…” Lambert stammered, then kept their mouth shut. Their heart was pounding as if it believed these were true kisses, light and fluttery.
At their command, Narinder stopped, the tip of his tongue still halfway out.
The ache in their neck had, in fact, subsided a little. Grooming was just a cat thing, Lambert had to remind themself. After a second to collect their thoughts, they took a controlled breath. “Never mind. …You can go ahead.”
Lambert felt Narinder’s hum against their scar more easily than they heard it. Fighting their anxiety, they let themself relax while Narinder licked the parts of their neck where wool no longer grew. It was calming, actually, once they accepted it. The papillae on his tongue made each swipe feel like a massage of sorts; it almost made them want to close their eyes, but they caught themself before they had the chance to mistake this for a dream. Gently, they rubbed their chin across the back of Narinder’s head where his fur was softest.
“You should clean this more often,” Narinder reprimanded, though it came out as less of a complaint and more of a prayer. His thoughts were getting dangerously content.
A part of Lambert meant to answer with a bit of banter, but they silenced it. Their tail thumped a relaxed rhythm against the cushions. For one night, it was easy to make themself believe that he loved them back the same way, especially when his satisfied rumble came so close to their skin that it seemed to echo through them–
“Sheep can purr?”
Lambert didn’t realize Narinder had pulled away, affixing them with an incredulous stare, until he spoke up. Their chest kept fluttering with the same trill, strange and new.
Oh. That peaceful sound had come from them this time.
Lambert cleared their throat. “Sorry. I, um, forgot I could.” They didn’t remember ever knowing that sheep could purr, either, but they set that thought aside.
Narinder planted his face into the other side of their neck. Purring a quiet countermelody, he gave a few last licks to Lambert’s scar until he lulled the hundred-year ache to rest.
The vibrato coursing through their throat was unfamiliar, but Lambert chanced to welcome it. “Can I… keep purring like this?”
Heat rose to Narinder’s cheeks. He bunted his forehead against their neck, then detached himself from them so they wouldn’t feel him blush. “I can hardly hide my own for you. Of course you may.”
They tried again, for him. It came out guttural, tattered. “I don’t–” they paused to process the unfamiliar vibrato that their purr introduced to their voice– “seem great at it yet.”
Narinder reached his hands behind their ears and rubbed soothing circles against the furry undersides with his thumbs. “I find it comes easier when someone brings me comfort.”
It took everything Lambert had not to melt into his touch. “Why, yes, I could procrastinate indoctrinating the new recruits until tomorrow. You make a very convincing argument,” They said with a smile, trying not to giggle at how the affection doubled the volume of their purr. Once they noticed how wide his pupils had dilated, they struggled to look anywhere else. “Does your moon necklace need re-enchanting or something? You look like you’re getting sleepy.”
Narinder made no attempt to refute the claim. The real reason he was blinking at them so slowly would be much harder to explain. “Must be.”
The opportunities to do so were rare, but Lambert indulged in sleep when they could carve out the time. Not that they had much time now, but Narinder was here. They could afford to set reality aside for him. Gentle moments like this would never have to decay in their memories anymore.
Lambert whispered their beloved’s name, just so they would hear him answer it. “Narinder?”
Narinder hummed. The hunger in his stomach was growing too painful to ignore.
“I’m proud of how far you’ve come.”
Narinder wasn’t prepared to make peace with his own guilt. His own sins wouldn’t disappear, but he found Lambert’s reflected in his and loved them anyway. “As I am of you, my God of Death.”
At first Lambert didn’t reply, but when Narinder lolled back against the couch, they cracked a smile. That reawakened purr was beginning to settle into their bones. “You plan on getting up anytime tonight?”
“Mmmh.” Eyes drifting shut, Narinder felt Lambert fit the shape of their body against his. “Too cozy to move.”
It was tempting– far too tempting– to plant a kiss on his cheek. The moment was so close to perfect it hurt to throw it away. But Lambert loved him too much, so they settled for deciding they would be too cozy to move, too.
All went still in that little home. The plain, nostalgic scent of matzah mingled with the musk of Narinder’s fur. For the first time in years, Lambert felt themself begin to drift off and welcomed it.
Which worked well enough for Narinder. Once he was sure Lambert had fallen asleep, he took advantage of the solitude of night.
***
“Hello,” Narinder breathed, feeling suddenly ridiculous.
The entire village surrounding him should be asleep at this hour. He prayed they were, so nobody would hear him speaking to the foreboding centerpieces of the follower quarters.
But he couldn’t deny that the first word had made his chest feel lighter, somehow, so he kept going. “It has… been a while. Perhaps it would bring you some comfort to know how drastically I have changed.”
Hesitating, Narinder huddled into himself. Hearing from Lambert that he had changed was as comforting as it was distressing. He wondered how much of his callous armor he had shed since Lambert overthrew him, and how much he had reclaimed of the self he had known before his shackling.
“I am sure you would be pleased to know how small and weak I have become,” Narinder said with a sour smirk. “I suppose I still have not figured out how to use my own capabilities in moderation, and suffered the consequences once again.”
The night answered with silence.
“I have mortal friends. Or rather, one mortal friend. The others make me want to gouge my own eyes out.” Narinder stared at each crown’s eye in succession, inviting the shiver it sent down his spine. “Despite my efforts I have not been able to bear as much of the friendship’s weight as she has. Truly, it would be more convenient if she complained about that. If she did, I would likely find a more substantial way to make up for my inaptitude than giving her this.”
He reached into his pocket for the scarf he had crocheted, a red-and-white tangle of yarn. The quality still didn’t meet his standards; he’d likely have to unravel it a few more times before he was content to call it finished. It was a welcome excuse to listen to her endless supply of textile knowledge and watch her craft into the night, but eventually he would have to accept that he could not replicate her skill.
“Her life is more than halfway over, and she is far more accepting of that than I am. She is wise beyond the years a mortal lifespan should contain.” She had been right, of course. His capacity to love was still there, a nagging sensation he hid in the pit of his stomach until it ate its way through his skin. “And the vessel whom I forced to do my bidding is…” Narinder paused to take a careful scan of his surroundings before he continued. “…Is now the one I love.”
It was the second time he’d spoken the word aloud. It still singed his tongue.
“I am well aware that the nature of love is variable, but the romantic type is a matter I have yet to resolve.” Not that he knew how to handle any type of love without breaking it yet, but his heart had never beat this way for someone else before. “I do love Thenana as a friend. I did talk with her about this as well, but you have known me for millennia.” He tried not to think about how much of Thenana’s life he would be present for, and what little fraction of her time would overlap with his. “Even if I don’t get an answer, I need your guidance. I know it is beyond selfish to ask for it after what I have done.”
Narinder paused for a moment to notice how gentle his world was, now. He wondered if he would ever grow used to it.
He turned to Shamura’s statue. “Five becomes four becomes three becomes two becomes one becomes nothing,” he echoed, voice dry as the dust that collected on cobwebs. “I was the only one you told of this prophecy.”
A blink or a sudden glance from the eye of the crown would have been as unsettling as the stillness that followed.
But being alone did not deter Narinder anymore. “Though there was no indication of when it would come to pass, its meaning was clear. I ruled death, and forbade the idea of losing my siblings to it.” His words were devoid of inflection when he spoke, but his heart was caught between racing and stopping altogether. “You encouraged me to seek change, to think about my domain in new ways. The Old Faith preached balance above all, but losing any of you would disrupt that which we carefully maintained anyhow. I did not want to forge a path without any of you or give you reason to fear me. You know this.”
“I dared to question an order that held me back. Faced with the threat of losing all of you, I pursued resurrection to keep our family intact. You turned it into fuel to tear us apart.” Narinder’s tail curled around the skirt of his robe. He wondered if the hollow feeling he could never find a name for would ever completely disappear. “What else should I have done? I meant only to protect you.”
Narinder wished he could have felt some sort of relief. It was easier this way, a confession of convenience, because he didn’t have to hear any answer. If, in the intermission between life and death, they were listening at all, they couldn’t interrupt. They couldn’t shut him down. They had to listen to him for once instead of casting him out the instant they felt threatened.
Which, of course, was why this whole endeavor was worthless. He kept speaking anyway.
“I do not regret the path I chose back then.” Narinder looked over his shoulder, once again assuring that Lambert had not followed him there. “It led me to them, after all.”
“But I cannot be capable of deserving them until I accept the blame for tearing us apart.” A twinge of remorse broke through his voice. “Even when you bound me in chains, I did not hate you. I wanted to. But I could not resent you until the weight of being truly alone began to crush me.”
Narinder watched the dark space between the pillars recede. “I had a family who cherished me, and I ruined you. I almost did the same to my lamb.” He laughed, in spite of himself. “Serves me right. I cannot possibly love them until I clean up my own damn mess first.”
Every word clawed its way up his throat and burned on its way out. “Is that why I am talking to you now? Is it futile to attempt to close this chapter before I can begin a new one?”
He didn’t even know how to comprehend caring about another without an ending wrapped in bloodied bandages or chains. He’d tried again, for them, just once, expecting the venom to strike.
But Lambert didn’t have the fangs that bit him. They were the antidote.
Narinder pushed out the words that shouldn’t be his to offer. “I must start by asking, despite everything, for your absolution.”
He allowed the silence to settle before he went on. “I should find no comfort in the memory of having you by my side. Yet without all of you, I have been lost. I am bleeding red in this world of gray, torn between what I have done and what I must do.”
“But this lamb,” he continued, a slight smile turning up the corners of his lips, “this damned lamb… fills the pieces of me I had lost. I’ve found a place with them. Their own sins fit gently within my own. I have a reason to see color returning where I had bleached it out.” Narinder shook his head. “But I’ve talked for too long. I know what I must do now.”
For one last time that night, he looked at each of the crowns on their statues and the talismans they guarded. “I will ask them to make sure you’re at peace, even there. You have all suffered enough because of me. I’m sorry. I love you still.”
The intonation of wind blew through the trees, an exhale of the world around him that whispered between the foliage. If Narinder listened closely enough, he would have heard it imitate the faintest semblance of a word, the same one that Lambert had used to break the glass encasing his reanimated heart:
“Forgiven.”