“And so it’s as the prophecy foretold” 

She stands behind me. My eyebrows raise at her sheathed blades. Dust, blood, and sweat cling to her sorry excuse for amour. Her hair is bedraggled, leather ties having gone missing. She looks the most pitiful I have ever seen her. 

I answer back, just as coolly. “You and I knew how it would end. Once fires fall from the sky, the fall of faith brings an age of anarchy.” 

“A city born anew. A Saviour reborn,” she finishes the prophecy we both know by heart.

My mouth stretches into a poor imitation of a smile. “I suppose I have been reborn, haven’t I? Who would’ve thought?”

Her head shakes in disbelief. “I never should have vouched for you. I believed in you. And the council believed in me. I should’ve known you were always like this. ” 

“You think I did all this myself?” I shrug. “You know they made me this way.” 

“I should have known your soul was evil. Hidden deep–” 

Enough. I leap forward, a hand grasping the loose mess of her hair. My sword’s edge has somehow found its way against her neck.  She doesn’t struggle. If I could envision your soul, it would have been a resplendent dragon. The hunted became the hunter. Risen from the ashes of my torment. 

“If I’m going to die tonight, surely you’ll allow me one final question.” 

My blade stops just shy of breaking skin. She knew, and I knew that she was a dead woman. There wasn’t much else to it. It would not be a fair fight. I could not deny the fact that she had grown. But, I had grown too and far beyond that. I was reborn. It was a bad idea to say yes. 

“Yes,” I say, too quickly; it was weak. “One question.”  

She dares to cross her arms, as though I did not have a sword pressed against the soft skin of her throat. The soft skin I laid my unworthy fingers against during the darkest moments of the night, moments when anything said dissipated into the ether. 

“Anytime now,” I force out. 

She levels me with a searching gaze. Her eyes narrow. 

“Why?” 

It’s a simple, yet loaded question. I don’t understand. My silence says more than I ever could. Her eyebrows furrow. 

“Why did you leave the force? What was all of this for?” 

“You know I want the same thing as you. I wanted to end the regime. And so I did.” I blow a strand of hair off my face. “I did what I needed to do. No one will push me down. Not again,” 

“Not when they’ve all been bludgeoned to death!”

I frown. “I never meant to–” 

“You burned the compound to the ground. The citizens are scattered, run off to god knows where,” she snarls. “Away from the crazy, magic sword-swinging ex-cadet.”

A film of mania glazes over her widened eyes. To my horror, she presses her neck to the blade's edge. A bead of blood blossoms where razor edge meets skin. 

“If you meant what you said before…if your ‘glorious revolution’ was ever real,’ she whispers, eyebrows raised almost comically. “Then kill me.” 

I take a step back, alarmed. Briefly, the blade moves away from her neck. I knew I would never. Could never. Not like this. It wasn’t fair. 

“N-no. I would never–” 

She grabs the hilt of my sword, warm hands cupping over mine, pressing the blade against her neck once more. 

“You know all it would take is one slice. One downward slice.” 

There’s a struggle for my sword. My hands begin to pull away, but hers grip them tightly. A line of red begins to trickle down the hollow of her throat. 

“Do it.” 

“No. I…I can’t. You know I can’t,” you plead. “I would never kill you. You don’t deserve it, not like the others. You were never like the others. You are what’s most precious to me–” 

She laughs. It’s rough. And cruel. “You can’t say that. Not after what you’ve done.” 

“I did it for us! You don’t understand. I had to do it! I had to. There was no other option.” 

“So was there a reason for you to murder our entire squad?” she asks. 

My hands tremble, and my breaths come quickly. The Master once called me his best tracker, during my days in the compound. I was small. Plain. Unassuming. But slippery. That and my affinity for technology had made me a formidable force. A force that no one had recognised for its greatness but myself. That week of hunting came easily to the forefront of my memory. I tracked them down. One by one. A poisoned arrow to a neck. A perfectly timed bomb. A single bullet shot through an open window. I always posed them afterwards and left a message in blood if I felt like it. I always liked a little flair. It was easy, so painfully easy. 

“You don’t understand what it was like for me. Why would you have? You were the golden girl of the group. The one who shone the brightest. I was their punching bag.” 

Her expression shifts from horror to outrage to something akin to pity. I despise it. Of all the people I thought pitied me, I never thought it would be her. 

“Besides, at least I made it quick,” you add. “I could have prolonged it. I’m not evil. I hardly torture anybody. And I don’t need any of your pity.” 

“Torture isn’t limited to pliers in your hand and a dark room. They screamed. When you burned the buildings to the ground. Whatever hospitals are left are running out of room. Countless children, like us before were scattered to the winds because their parents died in the bombings. Didn’t think about that, huh?” 

I did not think of that. I know I didn’t think of that. The only thing I can recall was the absolute exhilaration of victory. The view of the city skyline through the dashboard on the jet. The way I felt the whirring of the explosives in my bones as excitement infused my movements. Raining down hellfire. The steady thrum of the engine as my fires of revenge burst forth. Any other sound had been drowned out by the divine explosions that crushed the city to rubble. An afterthought in the pursuit of revolution. 

“It was necessary. We needed to start anew. It was all–” 

“I thought you would have found that feeling familiar enough to feel some semblance of humanity.” 

The sword sheathes itself, and my hand flies to her throat in one fluid motion. It squeezes. Her face is guarded and impassive, despite the tightening hands stealing her breath. 

“That’s the spirit,” she wheezes. “You could kill me here. You always had strong hands.”

I toss her to the ground. She sputters for breath, thumping her chest with one hand. I hadn’t meant to do that. Sometimes my hands do things that I don’t mean to do. My arms cross themselves. 

“My turn for questions now. Why are you here then? If I’m so beyond saving?” I sneer. “Why bother?” 

She’s still coughing. Her voice comes out as a breathy whisper. “I don’t even know why I came. I thought I could talk some sense into you. Only, reasoning with people with no sense is only nonsensical.” 

“Nothing about this is nonsensical. The city was corrupt,” I argue back. “I cleansed it. You should be grateful.” 

“Why punish the entire city? Those people did nothing to you!” 

To my surprise, she drops to her knees. Hands clasped together like a child at prayer. What a turn of events. I never thought I would see her at my feet like this. Her. Someone I’d considered my idol, my hero for the better part of my life. I thought of how my eyes had once chased her across the dining hall and classrooms, all moon-eyed and longing. Now, from this close, I can see the shine in her eyes, of tears unshed. Pathetic. 

“And they’re sorry! You know they are,” she pleads. “So, please. I beg of you. You need to stop.” 

The city council? Being sorry? A laughable image. They only started being sorry when the fires made it into the council hall. They cowered. The stench of piss permeated the room from where some men had wet their pants. Councilman Nesil had kissed my metal-plated feet; his pleas for the sparing of his two daughters bubbled together in a half-indistinguishable mess. His head was severed from his neck in one fell swoop. It had rolled to the side and bounced almost comically. I distantly recall the echoing of laughter reverberating around the room. Suffice to say, the other councilmen likely weren’t laughing with me. Those who hadn’t run fast enough paid the price. 

I tilt my head to one side. “They should have been sorry earlier. I did the world a favour.” 

She stands. Her hands are wrenched into the shirt collar that peeks out of my armour.

“You’re out of your mind, Eleri. You’re like what they all said you were. Villainous. Deranged.” 

She thinks you’re crazy, my brain taunts. Just like all the rest. I scowl. I’d considered sparing her before. Just her. No one else in this god-forsaken world held a candle to her. The feeling of her head in my lap, her hand grasping mine like a lifeline, had been divine. I recall how I once fell over, beside myself with apologies after my blade had skimmed her side in a spar. We were only children, and once, the thought of any of her blood on my sword made me feel sick. I never considered how she was just like the others. The memories fade away. 

“I’m no villain,” I hiss. “I did what I thought was right. And it was. They pushed me down. Now no one will. Ever again.” 

I shove her away. Roughly. She stumbles to the ground and scrabbles for her dual blades. “Get up. Let’s make this a fair fight.” 

She shoots me a pained grin. It’s out of place. “This was how it was always going to end for us, wasn’t it?”

I scoff as I drag my sword arm behind me, preparing to lunge. I’ll let her take the first move. It’s only fair.