“I swear on the flame of Gracefeel…” I pointed the tip of my demonblade at the god of undeath as he gradually vanished. “You will not own me. I will live and die as it should be.”
That was my personal declaration of hostility, and my final farewell to the disappearing splinter of the god of undeath. The Echo replied to my words with a hate-filled stare, his eyes locked on mine as he turned to dust. I didn’t break his gaze until he was gone.
After the god of undeath’s Echo was annihilated, I spent a while on alert, half-expecting a third splinter, or further enemies. Once I was finally sure that we’d won, it wasn’t joy that filled me, but a sense of relief so overwhelming I slumped down to the temple’s floor.
I sat there, the temple around me in terrible shape from the earlier battle, and breathed out a long sigh. He had been a strong opponent, without exaggeration.
Strangely, any awesome feeling of personal accomplishment was entirely missing. Maybe it was because many of the reasons we won were the work of other people.
I wielded the high-level demonblade I’d received from Blood, Overeater. Gus destroyed his Echo’s other splinter early on, which was supposed to be his ace in the hole. The god of the flame protected me as my guardian. And Mary’s guardian deity, Mater the Earth-Mother, bought us time just when it was most needed.
That wasn’t all. There were all the things that Blood, Mary, and Gus had generously shared with me, which gave me my familiarity with swords, magic, and prayer. Those gifts included something even more important than battle skill, something human, deep at my core.
It took all these things, piled one on top of another, to achieve this narrowest of narrow victories. I could easily have died, and if any one of those elements had been missing, I wouldn’t have stood a chance. It was thanks to the protection of my god, and most of all, thanks to those three. I was blessed to have such people around me.
As I thought about how lucky I was, a pair of arms wrapped around me tightly. “Will… Will… I’m so glad you’re okay…” The friendly smell of fragrant wood burning enveloped me.
“Good job, Will.” A bony hand without any softness messed up my hair.
“Hmph. He’s the son of Mary and Blood, blood relation or not. I should certainly hope he could accomplish this much.” That choice of wording, belittling even when he offered praise.
“Mary! Blood! Gus!” Their voices moved me to tears.
Finally, I got the sense of what I’d achieved. I remembered something very obvious: defeating a powerful enemy like a hero in a story was never my goal. All I wanted was to protect these three, my precious family. I didn’t want to curl into a ball like a coward. That was my only wish, and I risked my life hoping I’d achieve it. And I did.
“I did… I did it…”
I stood up, and fought like I should. I didn’t curl up in a ball and hug my knees. They were all here, all three of them. I protected them.
“Thank the gods… Thank the gods…” My chest tightened with hundreds of different feelings. Tears trickled down my cheeks. “I’m so glad you’re all safe…”
I returned Mary’s hug, and looked at Blood and Gus. They were smiling. They were all smiling. As if it were contagious, I smiled back through my tears.
“Okay!” Blood dragged out the word and shook a fist in the air enthusiastically. “I think we’ve got a victory to celebrate, and we owe Will a coming-of-age party, too!”
“Yes. This place needs a lot of tidying up, but I think it can wait for a day or two.”
“Indeed. In that case, I have a two-hundred-year-old bottle of dwarven spirits that’s been waiting for just such an occasion.”
“Firewater?!” Blood said. “Blazing hell, Grandpa Gus, you kept that quiet!”
“What, you suggest I should have wasted this fine drink on a child?”
“Dwarven firewater?” I asked. “Is that good?”
“It most certainly would be,” Gus said, “if only I could drink it!”
“Oh, come on, old man. Pretend.” Blood sounded exasperated with him. “This is a time for celebration!”
“Yeah. Come on, Gus, drink with us!”
“Will, don’t you go drinking too much. You remember what happened the last time. That had better not happen again, do you understand me?”
“Y-Yes!”
“Man, when you stare at people with your eyes wide open like that, your face looks goddamn terrifying.”
Mary laughed softly, not offended. “It’s not as bad as yours.”
Gus burst out laughing. “Very true.”
“Go on then, Grandpa Gus. Show us where you hid the drink.”
As we chatted noisily, and followed behind Gus, Mary and Blood’s knees gave way, and they collapsed to the floor.
For an instant, I didn’t understand what had happened. “Ma…ry? Blood?” The words that came out of my mouth felt very much out of place.
“Ahh… Yup. No good.”
“It seems that way, doesn’t it?”
The two of them attempted to stand several times, but eventually gave up. Their legs would no longer work.
“It’s just how things are, I’m afraid. Our attachment is gone, we refused to sell our souls to the god of undeath, and we remained faithful to the good gods. It would be foolish to think we’d be allowed to remain as undead.”
“Well, yeah. Gotta say, though, I was hoping we’d get cut some slack until the party ended.”
“Gracefeel is already making great allowances for us, you know. It wouldn’t have been at all strange for us to have disappeared immediately.”
I couldn’t understand what they were saying. I didn’t want to understand.
“Uh, so, Will. Me and Mary, this is as far as we go.”
“Y-You’re kidding.” The words spilled reflexively from my mouth. I didn’t want to accept it. “Y-You’re both playing a trick on me.” My voice was shaking. “This is supposed to be a party, don’t be so mean…”
“Will, you’re a clever boy… You understand, don’t you?”
I couldn’t fight it. I knew, in some part of my head, that things were going to turn out this way. And after that look and those gentle words… I knew it was over.
“You said it so suddenly, I wanted you to just… laugh and say it was just a joke… I wanted you to…” My feelings of denial slowly withered and died. I breathed out deeply, and nothing was left inside but a tinge of resignation and a lonely, hollow sadness.
“Sorry, bud.”
“I’m sorry, Will…”
Both of them might have felt the same way.
“Isn’t there anything we can do?”
“There isn’t.” Mary shook her head. “Even if there were, we mustn’t.”
“It was you who said it, Will. It’s that ‘live and die as it should be’ thing. Okay, sure, we wavered on that for a while… Got there in the end, though! Just took the scenic route. Pretty sure a couple centuries still counts as a scenic route. Just about.”
“Besides, parents are meant to die before their children. That’s a law of nature. A law of the earth.” Mary’s words were fitting for a priest of Mater.
“Mm. Yeah. Yeah, you’re right.” That was how things were meant to be. The god of the flame would probably say the same thing.
But—Even so—
“I know I mustn’t say this… but… I can’t help it. I’ll just say it once, okay? Even after everything you’ve said, I’m still not happy to see you die.”
No. No way. I don’t wanna see that happen. I don’t wanna see Mary and Blood die.
These were forbidden words for me, both as a child standing in front of his dying parents, and as a new priest of the god who presided over souls and samsara. They were words that threatened to undo the pretentious declaration I’d made to the god of undeath.