>>6116796“You know, Argia… my actual commodity is not souls, is <span class="mu-i">trust</span>. I’m not Ansàrra: with me, what you see is what you get. So, when someone tries to bend the rules to their favour, I do not take kindly to that. Betrayal, over any other thing… it shows my creative side. Usually, even when I get angry, my beloved Husband holds me back. But he allows me to run free when the situation truly calls for it.” She raises her other hand and the lamb, the one Argia spotted outside the entrance, wail and bawl and groan and gasp, holding onto life with all the strength of its mangled body, as its beady eyes look for a light that’s not there, a string of saliva running out of its mouth. “Souls are precious things. Precious, wondrous, <span class="mu-i">fragile</span> things. You haven’t heard of Mouk Zelas, but you have seen him. You have caught a glimpse of his plight in every tumour, in every misshapen birth, in every gout, in every feverish bloody eye, in every broken spine. I have scattered the shards of his soul inside every thing that wheezes and suffers and cannot die and curses life, every day, and every night, for the past three hundred and eighty seven years.”
Argia doesn’t want to look at the lamb, cursed by life, and cursing life in return. She hates the skittering sound of its hooves against the table, as if it’s trying to stand upright, nature’s commandment broken time and time again against its misshapen spine, like the waves of a stormy sea upon careless cliffs.
“I am telling you this because I like you, Argia. I like your soul. I will treasure it and, after your time with me is over, I will release you into the great wheel, never to meet each other again. I’d hate to get creative once again.” She stands, picking up the lamb. “Do not take this as a threat, dearest. Just as a forecast. Believe me when I say I have always completely honest, with you and everyone else.” She smirks. “After all, I have always been a terrible liar.”
Reality winks, and the Stilladìa disappears inside its cracks.
Sound and smells. Colours. The strings of that instrument. The whispers and the world of mortal men. It goes all back to Argia, so suddenly she jolts and her chair screeches against the floor.
“Madama Candente?” Calls the chirpy voice of the attendant girl, holding her clothing. “Have you called for me?”
She didn’t.
Perhaps a final goodbye from Argia’s Patron.
“I did not,” she answers. “I would just like something else to drink. And for the rest, forget it. I’m not in a good mood,” she adds, clutching the table’s edge.
[cont.]
