(content warning - graphic violence)
The silvery light of the glowing noose illuminated the tears running down Ylen’s cheeks from below. He rushed to grab hold of the rope of light, and reeled back with burned hands.
“Alixor.” Ylen gasped. “Alix, what are you doing?”
“You did this.” Alixor sat down heavily in the dewy grass, panting and sweating as though he had just run miles. The spell had taken almost all of his energy. “You did this.” He gasped. “When you refused to help me.”
“What?”
Ylen fell to his hands and knees. His eyes were wide and stared into Alix’s face.
Alixor looked down to the ground, averting his eyes from Ylen’s stricken look.
“You refused to help me.” He said again, much quieter than before.
“Alix, I-”
Alixor pounded his fist into the wet grass. “You won’t help me!” He screamed. Alixor looked to Ylen again. Braved the terrified eyes. “You won’t help my people!”
A beat.
Ylen’s face softens.
But instead of looking scared, Ylen just looks sad.
“I will not kill for you. That is what you mean.”
Alixor shook his head. No, Ylen can not change this. Ylen is wrong.
Ylen continued, voice becoming stronger, the furrows of rage in his face becoming deep in the silver light shed by the noose around his neck.
“I will not use my power to kill.” Ylen said.
Alixor shook his head again, feeling tears pouring from his eyes. “You won’t help me.” He sobbed. “I need help.”
“I am not your weapon. I am your friend.”
“We are not friends. Not anymore.”
Ylen fell silent at this. With shaking hands, Alixor pulled out the rest of his supplies from his bag. When he set the ornate knife on the rock, it rang out softly against the stone. Ylen started and stared at the weapon. But he asked no more questions.
Ylen remained quiet as Alixor finished the spell and bound his hands and feet to the ground, spread-eagle.
Ylen said not a word when Alixor picked up the knife and crouched over Ylen’s body.
He only looked at Alixor. Studying him. Eyes shimmering with the light from the luminous ropes.
“I’m sorry.” Alixor sobbed.
“No.” Ylen smiled. “You are not.”
Alixor plunged the knife into Ylen’s belly and began to carve. Ylen screamed and struggled, but the shining ropes held him fast to the ground. Alixor’s vision was blurred by tears. He continued to cut and cut, laying Ylen’s body open to the air. Exposing every facet of the god’s existence. When Alixor finally found Ylen’s heart, the ground was soggy with blood.
The crimson organ beat wildly in the god’s chest, cradled in a nest of blood and bone and sinew. It was hot. Burning. It almost smoldered.
“Please.” Ylen wheezed.
Ylen had watched Alixor’s every move. Almost like he was committing this atrocity to a memory that would soon be gone.
Alixor wished Ylen would screw up his eyes and just scream. Rather than this. Rather than pleading with him. Anything but this.
“Please.” Ylen repeated. “Please kill me.”
Alixor set down his knife, now slippery with viscera.
“Please don’t use my power for this.”
Alixor had long ago run out of tears. He was feverish and thirsty at this point. Dizzy with the heat of Ylen’s burning body. Who would have thought a god of wildfire would boil on the inside? Alixor braced himself and reached for Ylen’s heart with his bare hand. He wasn’t thinking. He wasn’t lucid. The cold night spun about him and he gasped for breath.
The heart seared his flesh. Alixor cried out but did not let go. He pulled and tore and wrenched and ripped and twisted. The heart came free. Alixor slumped down on the ground, clutching at his scorched hand. The heart flopped onto the grass and continued to beat.
“Please.” Ylen continued to whisper.
Alixor sobbed, great heaving sobs that nearly choked him. He vomited bile. Then lay there for a long time trying to catch his breath.
“Please don’t use me to kill.”
Alixor, laying on his side, watched the heart continue to beat. It steamed in the cold night air. His hand throbbed. He had to do this. This was the only way. He had to save his people. This would give him the power to save everyone. Alixor reached for the heart again with his blistered hand.
“Please.”
Alixor’s mouth was scalded when he took the first bite of flesh. It hurt even more when he swallowed down the second. Agony bloomed in his stomach. He was on fire, from the inside out. Still, he ate.
Ylen watched him. “Please.”
Alixor kept eating.