Tek

HEARD ONLY AS AN ECHO IN AN EMPTY HALL

He kept the sword, the story, the son. I kept the rest of him — the part that wanted to hold on so tightly it would rather break a thing than watch it leave. He calls that a sacrifice. I call it what it is: he set me down like a weight he was tired of carrying, and never once asked what I would do once I was standing on my own.

I have been very patient. Patience looks like nothing happening, which suits me — nothing happening is how you keep a thing exactly where you left it. There is a woman sleeping in a cage made of her own fire, and I have spent longer than he'd like to know making certain she stays exactly that asleep. He thinks that's cruelty. I think it's the only honest love left between the three of us.

You may have heard a name in the dark and mistaken it for a ghost story. Ghosts, at least, have the decency to be finished with their business. I am not finished with mine.

Control is only possession that hasn't been named yet. I have never much minded being the one who names things.