They say in Ristopa that dying is the most private thing a person can do. To step into an empty room and lock the door, to stand on a mountaintop alone, to lie in the dark and hear nothing but one's own heartbeat, is simple loneliness; to step out of the world and find the way back closed, to remove one's heartbeat from the infinite murmur of all things living, to vacate the anchoring elemental body, is a solitude that defies human nature, and cannot be undertaken in company.
They say in Ristopa that a dead soul belongs to the Mother, whose provision is fire. They say that when the body has released it, it comes to know its true nature, and becomes a thing of heat and light. The dying, though, belong to the Faceless Lady, who stands on the borders between invisible things, and who hears only the prayers spoken in solitude; hers is the perfect loneliness of the transforming soul.
Neffa's belief in the gods has always been tenuous at best. But when the warm hand in his disappears, when the knife flashes before his eyes and vanishes from his sight, he thinks of the Lady, in that instant. All his time spent crouching in the shadows before a makeshift circle failed to summon her, but maybe this will bring her out of the woodwork, he thinks - maybe she will wait for him in the in-between and he will have an instant in which to demand an explanation. He is formulating the question in his mind (blank-eyed, staring at the sky, his breath a ragged whine) when Katurian cuts his throat.
No one comes. Breathing is cumbersome, and it hurts, and so he stops.
no problem at all! THANKS FOR AN EXCELLENT MURDER
They say in Ristopa that a dead soul belongs to the Mother, whose provision is fire. They say that when the body has released it, it comes to know its true nature, and becomes a thing of heat and light. The dying, though, belong to the Faceless Lady, who stands on the borders between invisible things, and who hears only the prayers spoken in solitude; hers is the perfect loneliness of the transforming soul.
Neffa's belief in the gods has always been tenuous at best. But when the warm hand in his disappears, when the knife flashes before his eyes and vanishes from his sight, he thinks of the Lady, in that instant. All his time spent crouching in the shadows before a makeshift circle failed to summon her, but maybe this will bring her out of the woodwork, he thinks - maybe she will wait for him in the in-between and he will have an instant in which to demand an explanation. He is formulating the question in his mind (blank-eyed, staring at the sky, his breath a ragged whine) when Katurian cuts his throat.
No one comes. Breathing is cumbersome, and it hurts, and so he stops.