“I cleave you from my soul. My heart no longer bears the weight of your sin.”

He laughs at my words, until he feels the tightening in his throat and stumbles to the ground. Mockery dissolves into disbelief, and then, with a rage as old and deep as the marrow of time, he snarls. 

“I curse you.” 

His words seep from his lips in a mixture of blood and hate. He struggles to rise but his strength is gone. The poison is taking hold.

“Your curse is your own,”  I say, transfixed by what I see before me.

An empty vial, smashed to the ground. A dying god.

His mouth moves again but the blood drowns his thoughts before they can form on his lips. 

Is the fire that I feel within me righteous ardor or might it be the very flames of hell?

Out of the darkness, once more, he dares to speak my name. 

“Bitch.”

With that, what life remained is spilt. on the ground   He is dead.

My hand tightens on the dagger’s hilt, cold and resolute in my grasp, as I take a steadying breath …