[PART ONE] Never trust gods. Never trust villains. And never ever trust heroes. 1387 There is a meadow far away from the city where Gabriel Chevalier likes to sit. It’s a beautiful place, the grass fifty brilliant shades of green, daisies spread erratically through the expanse of shamrock and emerald. The sun sets like a wound in the sky, spilling golden blood across the horizon line as the clouds try to patch it up. Watching such a view gets tiresome after a while for a god like me, who could see sights twice as brilliant at my own liberty. In spite of this, I still remember the days when I too was a human, also captivated by the beauty of the world. I remember when I was just like the great Gabriel Chevalier: a hero. 1388 The battlefield is grim, maybe even more so than a graveyard. Blood is a mist in the air, coppery and thick, choking the life from the grotesquely beautiful symphony of screams and clashing metal. The rising hope of dawn makes the metal of Gabriel Chevalier’s silver armour smoulder. His buttermilk blonde hair is blunt against the crimson sprays of death and the blackened gore of charred bodies. I told him. I told him not to enter the battlefield. I made him promise he wouldn’t. God’s are creatures of fate and destiny. Such things are so repulsive, whereas treason has flavour. That’s probably why I’m here - watching the hero that was Gabriel Chevalier die. 1613 Dion Blanchet has two sisters, and I am regrettably attracted to both of them. Celine is a seamstress, and Colette is a baker. Both possess hair of honey and skin of winter-bleached almond. The former is wed at six and twenty, the latter alone and two and thirty. I wonder if she would take me if I were still alive. “You lie fitfully awake, Dion,” I muse into the dark, drawing patterns in the dust on the window mantle. “Says the man who at only four and twenty finds it impossible to rest.” Glowing grey eyes find me in the dark, sitting on a chair by the window, little more than a ghost. I fold my legs up to my chest, curling over myself and smiling cat-like at the man in his bed. At only one and twenty, Dion Blanchet is already handsome enough to steal any mademoiselle from her husband. With honeyed skin and charcoal hair to his shoulders, he is the perfect replica of his mother. His shirt is unbuttoned, and sweat has beaded on his chest and collarbones. Tonight is far too warm, even for summer, and Dion’s threadbare sheets have been thrown back, the hems brushing the boarded floors. “You’re a hero-in-the-making, Dion. Get some sleep.” I prop my hand on my fist. “This you know, don’t you?” He scrutinises me in the darkness for a moment. “I still don’t understand why you’re here. Who even are you?” I wink at him mischievously. “I’m an angel in your ear.” 1617 Beauregard Blanchet was the name of Dion’s baby son. Beau was the name written on his grave after his father killed him. 1618 “Dion…” I peer over the shoulder of the man who is now at six and twenty, deep in the bottles. His erratic sleep schedule and obsessive desire for alcohol has gifted him swollen cheeks and sunken eyes. You could mistake him for being decades older than he is. Freckles and pock marks pepper his once beautiful face. His belly has yielded outwards, stretching the hems of his shirt. Meaty fingers are clasped around an empty bottle of whiskey. My mouth comes close to his ear. “Dion. Wake up.” He jolts, sitting up in his chair and whirling on me. His lips curl back in a snarl, revealing yellowed teeth. “You need to shave,” I tell, sitting on the edge of the table. A bushy black moustache has formed above his lip, and is slowly creeping down towards his jaw like shadows gaining ground on sunlight. “I don’t need some angel in my ear,” he slurs, waving his hand in my face. I try not to wrinkle my nose. “Leave.” “That’s not how it works.” The rusty dawn light filters in through the curtains, bringing into light the large burn scar on one side of Dion’s face. His left eye is milky and blind. His right looks me up and down like a cat sizing up its prey. His life was meant to be that of a hero’s. He was meant to do what Gabriel couldn’t. Yet somehow, his fate was even worse. Curdled with the scent of murder, gaunt with regret. Some hero Dion Blanchet turned out to be.
[PART TWO] 1689 I lie on the other side of the bed, watching my lover sleep like a baby curled up in a cot. The moonlight is grim tonight, toned like the milky eyes of a drunk man two years before his death. The hue of dust as it settles. I reach out, tucking a strand of Manon’s inky hair behind her ear. Her nightgown has slipped off her shoulder, revealing the long scar that curves like a fishhook from her bicep to her jaw. Tomorrow, Manon Aubert is going to die. Of course, I’ve known that for a while now. It’s not like I’ll miss her when she dies, anyway. I’ll just move on like I always do. Gods are creatures of fate and destiny after all. Hers was always to die. At least she’ll die a hero, with an angel in her ear, whispering to her the poetry of death as she fades away. The next day, I find myself at sword point. “Well, what an interesting turn of events,” I mutter into my gag as I face the girl who was in bed with me just last night. A girl at two and twenty. A girl plagued with freckles and scars. A slight frame against the rising sun that spills golden blood across the dark horizon as the moon is driven back at the tip of a knife. “Interesting because I didn’t die, or because you’re about to?” I run my tongue across my lips, feeling dry, cracked skin. Heroes are beings of law and order, Gods: creatures of fate and destiny. Though, I’ve never really cared for such things. ‘Fate’ and ‘Destiny’ are so dull. Treason and murder have much more flavour. Though now I know that said flavour is blood.
