Memento Mori

5.4 - THE THIN LINE (FINAL CHAPTER)

THE DOOR TO HIS OFFICE slices open. Pale light cuts the floor. Clicking bootsteps enter. The sway of the Sixer and a cape, sounds that have been here ten thousand times before, do not make Ulysses turn as the door hisses shut. He is dwarfed by the shattered grand window. Back turned, staring out at a sea of steel and flames. Strong shoulders bowed in silhouette. Only when I come to a stop on the carpet does his face finally turn into the light.

My heart breaks again as I see him. The betrayal washes all over me again. There is an unfathomable protectiveness in Ulysses' eyes, a gentility no longer given a bright-eyed sparkle. But there is more emotion scrawled across his face. Guilt. Regret. Grief. So much more. And an understanding which dims his fatherly instincts as his gaze settles on the weapon I carry.

I stand below him, flanked by a mural of children's handprints. Mouth half open, biting my lip, opening and closing, lacking the words to describe these feelings mine.

"Ulysses..." Just a whisper, growing louder. "How could you?"

He turns back to the window, hands come to rest on the sill. Voice low, every word with a mountain of weight. "I know you won't forgive me. I know you won't understand." He bites down. "But what I did... I did, for all of us."

My head shakes in disbelief. "No. You don't get to say that. Not after what you've done."

The anger rises as I stomp forward across the carpet. "They shot Sarah like a dog because of you. You told them where to go! You told them where to put the trap! Then... then when that Dynasty freak asked for me too, you just let them in to kill me!" I blink through the grief. "You were like a father to me. I trusted you. And when I needed you most... you've been lying to me all along."

"She showed you." All the strength left in the man leaves him in a single breath. "I should have known."

"You're not denying it." The Sixer trembles in my hand as I ascend the steps, stopping behind the desk. "Say something! Say she lied! Say you didn't do it! Say anything!" I'm sobbing as I slam the Sixer's hilt into the wood, throat tearing from a scream. "How could you!?"

Ulysses swallows hard. His voice, when it returns, is roughened by guilt. "I did it," he says, "because Sarah never understood that Dynasty isn't the kind of dragon that can be killed. There was no stopping what is coming. They were always going to crush us. And as long as she continued to inspire the others, the Vents would never bend. It would strain until it snapped. And Dynasty would take what was left; even if it was in ruins." His head hangs a hundred times in the shattered glass. "The Vents is my home. It's all of our homes. I couldn't let it break like that."

"So you killed her." I choke down a sob. "Because you thought she was wrong."

"I am a father, Emilia. But I am also a leader. And sometimes, being a leader means making the choices no one else will." His voice breaks. "Someone must."

"Saying that when you didn't have to see what they did to her. Didn't have to watch it with your own eyes!" I scream. "She was your best friend, Ulysses! If you'd talked to her instead of-"

"You think I don't know that!?" he roars. The glass trembles. I tremble. "Do you think I didn't try, Emilia!? Every time Sarah tried to hatch another plan, I would talk her out of it. Because I knew that this is how her way would end."

A single tear slides down his cheek as he gazes on the burning city. All of it consumed by roiling flames, bathed in the hellish light.

"This is always how her way would end," he repeats. "If Sarah had her way, we would all burn for freedom, and in the end, Dynasty would rule the ashes anyways. The Vents fell long ago, she just couldn't see it. Dynasty was always going to win. I was just trying to make sure that there was something left when they did. Some place we could exist inside their rule." He makes no move to fight as I turn the corner of the desk, the Sixer glinting, rising in the firelight. "But you saw her vision through. This is her freedom. Look at it, Emilia. Can't you see?"

He steps back as I enter the other side of the window. I can't help myself from looking out at the fire. The battles waging, the warriors dying, explosions rippling through the ember air. Numbly, I shake my head, unable to turn away.

"Can't you see?" Ulysses asks again, begging me to understand. "She is behind everything. Her hand, always playing from the shadows. You were just the piece she needed. Drawing the firebrands to Sarah's cause. Giving the Eight a reason to gather under one roof. Exposing what was left of their lieutenants so they could be swept away." He shudders. "You may think you survived the Orange because of a freak accident. But an Executor does not let accidents happen, Emilia."

I mouth a silent denial, stuck staring at the flames.

"She showed you the truth she needed you to see, then released you back into the wild, knowing you would finish the answer on your own. She loaded that gun and put it in your hand. And she gave you all the reason you needed to pull the trigger. All to close the loop."

Orange light pours through unrelenting, coloring us both in its stain. I see it now through the fractaled glass. Spreading and consuming from where the Executor watches in her high tower, spiraling over the streets, the last crackling pops of resistance just twigs feeding the inferno. As if she's watching the bodies pile even as the fires burn, the claws of the dragon licking ever upwards, devouring everything they can.

The realization of the sparks my hands lit cracks right through the hollow purpose that drove me here. I fall back a step in horror.

"She wanted Sarah to win," he says, face tortured by guilt. An explosion rocks the floor from deeper in the headquarters. "And now, because of you, she has."

I blink away from the flames, shaking my head, refusing the truth even though it's staring me in the face. The Sixer shakes as I turn it over in the light.

"I don't know what to do," I mumble, looking up. "I don't know what to do, Ulysses. Tell me what to do. So I can end this."

He holds my gaze until he wavers. And I know in that moment that he is as lost as I am. There is only one thing he can say.

"You have Sarah's gun now." He swallows hard. "What would she do?"

A coldness I don't want to feel settles in my stomach. His question, the final touch the avalanche needed to begin. My voice falls deathly quiet, barely above a whisper. Her words, an answer I've given countless times, speak through me.

"She'd ask me... why do we pull the trigger?"

Ulysses' eyes close in understanding. Surety comes to my hand. The Sixer's irons rise, silhouetted by the flames.

"And I'd say... because we know what we're looking at."

I reaffirm my grip. Breathe one final shaking breathe through my nose.

"And I know what I'm looking at, now."

My finger trembles against the trigger.

MEMENTO MORI