I looked at the goblet, then back up at him. "That's all it takes? That's what we've bloody been sacrificing ourselves for? This?!"
He, the oh-so-great enigma, the Master, looks at me. "Yes."
My heart shatters, and I use the sharp-edged pieces to carve myself a new reality. "I've lost friends to this quest."
My voice is ice-cold and deadly calm. I'm past the point of forgiveness. Those I care for are gone, and nothing can bring them back, can it? They died in vain, and I can't ever see them again. Gawain, Irene, Tobias, Tudor. All gone. All dead. All to bring me HERE, hoping we'd all be saved. One last adventure.
He nods slowly. "Yes. That was supposed to happen. It was supposed to break you." And the way he says this, so logically, infuriates me. Of COURSE their deaths would break me. Of COURSE he engineered this to happen.
And I want to kill him, kill my father. The great puppeteer of my life, the man without empathy.
My voice steadies, and for the first time, I talk to him not as my father, not as a warlock, but as an equal. And for the first time, the spark in my bones agrees with me and my father shrinks back. "Tudor, Irene, Gawain, Tobias, you wanted them to die, so that I would somehow accept you, and this horrendous fate? It doesn't work like that. Not for me. Not for them. They were family. Tudor was engaged to Irene. Gawain was going to be the best man. Tobias was the officiator. You. Stole. That. From. Them." With each word, I feel a sense of purpose re-entering me, straightening my spine, putting a gleam in my eye. It's time for me to step forward, to become what I am.
"They cannot live. But I will live for them, long and fierce. And they would not want me to join with the man who killed them."
That was the beginning of my age. For hundreds of years I fulfilled my oath, living merrily and morally. But, even for my kind, the life spark doesn't last forever. Death came to me with my friends as an honor guard. They asked me, "Are you ready for another adventure? Even now?"
Always. Always.
