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THIS brEATH AND NO OTHER

WREN

H ere is the truth of a final breath. When you die, your soul sings a requiem, so sad and so beautiful it drowns out all other sound, and makes you weep for what has been lost. The soul hovers for the length of its song, above the body, wrapped in music and memory, waiting to be held and Guided home to bone.

If you do not catch it in time, the soul will dissolve, like mist in the rising sun, gone forever.

There is no way to rescue a soul once it fades.

Tahrik’s soul sings in color, all of the memories he has of me since the first time he saw me in the village, before I even knew he was a heartbeat in my life.

Memories are always most vibrant in those few minutes after death, and I am lost to the rest of the world as they flood me.

If there is death around me, then I am not of this world for a time, but stepping between, and it is in this inbetween that choices must be made.

In the village there is no choice, not really.

As Keeper I must bring the soul home to bone.

It is the most sacred task I have. If I do not Guide the soul, it will be lost to the Absence, gone forever in the Void.

There will be no gentle moments of memory, no passing of history from father to son, no time for recollections or remembrances.

Nothing but emptiness. And I have mere moments to collect the soul, to command it to bone, to save it from being lost. Forever.

Tahrik’s memories flash before me, lightning quick, vivid pictures of my face and eyes in a way I have never seen them.

Here I am smiling sunshine bright, all the happiness in his small world pooling in my pale eyes.

Here I am bent over a small child, guiding her hand gently to a smooth bone.

Here I am sharing a crust of bread with an old mother in the town, here I am holding Tahrik’s fingers in my own, in the shadow of the bone wall.

Scattered through these are the sounds of strings plucked in quiet corners, the feel of cold nights, the warmth close friends — all these and more fall like rain upon my skin, burning and cooling all at once.

Every second played in intricate harmony, layer upon layer of life and love shimmering in soul song.

But even those cherished recollections seem dull compared to the iridescent moments where I existed for Tahrik — his life was a series of steps that mapped my own — and I realize how deep the fissure must have been when the girl he lived his life for was shown to be a phantom.

I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I whisper, and his soul echoes back to my own, I’m sorry, Forgive me.

But when I try to grab it to bind him, it fights me, a bright ball of burning light in my hands.

I have had souls fight me before, of course I have, but never like this, with a violent, desperate pulling away.

Calm, calm, Tahrik. I try to soothe the soul.

Be at peace. It does not hurt. It is going home.

And I will keep your bones sacred. I swear it.

I will weave you in my hair. I will wear you on my heart.

I will hold you to my skin. Yet still he fights, his light dimming moment by moment, the liquid requiem fading further and further away.

I know from experience that, once I can no longer hear his song, he will be lost to me forever.

I have not made that mistake but once, and have never forgotten the loss of that soul.

Do not fight me, Tahrik! I don’t have long.

Yet still he pulls from my hands, water running through my fingers, the light of his soul dripping from my fingertips like golden blood.

Do not make me, Wren. His words are a whisper.

I cannot hear him. I will not hear him. I am the BoneKeeper and his soul will do my bidding.

Ah, my love. Let me go now. Do not keep me.

He is pleading. Forgive me if you are able, give me peace and let me go.

I cannot stay in bone, knowing what I would have done to you.

It would be an eternity of pain. You would be damning me.

Let me find emptiness in the Void. It would be a gift.

His song is so soft now, the sound of a newborn’s breath at night. Barely a noise at all. And still I grip him, refusing to let him leave.

Your song made me a promise, Tahrik. You promised your bones would sing for mine.

I promised a dream, Wren. A dream that faded when the world woke. He flickers. Forgive me. Forgive me. He is pleading.

I forgive you, Tahrik. It was not you. You were not in your right mind.

I am sorry, Wren. And I love you. I will love you until the Void takes me, and beyond.

I love you, too, Tahrik.

His soul flickers again, and pales. I know that is not the truth for what I am now, but it is a comfort that perhaps it was true for what I once was.

My heart thuds painfully. His soul is now a pale, frost yellow, barely a color at all. Shall I just tie the version I knew of you, and no other? I ask frantically. I will take you home to your sister, and you can whisper stories from your childhood.

Can you do that? His song is a breath, and nothing more. Can you split my soul and leave only what was good of me behind?

I don’t know, have never tried it, but I can see a faint grey ring around the brighter, central glow.

He is almost gone, and I reach out, cupping the small, flickering ball in my hands, blowing away the grey like smoke, watching it dissipate, before trying to compel the small soul left to the bone blade at my waist. It…

shivers…there is no other word, then rejects the Guiding Knife, dissolving in my hands.

Tears course down my face, small tracts of pain planted in familiar fields. Loss is a crop I have grown my whole life. But this loss is deep. It is losing the only joy of my childhood. Without him, I have no ties left to who I used to be.

In the last glow of his faint soul light, a barely there whisper, he tries to comfort me. Don’t be sad, Wren. I tied my soul to yours long before the rest of it drifted to the Void. I live on in your heart and memory, if nowhere else. Be at peace. Let me go.

And so, I do. I stop fighting him, letting him fall from my fingers like tears from my eyes. With that, there is a pulse of light and sound and color, and he is gone.