Terror is nothing new. I have known it before, during the Harrowing and Cleansing. In those days I feared my fellows. Lived with the constant knowledge that with even a small shift in alliances, I’d be the next meal. We all spent our days that way. A shared anxiety that made it impossible to sleep. Hard to explain the psychological impact it has to anyone who’s never suffered that kind of fear. What it does to a person. How it can wear away at hope and endurance until a part of you screams: “Get it over with! Just kill me!”
There’s a worse kind of terror compared to that anything-is-better-than-this fear of one’s fellows.
It is the terror of knowing that the whole of the universe is depending upon you. Looking up to you. Expecting you to be perfect, omniscient, and omnipotent.
The realization that you are not any of those things is like acid poured upon the soul. It eats into your every thought, and the fumes bring tears to the eyes—sear through the nose and into the very brain.
I live this terror: I am not good enough. Smart enough.
That knowledge is indeed my personal acid. Not only has it eaten holes in my resolve, in my faith in myself, but I can see it the eyes of those around me.
It is the middle of the night.
I sit alone on my throne of bones, the symbol of our strength as a people.
“You are no longer the Irredenta.” The words uttered by that damned Perez woman rattle around inside my head like loose parts. The implications are too disturbing to even consider.
I finger the long-bone scepter, stare at the intricate carvings of people who are struggling up a spiraling ramp. The little figures are no more than a centimeter tall, and perfectly rendered in the slightest detail. Fodor Renz spent a year in the carving of it. Rendered it from the thigh bone of the first woman I ever ate.
Now, I fear it is a mockery.
What is the fate of a false Messiah? One who cannot intercede with the universe on behalf of his people? One who can no longer understand the sacred voices of the Prophets? One whose people are dying all around him?