Mid-Lexadian, year 17 AM
On the Matter of No Longer Being Alive
Mid-Lexadian, year 17 AM. The exact date escapes me. Time has a different quality now. The mortal habit of marking days did not survive the transition.
Primus Iadora did not ask if I was ready. I appreciate that about him. Readiness implies a threshold one crosses — a preparation, a marshalling of resolve. What he understood, and what I have since come to understand, is that there is no threshold. There is only before, and after, and the particular silence that lives between them.
I knelt in the hall of the Dominion. He was efficient. I did not embarrass myself by flinching. The red eyes were the first thing I noticed when I found a mirror afterwards — not the absence of breath, not the cold that had settled into my hands like something permanent. The eyes. Deep and patient and not quite warm. I recognised the expression immediately. I had worn something like it for years.
The blood speaks now. Not in words. More like a compass needle — a pull toward the living, an awareness of distance and warmth. I find it academic, for the moment. I expect that will change.