To Our Firsts And Lasts

     Father was right, as he often was. I had gotten used to the dying.

     “You will see countless deaths before the day of your thirteenth. You must accept them. Do not return, Samstain.”

      Do not return.

      I had sworn to him that I would obey this instruction. That I would move on to the next day, and the day after that, and so on and so forth. Living my life with as few chronological breaks as possible.

      I repeated that vow to him nineteen times that very first day. He did not notice. Or perhaps he did and thought it forgivable. A child’s curiosity needing to be sated before it settled into mundane normalcy.

      But this, I knew, he would not forgive.

      I sat beside him at the dinner table as servants swayed in with trays piled high with food that once made my mouth water from scent alone. I watched as my plate was loaded with a range of equally exotic and hearty meals, and muttered a thanks as it was respectfully placed before me. I did not touch it. The aroma I’d once found so alluring now sickened me, and I knew that the taste would be bland, unappealing … and all too familiar.

       “Samstain,” Father urged, his eyes twinkling with that mirth it usually held within, as though always on the cusp of delivering a good joke. He gestured to my plate, then took his knife in hand and dove into his. He must have already given his blessing and I’d missed it—the courtiers filling the room had already begun feasting, lively music softly reverberating around the hall.

       I wished the lute strings would break, and that the courtiers would choke on their food. I would watch as the bones got stuck in their throats, as their lungs pled desperately for air, as the light left their eyes and they fell—onto their plates, from the rafters, underneath the tables. This would be a dying that I would not mind, and I would watch it all with a song in my heart.

       “Samstain,” Father called again. I looked to him, and this time there was a look of concern on his face. He had caught me looking. Had he seen the darkness in my thoughts? Could he tell that I would kill for him a thousand times, if it meant anything?

       Father leaned closer to me, inspecting my face. After a brief moment, he asked, “When was the last time you slept?”

       It was a trap. This was always the question he asked whenever he suspected. From his perspective, this would be the first time he had asked. From mine …

       … Often enough that I couldn’t recall.

       “Last night was a long one, Father. I slept later than I’d intended to. I apologize,” I said with a bow of my head. Barely thirteen years of age, and I was already adept at the art of falsehood. I did not mean to deceive my father—I only wished for him not to worry, which was why I did not tell him that I had not slept in over a hundred days.

       “Do not apologize. It was indeed a long night, and I kept you hand-waving and curtseying for far too long. Tonight will be a short one, I promise you that.”

       It wouldn’t be. This night would be endlessly long, as it had been for the past hundred days. Yesterday felt like so long ago—I could barely remember what all of the ‘hand-waving’ and ‘curtseying’ was for. A new House joining the war on our side, perhaps. I didn’t care. Instead, I wished for them all to abandon us, leave us to our hall, our castle, our home. Just Father and I left, safe and alone. I would be enough to protect him, to keep him safe. I would be enough.

       Except … I wasn’t. I failed. Someone within the hall had killed Father.

       I’d spent the first twenty re-awakenings searching for the perpetrator. I never found them. Then I spent the next thirty searching for a cure to the poison that kills him. I never found it either. On some days, I tried handling what food was served to Father, but his dying still happened anyway. Always. Urging him to go on a fast was a difficult task, but I did manage it once. It changed nothing, and that was when I realized that the poison had been administered the day before. To a day I could not return to.

       Had they known this? Had whoever killed Father known of my ancestral trait—one that I now considered a curse—and that I could only return to the start of the day and never the one before?

       Had I just been wasting time?

       I spent the past fifty days observing. Watching. Praying. Hoping that something different would occur to change my father’s fate. But nothing ever happened. At the stroke of the eleventh hour, Father’s heart would cease beating, and no amount of care or talent would wake him. His body would grow cold, and I would wake to watch it happen again. And again. And again.

       And again.

       “You can move on.”

       My attention snapped back to the present. I blinked and was surprised to feel a wetness land on my cheek. My eyes were wet with tears.

       And so were Father’s.

       “You can move on,” he said again, his voice low as he leaned away from the chatter and the noise. Towards me.

       “I …” I held back a sob. I was on the cusp of manhood now. I could not cry. “I don’t understand.”

       “You do,” Father’s voice cracked as his hands reached out to hold mine. His palms were damp, and I was unsure if it was a nervous sweat or wetness from the soup. “And I am sorry it took so long for me to.” His eyes would not meet mine. “Or rather, so long for me to stop you.”

       He leaned even closer, his dark beard smelling of venison and wine. His eyes finally met mine. The mirth was gone, and in its place was a deep, bottomless guilt.

       “I am selfish. A hypocritical fool. When the war began, I would have done anything to win it. I was willing to betray close allies, befriend sworn enemies, forsake my honour—all so that victory would belong to our House. And when …” Father’s voice broke. The hands around mine tightened further. He continued after a moment. “And when my son began to subtly provide me with ingenious plans, brilliant manoeuvres and winning strategies—"

I made to pull away. His grip around my hands remained firm, unmoving. Yet gentle.

“—I turned my eyes from the truth. I shunned my duty to you, and allowed you to ruin your childhood putting out your father’s fires.” His gaze was deep, searching. “The night that Lord Ochtern died…”

       Lord Ochtern. A rat of a man, gifted with all of its cunning. He fiercely opposed my Father at every turn and would have given away vital secrets if he hadn’t somehow been discovered. He would have escaped as well, had he not met a tragic end falling off his horse and into a river. He must have fallen onto a rock, they said after they found his body. Fate hath done unto him what she willed.

       I’d scoffed when I heard them. Fate had done nothing but watch.

       Father seemed to have found what he was looking for in my eyes. His expression was one of anguish. “You were only eight…” he muttered. “I have failed you. More times than I know, I’m sure. I made you swear to me not to return, Samstain. But I let you do so regardless, knowing—”

       “I have done no such thing, Father,” I said, finally speaking. I could not let him take the blame—to let the guilt eat away at him as it was now. “The drink clouds your mind.”

       Father shook his head, some of the mirth seeping back into his eyes. “You speak like a man thrice your age, son. You have returned—more than once. More than I dare imagine.”

       I said nothing. My father was no fool—he had caught me more than once already. But something was different about this time. There was a deep sadness in his eyes.

       He had told me to move on.

       “It is me, is it not?” Father asked slowly. “I die tonight. And you cannot stop it.”

       Yes.

       “I know you have tried, son. I see a weariness in your eyes not unlike what I saw in your grandfather’s before your mother passed. But you can rest now.”

       I cannot.

       “You can,” Father said. My eyes must have been open windows to my thoughts. There was the twinkle in his eyes again, a smile creasing his lips. “The food has been revolting ever since the war started and I can say with certainty that I won’t miss it one bit.”

       I wanted to smile, to offer him indication that I heard his words. But I could not. Instead, the tears fell from my eyes unbidden, and Father embraced me in his arms. The hall fell silent as the only sound to be heard were the cries of a young boy, bewailing the loss of his father.

       The eleventh hour came and went, and as I laid in bed, I remembered my father’s last words to me.

       Do not return.

       I swore to him that I would move on to the next day, but I did not tell him when that would be. I would abide by his wish, eventually.

       I just needed a little more time.