Twiceborn by C. L. Kagmi

Author:C. L. Kagmi [Kagmi, C.L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Clare Levijoki

I had to see Chiyari. I had to talk to him. It would have been a psychological necessity, even if it weren’t a technical one.

The self-proclaimed artist was happy to oblige. There are advantages to being one of the most famous people in the world—and when I wrote to him, he answered. His reply, written on lovingly programmed antique stationery, said in beautifully looping handwriting that he would be honored to meet me.

I held the letter a little bit away from myself after reading it. Found myself wondering at the politeness of it, wondering if Chiyari and I were already engaged in a game of cat-and-mouse. Or if I was being completely delusional.

The antiquated stationery—chosen by Chiyari for an antiquated soul like me? He’d never resorted to text in any of his other art or communications that I’d seen, except as a purely aesthetic ingredient in visuals. He’d written in blood once, I remembered, involuntarily—his own blood mixed with that of some other man, repeating some poetry written centuries before my own time.

His letter to me sung the praises of my work. Said in too-warm terms how much he owed me.

How much he owed me. If I had not done what I did, this creature would not exist. People would not buy his recordings, and—

Amelia would be dead, and how many others?

Someone else would have done it eventually, chimed an automatic voice in my brain, established long ago, originally as a guardian of humility. This world, being possible, was always inevitable.

Was it, though? I wondered and for a moment, before I managed to shove it away again, the weight of responsibility was crushing.

I wondered if Chiyari hated me. I could not see sincerity in his words. If he knew me well enough to send old stationery, did he know me well enough to predict my feelings about the sesquicentennial? To predict my reason for contacting him? Or did he truly assume that my intentions were pure?

You’re getting paranoid, Remy.

Perhaps it was something else. Because I was the First Welcomer, after all. He could not learn about Amy without learning about me.

And suddenly, I felt ill.

I was the First Welcomer, the original conqueror of Death. Chiyari claimed that his every work was a celebration of my own.

Did he think I wanted to help with his show?

Whether he understood—or even suspected—that I might bear him ill will was perhaps the most unsettling question. It still is. Could he understand the protectiveness of a friend? Or was he a manner of creature so different that he believed all that he said about his art?

Perhaps his admiration, his apparent idolization of me, was genuine.

We all ignore our own uncomfortable possibilities. This is one of mine.

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