The Six Deaths of the Saint

I would rather love a coward than mourn a legend.

“If you kill me, you will be nothing again! Consigned to the shadows of history. No one will mourn you, no one will remember you. No one will even know your name—” I lean close and whisper, “One person will.”

He said your name, even more softly. “You are not a knife.” And you said, wretchedly, “But I am his.”

“He—he must love me.” Gwynne gave you a long, grieving look. “He never has,” he said, tiredly, and began refastening your armor.

And you understood, finally, that there had never truly been a she or a you but only a terrible, lonely I.

And you found you did not mind being a devil, so long as you were his.