AbsolutionRachel A. MarksRachel Marks offers up a story of making the past right: Fiction Fantasy
Marcus awoke to the screams of those he had killed.
 Three days later Marcus followed her through the market, trailing just out of sight. He stopped when she turned, and pretended to be purchasing some figs from the booth closest to him. Marcus turned his attention to the merchant as if he were listening to the man’s litany of woes. The market was a throng of activity. Shouts of bargains and the smell of spices filled the air around him. “It’s the best I can do, for now,” the merchant said, watching Marcus eye the fig as if he cared. “I had a crop of wheat which may have better suited most. But with the ravens awing, a grain does not sit long upon a stalk.” Marcus wasn’t worried about wheat or fruit. He watched the lady across the market, never letting his eyes leave her. She bent and placed a piece of silver in the bowl of a beggar, then began moving through the crowd. “This will do well,” Marcus said to the merchant. He took the fig, tossing a coin in the merchants bowl, and began to move through the throng of people. Countless languages chattered around him, all trying desperately to bargain. Marcus saw just one figure: the lady in azure silks and violet cottons. Only her eyes were visible through the veil, but Marcus would know her anywhere. The closer he got, the more he could smell incense, its spice like a veil of its own. He moved up behind her and put his dagger to her back. “I suggest you come with me, little bird,” he whispered. “I can do this here and disappear like the shifting of sand, or you can spare your family the disgrace and do as I say.” She nodded her head. He led her to an alley, and into the shadow of a doorway. She seemed so still, so calm, it unnerved him. He pressed her against the wall, putting the blade to her throat. Her skin was the color of bronze. He watched the pulse jump beside the point of his dagger. One quick flick of his wrist and this would be through. He knew suddenly that this would be his last mark. In this woman’s eye he could see that her ghost would haunt him forever. His heart pounded at the thought. “Why do you do this?” she asked, interrupting his thoughts of death. He stared at her, knowing he needed to end it now, while he still had the fire in his gut. “You’ve the sign of the fire god on your neck. Do you follow him?” “Not since I was a boy,” he said before he could stop himself. How could he have let her speak? She was hypnotizing him with her voice, like the sound of water running over the river stones. And now she spoke of his father’s god, drawing feelings in him he had wished never to know again. “He is a good god,” she said, “but if you kill me he will not be able to give you sanctuary in the afterlife.” Marcus almost smiled at her words. “I have killed many men, it is no matter to me any longer.” “Very well,” she said. “But in your eyes I see the truth of your heart, Marcus.” The sound of his name leaving her lips made his chest tighten. He froze. His fist clenched tighter on the hilt of his dagger, the blade drawing a small line of blood from her neck. Marcus pulled back, his hand burning. He’d cut her. Her blood was on his hands, and it felt like fire through his veins. He looked down at his fingers, the tips dipped in crimson. He staggered back. “Why do you not kill me, Marcus?” she asked, her voice growing louder. But he couldn’t look at her; he couldn’t remove his eyes from his hands. He sank to his knees at her feet, and began to feel something tearing from his throat. Anguish filled him, overwhelming him, and he could no longer breathe. The burning in his veins centered in his chest and he cried out in desperation. The full weight of the blood he had spilled pressed into him. All the death, all the pain. And he had been the tool used to cause it. “Yes, you feel it, don’t you? I am not what I appear to be, but neither are you. You are not a killer. I speak these words to you as evidence: you have not the heart of a murderer, Marcus. No more will you take blood from man. You will leave the dead to bury the dead, and you will rise above your past to face the light. Now go, and the fire god be with you.” Then, as if made of the desert sand, she swirled and disappeared into the wind. Marcus lay in the alley and wept, the angel’s blood on his fingertips.
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