@teniras

Xerxes swore the door was still vibrating. Each wave of sound rippled nauseous dread from where he’d rapped his bony knuckles against the frame. He flinched back instinctively from that din, touching his lips, murmuring. “Fucker me. What am I doing...?” Too late, Ciri said. Or, too many times, she might have accused. Too often, too many broken promises, too little truth in anything she bothered love. So now--.

I hate you, Xerxes. 

It terrified him, how relieved he was to hear her say it. When she finally barked at him that she didn’t want his new, garbled comforts and twisted fixes for a broken world there was a sick part of him that wanted to run then and there. This time she wouldn’t be able to find the strength or mercy to drag him up out of the snow, the ditch, the void. Ah, yet--. 

Her father opened the door. Xerxes turned up his full, bloody eye and managed a weak smile.

“We can’t just leave her with that, can we? He’s dead, none of it’s real? Don’t you have something else-- anything else? I--you can’t leave her with that.”

Lurching forward unsteadily, he invited himself in and rubbed his head. “No, there must be more...” 

I hate...