editor Kyle Lewis, the Etopia Press staff, and all my family and friends, without whose support none of this would be possible.
Impostors’ Kiss
Dying sucked. Not just the pain. Sure, the agony—that moment just before the heart stops—and the uncertainty of how and when I might wake up left an impression. But the holes, those missing points in my timeline aggravated me most. Each time I died, I wondered how much of myself I’d lose. How many of those defining moments would remain forever dead? And most of all, despite being all-powerful, I became powerless to know what I had lost.
My family filled in the gaps, when I read their minds. Seeing my life through their eyes was like watching a movie—always tainted with the director’s perception. The events were clear, but my analysis lost. I’d tried journaling, but given the vast amount of time my existence spanned, it proved impractical. Frustrating to think that in the millenniums I had existed, there were mistakes I was damned to commit again because I had no recollection of the consequences.
From the beginning, only a few prominent memories had stuck with me. Like my time as Emperor in Asia, long before the Great Wall was built. I remember each of my family members' creations too. And… her . From the moment I existed, her vision has haunted me. I had no idea who she was, only that one day she would come to me. Losing her image was my greatest fear, so I painted her, wrote the words I imagined she’d say, and thought of her often in hopes that the next time I reincarnated, she’d make the journey with me.
It had been three hundred years since my last death, but I sensed that I would soon be facing an important crossroads in my destiny.
* * *
The air was stifling as I traversed the Scottish moors with Rhys. I couldn’t imagine the journey with anyone else. The boggy terrain and miles of nothing but sedges made for a tedious journey, but Rhys’s carefree and optimistic attitude made it bearable. Of all my “family” members, Rhys most often made me second-guess my choice to quit making—forming a new, enhanced being from the souls of three individuals. He had embraced his new life from the moment he took his first breath, in his new form, while most of the others resisted and only later came to terms with whom they had become. Most of them anyway.
Our travels had taken weeks and still more days awaited us. We were to rendezvous with Stanton Overton, another trusted member of my family. If the message had come from anyone else, I would have declined and remained in my castle with a fire blazing in the hearth. I missed the feast each evening and the plethora of chambermaids at my service.
I was about to curse Stanton’s name for sending the urgent message requesting my presence and causing the dreadful journey, when Rhys and I happened upon a young boy lying in a ditch. His blond, matted hair was tinted crimson with blood seeping from an open wound on his head. The holes in his trousers revealed more lacerations.
Rhys rushed to his aid. He pressed his ear to the boy’s chest, glanced at me, and nodded. The boy, not more than eleven or twelve years of age, was alive, but unconscious.
We ripped fragments of fabric from our shirts and tended the boy’s wounds. I lifted his limp body and placed him on my shoulder. On the horizon, at the end of the gravel covered trodden path, were outlines of shanties on the outskirts of the small village of McElwin.
The child's unconscious mind was easy to read. He was the innkeeper's son. Bandits had tried to kill him as retribution against his father. The boy's constitution was hearty. He would likely survive, but his father needed to be warned.
I carried the boy to the tavern door and transferred him to Rhys's welcoming arms. I didn’t do so well in…social situations, especially with women. Best I remained out of sight.
I took a seat upon a haystack in the empty stable across from
Impostors’ Kiss
Dying sucked. Not just the pain. Sure, the agony—that moment just before the heart stops—and the uncertainty of how and when I might wake up left an impression. But the holes, those missing points in my timeline aggravated me most. Each time I died, I wondered how much of myself I’d lose. How many of those defining moments would remain forever dead? And most of all, despite being all-powerful, I became powerless to know what I had lost.
My family filled in the gaps, when I read their minds. Seeing my life through their eyes was like watching a movie—always tainted with the director’s perception. The events were clear, but my analysis lost. I’d tried journaling, but given the vast amount of time my existence spanned, it proved impractical. Frustrating to think that in the millenniums I had existed, there were mistakes I was damned to commit again because I had no recollection of the consequences.
From the beginning, only a few prominent memories had stuck with me. Like my time as Emperor in Asia, long before the Great Wall was built. I remember each of my family members' creations too. And… her . From the moment I existed, her vision has haunted me. I had no idea who she was, only that one day she would come to me. Losing her image was my greatest fear, so I painted her, wrote the words I imagined she’d say, and thought of her often in hopes that the next time I reincarnated, she’d make the journey with me.
It had been three hundred years since my last death, but I sensed that I would soon be facing an important crossroads in my destiny.
* * *
The air was stifling as I traversed the Scottish moors with Rhys. I couldn’t imagine the journey with anyone else. The boggy terrain and miles of nothing but sedges made for a tedious journey, but Rhys’s carefree and optimistic attitude made it bearable. Of all my “family” members, Rhys most often made me second-guess my choice to quit making—forming a new, enhanced being from the souls of three individuals. He had embraced his new life from the moment he took his first breath, in his new form, while most of the others resisted and only later came to terms with whom they had become. Most of them anyway.
Our travels had taken weeks and still more days awaited us. We were to rendezvous with Stanton Overton, another trusted member of my family. If the message had come from anyone else, I would have declined and remained in my castle with a fire blazing in the hearth. I missed the feast each evening and the plethora of chambermaids at my service.
I was about to curse Stanton’s name for sending the urgent message requesting my presence and causing the dreadful journey, when Rhys and I happened upon a young boy lying in a ditch. His blond, matted hair was tinted crimson with blood seeping from an open wound on his head. The holes in his trousers revealed more lacerations.
Rhys rushed to his aid. He pressed his ear to the boy’s chest, glanced at me, and nodded. The boy, not more than eleven or twelve years of age, was alive, but unconscious.
We ripped fragments of fabric from our shirts and tended the boy’s wounds. I lifted his limp body and placed him on my shoulder. On the horizon, at the end of the gravel covered trodden path, were outlines of shanties on the outskirts of the small village of McElwin.
The child's unconscious mind was easy to read. He was the innkeeper's son. Bandits had tried to kill him as retribution against his father. The boy's constitution was hearty. He would likely survive, but his father needed to be warned.
I carried the boy to the tavern door and transferred him to Rhys's welcoming arms. I didn’t do so well in…social situations, especially with women. Best I remained out of sight.
I took a seat upon a haystack in the empty stable across from
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