The Pillar Kneels

The council hall had never felt so large.

Only a few hours earlier, more than two thousand people had crammed themselves into it until there was no space left to stand.

Now, the long table sat in the middle of an empty room, and the crystals overhead cast their amber light over a few dozen men.

There were thirty of them, all warriors of the Second Step. And at the head of the table, their patriarch.

Adam looked at them one by one, then he spoke calmly.

“I’m sure every one of you understands this already. We’re going to meet our deaths soon.”

“...”

Nobody flinched.

“It seems you do.” Adam rose slowly to his feet. “I won’t waste words on sentimentality. For your noble sacrifice, I only have two words to give you.”

He bowed his head.

“Thank you.”

“Father…” Bram shook his head with a faint smile. “Even those words are unnecessary. Is it only your tribe? They’re our family too. Our kids. Our wives. If I were given this choice a thousand times, you’d find me standing right here a thousand times.”

“We’re just passing the torch a little early,” Gideon added. He said it with a nonchalance that had no business appearing on a man’s face on his last day. “And it isn’t only for the tribe. It’s for humanity, as a whole. Like you said, Father.” He shrugged. “We’ll survive.”

None of them, of course, meant the men standing in this empty hall.

“For humanity,” Adam said.

Thirty voices answered him.

“For humanity.”

By then, everyone understood one thing.

The threat was close. But it wasn’t truly here, inside the settlement. If it had been, every one of them would already be dead.

But nobody doubted it was coming, and soon.

So Adam gave the thirty men one last gift. A few hours. Enough time to go to their wives and their children, one last time.

He planned to do the same.

◉

Rune was waiting in the corridor outside the hall when Bram came out.

She didn’t say anything. She walked up to him and punched him in the chest, hard, so hard that he grunted.

Then she grabbed the front of his shirt with both fists and pressed her face into it.

Bram wrapped his huge arms around her and rested his chin on top of her head.

“Don’t you dare marry anyone who snores less than me,” he muttered into her hair. “You’ll never sleep again without the noise. You’ll go mad.”

Rune laughed into his chest.

…Then she sobbed.

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He held her until she stopped.

◉

Such scenes weren’t confined to Bram and his wife. Every man had their own way to say goodbye.

Just like the scene transpiring further down the corridor, where one of the youngest of the thirty, a boy who had reached the Second Step only last spring, knelt in front of his wife and pressed his ear against her round belly.

He stayed like that for a long time. He didn’t say a word.

When he finally stood up, he kissed her forehead, then her belly, and walked back toward the hall without looking back once.

◉◉◉

Anastasia was waiting in their chamber.

She was sitting on the edge of the bed in her plain night robe, her black hair loose over her shoulders. When the door opened, she lifted her head and looked up at her husband.

Adam stood in the doorway and looked down at her.

Neither of them said anything for a long time, nor did they need to. The years had taught them to understand each other with a mere look.

Finally, Adam stepped inside and closed the door behind him.

“...”

“...When I took you as my wife,” he said, his voice hoarse, “you swore to support me. To stand by my side in everything I did. And I…”

His mouth opened, but the next words proved difficult to express.

He stood there, the patriarch of the Hunt tribe, the pillar who had held up the heavens for two and a half centuries, and he couldn’t make a single word leave his throat.

Then, finally, he forced them out.

“...I swore to protect you. I took it as my duty to guard you. Your body, and your heart. All of it.”

Anastasia’s lips were pressed tightly together. Her eyes shone in the dim light, but she didn’t let them spill.

“And now…” Adam said. “Now I’m going to do it one last time. After that, I’ll leave it to my legacy.”

He knelt in front of her, so their eyes were level.

“Thank you for all these years. Thank you for living this life alongside me. And thank you for being my wife.”

He took her hands in his.

“The best wife a man could ever hope for.”

“...”

“My Anastasia.”

Something warm slid down his cheek.

He didn’t wipe it away, letting it fall freely. It would be the one tear, the only one, that he would allow himself. For his own end, for every promise he was about to break, and for the last time he would ever look at her face.

“And… I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m sorry for failing you in the end. I’m sorry for not being enough.”

“...”

“Sorry.”

Anastasia felt her heart break into a million pieces.

Since forever, she had watched this man stand. She had watched him stand when their first tribe burned. She had watched him stand at the graves of more than a thousand of their children and grandchildren. She had never once seen him bend.

Now he was kneeling in front of her with a tear on his face, calling himself a failure.

After everything he had done… after every miracle he had pulled out of this cursed earth with his bare hands.

It was almost as heartbreaking as knowing she would never see him again.

But she didn’t break down.

She had a duty. The same one she had sworn on that cursed day, kneeling in the ashes of their old valley. To support her husband. To stand by his side. And most of all, to hold him up when he was the one who needed it.

She reached out with both hands and cupped his face.

…and she smiled.

It was a messy smile, smeared with tears and snot, her lips trembling at the corners. It was still the most beautiful thing Adam had ever seen.

“If you’re really so sorry,” she said, “then the least you can do is be my husband until the very last moment.”

“...”

“Come on. Smile for me.” Her thumbs brushed his cheeks. “Take me. Hold me.”

Her hands slid down from his face, found his hands, and slowly guided them to her thighs. She rose from the bed. Adam rose with her, lifting her. She wrapped her legs around his waist, and his hands held her there, as easily as they had on their very first night.

“Make love to me one last time,” she whispered against his ear. “Pour it all into me. So much that I’ll never forget you. Leave me one last seed to carry for you.”

She pressed her forehead against his.

“My love. My husband. My life. Do your duty one last time…” Her voice cracked. “…And I’ll forgive you for your sin.”

Adam looked at this woman.

She was the one who should be hurting the most right now. The one being left behind. And here she was, wiping away his tears, smiling for him, trying her hardest to make him feel better.

‘Truly…’

‘You’re my most precious treasure.’

He kissed her.

He carried her across the room until her back met the cool stone of the wall, and he held her there, and she held him back.

For a while, nothing else existed in the world.

There was no Darkness and no Outer God. No tribe waiting, no death coming at dawn. There was only the two of them, their breath tangled together, her fingers in his white hair, his name and hers spoken over and over in the dark with utter devotion.

She clung to him as though she could hold him in place.

He held her as though he could memorize her.

And when it was over, they stayed exactly where they were, against the wall, foreheads pressed together, for what felt like an eternity.

Neither of them wanted to be the first to let go.