SECRETS

Written on October 22, 2024 (♎︎︎)

Author's Notes: Written for Whumptober 2024 for prompt No. 22: Bleeding through Bandages (Reopening Wounds).

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In his younger years, a simple cantrip would have held him. At fifty, even at sixty, Simon imagined that he might have kept enough of his blood in him to make his way to the infirmary, that–even with Galfryd and Sevrin fallen–there still might be hope to put himself together again.

His magics and his knees failed him. Simon tried to remind himself that it was dusk to stave off fears that his eyes were doing the same. Groping about the library, he made his way to a familiar folio and pressed it hard against his wounds. He was steady enough after that–enough that in slow and halting steps, he could make it to the chapel–enough that after that, he could almost make it to the door.

Simon felt, more than once, the sharp pain of himself trying to come apart. He held the book all the closer, trying not to think of the welling red that spread its stain across his surplice and fingers. He would hold. The courtyard was not far. He would wait to spill all the secrets within the book and the body it kept shut until he could once again see the sky above him."

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