Suture (The Bleeding Worlds) Read Online Free

like a ribbon. Before the Curse could attack, Xanthe severed its head. The blade snapped back to its normal size before the body hit the ground.
    He recalled a time when he'd killed something previously human and been filled with guilt and remorse. Even now, his stomach twinged at the guilt laden memory. But he felt no guilt for this thing in front of him. It had ceased to be human the moment they'd stepped outside. He'd given the poor man freedom. Perhaps he would find his lost love and again feel the softness of her blonde hair.
    When did I start thinking that way?
    A hand pressed down on Gwynn's shoulder. "You all right?" Njord asked.
    Nothing but silence came from the others. Snapped from the moment, Gwynn realized he hadn't even willed Xanthe forth. The blade had come to his hand without his beckoning, and it had killed without him issuing an order. Had the events of his hometown and eight months of intensive training done this? Had it turned killing into nothing more than an instinct?
    "I'm fine," Gwynn replied. Though he doubted very much he was.
§
    Five miles from the farm, a figure wrapped in a black cloak, stood atop a barn roof, watching events unfold. He needed no binoculars, the Veil amplified his vision. A few members of Ansuz had just pulled a man from the building. Stupid fools. They should've guessed what would happen. The man began the horrible transformation from human to Curse. A Full Incursive. A being from one world dragged in their entirety into this world. He wasn't so much transforming as he was being crushed and remolded. Before he could see how events would play out, a figure stepped in front of him. Her pale face remained framed by the familiar two black ponytails that hung down below her breasts. The jade eyes regarding him lacked that same familiarity, perhaps because he liked to remember when they held love. Those days had died long ago.
    "Adrastia," he murmured. "If you still go by that name."
    "Sometimes. It's the name I had when we first met, so I'm fine if you use it." She reached up toward his face, but hesitated within an inch of it. "What should I call you now? Nidhogg, Abzu, or maybe your true name?"
    He stepped around her, looking back to the field. The Curse lay dead. In the moment Adrastia had him distracted, he'd heard it. Only a few notes, not enough to be certain, but it was very close.
    What should she call him? Not his true name, he'd abandoned it long ago, even before he began wearing the mask to conceal his face. No, something more appropriate to who he had become, and how he saw that life.
    "You can call me Cain. I was always partial to it," he answered.
    "Because you enjoy being associated with that first act of murder?"
    He shook his head no, and regarded the markings circling his right arm. "No, because of this." He shoved his right arm toward her. "The mark of Cain. The mark inflicted by God upon the one cursed to wander forever as an outcast."
    He saw pity in her eyes—pity she didn't want him to see, as she turned her head quickly away from him.
    "Why are you here?" Adrastia asked, forcing a haughty anger into her voice. "Shouldn't you be crushing worlds, or finding others to join in your fall from grace?"
    He surveyed the end of the battle. Someone among their ranks had beheaded the Curse. Njord, perhaps? It was possible. But those notes, reverberating through the Veil… left him doubting.
    He looked back to the girl. How many years had their paths intersected? "Does it matter why I'm here?" His eyebrow raised as he studied her face. "Could it be you've found a world you wish to defend? Is the detached watcher going to finally get her hands dirty?"
    "Do you really care? If I said I found value in this world, would you, for the sake of our relationship, leave it in peace?"
    He shook his head. "No world will find peace. Look there." He nodded toward the fallen Curse. "That place alone should demonstrate my point."
    "You may wish to be called Cain, but I should call you