What are gods made for it not to be worshipped? What are acolytes made for if not to serve? What is the chalice, if not to pour sacrifices of wine and blood? As with every god, your undoing is foretold in the smoke and stars and cards. You will be undone by red lines that connect heart to heart, by the silver tears that you will weep for your mortal lover, by the sunrise that colors the sky the deepest vermilion and the faintest blush and you will sit on the clouds, peering down into the sea that shines gold under the sun, and you will wonder when the time that once poured as slow as honey went.
You carry yourself with the pride of a thousand conquerors and now the moon reflects a light colder than the arctic, stares down without comment, lips pressed into a thin red line, judging and contemplative in just what to do with us. But you do not notice, draped in emperor’s cloak, the deepest of violets coming up to intertwine around your throat. You fill your goblet with striped carnations and purple hyacinths, with cyclamen and chrysanthemums the color of spring pollen-bearing bees, until it overflows and the petals fall to the ground and crumble away to nothingness. King of the broken and jutting bones, of glass splintering underneath the heavy heel, and it’s probably just some sick coincidence that it sounds like the breaking of metacarpal bones.
If it should turn out that your slaining word does not give rise to lilies of the valley, if it should turn out that your blood is as red as mortal veins, if it should turn out that the spark of the sun inside you is truly nothing more than madness, if the darkness clawing its way in cannot reach you fast enough for the darkness within you has already devoured your heart and soul, if the point of the knife is not enough to bring you out of the narrow-barred pride-drunk reverie you have locked yourself in, then I think I will be forced to shed the blind man’s mantle and claim the godkiller title I’ve sought for so long.
Before you paint me a heathen, name me as the poisoner of the wine, trade out my name for judas’, I urge you to remember that all things have consequences and that I have kept you safe for so long, but now your skin is bared to the eyes of the masses and I cannot save you from the scaffold when you walked up there yourself and placed the rope around your neck. You do not seem scared, perhaps it is more merciful to die at the hands of strangers than the one you trusted most. It is often found that the ones in whom we place our greatest trust are best positioned to slot a knife in our back. I suppose that’s why you do not trust me, even now. How terribly wise of you.
You stare down the crowd that has gathered and your lips move.
I take aim.
Consider this my final act of sacrifice, my final blessing imparted upon you, for you have challenged the wrong god.
for @avolitorial and their february love prompts | prompt #4 - devotional
