Gibson’s head slowly turned his way, his remaining eye a dull, dead thing in his face. It dipped for just a moment, taking in Eithan’s own disheveled state, before flicking back up.

His throat bobbed once before he parted his lips, his tongue making a thick, sticky sound as he pried it from the roof of his mouth. “You’re going to kill him, aren’t you?” he croaked.

“Who?”

“Healer Perry.”

“Perry! That’s it!” Eithan said, snapping his fingers and pointing at him. “Damn, I was close. Oh, don’t look at me like that, I’m not going to kill him.” Not as long as he kept his blubbering lips closed, at least.

At Gibson’s scoff, he sighed. “No matter how much you might contest it, I don’t just go around murdering people for fun,” he said, tilting his head. “Do you actually think I enjoy seeing people the way you were down there? Broken and useless?”

The tightening of Gibson’s lips was his only reply.

Eithan took a single step toward the cot, delighting in the way the guard’s body tensed. Looked like there was still some life left to be snuffed out.

“In case you’re unsure, my question wasn’t rhetorical.”

Gibson cleared his throat, trying to hide his wince before spitting out, “The ecstasy that’s always plastered to your face would suggest that you do.”

Eithan chuckled, taking the last few steps and reaching over to grab the healer’s chair. He pulled it closer and lowered himself onto it, careful to avoid angering his own wounds that had finally stopped seeping blood onto his clothing.

“True. But I should clarify my meaning.” He leaned back, crossing one leg over the other, his mask remaining smooth and unperturbed even as his split skin pulled and burned.

“You’re right, I enjoy what I do. Probably more than anything else in this world and whatever world awaits us after. But do you think I’m proud of that truth?

“Do you truly believe I thrive on the knowledge that I’m a monster with no soul? That I enjoy having no heart left to pump blood throughout this shell of a body?”

“Yes.”

Eithan dipped his head. He didn’t fault him for his answer. Gibson might’ve grown up poor, but he’d been free of a father and fiercely loved by his mother. He couldn’t understand.

People were not capable of understanding what they, themselves, had not experienced. Pity existed, but real empathy was little more than a myth created by those who sought to better their own image.

No one was capable of empathizing with Sulian holding his hand over a flame when he’d dropped his sword one too many times as a child. They weren’t capable of understanding the mental and physical black hole he’d had to crawl out of on his own. Not unless they’d experienced the same. And he highly doubted a soul in Matherin had.

“I used to fight it, you know. This innate urge that Sulian awoke in me.” He inspected his hands, picking out dried blood from under his fingernails.