some by virtue fall; any

[Kushiel]

Kushiel watched her with eyes that were very bright. When he felt like this he usually reached for flame and let it rage until all that was left were his own hazy thoughts, tried and satiated. He didn’t do that now, he let the feeling build, releasing it in bursts of sparkling eyes and wickedly flashing teeth.

He felt like a wolf, but he wasn’t sure if she was the rabbit or the lion.

And he didn’t much care. He wouldn’t mind if he jumped on a rabbit only for it to turn into a lion. It would serve him right in any case. It was more fun hunting something that could hunt you back. In this instance, Kushiel was quite sure that, should she turn on him, she would do a much finer job of bringing him down than he could.

She seemed very much the predator, for of Kushiel’s hungry looks.

Kushiel had always known he had this side to him, this burning, predatory glee. He sometimes wondered if his lazy, drawling discourtesy was just a mask for this…whatever this was. Certainly in this moment the fire felt like the only reality, the rest of him just a somewhat socially acceptable, if altogether impolite mask.

“How will I know?” He asks slowly, articulately, as if he was saying one thing, but hoping she would gather some other meaning. “When she claims me?” He smirked as he caught and held her sapphire eyes.

As if she could sense all that he is and has ever been, she spoke of liars. Kushiel’s smirk turned a little wistful, a little wanton. Ah. Well. It wasn’t that he lied, he just wasn’t honest. There was a big difference. He would never say something that was untrue, but what he didn’t say was the important thing. What he should be saying instead. Kushiel was very loud, very bold, people didn’t usually stop and wonder about what it was he was directing their attention away from. As if he was illustrating his thoughts to himself, he answered.


“I think you’ll find that my truth is much worse than my fiction. You may come to prefer the latter.”
People usually pretended to be better than they were. Whether that’s what Kushiel did was up for debate. You couldn’t really be sure.

He certainly could be, much, much worse than he was.

It all depended on your priorities. He continued, smiling softly.

“If it is truly honesty you want to hear than you are a braver woman than I am a man. Though, I will tell you the truth of whatever you wish to hear.” That at least was true. Kushiel didn’t have secrets. He wasn’t discreet enough to keep them, and he had grown up thinking thoughts that may as well been spoken aloud.

He would tell her whatever truth he wished to hear, and perhaps if she asked just the right questions it would be honest as well.

After all, the truth was just another form of misdirection. 


Kushiel

some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall