Mid-summer was approaching, and the warm morning breeze carried the sticky promise of the day’s heat and humidity. The inn sat on the first level stretch of the main road through the town after it had climbed up from the harbour on its way to the mountain pass. He looked down to the sea. Too many people and too many smells. He turned toward the mountain, remembering a small glade nestled in trees overlooking the town and the Medicean. A good place to think and as good as any to die. He began walking.
A thousand deaths and resurrections. A thousand times asking himself when would it stop. A thousand times begging for it to stop.
His jaw tightened as he walked.
No. He had stopped begging a long time ago.
But he had never stopped asking why. In the beginning, due perhaps to the Christolic
