“Yes, I suppose it was.” Bernard looked out the window. “I like to think that he did genuinely care. He just didn’t know how to express it. The next morning he showed me his own knuckles and told me that he had done almost the same thing when he was a boy.”

I got shivers at the idea of generations and generations sitting at this very table. Having this conversation. Master to apprentice, repeating all the way up to Bernard and I.

“I guess it's a family trait," Bernard seemed to find himself funny. "To have this constant need to be better. To be more than what we are."

I looked down at my hands.

“Are they gonna scar?” I asked.

“Most definitely,” He replied with no hesitation. I grimaced. “Don’t be so down about it, sweetheart. We get a lot of scars in our line of work, it’s expected.”

“Yeah but, what is our line of work?” I look up at him.

A heavy silence fills the room.

“We… We, ah…” Bernard takes a deep breath. He looks me dead in my young, trusting eyes. “We kill people, Othala. We’re executioners for the king.”

I remember feeling chills. I had known this, hadn’t I?

“Why?” I whispered.

“Because we’re Marked, Othala. We don’t have a choice.”

“Marked by what?” My voice was shaking.

“They say we’re marked by the god of death itself,” he murmurs. “Before we were given our purpose as executioners, we were violent. As the legends go, those Marked by Death brought down kingdoms.”

“But why?”

“It was in our nature to kill, it still is.”

“But I don’t want to kill.” I could feel the tears forming now. “I don’t.”

“I know.”

“Then why? It’s not right.”

“I know,” Bernard repeated. “But if we weren’t given this job as executioners, we would run rampant. Do you want that, Othala? Do you want to kill anything and everything? Or do you want to be given a purpose?”

At seven years of age, I had simply chosen the easy way. To accept my fate as an executioner. Not because I thought I was doing something good, but because I was terrified of becoming the monster from the stories.

As I grew older, I heard more and more legends. Each one made us sound more and more demonic. And at the end of every tale, I was only more determined to be subservient. I told myself that as long as I obeyed, I could spare people from whatever wrath was hidden inside me.

But that was the decision that got Bernard- my friend, my family, my father- killed.