A Charge of Valor by Morgan Rice

flushed.
    “ Would you leave me at the mercy of Andronicus, then?” she asked, indignant.
    “ Even in death, you must set an example,” he said. “It is not about whether or not you die. It is about how you die. That is what lives on for others.”
    “ How can I live after what he has done to me?” she asked, pained. “Even if nothing more happened?”
    “ You can live just as easily as anyone else,” he said. “There is no shame in what happened to you. There is only shame in being too much of a coward to carry on. In not realizing that what happened to you is not you . What happened is not the same as who you are . Your body and spirit and soul are distinct from the events in this world that happen to you. You are looking at the world now through a very narrow, physical lens. But the world is not only physical—it is also spiritual. Looking at things physically is the lowest form of all.
    “ Do you think you entered this world through the physical alone? You were also conceived spiritually. That is the highest level in which we all live. And that is why physical occurrences to the body do not mean a thing. They do not touch, and cannot reach, our spirit, our essence. It would be the same if you scraped an elbow, or lost a finger. You, Gwendolyn, have not changed.”
    She flushed, embarrassed. She knew there was truth to what he was saying, but it was hard to take it in right now. She was finding herself feeling defensive.
    “ I am not a coward,” she said, bunching her fists.
    “ I know you’re not,” he said. “And I also know that you pay your debts.”
    “ Debts?” she asked, confused.
    “ Don’t you remember, that day, when you begged me to save Thor’s life? I told you it was not meant to be, yet you insisted, you said you would give anything. I told you you would pay a debt, you would die a small death. You have now paid that debt. That was your small death. A small death of the spirit. But not of the body. And not of the soul.”
    Gwen remembered it all, and hearing his words gave her comfort. It gave meaning to the horrors she had endured. Now it all made sense, at least.
    “ You should be grateful,” Argon continued. “You are still alive. You have your health. You have Thor’s child, within you. Would you sacrifice the child to kill yourself? Just out of cowardice? Are you that selfish?”
    “ I am not selfish,” she said defiantly, knowing he was right.
    “ Right now, from where you are standing, it seems in your eyes that the future will only bring you more pain, more sadness,” Argon said. “It seems in your eyes that you have suffered a humiliation from which you can never recover. But your vision is limited; you look at time from only one perspective, and it is a very narrow one. This is the lens of all who have been through suffering. And it is a distorted lens. The future will surprise you; it may just be bright, brighter than you ever imagined. And what happened to you today will fade in your mind, fade so much that you may never even remember it, as if it never was. Life is not just one life: it is many lives. And your new lives will wash away whatever pain and regret there was in the old ones. When we have tragedy in life, we get stuck, like getting stuck in the mud. When we are in the mud it feels as if we can never get out. But these come to us as great life lessons: it is up to us to pull ourselves out of the mud. Not just once, but time and time again. This is your moment to pull yourself out. To show life that you are bigger than your fears. Unless you are too afraid.”
    “ I am not afraid,” she answered, determined.
    Argon smiled back, the first time she had ever seen him smile.
    “ It is not me you must convince,” he said. “It is yourself.”
    Gwen turned and paced herself, walking slowly back to the window, breathing deep, feeling better. She felt that maybe everything he said was right. But there was still one thing bothering her.
    “ But what about