By degrees, his strength slid from him. When her hand touched him, he flinched but didn't draw away. She shouldn't be touching him. That wet forgiveness in her eyes... it was just one more thing he was about to lose. Under her palm, his betraying heart beat an irregular rhythm. He prayed to whatever cold god ignored them from above that she did not notice. "Christine," he said, and he was ashamed that he attuned his voice to the same modulation and tone that he used to beguile. He didn't want to keep her with him by overriding her will - but his throat, his entire body would not be stopped by his more noble thoughts. And those noble thoughts were losing quickly the fight to keep her pure from his influence. He couldn't endure her hate. Not hers, too.
Before he could change his mind, he caught that hand and squeezed, then set it gently at her side. "I've told you the most sanitized version of my childhood imaginable," he explained. "I am every bit the monster they all feared. You should fear me too, child." There was more. There was so much more. He pushed on, his shoulder coming into contact with the windowsill behind him. Some of his weight shifted to lean there.
"I had talents and attributes that paid in traveling fairs, so after I left the Gypsies, I continued to join up with carnivals in Europe. In Rome, I met a master mason... Giovanni. He took me on as his apprentice, and under his guidance I mastered design and construction of buildings. I was happy with Giovanni until age 15. I'd fallen in love with his beautiful youngest daughter, Luciana. It wasn't a knife I used on her, but my face and her desire and a rooftop. We... She couldn't stand not to know what was under my mask, and she promised not to... I couldn't reach her in time, and she fell from the roof. I couldn't stay after that, and continued through Europe and into Asia, plying my talents where they would pay.
When I was 19, Nadir, the Daroga of Mazanderan Court, found me and brought me to the Persian Shah's court. There, I entertained the court with illusion and magic.
"There was also to be a new palace for the Shah, and I was the master designer. The Shah's builders needed much guidance; they struggled to understand my blueprints. I filled his new palace with secret passageways and entrances throughout, mirrors to trick the eye, acoustics that allowed one to hear much of the conversations throughout the wing from a certain room... a masterpiece.
"For the Khanum, the Shah's mother, I built traps and torture devices for her amusement. Nothing was painful or bloody enough for her, and I dispatched her enemies with more and more creative ways, to feed her desire. I was covered in death. They called me the Angel of Doom, and I was feared above all others. I had no peace; my very mind was filled with the blood of my victims -- so many dead, Christine, at my own inventive hands! The only way I could find rest was through their opium pipes -- but I couldn't indulge in it for long. My voice, you understand... It has always been the only beautiful thing about me, and I couldn't damage it. So there was the morphine next, a habit I still find myself following, when I have need.
"It was impossible not to become entangled in the politics of Mazanderan, and I was served a cup of poisoned wine and ground glass. Imagine my enemy's surprise when I survived! But my enemy did not. He was killed in my sight, Christine -- and I didn't know it, but he had a wife and a child. I would have stopped the assassins if I'd known that. His wife loved him dearly, and she threw herself from a high tower when he died. The child was also killed on my behalf."
Erik stopped here. Rubbed his forehead briefly. His left arm was numb. He flexed his hand again. And finally, he looked toward Christine again, fully expecting her to condemn him now.