Mud

  My soul.

  It echoes through me in tense quivers. No more box. No more killing. Just freedom. Just quiet. My soul. My very own.

  Kythiel’s jaw clenches. “Yes. I have it.”

  His eyes peel over her like a map he is studying to an old beloved place.

  His hands run over her hair, over her cheeks and down her thin throat. Rest at her clavicle, still protruding too harshly, skin stretched too tight over her bones. His eyes run over her hungrily.

  “She is not well,” Kythiel says.

  Something in me wants to push him away, shove him off her so hard he will never make his way back. The memory of her piercing scream bursts free in my head, loud, wailing, and unwelcome, as if she had awakened with him over her. My hands ball into fists. Should I tell him what she said, what she thinks? Something angry and desperate rises in me in resistance to the thought, and I swallow them back down.

  “No. But she will be. She is still healing.”

  He keeps going. Over her shoulders, her breasts, her pinched ribs, her too-narrow waist, the jutting bones of her hips. He pushes up her shirt and stares at the wound across her stomach. The skin has knitted together into a dark scab.

  “Let her rest,” I say. I try hard not to yell over her screaming in my head. Can’t tell if it comes out too loud or in a hoarse whisper. “We have business to settle.”

  He eyes me, a hint of shadow flickers over his face.

  “Yes. Of course,” his voice is steady and smooth but something about it bites. “Golem.”

  He takes her in one more time, runs a hand over her hair before standing and striding past me out of the cave. The reeling screech in my head subsides.

  I turn to follow him.

  “Adem,” Jordan snatches my arm as I walk by. Holds it tight in his hot palm and looks up to me like he is still the child I brought to this place. His eyes meet mine, wide, wary, and lost. “Do what’s right. Or so help me…”

  “This is right. This is the deal.” I yank my arm away from him and follow Kythiel down the shore.

  It is right. I tell myself. It’s what was promised. He loves her. He will take care of her. She will heal and she will see she is not in the Underworld anymore and all is right and she is safe with him. The darkness down there seeped into her mind, twisted her memories. That is all.

  And I will get my soul.

  Even if it was true, what she said, what’s one life to the thousands that would be spared the fate of dying under my hands because of the box?

  It’s right.

  Isn’t it?

  Soft moonlight reflects off glossy wings, outlining his perfect glowing figure. He stares up at the round beaming moon and they are like a matching set.

  I meet him at the water’s edge. He watches me the way a child watches an ant, idly curious, uncommitted.

  “My soul,” I prompt.

  “Yes.”

  I wait for him to continue. He doesn’t.

  “Where is it?”

  “I have it.”

  His eyes flick impatiently back to the cave. To Rona.

  I wait for him to take it out. To put it in me. I wonder how he will do it. If it will hurt. My shoulder prickles and I remember exactly all that word means. Pain.

  I wonder what it will be like to be real. To be human. Fragile and sensitive. And free to choose. I’m so hungry for it I could burst.

  But he doesn’t make any move for it. Stands silent, perfect, and still. Watches me.

  “Let me have it.” Shadows push at the back of my mind, begin to creep out through the cracks. “We had a deal.”

  His hands fidget, wringing at his neck, folding over his chest, unfolding again. The feathers of his wings rise and ruffle.

  “When she is healed. When I know she will not slip away into death again.”

  “She is already past the worst. All she needs is time and rest.” So far, past the limp corpse I carried to shore just yesterday, unconscious, and bleeding out onto the sand. What would Kythiel have thought if he had seen her then?

  “She is not strong enough for the journey we must take. She will stay here until she is. When I take her, you will have your soul.”

  I follow his gaze back to the cave. Rona. I wonder where he will take her. And suddenly, I feel hollow. Suddenly I cannot see past seeking her, caring for her, to anything beyond her. All I had before this was the box. There’s nothing to return to.

  He shifts, stretching and folding his wings.

  “You’ve done well, golem. I didn’t know if this would work. Sending the lowest of creatures in the Underworld. I didn’t dare believe it. When she shut me out, when she sent herself out of Terath and left me alone, I couldn’t bear it. I almost went mad with desperation. But all is right now.”

  When she shut him out? The words jam in my ears. Too much like Rona’s story.

  No.

  I shake out the thoughts stirring inside me. Try not to let myself think it.

  Rona might believe what she said, but it wasn’t real. It was delusions, nightmares, lies the demons fed her to trap her there.

  My soul. It is somewhere on Kythiel right now, just an arm’s length away. So close. Painfully close.

  But then why did she kill herself?

  The echo of her scream is ringing through me again, piercing me.

  And Kythiel. He won’t look at me. Stares off to the horizon. The shadows are taking over my mind, gnawing at my gut. I try to shove it back, to ignore the rising scream but its building, building, building inside me like a volcano, like I’m about to erupt.

  “Kythiel—”

  Too loud. A roar. It bursts from me large, wild, and desperate, gusts out over the waves.

  His head snaps up. His eyes flick to me like sparking embers, meeting mine.

  I look into them. Look for real. Look deep. And the cracks burst open and the shadows rush out and swallow me. Because I see it.

  The rootless chaos in his eyes. Dark, churning, restless. Lost.

  Just like Rona said.

  How did I not see it before? The empty chasm that fueled him. That hidden under the grace, the beauty, and the perfection is a soul that unhinged long ago?

  And just like that, my hope extinguishes and I know it’s over.

  “I can’t.”

  It spills out of me before I can think. Soft, hardly even words. It’s as much to tell myself, as it is to tell him.

  There will be no other chances. I know there can’t be. This one should never have been in the first place. But I can’t. Not like this. Not even for a soul. I remember his marble hands running over her face, her hair, her neck, and it makes my stomach churn, how close I let him get to her.

  “Hmm?” Kythiel’s already drifted off again, staring back toward the cave.

  “I can’t.” My voice is coming back now. Rough but certain. “I can’t let you take her.”

  Why did I trust him so blindly? Protecting her now that the truth has finally sunk in, it’s the only thing I can do.

  He turns back to me, the content smile fading from his face. Replaced by something removed and hard. Then he laughs, a peeling like smooth pearly bubbles.

  “Of course you will.”

  I choke down the urge to take it back.

  “No.”

  The laugh drifts off his face and its hard marble skin goes smooth and hard.

  “We made a deal. You swore to bring her back to me.”

  I plant one foot and then the other, firm, shoulder to shoulder with him. My toes dig into the sand. I try not to expose the wild way my mind races in the moonlight.

  “You lied,” I growl.

  The slightest twitch moves through the feathers of his dark wings.

  “What did she tell you?”

  “Everything.”

  He stares back at me, unforgiving menace boiling just below the surface. There is no questioning the lost hazard in his eyes, now that I’ve seen it.

  “She is not right. She needs me. I can make her better.
But the things she says, they aren’t true.”

  His voice is quiet but his words are hard and cold. It’s too late. It doesn’t matter what he says now. He takes an aggressive step closer, and I am in his reach. I hold my ground.

  “The Underworld. It would cause anyone to get confused. They fed her lies, they… ” His fingers curl, tense and searching, open, close, open, close, tug on his hair, curl in fists to his sides. The feathers of his wings flay with aggression. “I need her. She needs me.”

  “No more stories, Kythiel.”

  “We had a deal,” he hisses, shoving me backwards. My feet stumble and trip to keep me upright under the force from his hands. He follows with easy strides.

  “You bring her back to me,” he shoves me again, “And I give you a soul,” and again. My feet can’t keep up and I fall to the ground with a thud, skid across the rough sand.

  He stands over me, his dark wings spread wide, blocking out the moon. “And now it is time to live up to your word. Hand her over, golem.”

  Every inch of me burns with volatile rage.

  “You knew. You knew this whole time.”

  That Rona would not want to come back. Maybe even that crossing through the barrier would bring the next Realm War. He knew, and he didn’t care.

  And I trusted him, my ignorant slow mind, trusted him blindly, all too eager to get my own reward. It comes over me in a rush, like falling down a bottomless pit. So many warnings, so many times I could have listened and made it right. But I was blinded by my craving to escape myself.

  Kythiel is raging, huffing air in and out, his whole body quivering from his chest to the tips of his spread wings. His jaw is clenched, eyes wild. A madman.

  All that I’ve done, all I’ve broken, all to bring Rona back to this monster. It’s time to do something right. To start making things better, not worse. I push myself to my feet, the edge of my hand pulsing where my finger is missing.

  “By the Gods, Kythiel, leave her. I’m warning you. Walk away.”

  The moon is bright above us. The majestic glow of Kythiel’s skin fades against its stretching beams.

  He snorts. “By the Gods? The Gods do not care about you, or anything in this forsaken realm. It’s just you and me out here.” His face curls a feral snarl, baring pearly sharp teeth. A growl rolls out from his clenched jaw, so beautiful it could be a purr. “Do you really think you can keep me from her?”

  The giant wings spread to their full span, his smooth muscles flexing and rippling.

  No. He is larger, he is smarter, and he likely has ancient magic I can only imagine.

  “I have to.”

  His fist springs toward me.

  Hot tension floods me as my jaw unhinges, snapping apart under the pressure. Everything goes dark, and the after burn of his grimacing face imprints in the back of my mind.

  I brace myself for the pain.

  It doesn’t come.

  I am on Terath again, and I am strong here. He can’t break me like they could in the Underworld.

  I let the fury expand, expand, expand until it consumes me. It bursts out of me in a terrible roar that shakes the water and stabs at the sky.

  I charge at the angel with all I have.

  One way or another, one of us is not leaving this fight.

  I’m determined to make sure it’s he who falls—not only my own sake, but for Miriam. For Jordan. For Rona. Every Hunter I’ve buried.

  Chapter 29

  IT WOULD BE a relief, really. After so long. All the problems I’ve created. For it to all end. Even like this, under Kythiel’s raging fists. It was part of what a soul was going to give me, after all. An end.

  But I have so much to make up for first. So much else to set right again. As the angel moves toward me, I catch Jordan in the corner of my eye, standing protectively in front of Rona at the cave’s mouth. They’re out of direct danger. For now. As long as I can keep Kythiel distracted.

  The soft glow of his skin, the graceful motion as he shifts, the gentle flutter of his wings. All a perfect disguise for the madness underneath. Only those eyes, those aimless churning eyes give any sign.

  “You cannot protect her from me, golem,” he throws his words at me like daggers.

  Golem.

  That’s exactly what I am. A brutal, fierce, ruthless beast. The only monster to ever break into the Underworld and crawl back out of it. I take a deep breath and let the simmering adrenaline pulse through my chest, my shoulders, my fingers, my toes.

  I haul into his face with my fists. Slam he stumbles backward. Slam his head whiplashes like a spring. Slam I knock him to the ground.

  His perfect straight nose shifts out of place, and silvery blood seeps through the splits in his skin where my knuckles landed.

  The pressure builds in my hand with each blow, a satisfying tension as the bones split and crack, the cool sticky silver coagulating across them. I pause to let them pull back together.

  As soon as I do, two fists to my chest send me flying, and the world blurs as I soar through the air, skid across the sand.

  Kythiel is too fast. Too strong. Maybe even more indestructible than I am. Can this battle ever end? All I know is I can’t let him reach Rona.

  He rushes at me as I stand. I throw punches that toss him clear across the shore. He rips me from the ground and flies me high into the stars until the air is too thin to breathe, then sends me crashing back to the earth. I shove him to the ground and pound more silvery blood out of him. He mutters curses that shoot sparks from his fingers, that bite and sting and burn through my skin. It goes on like this all through the night.

  I struggle to keep up with his speed. Engulfed in blur of cool silver and dark feathers. Bursts of force hit me from every side, no more than a blur of throbbing pounds and the grinding of sharp teeth. My broken limbs make delayed attempts to fight back as he comes at me again and again, shattering my body into splintered pieces. I must find a way to stop him before he breaks me too much to fight back. I’d recover, but would it be fast enough to stop him from taking Rona?

  Too little. Too late. Too slow.

  I channel all the rage, all the pulsing energy in me, and charge. I leap at him, grab hold, and pull him down with me. We knock to the ground in a tangle of arms and legs and feathers, and before I can break free, he has my head clenched in his hand and my mind fills with the thunk-thunk-thunk of my skull slamming against rock. A hot wet rush covers me where my head keeps meeting the rough stone. I see red, I see stars, and I can’t break free.

  But if he’s here slamming my head on the rocks, he’s not in the cave taking Rona away.

  I’m limp, helpless, lost in the dizzying rhythm. For a moment I give in to it. Thin fracture lines spread over my skull with each hit.

  Focus.

  All I can see is a blur. My fingers reach out, fumble across the sand and find sharp shards of rock. This will do. I wrap my fingers around one tight. This strike has to count.

  I swing around toward Kythiel with all my strength, all my force. Dig the rock into him like a blade. Vibrations roll through my fingers as the perfect silver skin rips apart. I tear through it as long, as deep, and as hard as I can.

  A garbled cry sounds.

  A huff of wind blows off dark writhing wings.

  My head is free. I feel it start the work to reshape and heal, the pressure begin to relieve. But there’s no time to wait for it to do its work. I stumble away, ready for whatever he comes at me with next. Moonlight catches in a copious flood of silver draining out from his neck. I’ve ripped a gash down his neck and across to his shoulder. Kythiel stumbles back, hands outstretched and trembling, his eyes wide in shock. He opens his mouth to speak and more silver spills out over his lips.

  I strike again while he’s vulnerable, splitting open his abdomen. He gasps, doubles over, pulling his arms around himself. The silver blood oozes out in a sheet, drips down, and puddles on the sand.

  A whisper of victory grows in my chest.

  But th
en Kythiel straightens his back. Slowly. Carefully. Quivering.

  Soft curls, encased in light, tumble into his face. He shoves them back, staining his hair with his blood. Then he hovers his hand over the gash in his stomach, closes his eyes. He murmurs a short chant. As he finishes, the wound heals itself. His power is greater than mine. Great and flawless and brutal.

  When he is done, he lifts his head to me. He’s smiling. Suddenly, even with the sharp rock in my hand, I feel helpless and vulnerable. Why is he smiling?

  He steps to me and raises a fist to the sky. “Goodbye, golem.”

  He murmurs another chant. The wind rushes around him and he strains with the pulsing power. Then he slams his fist to my head.

  I don’t even feel the impact.

  I am propelled backwards, and land with a crash as overwhelming darkness edges in on me. I try to push it away and scramble to my feet, but am unable to control my own limbs. Kythiel turns his back on me and strides toward the cave. The last thing I see as the darkness closes in is Rona’s terrified face, too thin and scrunched with fear, and Jordan pulling out his blade as he steps in front of her.

  Everything fades to shadow. My entire being swells with blank terror.

  Chapter 30

  SAND.

  I wake up face-down in it. Grains press into my cheeks, my forehead, and my chin. They are inside my mouth, my eyes.

  I lift my head and open my eyes. They are attacked with overwhelming light. I shut them again and pull my arms up to shield them.

  “Get up, Adem.”

  The voice is deep, wide, and everywhere, surrounding me. It echoes inside my head, beyond the shadows. Vibrates against my skin.

  I push myself up. Rub my palms over my face to push out the sand.

  I am just where Kythiel left me, halfway up the shore between the water and the cave. But everything is bright, so bright, unbearably bright. I squint against it. Everyone is gone—Kythiel, Rona, Jordan, even the village is abandoned.

  The light is warm and soft, but a wave of panic overcomes me. My fingers curl into my hands in tight fists.

  “Adem.”

  Where is the voice? A wind swirls around me, kicking up sand into its pull. It catches on an invisible form just feet from me.