12. The Village of Souls
12
THE VILLAGE OF SOULS
Finnian
The Present
Nathaira strolled at Finnian’s side as if the wind carried her, in an elegance painfully similar to his father’s.
It stirred up memories of their last day together at Naia and Solaris’s birthday celebration. Finnian at the dinner table, forced to listen to the tiresome conversation between Vex and Astrid. The fear catching in Naia’s breath when a middle goddess called attention to her necklace—the gem Finnian, himself, had gifted to her. Rain splattering along the cobblestone outside the open doors of the palace. Finnian standing in the corridor, trembling and attempting to comprehend the sight of his father in chains. Breath shallow, shaking his head, unable to process the brevity of what was happening.
Afterwards, he slept beside the waterhole with Alke’s corpse in his arms. While deities did not grow tired, Finnian had slipped into a state of dreaming, too dissociated from the new reality before him. Sleep was a form of escape, distancing himself from the visceral loss of his beloved companion and father.
He awoke and had forgotten it all. Until he rose and Alke’s damp feathers peeled from the inside of his arm.
An ache spiked like an ax through his chest as he recalled those grim days.
“Lord Cassian says you have souls awaiting you at the festival,” Nathaira said, her voice like a babbling brook—obnoxiously clement. “They are quite eager to reunite with you.”
He swallowed and transitioned his focus outside of the nerves prickling in his stomach.
Instead, he analyzed the sound of her voice coming in through his hearing aid and how it appeared less automated. Which meant his brain was beginning to adjust. Quicker than the long stretch of days it had taken when he first created the device. He despised feeling so… mortal .
He pinched at the lavender buds grazing his waist as he walked. Not long after their conversation, Cassian teleported him to Nathaira and disappeared. Finnian was dying to know where.
Nathaira glanced over at him, patient for his reply.
He ignored her, eyeing the passing souls, with no intention of indulging the optimistic goddess in conversation.
The souls appeared like normal people—all young, lively. It seemed ironic to Finnian.
They wandered through the fields with an individual constellation crowning each of their heads. Each aura was unique, a landscape of glittering rainbow gemstones.
“These are the Lavender Fields of Healing,” Nathaira told him. “Where we escort the souls when they arrive.”
“I didn’t ask.” He squished the lavender bud between his fingernails, siphoning away its life-force. The crumbled pieces withered.
“This is the River of Eden,” she said as they journeyed across the bridge. Their footfalls echoed along the wooden planks.
Finnian turned his head, peering into the forest of elm following along the bank of the river. Was it the Serpentine Forest? He twisted his neck to follow the river engulfing the Lavender Fields and intertwining with the River of Souls. Beyond the ridges of the field, he could not make out what laid behind the river.
“That would be the Grove of Mourning.”
Finnian shook his head lightly. “What would be the difference between a field of healing versus mourning? Wouldn’t all the souls mourn as they heal?”
She stopped at the end of the bridge and smiled back at him. “The Lavender Fields of Healing are for all souls to process and grieve the life they left behind. The Grove of Mourning is for the deeply scarred souls, burdened by the trauma they endured in their mortal lives, still unready to begin the healing process.”
“If they never move past such trauma, then what happens?”
“They can choose to eat from the Pomegranate Orchard, where the fruit will erase the memories of their previous lives entirely.”
He was aware that pomegranates held significance in the Land of the Dead, but he didn’t know the reason. “Just like that? They forget all their memories?”
Nathaira nodded. “Yes, but the souls have to receive permission from Lord Cassian in order to do so.”
What a fine ingredient the fruit would make for a potion.
Memory-erasing potions existed, but not any strong enough to work on deities. The length and population of their memories were too vast.
Finnian’s fingertips itched to get his hands on one of those pomegranates. To craft a potion capable of expelling the memories of gods. Such a rare item would bring in heaps of people and stir all sorts of chaos in his—well, Naia and Ronin’s—black market.
Though, he couldn’t imagine choosing to forget Naia and Father. Their smiles, their laughter, their embrace.
His chest squeezed, and it became difficult to breathe. To distract his body from the sensation, he scratched at the curse mark running up his clavicle, turning his attention over the railing and looking down at the glassy surface of the stream. It languidly swept the wraith-like, half-shaped souls in its current. It reminded him of all the times he sat on the bridge’s railing back in Kaimana, Naia at his side. Sometimes they talked, and sometimes they sat in silence, entranced by the River of Souls.
“And what does the River of Eden do?” he asked.
“Those who swim in this river will be reincarnated,” Nathaira replied, her patience never wavering to his questions. “It takes them to the Land of Entity to be reborn under Iliana. The High Goddess of Life and Balance removes any memories of their previous life, but when they die, their cumulative memories are given back from all their reincarnations.”
He scoffed with the image of Ronin Kahale swimming laps in its waters, annoyingly determined to find Naia in his next lifetime.
They stepped off the bridge into a lush bed of pampas grass rippling in the breeze. Nathaira walked a few paces ahead of him, leading them up a small knoll. Once they made it to the top, she stopped.
He came up beside her, peering out at the land.
“Welcome to Caius.” She spread her arms, gesturing to the valley before them.
Nestled between the basalt mountains were winding roads and obsidian stone houses. Wisteria trees lined the stream that was parted down the middle. Marigold and plum wept across the sky between the straw-like branches.
“Come along now.” Nathaira waved for him to follow as she started down the hilltop.
Finnian was amazed that Cassian did not name it the Valley of Celebration , or something else so simple-minded.
His feet felt heavy as he lagged behind the goddess. Caius was the last place he wished to go. Reuniting with old friends and lovers he’d let go of once already. He did not wish to resurface the ache of loss. To see their faces, hear their laughter, burdened by heartbreak yet again.
They strolled down the dirt road. A knot gripped his stomach with each step.
The souls here were livelier than the ones in the Lavender Fields. They carried themselves lightly and with a calm energy. The passersby appeared just like any other villagers in the Mortal Land, with their baskets resting on the crook of their elbows. Children frolicked in the River, their pants rolled up to their ankles. At the corners of the homes were bloomed irises and poppies.
Mixed in with the souls were deities of Death, known as the Errai. All of Death’s lineage worked as a collective beneath their High God. Finnian could sense their chilly auras as they mingled and passed him by. They wore modern clothes rather than their usual ominous cloak and masks—even spoke to the souls in a friendly, acquainted manner. It was strangely refreshing to see them act as if they had a pulse.
Nathaira and Finnian entered a street filled with a bustling market. Ivy decorated the bark of the wisteria. Lanterns were strung between homes and vendors. As they strolled past, Finnian spotted stalls of harvested fruits and vegetables, homemade jams, marmalades, and butters. The aroma of freshly cured meats and baked bread wafted in the air.
His heart warmed, knowing if Naia were here, her cheeks would be filled like a chipmunk, exclaiming how delicious the pastries were.
Around a crackling bonfire, souls gathered at a stall, skillfully weaving and sewing with their hands. They pinned colorful stitched blankets and knitted scarves and socks along a string hanging from one wisteria branch to the next.
The souls acknowledged them with a smile and a wave.
Nathaira waved back, her hand gliding through the warm air.
Centuries of Summer Solace festivals flashed in his mind. Caius was embellished in jewel-toned ornaments, its streets radiating the collectiveness of those occupying it.
Finnian’s eyes briefly surfed over the individuals nearby, chatting, laughing, assisting one another in hanging handmade vines of eucalyptus and lavender alongside the lanterns. It was hardly close to the tropical flora and narrow roads of the village of Kaimana, its pastel, opalescent blues and moonstone structures full of villagers cowering to their ruler, but it was still all too similar.
“Am I to follow you around until my master returns?” Finnian drawled as Nathaira paused in the path to examine a stall filled with garlands.
She leaned over and inhaled a bouquet of daisies, unrushed to reply.
Finnian rolled his eyes. If it weren’t for the wretched binding spell, he could utilize his time without Cassian to roam the Land for clues.
The length of which Finnian could travel only went as far as Cassian would allow.
Nathaira sauntered a few paces from the flower stall and came to stand in front of a stone cottage. She gazed up at it. “This is where I leave you.”
Finnian watched a crowd of souls pile into the threshold, buoyant and singing loudly from inside.
“A tavern?” It came out of him in a deadpan tone.
“Yes.” Nathaira giggled.
Before he could respond with a dry remark, a head full of ginger locks caught his eye. The girl shoved her way through the traffic of those entering the tavern. She burst through them and barreled straight for him.
“FINNY!” She threw her arms around his neck. Her body was warm, solid. In his grip. After so many years without her presence, Eleanor was embracing him.
Tears stung the back of his nose as he slowly raised his arms, scared if he moved too fast, the Land would snatch her away from him.
Isla emerged from in between the people flooding through the front of the tavern, her wild curls framing her soft face, grinning at the sight of him.
A stunned laugh scuffed up his throat. Warmth flooded his chest as he beckoned her forward with a wave.
Her face lit up as she leaped and crashed into Eleanor’s back, wrapping her short arms around them tightly.
Finnian swallowed them both in a hug, one he’d gone over a century regretting never giving.
Another wrong made right.
The carbonation of the beer bubbled in his stomach as he sat his pint down on the countertop of the bar. “Hollow City’s population was at four-hundred thousand, but that was five years ago.”
Eleanor’s chin fell. “So many people!”
Mid-swig of her pint, Isla’s eyes widened.
Finnian chuckled at their reactions, leaning back on his stool and crossing his arms. “On the contrary. Nowadays, the amount is normal for a successful city.”
“The crime rate?” Eleanor leaned sideways, her elbow propped up on the bar counter. He could count every freckle dotting her rosy cheeks as he watched her lips.
The atmosphere was full of loud chatter, and his brain had to naturally work harder to decipher all the sounds through his hearing aid.
“Homeless rate?” Eleanor continued, her knee bumping against the side of his thigh. “Oh gods, Finny, what about hospitals? You must have more than one. What about authorities? How much of the population are mages? You kept the city board running, yes? I will kill you if you say no.”
When she was alive, Finnian detested her habit of intensely invading his space, despite her reasoning that she was accommodating his impairment—regardless of the amount of times he explained that his hearing aid could pick up her words like any other mortal ear—but now he couldn’t help but find it soothing.
“Authorities exist, but they stick to the non-magical side of the city,” he explained. “I would deal with the magical side or send one of my organizations to do so. There are three hospitals, and they are quite large. Crime rate was down when I left, but there is no telling what happened after my departure. Homeless rate was normal for a city so big. I created a place called the Valley, designated for the homeless community, and often supplied them with food and other necessities. And yes, the board you created still lives on.”
“Could you imagine, Isla?” Eleanor craned her neck to look around Finnian, her elbow scooting against his stein. Frothy liquid crested over the sides. “When we were alive, it was a couple thousand.”
Isla lightly nudged Finnian’s arm on his other side, a cue to look at her before she spoke—something she had regularly done during her lifetime they spent as friends. “I am proud of you, Finny. It seems like you’ve created a wonderful home.”
“ We created,” he corrected her, his voice quiet against the steady talk of the tavern.
Eleanor giggled, playfully bumping her fist into his arm. “Do you remember how we first met?”
Finnian shot her a look. “You mean how you tried to hex a priest and your spell hit a horse instead?”
Isla threw her hands over her mouth, laughing.
“The horse turned psychotic and tried to eat us!” Eleanor exclaimed, her facial expressions just as animated as they were when she had been alive. “Good thing you were there to remove it.” She wiggled her brows at him, grinning.
He rolled his eyes at her, unable to resist the pinching of a smile.
“Finny chided me for weeks after I convinced him to allow you to join us.” Isla wiped the tears leaking from her eyes, grinning widely. “Shortly after, the triplets nearly ended our lives.”
“I h—d nigh—m—s of Astrid f—ears after—ards,” Eleanor shuddered, her words drowned out by the sudden squeals and laughter from a nearby table. Without meaning to, his concentration had gone to the louder noise, and he’d missed what she’d said.
Finnian looked at her, replaying the glimpses of her words through his mind.
Discomfort he was painfully familiar with coiled through his chest. A feeling that came with having to decide to halt the conversation and ask the person to repeat the phrase, or pretend like he’d heard what had been said. He usually did the second option, but since it was Eleanor, he didn’t mind to sit in the uncomfortable feeling and ask her to repeat herself.
Before he could do so, though, she said, “Thank heavens for Everett.”
Everett?
Finnian stared at her, confused. “Who?”
His pulse picked up, nervous that he had misread her lips. A skill he’d spent centuries perfecting.
“Eleanor,” Isla hissed.
Eleanor exchanged a terse look with Isla.
Finnian glanced between the two, unable to hide his bewilderment. “Who is Everett?”
Eleanor flitted her gaze to Finnian, slightly raising her chin, too confident with whatever internal decision she’d made. “Everett showed up and saved us.”
“What are you talking about? Cassian showed up not long after the triplets. We abandoned the vault. I knew I could not take on them and him while protecting the two of you,” he said. “We ended up in a small village where I came across the?—”
“The hollow cave beneath an elm tree,” Isla interrupted, the tone in her voice reminiscent.
“Where we dreamed up Hollow City,” Eleanor added.
“A place where deities would not be welcomed,” he finished.
A history that felt like lifetimes ago.
Finnian swallowed the bitter taste down his throat that came with thinking about the reality of death. A lifetime he spent with them. He only got one. It wasn’t fair.
A moment passed. The seconds pulled, the speed of a cloud in the sky.
He scrutinized their faces, trying to make sense of their hesitant expressions. There was something they weren’t saying.
“Forgive us, Finny,” Isla said in her soothing tone of voice. She lightly patted him on the top of his shoulder. “Our memory is a bit hazy in the afterlife.”
Eleanor grew quiet, staring down and drawing circles in the condensation on her pint with her thumb. She’d always been a terrible liar.
His heart sank, fearful the curse was playing tricks on his memory. Plucking his mind one seam at a time until everything unraveled. He wanted to ask more about it, but he wasn’t sure what .
“Tell me,” Isla continued, changing the subject. “How is my great-great-great-granddaughter?”
Finnian took a drink of his pint and licked his lips, his tongue heavy like lead.
He crossed his arms again and attempted to ground himself back into the conversation. “Runa runs an organization within my ranks. She should be at my sister’s side now, helping her grow comfortable in her new role. If her soul is not amongst you, I presume all has gone smoothly.”
“As the High Goddess of Eternity,” Isla elbowed him proudly. “I imagine your organizations are traveling wide?—"
Someone a few tables away barked out another startling laugh. The sound echoed through his hearing aid. He ground his molars at the dull ache grinding on the right side of his head.
Isla glanced over her shoulder at the noisy table and then back to Finnian, noting the agitation on his face with a reassuring curve to her mouth. “I imagine your organizations are traveling wide and fast to spread your beloved sister’s name amongst the Mortal Land,” she repeated, just as patient in the afterlife.
His lips twitched at the irony of her statement.
“Ah, I know that smirk.” Isla leaned into his side, her long brunette curls tickling the skin of his forearm. “I suppose I still have a gift for figuring out your schemes.” She lightly pinched at the visible dimple in his cheek.
Finnian gave her a pointed look. “An extremely irritating talent, I’d say.”
Isla stole his mug and peered down at the honey-colored liquid in nostalgia. “I am proud of us, Finny. The city we could help you create; the legacies we left behind.”
Her words stabbed his heart. A reminder of how they were not real, but souls trapped in the Land of the Dead. And suddenly, he felt foolish sitting amongst them in a tavern in a village of souls. Stuck in a fleeting dream-like fantasy. He could not stay here, nor could he save them.
His stomach churned with a sourness. “Do not speak of the past to me, Isla, as if you no longer exist.”
“Do not pretend we are still alive, Finny,” Eleanor snapped from his other side.
Her words barely reached him over the overwhelming static of the environment, and the fucking frequency of his hearing aid. The extra effort he was putting in to listen grated on his nerves.
His pulse struck, and his chest grew tight.
On edge, he stood from his stool and stormed out of the tavern.
Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Isla and Eleanor on his heels. They did not speak, and he refused to stop walking until his feet ran out of road to follow.
Solace immediately found him in the silence. The open air, not trapped under a roof of blubbering souls. Who knew they would be just as loud as the living?
The dull ache thrumming behind his ear lessened. He felt relief in his brain, like a muscle that had strained for too long. Without all the other competing sounds, he would not have to work so hard to listen to Isla and Eleanor’s voices.
The gravel crunched beneath his feet as he hauled himself out of the busy streets and to a secluded bluff overlooking the valley.
Abruptly, the harsh tugging of what felt like invisible twine constricted around his organs.
His breath caught, and his feet scraped in the gravel as he came to a stop. An excruciating tension hung in his insides. Startled by the pain, he staggered backwards. The pull around his organs released instantly.
“Fuck,” he grunted, massaging his diaphragm.
The binding potion.
Apparently, he’d traveled too far from Cassian’s approved boundary.
Pulse stammering in his skull and throbbing his eyes, he straightened and glared out at the rolling hills of windswept lavender and the souls caressing it. His nostrils flared with a furious urge building inside of him. He wanted to scream, pour magic from his fingertips, inflict some kind of destruction—anything as an outlet to release it.
I need to find Father and get out of here.
He could feel Isla and Eleanor lingering behind him. There were too many words, too many feelings colliding and thrashing in his chest. He raised his hands to the sides of his head and fisted his hair at the scalp.
I miss you.
I hate this.
I love you both.
Come back to me.
Leave this place.
I don’t understand.
He frowned down at the gravel, running his hands over his face. The chilled metal of his rings felt good on his cheeks.
“This is not good enough,” he murmured. “I wish for you both to be full of blood and with beating hearts.”
They both came closer. On one side, Isla took his hand and rested her cheek on the back of his shoulder, and on the other, Eleanor hooked her arm around his and held it tightly.
“We miss you too, Finny,” Eleanor said softly.
As the fight in his muscles subsided, he sank into their embraces, resting his cheek on Isla’s hair and raising a hand to cradle the side of Eleanor’s head.
“Promise us something,” Isla said.
“No.”
“You stubborn fool. It’s been centuries and you still have no manners.” Eleanor gave his arm a firm squeeze.
Finnian cracked a small smile.
“Promise that once you see all your plans through, you’ll find happiness. Slow, quiet happiness.”
Finnian twisted his head to look at Isla, reading the sincerity of her expression.
There was a spot within his heart dedicated to her and Eleanor alone, and since their passing, it felt like a tender bruise, incapable of healing. Looking at them both now, that spot throbbed in deep agony until it became hard to breathe.
After he burned their bodies and released their ashes into their favorite parts of the city, time slowed. Witnessing a new sunrise each day became meaningless. The silence he claimed to always miss when Eleanor filled it with gabble was unbearable. Coming home to find his workbenches messy and cluttered with potion ingredients, rather than clean and organized and Isla nose-deep in one of his grimoires, kept him from entering the space altogether.
There was no remedy for their absence, and he selfishly regretted not turning them into ghouls against their will.
Death was resolute. Once a person floated in its River and onto its Land, that was it. No matter the peace they found in the afterlife, it did not make up for the years it forced Finnian to walk without them at his side.
“Why should I grant you anything?” The words stung his own tongue as he spit them at Isla. “It is not as if you are alive to watch over me.”
Eleanor laughed, the loud and bubbly sound scratching at that tender scar in his heart. “Oh Finny, there is not a day that passes that we do not miss you and our lives together.”
His eyes burned as he looked straight ahead.
“The river will continue to flow no matter how much you fight against the current,” Isla said in her soft-spoken voice. “The memories we made together were worth every tragic experience we faced in life. Do not mourn us any longer, Finnian, for we are at peace.”
“Let me go.” He lightly squirmed to break free from their embraces, but they held onto him. He brought his hands up to his face, kneading his eyelids with his fingertips. “Let me be alone.”
“Absolutely not.” Eleanor delicately took hold of his hands and lowered them from his face. He opened his eyes and met hers, bright and blue as the Kaimana Sea. “Don’t you get it, Finny? Even though we are a realm apart, we are always with you.”
Finnian hung his head upward, blinking at the sky through his tears. The plum-marigold streaks remained unchanged since his arrival to Caius.
He took a step to remove himself from their hold on him. Otherwise, he wasn’t sure if he ever could. They let him be this time.
Hands gripping his hips, he took a deep breath to recollect himself. He scrubbed a palm over his face discreetly to erase any signs of tears and up into his tousled hair before facing them again.
They both stood side by side, watching him carefully.
He took a moment to truly look at these versions of them. Both young, without the wears and tears of mortal life creasing their skin. It was nice to see them this way again, unriddled by the throes of time. That had been the hardest part, watching their bodies grow old and wither away until none of his potions could heal their illnesses.
His eyes sought for familiars—Isla’s frizzy curls springing in every direction, her long fingernails painted bright yellow; Eleanor’s baggy pants and the pockets spilling with flowers and curative plants.
He stepped up and twirled a finger in one of Isla’s ringlets and playfully tugged.
With glistening eyes, she smiled faintly up at him.
Words were never needed between them. It had been this way since the day they’d met and she’d caught him stealing herbs out of her garden.
“I see you still enjoy tea in the afterlife.” He reached down and plucked a chamomile blossom from Eleanor’s pocket. “You would have enjoyed the twenty-first century. Pants are a thing made for women now, with deep pockets.”
“I no longer need the medicinal effects to help me sleep.” She raised a hand and ruffled his already disheveled hair, grinning happily. “But I still enjoy drinking it, because the taste reminds me of the nights we all shared in those cramped up holes we used to call our homes.”
Memories of them huddled under a flimsy blanket on a dirt floor, steaming, cracked mugs of tea in their laps, Finnian teaching them an incantation to spark a simple fire—they flickered in his mind and his heart constricted.
Pursing his lips to combat the lump forming in his throat, he tucked the flower delicately back into her pocket, and then leveled both of them with a somber look. “Who is Everett?”
They both stared back at him quietly.
“Do you lie to your master in the afterlife?”
Eleanor’s expression scrunched. “Do promise when you leave us, you will learn proper etiquette,” she huffed.
“Eleanor,” he said in all seriousness.
Isla reached for him, giving his hand a tender squeeze. “He was your lover.”
The words felt like a punch to his sternum.
He staggered backwards, pulling his arm from Isla, reeling into the deepest folds of his mind for any recollection of this person they spoke of.
Before Arran, there had been Solaris’s attendant, Emris. A quick-burning series of nightly hook-ups. Nothing more. A few guards here and there. But Arran had been his first love—and his first ghoul.
Arran taught him much about the ghouls and what they needed to sustain consciousness, but turning him into one had been a mistake. Arran stood by his side afterwards, but he wanted nothing romantic to do with him.
After his banishment, it wasn’t long when he released Arran’s soul. The years that followed, he sought pleasure from men in a shape-shifted form to avoid tarnishing his reputation among the Mortal Land. For, at the time, most mortals had been too small-minded to accept two men enjoying each other’s company, among other things. And he needed their favor to grow stronger as a High God, to make his wrongs right.
Throughout the centuries of his life, he’d had many sexual encounters with others, but certainly never another lover .
“It is all going to be alright, Finny,” Eleanor said, her eyebrows drawn together.
“I am cursed. You speak of a man I do not recall.” His racing heart drummed in his chest, pulling the muscles painfully taut. He pressed his trembling hand on his pec, tracing the snaked spill of his curse mark. “I do not know what is real anymore.”
And that terrifies me.