Chapter 23
Chapter Twenty-Three
The Shape of a God
Lyssena
On one hand, Erevos had killed another god and Kaan.
On the other, he had saved her—twice.
Lyssena knew death well. She had seen it often enough throughout her life that, at some point, there was no longer a place for tears to go, no reason left to cry when the inevitable came to pass.
She did not wish death upon herself, ever, but when it came for someone she did not know, it troubled her less than she believed it should.
In her village, executions were common enough to become part of the rhythm of life, spoken of in low, solemn tones and accepted without question.
People could be beheaded for so many reasons— for infidelity, when a wife failed to commit herself properly to her husband; for looking a man in the eyes without permission; for avoiding marriage without a justification deemed acceptable, such as a calling to work with herbs; or for bearing too many children who were, for reasons no one ever explained, too beautiful to be trusted.
There were so many reasons women were killed.
Women.
How was it that Lyssena had never noticed before—truly noticed— that it was only women who were punished this way? How was it that no man was ever burned at the stake for being unfaithful, no husband ever dragged into the square and judged for wandering hands or broken vows?
The realization settled slowly, quietly, like dust finally visible in a beam of light.
Lyssena understood then that it was not something she had been blind to by accident, but something she had never thought to question, because it had always been this way.
It was normal. It was expected. It was woven so deeply into the fabric of her world that she had accepted it without ever wondering why.
She had realized so much since coming to this place, so much since meeting her god.
The thought made her smile.
How could Erevos insist that he was not a god when everything about him suggested otherwise?
He was a creator—and a clever one at that—compassionate, merciful, powerful, and protective in all the ways she had been taught a god should be.
Erevos was everything she believed a god to be, and she could not understand why he denied it so firmly, why he chose to call himself a demon instead.
Perhaps that was simply what gods called themselves.
There had been stories, once, whispered warnings that demons hunted the sinful, dragged them away into darkness to be punished for their transgressions. Lyssena had never paid them much mind before, but now the thought returned to her, curious rather than frightening.
Was she sinful?
She had stroked her god’s cock, after all. And she was not even married to him.
Perhaps that was her first sin.
Maybe the second. She was, after all, a woman.
After lying in bed with Erevos, her skin still coated in his dark semen, he led Lyssena to wash, guiding her to the hot spring bathing room before leaving her there alone so he could finish crafting her oxygen mask.
The cave-like chamber, carved from stone and shadow, was warm and damp against her skin.
The last time she had stood here—yesterday, she assumed—Erevos had washed her himself, using a bar of shadowy soap that smelled of almost nothing at all, save for the faintest trace of cinnamon, one of the spices he kept inside that eggshell-colored box full of strange, wonderful things from her world.
She found the soap exactly where they had left it, resting on one of the smooth rocks beside the inky, steaming water, and her gaze drifted briefly to the entrance as she wondered whether her white gown and undergarments were waiting for her in the new closet he had made for her, freshly cleaned by hands that could shape shadows but also, apparently, care for such small, human necessities.
Lyssena had always been a curious person.
As she stepped closer to the water, she found herself wondering whether her god had ever needed to clean this place at all, whether dust could exist in The Void, whether time left residue here the way it did in the human world, gathering quietly in corners when no one was looking.
But those questions would have to wait.
Since arriving in this strange new home, she had not relieved herself even once—not since the moment Erevos had taken her from her world—and the pressure had grown steadily more noticeable.
Erevos had explained to her that he had created a system in which her waste would break down into particles and be carried forward through time itself, scattered into space, because he understood how atoms worked, how time moved and bent and folded in ways humans could not yet comprehend.
Of course, Lyssena understood none of that.
“Humans didn’t get to it yet,” she murmured aloud, repeating his words with a smile as her voice echoed around the chamber, “and probably never will.”
When Lyssena finished bathing, her thoughts settled stubbornly on two things, circling them again and again as though unable to decide which deserved her attention more.
The first was her Erevos’s dark semen. She knew, at least in theory, what it was meant to look like, as her mother had spent the past few months instructing her, speaking in hushed, serious tones about a husband’s body and the signs of his pleasure.
And yet none of those lessons had prepared her for how strange and intimate it had felt to be coated in it.
The second was the oxygen mask.
Not just that Erevos was making one for her, but that he was shaping it like a songbird.
Her god could make her bodily waste disappear into nothingness, could bend matter and time in ways she could barely begin to imagine, could create air itself so that her fragile lungs might continue to draw breath, and the thought settled heavily in her chest as understanding slowly took shape.
Lyssena realized, perhaps for the first time, how deeply dependent she truly was.
How easily Erevos could take her life if he wished.
The knowledge did not arrive as fear so much as clarity, and as she stepped out of the bathing chamber, she noticed that the once-terrifying hallway beyond was now lit by the same gray orbs she had seen in her rooms.
It was not as frightening as it had been before, but it was still . . . unsettling.
She knew the demon-god who had called to her earlier was gone now. She had proof of that etched directly into Erevos’s body, in the dangerous spikes that marked what he had done to protect her.
Still, walking alone through a dark corridor lit only by a handful of floating lights felt strange, too quiet, too hollow.
So Lyssena did what she had always done when the world felt uncertain.
She hummed a simple tune beneath her breath and kept walking.
To her left, Lyssena noticed that the space widened. The narrow passage opened into a broader stretch of shadow stone where the walls curved outward, forming what looked like the perfect place for a living room. At its center stood a door.
Not the kind of door she had ever seen in a home, but one that was heavy, tall, and looked like the great double doors of the temple. To be exact, it looked identical to them, from the angular shape of the wood to the familiar curve of the handles.
“You saw the door.”
Erevos’s voice echoed through the corridor, and Lyssena’s heart began to beat faster, each thud loud in her ears as she turned toward the sound.
He stood at the far end of the hallway, partially framed by shadow, holding the face of a songbird. Her oxygen mask.
“Yes,” she said quietly, unable to stop herself from staring at him.
In the dim light, Erevos’s eyes glowed a deep purple, like twin stars falling through a darkened sky, and when his mouth curved upward in response, he revealed every row and set of his sharp teeth in a smile that was far too wide to be anything but his.