Chapter 25
Chapter Twenty-Five
Shadow and Air
Erevos
When his songbird finished moving in place, Erevos finally allowed himself to take a proper look at his newest creation.
His darkness had swallowed her whole, sealing itself along every curve and hollow, and the sight pleased him more than he thought it would.
Lyssena was breathing the air he provided from the human realm, air stolen and folded through time and space. It was not the first time she had done so; she had breathed it within their home, beneath his ceilings, within walls that answered to him. She still did. But now she carried it with her.
What excited him, what stirred something sharp and hungry beneath his skin, was not merely that she could breathe, but that he could manipulate that fragile oxygen across realms and distances, thread it through shadow and eternity, and let his songbird carry it wherever she wished to wander.
Since she had asked him whether she was still inside a cage, the question unsettled him. Erevos had resolved that she would never feel that way again.
For his greatest wish—his most consuming desire—was to make her stay.
Forever.
He had given her a home shaped from himself. He had arranged meals suitable for human flesh. He had drawn baths that held her gently instead of devouring her. And now he knew she could breathe without dying in his realm.
He had tested the mask on a deer first.
The creature had trembled as he fitted the shadowed beak over its snout, its pulse frantic beneath thin skin, its dark eyes wide with a terror that meant nothing to him—not when compared to the thought of risking Lyssena’s life.
He had watched the animal step beyond the threshold, had watched it live.
Only then had he allowed himself to place such a thing in her hands.
Now it was finally time for his songbird to see the outside.
With those thoughts, Erevos opened both doors.
He kept his gaze fixed on hers as the shadows parted, watching her masked eyes, watching the subtle lift of her shoulders as anticipation threaded through her body.
He had believed he was eager to show her The Void, just as he had been eager to feed her, to bathe her, to clothe her, to provide, to shape, to give.
But as he stood there, shadow curling around his wrists, he realized that his eagerness was not about The Void at all.
It was about her reaction to it.
He wanted to see awe flood her.
He wanted to see fear flicker and then soften.
He wanted to know whether she would step forward on her own.
He would feed her. Bathe her. Clothe her. Build worlds beneath her feet if she desired them.
He would do everything. Anything.
As long as she chose to remain at his side.
Erevos stepped aside, the shadows parting with him, allowing Lyssena to take her first step beyond the threshold of their home.
“You can breathe, Lyssena,” he said when he realized he could not hear the soft rhythm of her inhaling; her chest did not rise, did not fall. “Open your eyes.”
He wanted to see the muted green of them through the thin sockets of the mask, wanted proof that she was truly looking, truly standing in a place no human had ever been meant to stand.
“I’m scared,” she murmured, her voice small beneath the beak.
Then she gasped. “I can breathe!”
Of course, she could.
Erevos’s mouth stretched wide in satisfaction, revealing rows of sharp, immaculate teeth. He was a clever demon, a demon who could bend matter, fold time, steal oxygen from another realm, and make it obey.
As his songbird took another step, and then another, moving farther from the doorway, turning in place as though testing whether the world would remain stable beneath her feet, gasping again and again simply because she could, Erevos did not follow.
He stood where he was and watched.
He found himself wondering whether the absence of color would disturb her eventually. Whether a human eye, raised in brightness and bloom, might find his realm lacking. To him, it was complete. It was vast and endless in ways that did not require decoration.
But humans were fragile things. They often mistook simplicity for emptiness.
Still, she had not complained. Not about the shadows or the darkness. Not about the way his home had been carved from a palette that belonged only to him.
And that pleased him.
Lyssena turned back toward him then, her movements quick, her eyes wide behind the mask. “I can’t believe this place is even real.”
Erevos tilted his head slightly at that, the shadows at his shoulders shifting with the motion.
“It is real. It is The Void,” he said, and the only thing he could look upon was his shadow-songbird with wide, green eyes.