Chapter 13
Anguish leads me through his castle, his dreamworld, whatever it is.
I know when I came here yesterday it was nothing but a crumbling ruin.
Now it’s an impossibly ornate edifice, a towering structure, draped in all the trappings of a palace.
But there’s no way any of this can be here, changed perception or not.
Either I’m hallucinating, or I’m dreaming, or I’ve died and this is eternity.
As Anguish walks, his form is ever changing. Sometimes he’s a solid man; sometimes he is nothing but shadows and smoke; sometimes he is both, between forms, neither this nor that. I’m entranced by him. I know he can’t really be a god. He certainly isn’t a man. So what is he?
He ushers me into a curving stairwell, and we begin to ascend. As if reading my thoughts, he speaks. ‘Let me be honest with you, Midonia. I am not human.’
I pause on the stairs. ‘Right. You’re a god.’ My voice betrays incredulity.
He tosses a look over his shoulder. ‘In the eyes of many who might look upon me and not understand me, yes. In the eyes of the sisters, definitely. I humor them, because I have no other choice. But I am no more a god than you are. I’m … something else.’
My feet grow heavy; my heart staccatos. One possibility rises to the forefront of my mind. ‘So you’re, what, an alien?’
We reach the top of the stairs, exiting into a small tower room.
He goes to the far side, where an archway leads out onto a windswept balcony.
His smoky tendrils lift and swirl in the wind, joining with his hair in a confusion of black.
Chill wind eddies across my skin and I join him at the stone railing, gripping hard with white knuckles.
I glance up at him. He’s looking out over the landscape, his profile stark against the mountains rearing up beyond.
‘Alien,’ he murmurs, almost to himself. ‘Yes. I suppose that is what I am, to you. I was born at the furthest edges of your galaxy. From the bosom of a great nebula, I came into the world. I traveled far, for a long time, until I found this place. Or rather … the sisters found me. They called me to them. And I have been here ever since.’ His voice breaks, a human vulnerability.
My chest tightens. My rational mind tells me it’s too far-fetched. And yet … the universe is so vast, so much of it undiscovered. So many questions left unanswered. I desperately want to believe him. I want to make sense of what’s happened to me. I want to make sense of him.
‘When you say that you’re held here, that you have no other choice …’
‘I mean exactly that.’
‘The sisters are keeping you captive?’
‘That’s a kind way of putting it. Centuries ago, when humans were first starting to colonize new worlds, a group of devout women came to live here.
It was remote enough that they wouldn’t be persecuted for what they would say are standard religious practices.
And perhaps fate worked in their favor, because I happened to pass this very planet.
They found me in orbit, sensing me somehow.
They’ve never explained how they came to discover me.
Or perhaps … they didn’t. It might have been a coincidence, a twist of fate.
It’s possible they had no idea that I was drifting above the atmosphere, that I was listening to their prayers.
‘Their chants enveloped me, took hold of my senses. They shackled me. And then, when they had me in their clutches, they broke me. I still don’t know how they do it.
I don’t know exactly how it works. But when they worship me, the sisters renew their power over me.
Their chants are like a drug to me, keeping me weak and obedient.
I can’t leave this planet, no matter how hard I try.
Their fervent belief, the prayers and the chants, all serve to hold me here. I am not their benevolent god.’
‘They’re controlling you?’ My voice is almost a whisper.
‘Yes.’
‘With their prayers.’
‘Yes.’ I can’t read him; can’t tell if he’s lying. He’s a shadow beside me. He’s a man and an idea. An alien. His burning eyes fixate on me. ‘But they will not control me forever.’
‘How will you escape?’
He seems to slump then, to weaken before me. He gazes out over the darkened valley below, at the distant village lights, twinkling against the black. ‘I have often asked myself that very question.’
‘Did you ask them to … the ritual …’
He spins on me, eyes wild with firelight.
‘Never. The memory of it clings to me like a blade in my gut. When you landed here, when I felt the pulsing beat of your heart from my shadowed ruin, I knew that you had finally come to me. Because you are meant for me. I am meant for you. But the perverse rituals the sisters perform are their own invention.’
‘What do you mean, I was meant for you?’ It makes no sense. He was born on the edge of the galaxy. I’m human, and he’s … something else entirely.
A drug-like heat burns through me nonetheless. He’s been calling to me all my life. Watching me. I know I didn’t dream it; those notebooks are real. And now, against all odds, here he is, sharing the air I breathe.
Anguish pushes away from the balcony railing, shaking his head. He won’t meet my gaze. ‘Tell me again what you remember of the ritual.’
I wrack my brain. I remember shadow, darkness, and light; I remember heat lapping at my naked flesh, the sisters’ haunting chants all around me. ‘Just feelings. Sensations.’
He moves toward me and takes my face in his hands. ‘What feelings? What sensations?’
‘I don’t –’
‘I must know.’ His expression is tight with something like pain.
I lean into his touch. His hands are cold like the night, and he smells of smoke and the vacuum of space.
‘Fear,’ I admit. ‘But also … I felt powerful. And I think I …’ Why lie?
Why hide the truth from him, as if in this impossible castle, speaking to this impossible being, there is any reason for propriety, any reason to hide the truth?
‘They didn’t really force me,’ I admit. ‘I wanted to. I wanted you.’ Badly.
He lets out a slow, shaking breath. He’s never seemed more human than in this moment. He leans down and presses his forehead to mine. ‘Midonia. I’ve been waiting for so long.’
‘Is that why you called to me? Why you came to me in dreams?’
‘Yes.’
‘But … why? How?’ He still hasn’t answered my question. ‘What do you mean that we are meant for each other?’
‘It means that I am hungry. And you were born to sate me.’
The words ring a thousand warning bells and I rear back, putting distance between us. My heart speeds. My gaze darts. Immediately I’m a trapped animal, looking for an escape route. ‘I wasn’t born for you.’
He watches me for a moment, his eyes flickering like candle flames.
‘No,’ he says at last. ‘But you were born under the right star. The same star under which I was born, a powerful celestial object imbued with meaning. In that way, we were born for each other.’ He moves toward me, closing the distance I put between us. ‘Tell me. Are you hungry, Midonia?’
How am I supposed to respond? I can hardly wrap my mind around him, this being, this godlike creature that stands before me. How am I meant to absorb this, that we are connected across worlds? That we are touched by the same star? It’s insane.
He lowers his gaze to rake over my body. His shadows coil around me, flickering against my body. ‘You’re not like anyone else, Midonia. There is power in your blood, in your very cells, that sets you apart from any other creature in this universe. Except for me.’
‘What?’ My voice is harsh, frustrated, impatient. ‘I’m sure plenty of people were born under … whatever star. I’m no different than anyone else.’
But even as I speak, I doubt myself. Why would he lie to me? Why should any of this be any less real, just because I don’t understand it? I’m standing here in a castle on a remote planet with a man made of shadow, a man who says he was born in a nebula.
‘But you are different,’ he says softly. ‘Haven’t you ever felt it? That you are unlike every other person you’ve met? You and I are the same. We share the same urges. Just like you were born to sate me, I was born to sate you. Haven’t you ever felt a pull toward something better?’
I hesitate. Have I? My life has been nothing but mediocrity. The same thing over and over, working dead-end jobs and existing rather than truly living. But isn’t that how it’s supposed to be? Isn’t that what life is?
‘Think,’ he insists, his presence all-consuming. ‘You must have sensed who you really are.’
I close my eyes. I remember … six weeks ago; the accident.
I remember the terror, the rage. I remember the blood, the ripe smell of bodies cracked open.
Gore in my hair, on my hands. I remember …
but I slam the door of my memories closed.
I don’t want to remember. That day was a black hole, a horror that threatens to draw in my very soul, every part of me.
The Midonia who woke up that morning and went to bed that night are not the same.
I don’t know who I am. Maybe I never have.
I shake my head. ‘I can’t remember.’
‘It’s all right,’ he murmurs. ‘It’s all right.
’ He pulls me to him, and I don’t resist. I don’t want to resist. Every part of me is drawn to him, every cell of me wants him.
He feels, inexplicably, safe. He kisses me, and I melt into his arms. I kiss him back, fervent and hot.
Desire arcs through me. I gasp into his mouth.
He tastes like winter night. He tastes like eternity.
When he breaks the kiss, I’m limp with pleasure, vibrating with want.
‘Midonia,’ he says, and each time he speaks my name, it sends a shock of need through me. ‘Are you hungry?’
‘Yes.’ I have been ever since I saw his ruin piercing the sky above the trees, since he reached for me with hands of clawed shadow.
‘Then let me sate you.’