Chapter 18 Callum
CALLUM
I was in the dining hall with my arms bound to the armrests, my feet tied to the legs, listening to the servants in the kitchen prepare the meal I would be forced to eat.
With every meal, my soul broke into another fragment, becoming further and further beyond repair.
I could feel my soul less with the passing of time, feel it wane in its strength and purity, feel myself fade further into the form of a demon.
It was an existence worse than death or nonexistence, so I couldn’t give Lily much more time. I had to eject myself into the void, choosing to be nothing forevermore.
The servant waddled back to the table but didn’t possess the bowl I was supposed to eat. Instead, he unbound the ropes that secured my arms then untied my legs.
I didn’t ask why the plans had changed. I was just grateful that they had.
“Leviathan calls for you at the funnel.”
That meant he needed assistance with a new soul in the underworld. Or he just wanted me to watch the festivities since he knew how much I despised it. But I didn’t disobey the order because the punishment would be more souls down my throat.
I left the castle and traveled down the stone steps until I reached the glowing light you could see from a great distance. I moved through the crowd of monsters that waited for the new addition to join the ranks of monsters and servants and the remorseful.
I came to Leviathan’s side, and the second I was there, he grabbed me.
Grabbed me like I might try to run.
Then he forced me forward, forced me up the stairs and toward the dais where the light struck the stone.
“What is this?” I twisted from his grasp but wasn’t fast enough, not when I was without the strength I once had. Now I was just a mortal man with no specialty. No command of the dead. No strength. Worthless.
He grabbed me and shoved me toward the light. “Thank you for your service, Wrath. It’s time to go.”
“It’s time to go?” The light was blinding, so I shut my eyes momentarily. “What is this?” I’d asked to be excused from service dozens of times, but that request was always denied. And now it was just being given to me?
Once I was in the light, I was trapped by an invisible barrier.
Leviathan was outside the light, grinning like this was some kind of cruel joke. Then he looked up, like someone was about to come down as I went up.
My feet suddenly left the ground, and I was weightless, floating up to the sky like I weighed nothing. Slowly, I drifted farther and farther up, leaving the underworld behind as I moved toward a light so blinding I could barely see.
But then I saw the outline of someone coming the other way, the outline of a woman.
My heart gave a kick.
No.
She was a dark silhouette with the light behind her, but then her black armor came into view…her black cape…and the sword across her back.
“No…”
Despair and agony formed a typhoon that spun wildly in my body. I trembled and then tried to move my body closer toward her, but locked into position in a weightless vacuum, I couldn’t do anything.
But I screamed, screamed like someone was hacking me to pieces.
“Lily!” I watched her come even closer, the details of her appearance emerging further into view.
The tight braid at the back of her head, the slenderness of her hands, and then the crest of the dragon on her chest. “Lily!” I tried to throw my body forward to reach her, to somehow shove her back to the light while I descended back into the darkness, but she was too far to reach.
I watched her appear beneath me, her eyes closed as her arms and legs floated at her sides, looking peaceful, like she could be asleep.
But I knew once she was down there, they would all want a piece of her.
She would become a servant or a concubine or be forced to eat souls until hers was devoured in the process.
Tears bled down my face. “No! No! Nooooooooo!” I continued the hopeless fight, fighting the magic pathway that brought people above and below, utterly unable to do anything except watch my greatest nightmare unfold. “Lily!”