19. Alira
Alira
My fingers glide over the enormous doors made of bone. Skeletons are reaching out on each one for the center, as if they too wish to see what lies in wait on the other side. I’m hesitant to open them and see what lies beyond the threshold.
I look over my shoulder, hoping I’ll see Venus again, but she and Pluto remain on the lower level. We really are on our own. With no clue how to get out of Mortem, and knowing that we have to.
My heart feels like it’s been stomped into mush. After everything with Kalel, and now finally meeting my mother, only for it to be treated as a business transaction. It’s not like the gods are known for their caring qualities, but I was hoping for…something.
Demigods aren’t supposed to meet their parents. We are unwanted creatures; it’s the very reason why Alzhor is even a kingdom. I never thought I would meet her…not like this.
When I was a child, I would run around the orphanage and daydream that I was on a journey to meet her. That she was waiting for me to find her somewhere beyond the dull walls of Alzhor.
But only in death do I meet her.
Only in death does my heart waver in ways it didn’t when we were alive.
My gaze shifts to Kalel. He looks different. His dark hair is flat, clinging to his forehead like he’s been asleep all night. There’s a distinct sorrow in his stare as he looks at me. As if he’s lost the will to fight for anything after speaking with Pluto and Venus.
I know how he feels.
What is the point of us? We were only alive to suffer for one another. Dancing around fate and death as if we could ever truly escape them.
“Ready?” he asks as he sets his hand on the door handle.
“I don’t know what I’m ready for, or what we’re supposed to be looking for,” I admit slowly. It doesn’t feel right that we have to set out together like this. Not after what we just did to one another.
Then why do I yearn for him to hold me? To tell me none of it matters, even if I know it’s a lie? I’m not sure either of us can ever forgive one another.
He chuckles and lifts his shoulder. “Me neither, but we won’t get there by doing nothing.” Kalel extends his hand to me, an innocent gesture that stirs my emotions.
I let my hand meet his. We thread our fingers together, and it settles the dark depths that have been wreaking havoc inside me.
Kalel pushes the door, and it slowly opens into a dark abyss. I can’t see one inch inside the darkness. It looks like a void, or a black hole that will swallow us down into the depths.
“Don’t be afraid, Alira. We’ll go together.”
I swallow and nod, taking a step into the dark at the same time he does. The shadows morph around us like smoke, and I can’t see Kalel even though we’re still linked by our hands.
It’s so cold that my legs seize up a few times. I’m only pulled along by Kalel’s strong grip.
“There’s nothing here… Is this our Mortem? Darkness? Is this our divine punishment for our crimes against the world?” My voice doesn’t go far. It feels like I’m speaking to a wall; the sound won’t carry.
Kalel tightens his grip and stops walking to touch my other arm with his hand. I let my chin dip, defeat and despair ebbing their way into my heart.
Is this it for us?
He smooths his hand up my arm and neck until he reaches my face. I can’t see him even though he’s right in front of me, and yet I picture the way he’d be looking at me right now perfectly. He always has such cumbersome sorrow in his soul.
His palm is warm against my cheek. I inhale and lean into it, my senses filling with his warmth and the scent of Florum Forest the night we met for the second time—the campfire and the trees that hid everything within them.
“If anyone deserves divine punishment, it’s me.” His forehead meets mine, and I wish for nothing more than to be able to see him. “The things I’ve done…are unforgivable. I know nothing more than to destroy things.”
Tears brim in my eyes. I know the guilt he carries. I carried as much when I thought I was the only monster between us. But the weight seems a little more bearable now that it’s shared.
“Let’s keep going.” I take a step back from him, keeping our hands locked together in fear that we’ll be separated in the dark.
He’s quiet for a beat before he starts walking forward again.
We wander for what feels like hours. Time is warped in here, but we’ve roamed for so long already that I’m convinced we’re going to perish in the dark. Will we be forgotten? Aren’t most things in the end?
“This is pointless! We’re not getting anywhere.” I let go of his hand and turn to run back to Pluto’s doors. The god has to give us more guidance. He can’t just leave us out here to be lost forever in his domain.
“Alira, don’t separate!” Kalel cries out. His steps sound like they are treading on top of a thin line of water. Are we nearing the ocean? Near anything? My senses are screaming to find something to cling to.
I don’t stop running. I shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t be dead.
Especially with him.
The person who hurt me more than anyone else ever has, yet claims to love me.
“Alira. Please. I’m…I’m scared,” Kalel begs, and his voice has so much fear in it that my chest shifts on its axis.
My legs slow, and I stop.
“I’m scared of losing you to this place, my little godling. I’m scared I will never see you again, even in death, and I can’t handle that. Please…please, don’t go. Please.” It sounds like he falls to his knees on the thin layer of water beneath our feet.
My breaths are heavy, a pull deep inside me tugs toward him.
The break in my voice is nothing short of wounded. “You hurt me…”
“I know,” Kalel chokes out.
“You killed me.”
“You killed me too.” He can barely speak through his sobs.
“My heart is torn out, Alira. Right out of my chest, and there’s nothing that can ever repair it.
I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Please. Just let me make sure you get out of this darkness.
I cannot stand the thought of you being in here alone for eternity. ”
He was always a wordsmith, saying things that brought new life into my soul.
The corners of my lips curve down, and I let my cry permeate the void. I run toward his voice. He must hear me getting closer instead of farther away and stands, calling to me more so we can find one another in this darkness.
We collide, arms wrapped around one another desperately. Kalel holds me against his chest and cups the back of my head with his hand, leaning his head against mine.
“I thought I lost you,” he whispers.
I curl my fingers into his shirt and cling to him for dear life. “I don’t want to lose you. I don’t want to fight. I don’t want to hurt anymore, Kalel. I want to be free. Why can’t we be free from of all of this?” My shoulders tremble with my sobs.
A light flickers in the distance and catches my attention.
The shadows seem lighter now. I blink harder, thinking I must be seeing things, but the void is disappearing around us.
“Kalel, look,” I murmur, pulling away slightly and looking at Mortem for the first time.
I’ve read plenty of tales about Mortem. How the underworld is nothing more than cavernous ruins, filled with monsters and fire.
I expected to see thousands of demons tormenting mortals.
Hearing the screams go on and on for eternity.
I expected rivers of red, and skeletons of the dead, and for Pluto’s creatures that guard the gates to be bigger than life.
But that’s not at all what Mortem is.
Kalel holds me close, an arm hooked around my waist as we stare out into what seems like an entirely new world.
A valley stretches out as far as the eye can see.
On either side of the vast valley is a mountain made of sky-blue crystals.
They are smooth but jagged at the same time, like enormous fractures of ice.
Glaciers that exist with no snow or cold.
It’s warm. There is no sun down here, but it’s so bright and warm.
Light shines from beneath the crystals—the luminance amplified by all the angles and corners of the rocks.
It’s a gentle ambiance that soothes one’s soul. Welcoming and full of hope. It’s beautiful.
At first, it looks like the fields are made of frozen blades of grass, but when we step off the plateau of stone we’re perched on, we realize that none of it is icy.
The grass is tinted a pale-blue hue. A few shades darker than the mountains, making the strands look like waves with the tender breeze that shifts around us.
The fields roll on and on and on straight ahead of us. My eyes lift above us toward the sky, and I find a wall of water. It’s as if we are beneath the surface of the sea, but this water is a darker blue, with specks that look like stars freckled across the waves.
I take a shallow breath, stunned by what I’m seeing.
I subconsciously let my fingers glide through the knee-high blades of grass.
“Kalel, are you seeing a dark and frightening Mortem, or are you seeing this magical world beneath the sea like I am?” I ask, flicking my eyes to his and seeing the same whimsy and awe that I feel reflected in them.
His eyes shift over the land and the sky as mine do, greedy to take it all in. It’s even more breathtaking than Devicit and the veil that protected it.
“I’m seeing a world in which I thought only the gods dwelled.
Not the dead,” he says slowly, then lets his eyes move back to me.
A nervous smile pulls at the corners of his lips.
“How have all the books been wrong? Why do so many fear Mortem when it’s a paradise for all to rest? ” Relief fills his expression.
I study the far dips in the fields ahead; it looks like a small village is nestled at the center, a path that cuts through it and leads to the other side of the mountains.
“Didn’t you say that no one has ever returned from Mortem? No one knows exactly what to expect. Maybe they just assume that Pluto is a cruel god for his past. One that wants many to suffer. Maybe Pluto started the rumors himself, for those entering to find relief as we are now.”