THE UNDERREALM
THE MOTHER RAN HER helix fingernails through her long sheets of white hair. The locks were stained charcoal grey in several places, and the hollows of her cheeks seemed more pronounced than before. The wounds I’d inflicted had closed, leaving behind blackish scars from the suffering that had healed them.
‘I tried never to punish you as a child.’ Her words were cold, disaffected, but her eyes shone bright with hurt. ‘You were all I had. Letting you go above to reap was my mistake, because I soon grew addicted to your suffering. It was so raw, so potent, and it fuelled me like nothing or nobody else. Perhaps because you were mine. An extension of me. And so when you suffer, it is more powerful than I ever could have imagined.’ A twist of her gnarled lips. ‘Since discovering that quirk of nature, I have not known what to do – let it keep flowing to me? Relish its power? Or come after you? Force you to do the real bidding, the real reaping?’
‘Or you could’ve let me go,’ I snapped. ‘Cut me free of the tether, if you really loved me like a child.’
Her mouth twisted bitterly. ‘But then I would be alone once again. And that I could not bear.’
As I yanked my hands and feet to no avail, I should have felt deathly afraid – and, in truth, I physically recoiled from the prospect of the coals.
But I was not scared.
Because my brain had kicked into gear, thinking through every possibility. And I realized the Mother didn’t have all that many options.
If she put me on the coals next to Arden, for hours or days or weeks or months or years, that still did not serve her. She would take something from our suffering, yes, but Arden had struck upon something true – her devils were crumbling from that current of pain, and she needed more .
She had always needed more than simple suffering. Otherwise, she would only need to strap a few of her servants to the coal beds and flourish for an eternity. She needed fresh souls, ones that had not yet withered under the weight of suffering.
I thought of the way it all worked, the structure of it, both a pyramid and a self-fulfilling circle.
And I wondered.
Could it be that the stronger she got, the more suffering she needed to survive? The more souls it required to keep her going? Did power need more power need more power?
‘Put me on the coals, if you must.’ A final, desperate gambit. ‘But that’s not what you really want, is it?’
Her eyes narrowed. ‘What do you know of what I want, child?’
‘This is stalemate.’ I was shaking from the fear and the frustration and the hate, from the vicarious agony of seeing Arden tortured, from the hope withering and dying and then rekindling in my chest. ‘There is no path forward for you. If you send us out into the world to reap, we’ll simply kill each other and the cycle will repeat itself. We will be back here the next time we come of age, and we will be more prepared, and, sooner or later, we will succeed in destroying you.’
The Mother shrugged, but it was laboured now, pained, not the casual indifference of earlier. I thought, perhaps, that she was afraid. ‘I could simply leave you on hot coals for another thousand years.’
‘But I don’t think that’s enough for you, is it?’ I retorted. ‘I think … I think that after this long, the suffering gained from the hot coals has lost its potency. It can heal wounds, yes, but it’s not enough , in the deeper sense of the word. You’re like an addict who always needs more . You need the pyramid to keep growing exponentially beneath you, or you will die. It’s why you came after us in the trenches. You saw a rare opportunity.’
Her hand was pressed to her black-filled chest. A reminder of her vulnerability, motivation for me to keep pushing her.
She did not deny it, but said simply, ‘And yet you have said yourself you shall refuse to reap.’
‘Precisely,’ I said, tightening the reins on my breathing. ‘Stalemate.’
‘You appear to be advocating for your own demise, child.’
‘No,’ I replied, wishing I could pace, could release some of this coiled energy. ‘I ask simply that you make us another deal.’
‘Another deal?’ snipped the Mother, my Mother, a trace of amusement on her face.
I squared my shoulders as best I could in the harsh grasp of the servants. ‘One that benefits us both, with clear parameters. One that grants us freedom from this tether once and for all. Because we are rapidly becoming more trouble than we’re worth.’
The Mother considered this for a moment. I glanced over at Arden’s paralysed body – eyes bulging and screaming where the mouth could not – and shuddered from head to toe.
This pain is all because of you , the chorus of shadow voices hissed at once, but I bridled the thought. Self-loathing would not serve us right now.
‘There is something else that fuels me.’ The Mother was reverent, contemplative. ‘Something altogether harder to take by force. Something I have never quite mastered.’ She tapped her thin bottom lip with her black-tipped forefinger. ‘And yet, if you were willing donors … it might just work.’
Something about the word donors made me shiver. ‘What is that?’
Her eyes lit up with greed. ‘Love.’
Dread curled inside me, like a wounded animal trying to protect its exposed belly.
‘The love you and your mark feel for each other … it has been enough to sustain the both of you for a millennium. It has transcended time, and death, and fate. I have good reason to believe it will fuel me too. It is rich and pure and potent – so much more so than suffering. A lifeblood.’ By now she was glittering with excitement. ‘And so my offer is this: I will sap the love from you both, drip by drip, until I am swimming in it. I will leech you dry. Then you both shall die.’
I stared at her. ‘Why on earth would I agree to that?’
A meaningful pause. ‘Because in the next life, you will be free.’
‘Free,’ I repeated, not fully comprehending.
‘There will be no obligation to reap once you come of age. You will turn eighteen without incident, and then nineteen, and then twenty, and you will never again be called to the Underrealm.’
Oh.
Oh.
It was a horrible, horrible offer.
And yet.
We would be free . We would never have to reap. We could live to adulthood. No more killer and killed, no more hunter and hunted. Pure, simple life, with all its human flaws.
But the cost was each other.
My heart panged as I asked, ‘Would we remember any of it?’
The Mother grinned, broad and cruel. ‘You would not.’
‘And the love … it would be gone. Forever.’
‘It would.’
I felt like collapsing to the ground. An impossible choice. There were no good paths, no ways to escape these hideous fates. But I supposed that was the nature of a deal with the devil – it was to be made in the absence of all other options. Nothing left to hope for but a miracle, no matter how tainted that miracle may be.
‘I cannot make this decision alone,’ I said at last. ‘Free Arden.’
‘Very well.’ With a wave of her long, clawed hand, the Mother gestured for one of her servants to loose Arden from the shackles. Relief surged through me at the small victory.
Once the evil power holding Arden still and silent was removed, yells of anguish filled the world. They were raw, ragged, primal, and they ripped right through my heart. My love staggered over to me, body weak and tortured, and everything in me churned with loathing at the devil before us.
The devil who was, once again, about to win.
‘Are you okay?’ I whispered. An absurd question. The servants holding my wrists and ankles relinquished their grip, and I threw my arms round Arden.
Shaking uncontrollably, all Arden was capable of was a stiff nod.
Trying to keep the tremble from my voice, I pulled back and said, ‘We have another bargain to make.’
As I explained everything the Mother had proposed, Arden sank to the ground. At last, I allowed myself to follow.
Pure, black horror swallowed Arden’s irises whole. ‘We can’t do that.’
The fear was palpable in the words. It was all I could do not to break down. ‘What choice do we have?’
With a ferocious shake of the head, Arden urged, ‘Evelyn … we would be gone , in all meaningful ways. Everything we have. Everything we mean to each other. What even are we without us?’
It was a knife wound to the heart – because it was true.
It was the worst thing I could possibly imagine.
‘I know.’ Cupping my hands round Arden’s stoic face, I whispered, ‘You’re my family. My homeland. My soulmate.’
A twisted smile. ‘People throw that word around too easily. Soulmate. ’
I pressed my face against Arden’s chest, my breath coming in desperate rasps. Ash fell around us, and it was almost beautiful, if you forgot what it was.
A gentle finger tipped my chin up.
‘We can’t do this,’ Arden said softly. ‘I’ll do anything but this.’
‘This is my only offer,’ the Mother said, cold as the Siberian wilderness, all trace of maternal instinct gone. Leeched out of her by my bone blade. ‘It is this or the eternal coals. Unless, of course, you have changed your mind about reaping for me …’
‘We have not,’ I snapped, with more venom than I felt truly capable of. In reality, this whole conversation was tearing me apart, piece by eternal piece, and she knew it, and we all knew there was only one way it could end.
Arden said slowly. ‘What if …’
‘No.’ I knew what the proposal would be: that we just do it. We reap, and at least we ’ ll be together. ‘We can’t subject anyone else to this twisted fate. We can’t. You know me. You know I will lay my body and my life on the line before I hurt another living soul the way I hurt you.’ I swallowed sharply. ‘Remember what you said to me about heroes and villains? “If a hero is someone who will give up love to save the world, then a villain is the reverse. Someone who will give up the world to save love.” I’m sorry, but I can’t be a villain. I can’t choose love over the world.’
Another bitter chuckle, but it was filled with affection. ‘You never were a particularly good devil.’
‘I was fucking atrocious.’
After a few terrible moments, resignation began to descend over Arden’s face. ‘So we have to do this.’
For some reason, hearing it from Arden’s lips made it all the more awful. In a last-ditch suggestion I didn’t truly mean, I said desperately, ‘There’s always the coals.’
Arden sighed. ‘What would be the point? Eternal suffering, and still we would not be together. We would be trapped in the cages of our own minds, with nothing but pain for company.’ A shudder rippled through Arden’s almost-body, a visceral jerk. ‘It’s even worse than I remembered. You think you’ll die from it, but you never do.’
‘I’m sorry.’ The words choked out of my throat as I folded myself into Arden’s arms.
A tender hand stroked my hair. Lips brushed my forehead. ‘Why are you sorry?’
‘We made a mistake coming here. I should’ve let us jump from that cliff while we had the chance.’
‘You did what felt right.’
I scoffed. ‘And I dragged you along with me.’
‘My unexplained murders have been dragging you along for centuries. It was time the scales tipped.’
The Mother stepped forward, and I looked over at her hideous outline. My hatred for her was almost, almost as potent as my love for Arden. Almost.
‘Is that a decision?’
We didn’t have to answer. She knew she had won.
‘Hold my hands,’ said Arden fiercely. ‘Stay with me as long as you can.’
I kept my eyes fixed on the love of all my lives as the Mother crossed closer to us, raising her hands and summoning whatever heinous powers would allow her to reap the immortal love from our not-quite-bodies.
For a moment, there was a charged silence, and nothing happened, and my heart skipped with the hope that maybe it wouldn’t work. But then something loosened in my chest, a strange yank of an invisible rope, followed by a soft, warm flow into the ether.
The substance that poured from my chest was shimmering, ephemeral, the colour of pearls and golden barley and every sunrise I had ever seen. It did not hurt, but it did . As I saw it pour from me, an immeasurable grief weighed down from above, from below, from everywhere.
I could not watch the love gush into the Mother, but I heard her moans of pleasure.
In that moment, I thought nothing in the world could be more painful than the impending goodbye.
‘I can’t lose you,’ I gasped, and I had never felt so irrevocably human.
Arden clutched at me, and it was an altogether different yearning than it had been on the hilltop. It was almost feral with hurt. ‘I know. I know.’
The loss was bigger than anything, a gaping cavern of grief, and I was teetering on the edge. Every fibre of me pleaded against it, but the force was too strong, and I was too human. Maybe if I’d been a better devil, I would have found a way around this. Or I would never have been here in the first place.
No. I wouldn’t change my fragile, imperfect, human heart. Not for anything.
And hadn’t I always known this? That to be human was to love and love and love, knowing it could only end in tragedy? Every babe in arms was born to this terrible fate, every parent and child, every spouse, every friend and lover and sibling, every uncle and aunt and great-great-grandfather, every found family, all of us bound to the perpetual cycle, all of it so awful and wonderful and inescapable.
To love was to live, and to live was to die.
In a thousand years I had never let this fundamental truth defeat me, and I would not let it bury me now. I would hold strong in the face of it, because what else could we do?
I grasped Arden’s hands with existential desperation. ‘I have loved you so much.’
Tears slid down Arden’s beautiful cheeks, bright and shining as the moonlight on the glen. ‘I want you to know that wherever we are next, my heart will be with you.’ A shuddering sob. ‘It might not know it’s with you, but hearts have their ways. Every atrium, every ventricle, every vein and artery will beat for you. Even if my mind has lost you. Because you are in the very fabric of me, all right? You are me, and I am you. And our love is stronger than anything.’
‘All the years I’ve prayed for an end to this,’ I whispered. ‘And now that ending is finally here, I’d do anything to live just one more life with you.’
Our infinite fates were no longer infinite, and nothing could have hurt more.
The pearlescent current continued to cascade from us, gathering heat and speed, and with every fresh surge I felt both lighter and heavier.
‘I love you,’ I repeated, because it was all I could say, the only thing that felt large enough, and yet still it would never be enough. ‘And I have loved you. And I will love you.’
Arden’s eyes were both the depth of the ocean and the height of the clouds. They were soaring wings and glimmering sapphires, they were my anchor and my sword and my ship and my whetstone, they were everything, everything, everything, and they would soon be gone.
A temple I’d worshipped at for a thousand years was slowly crumbling to the ground.
‘Never let me go,’ Arden whispered, the grip on my hands tight and urgent.
I could speak no more.
As the love bled from me, so too did my life.
A slow, sleepy slipping away, oddly peaceful.
I thought then not just of Arden, but of everyone I had ever loved and lost. The father shot on the beach in Algeria, the mother mourned in the scorched desert, the sisters in paranoid Vard?. A ship’s captain, an esteemed costumier, a mulish oligarch, an emperor’s concubine.
I had tried to cup them in my palms for so long, and now the time had come to part my fingers.
To let go, at last, and let their memories seep back into the earth.
My farmer father, crushed to death. His parents, never able to recover.
My sweet mother, with her patchwork blanket of found family.
Gracie, her pristine strangeness.
Every precious raindrop, sliding forever away.
I let them fall, felt them patter into a clear mountain spring, felt them drift away on a stream, rainwater returning to its source.
Felt that stream become a river, gathering speed, a furious foam, the force of the love strong enough to drag a mere mortal away. A gush, a burst, tumbling over cliffs, swirling into pools.
A frantic, powerful hurtle towards the ocean.
And then, the screams.
Head drooping dangerously, I looked up from Arden’s perfect hands.
The Mother was crouched to the ground, clutching at her chest.
‘Stop! Stop!’ she moaned, to whatever higher force she drew her dark powers from.
But the tide of love was too powerful to be stilled.
It kept flowing into her, rich and raw and bright, too strong for her withered soul to handle. It overtook her like a parasite, seeping into her every atom, bursting into glorious sunlight.
The anguish on her face melted into something else entirely.
Hope surged in my heart.
She was dying .
For real, this time. Somehow I knew this for certain.
But so was I. So was Arden.
Arden?
The name was familiar. It made me ache, yearn, but I couldn’t say why.
Desperately I clutched at it, like trying to grab hold of a rock while sliding away on a river, but my fingers grasped on nothing.
The Mother let out a final agonized scream, then slumped to the ground, limp and still. All around her, the devils vanished in a puff of ashen smoke. The very walls of the Underrealm were crumbling; bone trees blurring into ash snow, the not-sky falling to the black earth.
With a final shuddering breath, the last of my love ebbed away, but the candle of hope in my chest still did not extinguish. It flickered, canted, dipped and then rose again, this thing that had kept me alive for so long, this thing that even death could not touch.
And the Underrealm faded to nothing.