Chapter 57
FIFTY-SEVEN
I set the letter down with a sigh after reading it for the hundredth time. Two days later, and I don't know more than I started with. The library didn't yield any new information, being even more cryptic on the subject of time travel. The most I could gather was that it's the job of the Supremes to ensure that the time and space continuum are not meddled with, and from that perspective, time travel is not only frowned upon but also forbidden—just like creatures hopping between realms. Deities might be allowed to do so, but even they are limited by scope and duration.
Just who could this A.S.L. be, and how would they even know about me, someone who would not be born for hundreds, if not thousands of years, since who knows how long the letter had been hidden in that wall before Wyn came across it?
The matter is entirely too strange, made even more so by the fact that it was as if A.S.L. knew all my worries regarding the new discovery that my marks might be demonic in nature and decided to ease my mind with this letter.
Yet if the writings on my body are neither a curse nor a demonic mark, what are they? What type of vow would be seared on my skin like this? What could have possibly triggered it? And if it doesn't spell doom, then what is it?
I cannot fathom how these marks could be a good thing, yet A.S.L. says exactly that. I tuck the letter in a secure place and occupy myself with getting ready for my meeting with Ze. As I browse my now fully stocked closet for a suitable gown, I take a small trip down memory lane to when the marks first appeared on my body.
I must have been roughly thirteen. My mother, burdened by poverty, could not afford to feed two mouths, so she decided to sell me—in her mind, it was the only chance I could have at life.
Ten thousand pesos.
That had been the price she'd fetched for me—a fortune by the standards of those days.
A vague sound whispers in my ear—her voice as she'd told me I was going to live with El Senor, and that I was to be obedient to him as a wife would be to her husband.
I don't blame her for selling me, though I was still a child with no understanding of the outside world. I was so naive, I had no idea what went on between a wife and a husband. Yet as I was wrenched away from the only home I'd ever known, I had to grow up fast.
And my first lesson was that El Senor was already married.
I was not to be his wife. I was to be his whore.
My eyes squeeze shut as I'm transported back to the moment I was taken to the hacienda. I was given a large room—larger than the small hut my mother and I had lived in. A pair of maids dressed me in the finest clothes I'd ever worn and told me to wait patiently for El Senor to come to me.
Had I known what was going to happen? No.
The only saving grace at that time had been my unquenchable curiosity. For all my stilted education growing up, I was starving for knowledge just as I was starving for any information about this new home I was supposed to live in.
Despite the warning that I should stay still, I did not. I opened the door and stepped out, wandering about the long-winded corridors and marveling at the impressive art that decorated the walls. Some of the illustrations I was familiar with as they represented the gods of our tradition. Others, not so much. I walked and walked until I heard the sound of foreign voices that uttered my name. Slowly, information filled my brain—why I'd been brought there, and how I was to serve El Senor. Even in my innocent mind, I realized that his purpose for me was sick and perverted, and I quickly resolved to escape. Maybe I would not have a home to return to, but I at least would have my virtue intact.
Yet that was the second lesson I learned. No one left the hacienda. Not alive, anyway.
El Senor came to my room and didn't find me there. He had all his guards search the premises until they dragged me from my hiding place and brought me in front of him. Those fine clothes had already been torn and soiled in my attempt to fight the guards off. One look at my rebellious gaze, and El Senor decided to teach me a lesson. He ordered his guards to strip me naked, deriving sick pleasure from seeing me fight to keep what was left of my modesty. When I put up too much of a fight, he intervened personally.
That was the third lesson I learned. El Senor had a heavy hand.
I lift my hand to trace the contour of my cheek, the past sting reverberating into the present.
He smiled as he struck me. Again and again until my skin broke, until I was bruised and battered, and my blood stained the ground.
I remember doing my best to hold on, yelling at him that I wouldn't allow him to touch me.
But despite all my protestations, the pain soon proved too much even for my strong will. At some point, I must have passed out, for when I awoke, it was to find my entire upper body marked with strange writings, like a tattoo imprinted on my skin to remind me of the day my fate had changed, forever. After my rebellion, El Senor didn't want to be bothered with me, so I was sentenced to labor away in his temples, doing work that no woman, let alone a child of thirteen, should have done. Yet that was preferable to being his toy.
El Senor might not have raped me that night, but the marks on my skin were proof that he had done something —that he had stolen a part of me I could never get back.
Now, knowing that these strange tattoos are not his doing, I don't know how to feel about them anymore. For almost half my life, I've forced myself to hate them because they reminded me of him.
Big, manly hands cover my eyes. I inhale sharply at the sudden warmth that surrounds me. The scent of leather and spice fills my nostrils, pulling me back from that painful past and anchoring me into the present.
"I do not like that look on your face, human," Ze whispers in my ear.
I exhale, letting calm settle over me as his presence lulls me back into a safe space.
"What look was it?" I ask after a beat of silence.
"You were...sad. I do not like it when you are sad," he grumbles.
Taking hold of his hands, I lift them off my eyes as I turn to face him.
"And what do you know about sadness, Ze?" I lift a brow. "I thought emotions were not your strong suit."
His brows scrunched together, he tilts his head to the side as he considers my words.
"When you are sad, there is a hole inside your chest that nothing can fill," he muses aloud. "It hungers for something that is out of reach, creating a vacuum of emptiness that blackens every waking moment. But it is when you are slumbering that it is far worse, for it creates the mirage of getting that something , only to awaken and realize it was all a dream."
I stare at him, my lips parting in surprise.
"That is..." I clear my throat. "That is a very apt representation of sadness. Where did you read it? It's almost as if you've felt it yourself."
"It is all your fault, human," he huffs, pushing his chin up. "Because of your scathing words, I have lost far too many nights of precious rest. Instead of exterminating demons, I was researching those romance books of yours and scouring your world for the most expensive and worthy cow."
My eyes widen as my lashes flutter in confusion.
"You have caused me great distress and you need to take responsibility," he continues.
"W-what?" I stammer.
"I do not like it when you are sad. I forbid you to be sad from now on," he keeps going, ignoring my scandalized expression.
"It doesn't work like that, Ze. You can't just command feelings..." I attempt to explain.
"It shall be my new boon." He nods to himself, pleased.
"But you haven't amassed another one hundred points," I add drily.
"It does not matter. I will have my boon early." He crosses his arms, staring me down intently. "You may continue to add up the points, but this shall be my boon."
I gawk at him for a few seconds before amusement breaks across my face.
"You're impossible." I chuckle, shaking my head.
Slowly, his lips curl up in a smile just as he brings his fingers to my mouth, keeping my lips in place to mirror his.
"And you are not sad anymore," he hums to himself. "Mission accomplished."
I raise a brow at him.
"You shall wear this gown," Ze says as he steps forward and grabs a purple dress from my closet. "It suits you the most."
"Has anyone told you that you're awfully bossy?" I grumble, though I accept the gown and head for the bathroom.
"It is the nature of my position. I command, and others follow," he continues as he follows me, about to enter the bathroom, too. But I'm faster as I close the door in his face before he can step inside.
"Privacy, Ze. That's why doors exist," I call out as I take off my clothes to put on the purple gown.
"I hate doors," he adds grumpily from the other side.
I smile to myself, surprised to realize that his odd brand of bossiness did, in fact, accomplish the mission. Without even realizing, my sadness turned into good humor, the past promptly forgotten in favor of the much more entertaining present. If he keeps this up, Ze might very well get his new boon.
I shake my head at that absurd line of thought, but a small part of me may not think it's that absurd.
It takes me a couple of minutes to get ready. As I exit the bathroom, I find Ze pacing around my room with a deep look of concentration.
"So, where are we going?" I ask as I plop myself in front of him.
He suddenly stops his maddening pace, swiveling to meet my gaze.
"I have changed my mind," he declares.
"What do you mean?"
"I have, of course, planned an entire itinerary for today. I do not want you to think I would have come unprepared. But I find that there is one more pressing matter to take care of."
I blink in confusion.
"Are you canceling on me?" I ask, bewildered.
"Of course not." He pins me with his gaze. "But there will be a change of plans. Come." He takes a step forward and grabs my hand, pulling me into his arms. In the blink of an eye, our surroundings change.
A bleak landscape stretches out in front of us, the land barren and desolate as far as the eye can see. There's one narrow road in the middle of the rusty desert-like terrain, accommodating thousands of people as they slowly walk in a death march procession toward an unnamed destination. The sky is perpetually dark and unwelcoming, red clouds gathering here and there to obstruct the little light that exists.
"What's this?"
Ze places himself at my back, his hands on my shoulders.
"This is P'asala. The intermediary realm through which all souls pass before they head into the afterlife, and that is the Road of all Woes."
"But... It's so...so..."
"Simple?" he offers.
"I would rather go with sinister," I mumble drily. "Even good souls have to walk through here?"
"Yes. There is no differentiation until they reach the Apex." He points toward a vague dark spot on the horizon. "Each soul relives their past life during the Road of all Woes, the good and the bad. It is the last time they are able to remember their previous selves. The virtuous have nothing to fear, for they have led a noble life and they will be rewarded as such in the afterlife. The sinful become wracked by guilt and fear as they remember every bad deed they have committed," he explains.
A shiver goes down my back the more I stare at that bleak and somber road. I suppose the name of the road is an apt representation for the visual—it's truly woeful.
"Come." Ze takes my hand, pulling me into his arms as he levitates above the ground. We move speedily across the flat desert, and in just a few seconds, we reach the Apex he was talking about. The landscape changes from a flat surface to an uneven, hilly one. As we reach a tall dune, Ze descends to the ground. He releases me, placing me by his side.
"This is where everything changes," he notes.
There's a black patch of land where a masked figure garbed in a combination of red and dark yellow awaits each soul. As they step from the road and onto the black strip, the soul begins to glow. But not all souls are the same. Some are a light color, others a dark, muted one. But as they step off the black strip of land to continue forward, the glow doesn't change.
"That is the Apex where the souls are judged," Ze says. "That is Omorion. He is a Death deity from the House of Psyche. His task is to weigh each soul to determine where they are to go. The souls that have a light shimmer are virtuous. The darker the glow, the more sinful they are. Let us go to the next phase."
Taking my hand once more, he flashes us to the next stop. There's a huge well with intricate designs along the edges. It's so large, it covers the visible horizon, making it so there's nothing left north of it. A woman in a hood that obscures her face sits on the ledge of the well, holding a cup in her delicate hands that she fills from the well and gives to each soul to consume.
"This is Letharion—the well of oblivion. And that is Lethe, the Goddess of Oblivion. After a soul drinks from the well, all memories of their past life are erased until they become a blank canvas. But the souls never lose their glow, which indicates which part of the afterlife they will head to."
As Ze speaks, I note that there are two possible roads from the well. One on the right, which only the brighter souls take, and one on the left, which is reserved for the dark souls.
"The virtuous souls are taken to the upper levels of the House of Psyche, where according to their merit, they either proceed directly to the House of Moirai, where they are assigned a new fate and before being reincarnated, or they work to create more merit to gain the chance to reincarnate."
I note thoughtfully.
"And the bad souls?"
"They are taken to the lower levels of the House of Psyche, where according to their sins, they endure punishment. It takes them longer to gain merit to move up the levels and earn a new incarnation, but it is not impossible," Ze explains.
"I thought bad souls become demons," I murmur in confusion as I glance up at him.
"Some. Not all. If the messengers Correctors retrieve them before a certain amount of time, they will not become demons. Once they are touched by Omorion, they are marked for the afterlife and the chances of them becoming demons are null. Before that, however, it is very possible depending on how evil the soul is and how much anger it has collected over its lifetime. It is not an exact science, unfortunately." He purses his lips. "We can more or less predict who is most likely to turn, and those have priority with Collectors. But there are cases where souls become corrupted when left to their own devices."
"What you mean is that as long as there will be souls, there will also be demons, no?"
His lips flatten into a thin line.
"Unfortunately. The universe relies on balance. There are the Light Primordials and the Nether Primordials, and there are the Seven. There are the Aperite Supremes, and there are the Tartarean Lords. We have our governing Houses. So do the Sons of Tenebreis. And just like that, every being has a natural mate that complements its nature," he mentions pointedly as he watches me intently.
"Does that mean your war against demons is never-ending?" I frown.
He doesn't reply for a moment before he sighs.
"It is, indeed, eternal. But that does not mean it is a never-ending conflict. Evil has been around since the dawn of time and will continue to be so. It is only when the scales of balance are tipped in favor of evil that we have to take a stance and act."
"Like now," I mention.
"Like now," he agrees. "But that is not why I have brought you here. Come. We have one more stop."
I blink in surprise.
"What do you mean..." I don't even get to finish my words as he takes my hand and flashes us someplace else.
If before I would have thought P'asala was bleak, this new place is that but times one hundred. There's a scorching heat that makes me want to shed all my clothes, including my skin. My breath comes out in labored spurts, my mouth dry as an unquenchable thirst overtakes me.
"W-w-what is t-this?" I stammer in between pants. I hunch down, my hands on my thighs as I attempt to catch my breath.
"This is Katras, the lowest level of the House of Psyche," Ze comments. One look at him, and he's absolutely fine, his back straight, his posture imposing. Of course he wouldn't be affected by whatever poison is in this air.
I'm barely in control of myself and getting worse. My vision fades slightly, and I can't even tell what's around me. There's only a thick air that presses down on me.
Ze plants himself in front of me and, placing two fingers under my chin, he tips it up so I can look into his piercing gaze. Leaning down, he comes closer to me.
"Open your mouth," he commands.
"W-what?" I whisper in confusion.
But as I open my mouth to speak, he blows cool air into me, his breath becoming my breath. Almost instantaneously, my vigor is restored and I can withstand this heavy atmosphere better.
"This is meant to be an inhospitable place. Here, damned souls suffer for their sins," he explains.
"You mean this is hell?"
"In your human terms, indeed." He nods.
I stare at him, dumbfounded. Is this his idea of a date ? To bring me to literal hell?