Chapter 56
Cat
“No,” I snapped, shaking my head. “No, I did everything right. The scales, the gates, the creatures, Pain’s heart, and I killed Violence with a kiss. I did everything right. He can’t be gone.”
But there was ice in my soul where there’d been calm and patience and warmth. And I felt it, a brush of cold to my shoulder as if—as if a spirit had touched me.
Another sob scraped up my throat, and I wiped hastily at the tears on my cheeks, looking up with crippling hope when a shadow fell over us. But it was Passion and Hunger, with Wrath, Neglect, Fear, and the others. And my dad. The second our eyes connected, I broke, sobs crushing my chest.
“Out of the way,” he barked at my husbands, and pulled me into a hug that almost convinced me everything would be okay. “I’m so sorry, Cat. I’m so sorry.”
His hand brushed over my head and down my hair, and deja vu made me shudder. As if someone had just done the same thing…
“He’s gone.” My breaths came in sharp, stunted gasps. “He’s gone. My husband is gone.”
Dad held me tighter when my knees gave out, and even though I was filthy and shaking so hard my whole body rattled, he didn’t let go.
“Fuck,” Tor said thickly. I lifted my head in time to see him turn away, both palms pressed to his eyes. “The stupid fucking bastard. He couldn’t have waited another goddamn minute?”
Miz wrapped his arms around Tor from behind and said nothing, staring at the lake.
“I thought he’d make it,” Madde said miserably, pulling both me and my dad into a hug.
“Cat.”
It was the tone of Pain’s voice that made me lift my head and wipe at my eyes until I could see him.
“What can you feel in the bond?”
I swallowed, the lump in my throat choking my words. “Cold. Like it’s frozen over.”
He came closer, and caught my hands in his, squeezing. Warm where I’d become as cold as my bond with Death. “But you can feel something?”
“Only ice.” Another tear fell; Madde brushed it away.
“Can you reach inside the ice?”
Could I… “You think there’s hope?” I asked in a small voice, blinking another tear free. The others joined us, and even the gods I didn’t recognise looked distressed to hear about Death.
I squeezed my eyes shut and threw my soul across the freezing divide towards the forest where Death’s soul used to be. It was as if I stood on a solid plane in the arctic, the water frozen for miles around, but trees still thrust up, their leaves dead, branches bare.
Death?
I pictured reaching out, thought of how our bond used to feel, grounding and steadfast and the antithesis of this cold.
Death?
I felt my bottom lip wobble, but ignored it, focusing everything I had on the bond. Reach through the ice, Pain said. So I imagined kneeling on the frozen ground, imagined driving my fist into the solid ice until cracks formed, until my knuckles bled.
Even when my soul flinched, even when pain carved through my head, my heart, and drained what remained of my strength, I dragged my heavy arms up and hit those cracks.
The first layer of ice broke, then the next.
There wasn’t water beneath the sheet of ice; there was dirt. Earth, hard packed and old.
I dug my nails in and raked it apart.
Snow drifted around me, cold on the back of my neck, melting in my hair as I ripped apart the ground. Piling dirt around me, reaching deeper, digging down, down—
A hand closed around mine. Four fingers pressed into my wrist, thumb on my pulse.
Warm—warm, not the frigid ice of a corpse.
Brown, healthy, and so alive, not the pallor of the dead.
I gripped so tightly my hand hurt, and threw my weight back, pulling with all my might.
When a second hand broke through, I clasped my other hand around his wrist and dug my heels into the ground, wrenching harder, desperate—
He tore free of the ground, of the grave, all at once. Momentum carried him on top of me, crushed him into my body, and the sob that ripped from my throat hurt.
I wrapped my arms around Death, wrapped my soul around his, and held on for dear life as the trees around us shook loose their dusting of snow and burst into bright, verdant life.