Chapter 31 #2
Marigold chimed in, and I realized it wasn’t a love song, but something they probably all knew that I didn’t. Because they believed the Creator loved them and would save them. Another one of those things that separated me from them and reminded me I didn’t belong.
“And I call on the one who delivers from the deep.
You said you’d always light my way.
And even if I can’t see it
I choose to trust in what you say.”
“Alright!” Adriel cut in. “Enough crooning. Let’s dig in!” He yanked meat off the spit and tossed it on a big leaf.
I slid down beside Farren, trying to stay at the edge of the circle formed around the fire.
“Pretty impressive that you killed an ursine,” Matthias said quietly, leaning down to hand me a leaf loaded with dead animal.
“Shh,” Farren hissed, yanking her own leaf from him. She nodded toward the tree line.
Soren stood there, back to all of us, watching the dark.
“Don’t piss him off more than he already is…”
“Meh,” Matthias shrugged. “Still impressive. Even if it is a travesty, death happens.”
Once he walked away, I whispered, “Am I missing something?”
“Ah,” Farren hummed. “That’s right. You don’t know the legend.”
Salah reappeared in that moment, slinking in from my left and sitting down soundlessly beside me.
“They’re said to be angelic beings,” Salah said. Her voice was thick with sorrow but still gentle. “Sent by the Creator. They're the equivalent of Guardians for us non-Daughter humans. They bring blessings, keep dangers away. So, they’re protected.”
“Well, next time I’ll let the angelic being eat Marigold,” I muttered, biting into the meat.
Salah’s mouth formed a line.
“You did the right thing,” Farren offered between bites. “Soren forgets not everyone is a supernatural being and has all the extra perks to go with it. Marigold is considered a natural threat to humans, so the ursine would've killed her for sure.”
“She’s right,” Salah whispered. “There’s nothing else you could have done with what knowledge you had. We had no clue Soren was already nearby. As much as I dislike Marigold, I wouldn't want her to die.” She smacked her lips before adding, “It’s still sad the ursine had to.”
I nodded but didn’t feel that sadness. If anything, I felt bitter that my effort to save someone so cruel toward me was being chastised. I was also confused as to why the guild protected beings that the Creator had deemed dangerous and deserving of punishment. None of their rules made sense to me.
We spent the next hour roasting, chatting, and overeating. Pretty soon, the mood lifted, and they eased into raucous laughter at each other’s expense.
I watched. The outsider, as always.
Soren eventually joined, sitting as far from me as possible—Marigold leaning on him like the inverse of a weighted blanket.
Every now and then, someone broke into song or started a story that everyone but me seemed to know. They had inside jokes and core moments binding them all together.
Even Soren cracked a half-smile once or twice. At some point, he moved closer around the circle without me noticing.
For a while, it felt as though we’d all stay up through the night like that, but then Salah yawned theatrically and said she needed sleep. Marigold and Matthias followed soon.
Soren sat only a few feet away then, leaning against a stump. He didn’t look at me. Just watched the fire and hummed when others spoke.
Then Adriel did his best Salah impression, complete with a yawn. “Better not stay up too late and mess up our team challenges tomorrow,” he drawled. “Especially you, Rapunzel.”
I rolled my eyes but said nothing, lacking the energy to verbally spar with the asshat tonight.
“Wimp,” Farren shouted after him and stood. “I expected more from you! I need to rinse off real quick before bed,” she said to me. “Don’t go anywhere. If I get eaten by a river siren, I need a witness.”
She smirked wickedly and jerked her head in Soren’s direction. “And try not to piss him off more. Unless you’re going for the whole hate-fuck thing.”
“I’ll peel your fingernails off in your sleep for that one,” I laughed and kicked at her with my halfhearted threat.
Then she was gone, leaving me alone with the boogeyman.
I focused on the sound of Farren’s feet crunching over wet leaves and frail twigs until her retreat disappeared into the distance.
Then I trained my attention on the fire.
It crackled low with oranges and yellows and the smell of smoke and burnt wood.
Its warmth still stretched across my front enough to fight off a chill, but I wished it were higher, slightly hotter.
I leaned forward and used one of the leaves the boys had been fanning the flames with to try to feed the fire enough oxygen to pick up just a smidge. When my arm got tired without any effect on the blaze, I gave up and slunk back against the log again with a huff.
The crickets took over.
Soren still didn’t look at me.
Minutes passed, and then I heard and saw his movement near me as he picked up the same leaf and whipped it around a handful of times, building flames with ease.
Jerk. Even when he’s helpful, he’s a pompous asshole.
The air thickened as we continued to ignore each other’s presence. My skin itched with the awkward unease filling the silence.
“I did it to save Marigold. Not to kill that thing,” I blurted through my discomfort.
Soren turned his head slowly.
“What are you talking about?”
“I don’t only think about killing things. You said I always go for murder when I killed that animal. I did it to save her life, not to end that thing’s.”
“Hm.”
More silence.
“I don’t get it!” I snapped, turning toward him. “What’s your problem with me? You were so nice in the canoe that time and in the cave, and now you act like I’m Extermin waste on your shoe. Can you please stop with the flip-flopping because I’m getting whiplash?!”
Soren finally turned. Then stood.
Three steps later, he was staring down at me from too close.
“You’re not evil,” he spoke barely louder than the popping of burning wood behind him. “And that’s the problem.”
“What does that even mean?” I hissed. Then lowered my voice. “Can you just say what you mean for once?”
He sat beside me, barely inches away. The warmth of his body swept against my skin with every inhale.
I kept my eyes glued to the fire and barely dared to breathe as he took too long to elaborate. Too stubborn to ask again, I waited for the night to swallow us up.
“You’re supposed to be good,” he spoke with his voice low and rough. “That's why I made the choice I did. I did it so you could be good, so you could keep your soul.”
“What choice is it that you supposedly made for the goodness of my soul?” I asked with the quietest hint of snark and a heavy dose of trepidation.
“I didn't have to become what I am. I had a choice the moment the First Daughter was called. I chose what would keep your soul out of the Dark One's clutches.”
My chest tightened. A shockwave spread from my heart like it was trying to climb up my throat. Truth laced every inch of his words.
I twisted to face him, expecting a smirk—but his face remained unreadable. He’d truly mastered the art of stonewalling.
The First Daughter? What does that—
I’d forgotten.
For a moment, I’d forgotten that he was a nephilim. He looked human, even if cold—still human. But if he’d been there when the First Daughter was called before The Last War, he clearly wasn’t just a mere human. Nephilim lived for thousands of years.
I blinked at him.
How old is this guy?
“I don't understand a lot of what you just said,” I said. “But look, I’m not ‘good.’ I’ve never tried to be. If you think otherwise, you clearly don't know me at all. My whole life revolves around ending one man's life.”
“That’s not your purpose,” he replied immediately.
“And I’ve known you since you took your first breath, just like I knew Lenore since the day she was born.
” His eyes narrowed on the side of my face as I concentrated on the fire pit again.
“I know more about you and your family than you could imagine. I know you. You are good. You are meant to do good things. I made sure of that. Your soul, your goodness, in exchange for my own. I had a choice to become a nephilim or stay human. I chose the route that would get me to you.”
That was a shocking amount of words from him. Doesn’t make any of them right or true or remotely comprehensible.
“Oh, right,” I scoffed. “I’m supposed to find your Anointed and save the world or something. So, you had to make sure that happens.”
Soren leaned in, one arm bracing behind me, one knee brushing mine.
“You don’t have to do any of that,” he whispered. “You just have to be good.” A few ragged breaths passed between us. “And if I'm lucky, I'll get to spend fragments of time with you while I keep you safe. If you're good, I might even stand a chance.”
I swallowed.
His scent danced across my taste buds when I inhaled too sharply and he exhaled too closely.
A chance at what?
But the words wouldn’t come out. They were stuck there in my shrinking windpipe.
Soren turned back toward the fire and pushed himself to stand.
“Maybe if the person I’m in love with is good, then I’m somehow good too. They say you are what you love.”
A tiny breath escaped me.
In love with?
LOVE?!
I had nothing to say to that.
I had absolutely nothing to say about Soren loving me. Choosing me. How could I? None of this made any sense.
Soren must not have needed me to say anything as he walked off into the woods, like he hadn’t just dropped little bombs all over my frantic heartscape.
“Whoah!” Farren practically squealed as she sat down beside me. “I am so glad I didn’t miss Soren just confessing his undying love for you.”
I scrunched my eyes shut, blinking back a layer of panicked, exhausted tears.
“That’s not what he said,” I lied to myself and stood to move past her. “I’m gonna crash now, Farren. Sorry to be the lame duck.”
But I didn’t crash.
Instead, I wandered into the woods a bit to take a piss only to spill my guts instead.
Everything from dinner came up with a sticky, black taste, my head spinning with tales of a boy giving up his own soul to protect me.
Then I crawled into my tent and relived the harrowing act of taking a life. And a soul.
I lay there awake on the forest floor and imagined I wasn’t in a tent.
I imagined I was anywhere else and everywhere else.
The archery range. Babel. My old dorm. Even Dagon’s house.
But Soren showed up everywhere.
So, not only did he physically stalk me. He was also stalking my thoughts, too.
Choosing me.
When I did fall asleep, it still wasn’t a crash. I knew I was fading, but tried not to.
Please don’t show up in my dreams.
At least he listened.
I was in The Tower.
On the 900K level.
I walked through a door into a pitch-black room.
A light flicked on, but it didn’t help much. Everything was painted black. Walls, ceiling, floor. Black on black.
A man sat on a throne, suit pressed, tie perfect. The throne itself was carved from something darker than paint, like obsidian dipped in shadow. He smiled with his mouth and not with his eyes.
“Come. Rule with me.”
I opened my mouth to speak—
—but instead, a swarm of bees flew out.
Then I was outside The Tower.
In a wide-open field under a blue sky.
A thin string of fire fell from the sky like a thread unraveling from a matchstick.
There was a loud crackling boom from above. A fissure slithered down the Tower’s face.
From where I stood, it looked as thin as a hair, but I knew up close it was cavernous.
Then I was looking down from far above. The crack widened. The Tower began to crumble, massive stone chunks breaking off and crashing to the ground.
And the whistling I heard wasn’t wind.
It was screaming.
The pebbles I thought I saw tumbling from the Tower were people.
They were jumping.
Then I was back inside the Tower. Back in the dark room.
Still dressed in black. Dark and sticky. Muck.
Still with him.
I sat beside the man on the throne.
And laughed.