Chapter 46
The One Who Gave His Soul
Sparkling, multicolored crystals lined the interior of the room like the watery cave Soren had swum us through during our so-called team-building boot camp.
The crystals here in this secret room emitted enough light to render our candles obsolete and my brain too distracted.
A stone table in the center housed a scatter of papers and books. Shelves of vials, glass-and-metal instruments, and even carved wood contraptions lined the glittering walls. I turned in place slowly, taking it all in without missing anything.
“What is this?” I asked—half to the walls, half to the man following me in. Maybe a bit to those intrusive voices that had been plaguing me.
Soren hovered over the stone table, thumbing through a book with pages so brittle they nearly tore at each turn.
“What am I supposed to find here?” I mumbled this time.
Everything looked like junk or once-but-no-longer treasures. The spines of the books were in a language I didn’t know; the papers were covered in symbols I’d never seen. There was too much, and not enough.
“I don’t have time for this!”
I marched to the table and yanked the book from Soren’s hands, ignoring his disappointed frown.
It looked ridiculous on someone like him, but I had no time for pity.
I mirrored his stance at a significantly shorter height and with less pressure on my right hand.
It probably looked more petulant than intimidating.
“Who else did you see use this as a key?” I demanded. “And what am I supposed to find in here?”
“It was your great-great-great-great-grandmother,” he replied, stepping back. “Elizabetta found a door like that inside The Tower. But the only thing in the room was a single book.”
My fingers snagged in my matted hair. “My—wait—you knew my great-great-great-great-grandmother? And you’re just now telling me this?”
Soren shrugged. “I knew your grandmother, too. Lenore was my best friend, probably the closest friend I’ve ever truly had.”
I laughed so hard I accidentally spat, then choked and paced the room. Nothing in here looked like a weapon to kill Azazel or Abadon with. No secret to being the Daughter of the Scepter. And now the guy whose kiss turned me inside out expected me to accept he was my dead grandmother’s bff?
“What was in the book?!” I shouted, stilling. Then I moved to sweep all of the junk onto the floor to prove my point about what a stupid dead-end we’d reached. That’s when I saw the box. I paused with my left arm in the air.
A carved clay box with two trees on the lid rested at the far edge of the table.
“The Living and Knowing Trees,” I murmured and dropped my arm.
“Your name was in the book, Eliana,” Soren said, answering the question I’d already forgotten.
I looked up briefly but kept my focus on pulling the box toward me.
“Your name was the only thing in that book.” Soren came around to stand behind me. “But these trees were on the front cover. Both of them.”
My exhale rattled through my lips, and I slammed my left fist on the table with an impatient grunt.
“Well,” I said through gritted teeth and looked at Soren, then back at the box, “I guess this is what I’m supposed to find, then, huh?”
Shit. This is really happening, isn’t it? No more running from it.
The box felt stuck, sealed shut by paint or by centuries of neglect. I pulled harder.
Soren reached for it, but I stepped aside and away from him, keeping the box out of his reach. Using what was left of my nails, I pried around the rectangular lid, breaking the seal bit by bit.
It came open with a jolt. Its contents clattered within. I set both box and lid on the table.
Somewhere in the room, faint singing began. Too faint to place, but there.
Inside the box lay a scroll tied with a purple string and a small golden pendant: a cross-section of a scepter matching my necklace with golden-leafed branches stretching out from it.
I lifted the pendant gingerly, turning it over. A small octagonal peg jutted from its otherwise smooth back.
“The other half,” Soren whispered.
I rushed to the door, yanking my necklace from the lock. The peg fit perfectly into the hole. The two pieces snapped together.
“There has to be something else,” he said, moving to look inside the box.
I darted forward and clapped both hands over it, sliding it closer to me.
My Guardian rolled his eyes but stepped back. “You’re hiding the wrong things from me.”
I ignored him and lifted the scroll. The purple ribbon crumbled at my touch. Carefully, I unrolled the paper—no longer than my forearm, no wider than my palm—trying not to tear the dry fibers.
It was full of scribbles I couldn’t even begin to read.
“What does it say?” I snapped, thrusting it toward Soren with my injured hand.
“So now you trust me?” He shook his head, arms crossing.
“No! But you’re really old, so you can probably read this.”
He cracked a smile.
And something in me cracked alongside it. A warm and fulfilling sensation oozed out.
“And I want to hurry up and figure this out so we can maybe find a way to kill Abadon—and Azazel by default,” I rushed on to avoid drowning in what his smile did to me.
“Ezra and Winifred both want that as well, so they wouldn’t have sent us here if it wasn’t important. Do your job and help me, Guardian.”
Soren frowned but stepped forward, so close his chest pressed to my back as he leaned over my shoulder. “It’s Aramaic. More ancient than the Ancients.”
“Can you read it?” I asked with a new hush.
His arms, strong and at least twice the width of my own, wrapped around me to reach for the scroll.
His breath caressed my cheek as he read aloud:
“To My Daughter,
I hope I am there by your side as you read this, but if that is not His will, then so be it.
The True Creator has blessed me with the honor of having a daughter. I watched the Anointed’s death. You will watch his Resurrection.
Follow his heart, not yours.
The serpents are the Fallen.
King David’s beloved holds the bow.
My Beloved holds the arrow.
Ask, and the gift will come. Seek, and the path will appear.
Your beloved is the one who gave his soul.
The Song is upon us.
Remember always—the greatest love is to give your life for another.
Love,
Tereba of Canaan.”
The last three words were dragged out of Soren’s throat, rising in volume until they broke into a strangled gasp.
I turned to find him staring at me, mouth slightly open, eyes wide like I was a talking fish.
“That means you’re…,” his voice trailed off. He glanced back at the letter, though he was too far away now to read it.
His chest heaved as he seemed to think through his entire life plan and reevaluate every mistaken choice he had made along the way.
“Okay, you’re gonna have to tell me what this means, because the only part I get is that I’m a descendant of Tereba of Canaan and supposed to see the Anointed resurrected.”
Soren’s eyes swirled—black and silver mixing like smoke in water—as he nodded. “Yeah, I think so.” His jaw flexed until it popped. “You have no idea who she is, do you?”
“Nope,” I said, popping the ‘p.’
“She was the thirteenth. That means you’re not descended from Pietre. None of you were.” His head tilted side to side, vertebrae cracking. “Unless Pietre and Tereba…No. This changes things,” he muttered more to himself than to me.
My family. That’s what he was telling me. This letter was from someone I belonged to.
Soren also knew my great-great-great-great-grandmother. And my grandmother. Best friends, apparently. The thought still felt both absurd and unsettling.
Did he know my mom? Were they friends once?
That dream I’d had of eavesdropping on my mother and grandmother’s argument niggled at something in the back of my brain. They had mentioned a Guardian, hadn’t they?
Soren bent over the scroll again. “The serpents are the Fallen. Your imaginary snakes you keep seeing…” His gaze skated to me, then back to the page. “King David’s beloved holds the bow. That’s the Jonathan bow.” A sly smile. “We already knew that, though.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Yeah, but we have no idea where that is.”
“You have no idea where it is. I’ve known the whole time.”
My teeth clamped together. I shoved him hard with my injured hand—earning only a pained hiss from myself. “You! Why haven’t you said anything?”
“Because you haven’t needed it yet. And I don’t want you doing something stupid.” Unfazed by my fury, he scanned the scroll again. “Your beloved is the one who gave his soul.” He pursed his lips. “We already knew that, too.”
“Wait,” I made sure to smack his shoulder with only my uninjured hand this time. “I didn't know that. What does it mean?”
Soren blinked at me and then barked out a laugh as he looked up at the ceiling. His eyes crept back down to meet my narrowed gaze. “You really haven't figured that out yet?”
Heat crept up my neck—because he was exactly who I’d thought of when I first heard that line.
Always Soren.
“I took the Fall for you, Eliana.” Every word out of Soren's mouth filled the cavern with a truth beyond me.
He blew out a long breath and took a terrifying step toward me, his heat wrapping around me with his next utterance.
“I saw you 3,000 years ago, and I knew what I had to do. The only way for me to become your Guardian and keep you safe was to become nephilim.”
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
“Is that the vision you and Ezra were talking about in the library?” I whispered up at him.
His touch was light as he ran two fingers along my cheek, but the clench in his jaw was forged of steel. “Yes.”
“Why wouldn't you want me to know that?”
Soren's attention fell to the mark on my chest, but he didn't answer.
“What did you see that made you want to give up your soul to keep me safe?”