Chapter 9 Daesra #2
I’ve no doubt Isha came for her and not me, if only because he couldn’t take me by killing me.
And now he gets the pleasure of watching me writhe in torment.
Why keep chasing me for an eternity when he could simply make me come to him?
There was no easier way to draw my immortal soul into his realm than to steal her from me, which I proved by journeying here as quickly as possible.
I’m even circling closer to him as we speak.
I had no choice. I wouldn’t do anything differently, knowing what I know now, even if I could go back in time—except maybe jam that ring on her finger whether she wanted it or not.
“She’s not entirely mine yet,” Isha acknowledges, watching me carefully, his hard iron eyes boring into me as if delving for my pain.
He doesn’t bother turning with me as I try to sidle around and above him; he only disappears and instantly reappears a few paces higher uphill, putting me back at a disadvantage. “But she will be.”
I can almost hear the whisper of his thought: Just like you will be.
I halt, trying to ignore his unspoken promise—and to forget what his obsession with me felt like through his own eyes. I also give up on gaining the higher ground, since it’s obviously pointless, retreating a few steps downhill toward Pogli and Melé so as not to leave them exposed.
“No, she won’t, no matter how sweetly she moans.” I sneer up at him. “I don’t begrudge her pleasure, because I know she—she traded herself for me.”
I almost said, Because I know she loves me, but that wouldn’t be doing Sadaré or me any favors, not if she’s trying to deceive him on that front.
Not if he wants her to forget me. She clearly still remembers me, even if she’s acting as if she doesn’t care to, for the sake of his pride and her own well-being.
She’s only trying to survive—as well as she can survive, being dead.
And for me to keep insisting that she loves me speaks of a desperation that I don’t want to give voice to, not even in my own head.
“Not that you could have taken me,” I add, “so really it was an unfair trade.”
His tone is as supremely confident as his relaxed stance. “Or she got exactly what she wanted. A new life in her death, with someone more suited to her tastes. Orseus was similarly mistaken about his love’s true desires.”
Once more, I don’t insist I know her motives. I truly don’t fault her for her current behavior—though I am absolutely furious with her, if only because she can’t seem to stop sacrificing herself for me.
Isha is far more deserving of my fury.
Instead of charging up the hill to tear him limb from limb like every muscle in my body is demanding, I ask, my voice hoarse, “What if I made an offer in return? What if I traded myself for her?”
It hasn’t come to that, not yet—not before I try with everything I have to bring her out of here with me—but I want to measure his reaction. His interest.
He only regards me through hooded eyes. “You still have so far to come. I want whomever—whatever—you are, after you’ve been ground down to your bones by my realm.”
I suppress a shudder and cast a glance at the blood farms in the distance.
“You didn’t just want me to devour my mortal mother’s soul unknowingly.
You wanted me to willingly gorge myself on the rest of them as well—not because of what it would do to them, but to me.
It would have given me power, yes, but also something else.
” It still makes me grimace in revulsion to recall the feeling of so many desperate souls struggling inside of me, and yet those only belonged to mindless ghouls, already worn away to nearly nothing.
To absorb the much more vibrant souls of these shades in such numbers… I can’t imagine what it might do to me.
I can imagine it would be nothing good.
“Cleansing my realm of them would have been an added benefit—but yes,” Isha continues before I can argue, “I mostly wanted their stain, their scar, upon your own soul. I wanted them to tear you apart from within before you finished consuming them. I want the monster that I know is inside of you… or I want the broken pieces of you to remake how I will.”
I’ll take you in pieces. This time, I can’t help shuddering at the memory of Orseus’s words.
“Just as I remade your mother,” Isha continues, nodding down at Melé, who is still sitting alongside me in a more apparent daze than I’d even guessed. He shrugs. “Or I’ll finally be able to destroy you, if you grow tiresome. Either way, I win.”
I take a protective step in front of Melé, and Pogli follows at my heels, only now starting to growl low in his stout little chest. “What did you do to her?”
I don’t think she knows where she is or even who she is anymore.
“I saved her,” Isha says simply. “I kept her safe from the rest of this, all this time.” He raises an inclusive arm to the bleak landscape.
“She’s only drunk the waters of Forgetfulness, yet another river in my realm.
You should be thanking me—and begging her forgiveness for your coming here and forcing me to cast her from my sanctuary. ”
Surely I’ve disappointed her in many ways, but that’s not something I feel particularly responsible for. If it’s not the fault of Isha’s scheming, then it’s Horizon’s.
“You saved her to use against me,” I snarl, stabbing at the ground with my finger. “To throw her in my path to distract me from finding Sadaré. Or, worse, to cause me to fail by forcing me to consume her soul.”
He tosses his head dismissively. “Only you would have caused your downfall had you done that. I wasn’t forcing you. I didn’t make such a deal with Horizon. You did. My deal was with you, and you alone.”
The terms of which I’d rather forget. “Did you make a deal with Sadaré, too, when she traded herself?”
He folds his arms in a show of casualness. “Perhaps.”
“What were the terms?”
“I’m not obliged to divulge that information.” He raises a dark brow. “I see your horns are smaller. Reflective of your loss of potency, in taking a step down from being a daemon?”
He’s only changing the subject as I just did, but it’s still infuriating. “They’re more discreet. And my appearance is something I can alter—without needing to steal another man’s face. Godhood is hardly a step down, at least for me.”
Never mind that I’ve considered it as such myself.
“But rather less exciting, and she does like excitement.” Isha drums his fingers on his arm, making me want to break them one by one. “So, between the two of us, whom do you imagine she’ll choose in the end?”
“A rather unfair premise, don’t you think, as you’ve stolen her away—taken her choice, whatever you claim? If you hadn’t, you would have already lost.”
He nods as if in slight concession. “I might have the uphill battle, since she doesn’t yet trust me.
But I have time, and I do enjoy a challenge.
And you have hell to traverse, don’t you?
That is unfortunate. Because when or if you finally reach her, do you truly think she’ll be pleased to see you, after what you’ve done to get there?
” A smile seeps across his lips like poison.
“But I’ll be pleased to see you, Deonyus.
And, at that point, who’s to say you won’t be pleased to see me as well? ”
Deonyus. I hadn’t heard that name before he spoke it in the memory. He must have chosen it for me, which would explain why Sadaré so adamantly rejected it.
That’s my girl, I think with fierce pride swelling in my chest. And then I nearly wince as I hear Isha’s voice as if it were my own:
Good girl.
I have to free her from him, whatever it takes.
My smile in return is sharp enough to cut. “I can assure you, the pleasure will not be mine.”
He shrugs in a fluid motion that’s once more too much like Orseus for my comfort.
“Time will inevitably tell. Then again, since you flout every rule, insisting you’re unbound by fate, then you could still turn back to avoid what’s coming.
Your end doesn’t have to be inevitable, if you imagine you have the choice in the matter.
Forget about her, just as she will forget you, sooner or later. ”
“Never,” I declare, not caring if I’m proving some convoluted point of his. Then I blink, fear leaking into my tone against my will. “She’s not drinking the waters of Forgetfulness, is she?”
His eye twitches. In irritation or something else? “I bent the rules for her. Her memory will stay mostly intact, though that’s not the case for shades anywhere outside of the Blessed Isles. Not even those in my fortress. That was part of our deal—I’ll give you that much.”
If it’s true, then such a concession must have pained him, as inflexible as he is. Which only heartens me. “Then she’ll never surrender to you, just as I’ll never give her up.”
He barks a laugh. “Never is a strong word, coming from a young god. I’m neither young nor—what did you call me?—dusty and worn.”
“And yet gods are so bound by their own limitations,” I say derisively. “But I’m new. I’m different.” At least I hope I am.
“Yes, you’re so very special.” Cold contempt flashes in his eyes, but it’s nonetheless mixed with fascination.
So my guess was correct—I have something he doesn’t. I just don’t know entirely what it is. I need to find out, sooner rather than later.
As much as I don’t want to recall the memory I witnessed, Sadaré’s words come back to me: Careful, god. It almost sounds like you might be jealous.
She always did know where to plunge a blade.
I furrow my brow as if trying to puzzle him out. “So which is it with you—do you want to destroy me, fuck me, or be me?”
I’ve clearly struck a sore spot that Sadaré must have already made tender, because his pale face darkens like a storm cloud. The actual sky behind him appears to churn faster, its shadows deepening.
Before I can do more than blink, he’s in front of me. And he slaps me across the face. My head flies sideways, sparks bursting across my vision as I stumble.