Chapter 22
“Saer?”
Tears steamed off his ash-streaked face, ones Saer hadn’t known fell, and he looked to Errshek. This time, Envy’s face gazed at him with his usual olive-green eyes.
Lucifer was gone.
Despite the powerful Daemoenic frame, Errshek’s eyes shone with unshed tears and the lips of his maw trembled. “I...I didn’t know.” The words sounded strange and low in the form he wore.
“You.”
“I didn’t mean—”
The realization expanded within him, the words all Saer needed to confirm Errshek’s guilt. Rage, thick as blood and magma-hot flooded through his veins as he pulled back ash-stained lips. “You told our maker. This is your fault!”
Neyu. Unmade at his own hand to save the rest. To save him.
Envy panted, on the verge of hysterics, and stuttered through a maw of razor-sharp teeth, “I-I just wanted—”
“You wanted? You wanted what? She’s dead because of you!” Saer bolted upright and thrust a hand forward. Errshek cried out as the eldest Daemoenic forced the spark of unmaking into his helpless body. “Why, Errshekenyarris?”
Howling, Envy writhed and tried to pull away.
Saer ceased the torment to hear his sibling’s answer.
Errshek shuffled back another quivering step.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. With eyes too wide and steam wafting off his body, Envy surrounded himself in the flames the Daemoenica evoked to travel back to the Hells from Earth.
“No!” Saer lunged.
But Errshek had already gone, only a smoking, charred circle left behind.
Alone.
Without Neyu.
Leaving him with far off thunder and his own ragged breathing.
He collapsed to the ground where he and his beloved had stood. Eyes stinging as he blinked, he sifted trembling fingers through Neyu’s ashes.
Rain began to fall, cleansing remnants of her ashes from his hair, his face, his body. The dust turned to grainy rivulets that sank into the charred grass at his knees.
She’s gone.
His perfect fit. His match. His love. His everything.
His Neyu.
Gone.
It echoed in his mind, raking against his skull—the finality of the word crushed all air from his lungs.
Gone. Gone. Gone.
Saer lifted a palm and pushed it against his sternum. Why did his ribs feel ripped open, his insides drenching the ground—yet he remained whole? Strength unimaginable flowed through him, but the cavern within his chest gaped. Empty. Like when they were separated, but worse. More. Merciless.
Forever.
This is what he’d feel like forever. It didn’t matter that he’d saved his kin.
Because Neyu was gone forever.
Tangential, unforgiving thoughts tore through him. He’d refused to say goodbye to her. Would he regret that decision?
Did he already?
That was the last time he’d hold her. Already, the memory of the press of her body against his faded.
He shoved his palm harder against his chest, like he could replicate it.
The last time he’d smell her.
Lavender. And roses.
His nostrils flared, but filled with the scent of smoke, ashes, and rain.
The last time he’d hear her.
Her laugh, her teases, her ‘dearests’ were gone.
Gone. Gone. Gone.
When did he last hear her laugh?
What was the final thing she’d said to him with a smile on her face?
I can’t remember.
Did Neyu hear him say he loved her, or was she in too much pain?
Pain I gave her.
Saer’s breath caught and pressure built anew in his throat, behind his eyes.
Is this what humans go through when we take their loved ones?
“I imagine it’s not dissimilar.”
Saer hadn’t realized he’d spoken the question aloud, but the intrusion startled him. He took a shuddering breath into too tight lungs.
“To Hells with you, Little Ghost!” His voice cracked despite his ire.
The spirit of Ruki looked at the sky, then at its feet standing on the knoll. It shrugged, profound sadness on the soul’s face. “It would be a change of pace at least.” The spirit paused, then added with quiet and genuine sympathy, “I’m sorry she’s gone.”
Ruki’s spirit saw it all.
Saer didn’t deserve the compassion.
Sounds from further down the hillside rose. Humans stirring from their dwellings as pre-dawn light filtered through the sky. Night ended, and the village roused to join him atop the hill.
“The harvest,” Saer whispered to himself and a new surge of anguish washed over him. Gritting his teeth, he cursed as he stood, wet ashes stuck to his knees.
“It looks like they’ll be here”—the solemn essence gauged—“by the time the sun is in full view. That’s when you told them to arrive so you could slaughter and then abduct them, after all.”
Saer glared down the hill at the gathering crowd.
Years and years of hard work, culminating to this moment, and now it tasted as sour as the bile in Saer’s throat.
The setup was complete—thousands of lives already dedicated themselves to he and Neyu, together.
All that remained was to kill them and bring them to the Hells. Without Neyu…
“I can’t,” Saer whispered.
“Can’t what?”
An annoyed and tortured glance was all Saer spared the soul before redirecting his attention to the approaching throng. Perhaps because his usual companion was gone, perhaps because he needed a non-threatening entity to speak with, he answered, “I can’t go back.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
Saer opened his mouth to snarl a response, then stopped and considered, voice shuddering. “When did it all change?”
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
The top of the knoll lay quiet save the distant susurration of the approaching crowd and the falling sprinkle of rain. Saer struggled to put into words all that circled his mind and danced through the hollow shell of his body. “Little Ghost, what should I do?”
Ruki’s spirit gaped. “What should you do? With all those people? You’re asking me?”
Saer turned his head to Ruki’s soul, his mind frayed and weather worn. Rather than push back on the obvious question the spirit asked, Saer replied with the heaviness of all he felt, “Yes, I’m asking you.”
Incredulous, the soul did its best to answer. “Well, you could just leave…”
Saer punctuated his ongoing stare with a slight raise in his eyebrows.
“…And when they eventually die they’ll be like me with nowhere to go since there’s no one to take them anywhere.”
Saer nodded once, still waiting.
“Are you able to...to unpledge them somehow?”
A graceless shrug met the spirit’s question. He truly didn’t know.
Though the soul didn’t have lungs to breathe, it still huffed out a sound of frustration. “Well, if you kill them all today, they’re stuck to you anyway.”
“Perhaps.” Saer turned his attention once more to the approaching villagers.
“What does ‘perhaps’ mean?”
Saer’s brow drew up in the middle. “Perhaps,” he continued, though his words came stilted, “you don’t deserve to be trapped, Ruki.”
It was the first time Saer spoke the spirit’s name since the young man passed, and Ruki froze.
“Neither do you deserve to be consumed by the Hells.” Saer raised his solemn gaze once again. “Where does that leave us? What else is left?”
Ruki stood, unmoving.
Saer shook himself out of his musing. He walked to the spirit and curled his hand in the shape of its cheek.
He never touched the soul, but sensed the energy of it, the electrical pulse of its presence.
A knowing pause passed between the two, even as Ruki’s eyes gazed on warily.
Saer had no way of knowing if it would work, but something from within called for him to speak the hushed words. “Ruki, son of Asheda, I release you.”
The soul blinked, drawing away from Saer’s non-existent touch.
Its outline glowed, subtle at first, then with more brightness, as if Ruki’s essence ignited from the inside.
The spirit raised its hands up to observe them, then all at once, it laughed, and the sound danced—relieved, joyous, brilliant.
The glow in its limbs almost blinded, and Saer squinted at the luminescence as it spread throughout the soul’s entire body. “Ruki, what...”
“Thank you, my friend.” The voice which spoke no longer came from a singular entity, but surrounded him—its elation tangible.
The light faded quicker than it appeared. When Saer blinked his eyes, Ruki had vanished.
My friend.
The villagers drew close enough that Saer made out excited words. “Did you see it?” “We’ll be next to transition!” “What was that?” “I see Saer, he’ll show us!”
None sounded afraid. All trusting.
All fools.
He waited until they gathered within earshot, eyes unfocused as he considered…
Straightening his spine, Saer held up a hand, demanding silence. The murmurings of the crowd died down, expectant and adoring faces watching. When only the soft patter of falling rain filled his ears, Saer made his decision. “I won’t let you feed It.”
It. The first time he’d voiced the declaration aloud. Not ‘him’ as the others referred to Lucifer. Something important and pivotal clicked in his core.
With the vitality of Neyu coursing through him, Saer’s vision sharpened to detect each heat signature within the vicinity. Thousands of lives, each with a soul. This would be a banquet to Lucifer.
We deserve more than we are given. So do they. Neyu’s voice, a memory from long ago.
Saer hesitated—then recalled the joyous laughter of Ruki, moments before.
Make it swift.
The thought was his—and not.
Neyu’s strength compounded with his, and Saer shoved it into the center of each human on the knoll before he could reconsider. In the time it took a raindrop to fall, the heated shockwave thrust through every individual, blistering their hearts, boiling their blood on contact.
None even had the chance to scream.
Saer staggered at the force of it, his head swimming. A rush of cold swept over his normally blazing skin and he shuddered.
In a rolling fashion, from the closest proximity to the back of the crowd, they collapsed onto the wet grass in heaps. Momentary panic crossed some of their faces. Others carried blissful or indifferent expressions.
All lay dead.
The souls of the villagers materialized. Most adopted the forms they knew in life. The essences, those which adopted faces with more quickness than others, seemed confused or anticipatory.
Saer staggered to a knee. Never before had he expended so much heated energy without taking any of the fire back. Neyu’s absorbed strength had made him overconfident.
The first of the souls found its voice, a young woman who’d been in her twenties with red hair woven into a thick braid, and green eyes. “Lord Saer, how do we…?”
He inhaled, intending to speak, but his words caught. He could take them all to the Hells. Lucifer would love him again. They could start over. All would be well.
Intending to lift his eyes to the mob of souls, Saer’s gaze caught, instead, on the wet piles of ashes off to his side and in front of him. The rain washed her away. Neyu’s remnants trickled through the wet grass, and he followed that trail to his fingertips.
Her loss hit him anew, and with it came a sickened fury.
“I release you.” The rasping words crawled through his constricted throat.
The glow of the first soul in front of him intensified, and Saer curled his hand into a fist, around the dirt and scant ash. A joyous cry, then surprised laughter echoed Ruki’s spirit from before. Inhaling, Saer forced his throat to relax, screaming into the rainy dawn, “I release all of you!”
His entire body trembled, gooseflesh prickling on his pale skin as the cacophony of elated voices rose and melded with one another.
The hilltop illuminated with cloudy daybreak, incomparable to the blinding white of thousands of souls floating, expanding, returning to that which created them with relief and absolution.
They sang, a beautiful chorus of the saved dead as they dissipated.
Saer tilted his head skyward to bear witness, eyes narrowed at the brightness.
When the last spirit’s light disappeared, Saer exhaled and hung his head. Neyu’s ashes had all but dispersed.
The emptiness in his heart, the enormity of the path he’d just taken, even Ruki’s cessation of existing any longer—it all collapsed upon his shoulders, heavier than any weighted burden.
With no one left to bear witness, Saer wept.