Chapter Thirty #2
The phantom wind picked up again. “But the queen has not met her quota as of late. So perhaps you and I can strike a deal instead.” The keeper’s head tilted toward my pocket. “I will give you one memory, but in exchange I’d like to watch.”
A simple request. But what memory from my past would I be willing to share with this keeper.
“Show me how I died in my previous life.” Morbid, but it might give me answers about my present one.
They say you come back to fix what you couldn’t in your previous life. Whether that was true, I didn’t know. But standing in the land of the dead with a faceless keeper, it felt like as good a place as any to find out.
“Are you prepared for what you’ll find?”
“I didn’t ask if I was prepared.” I sheathed the dagger back. “Show me how I died. In exchange, you can watch.”
The phantom wind stilled. The fog around us stopped moving.
“You are certain? There’s no asking twice.”
“Show me. Stop wasting time.” After the keeper was satisfied, I would demand to be taken to my friends.
He was right. I was not prepared.
Fire blazed through every inch of my body.
Some invisible force held me immobile, like daggers driving into my soul, ripping outward.
The pain had no edges. It was everywhere at once.
I tried to move, but the dirt from the earth formed into a vine, thick and alive, wrapping around my legs, reaching higher.
The one causing it was tall and thin, middle-aged, his skin pale like he’d never seen the sun.
His dark hair was pulled into a top knot.
He wore a tunic threaded with gold, emeralds running along the buttons.
I’d never seen the god of the afterlife before.
But I knew it was him, Palto. His arms stretched toward me, power rippling from his fingers in waves.
I wasn’t alone. Theron knelt beside me, hands over his head, his eyes finding mine through the torment inside a cavern I didn’t recognize. Thunder boomed. Lightning struck the ground beside us, and I knew somehow it was Theron’s doing.
“I can’t—” he gasped between heavy breaths. “I don’t understand. We should be able to stop him.”
The deity stepped closer, his features strained.
“I’m doing you a favor. The others will be here any moment, and their plan is to send you to the land of the dead permanently.
You will go there, but I promise, you will be reborn.
” His eyes moved between us. “Yeri, you will have a new face to keep you safe. Calroy, the same with you, but you will be reborn as a prince.”
It was hard to hold on to any words. They came in pieces, broken apart by each wave of pain. Why was he calling us Yeri and Calroy? Were those gods somewhere nearby? I didn’t understand.
The keeper was supposed to show me how I died, not Yeri. This keeper was going to find my dagger in him when I resurfaced from this nightmare.
“A prince.” Theron winced through another wave of pain as another lightning struck.
“I am a god. That feels like a demotion.” He’s eyes darkened, whatever strength he had left sharpening dangerously.
“When I come back, and I return to the living, if anything happens to Yeri when she is reborn”—he paused, jaw tight—“there will be no corner of this world or the next where you can hide from me. I will burn through all your damn souls and destroy mine if I must.”
“When the time is right, your memory will resurface and you will find each other to make the world right again.”
Another round of thunder scattered the sky, mimicking Theron’s anger.
“I’m sorry for all of this,” Palto said, the light from his fingertips beginning to fade as I felt strength draining from me, vast and formless, that I hadn’t known I carried. “But know if I hadn’t intervened, you would be gone forever. Never to return.”
Theron reached out his hand toward me as the dirt vine coiled around our chests.
The burning sensation was unbearable, but looking at Theron and memorizing his face before I died was enough.
“Yeri, my love.” His voice broke. “I will find you. No end could ever break us apart. And when we are reborn, we will destroy all evil together.”
“I love you, Calroy.” The words left my mouth before I understood them. “I will wait countless lifetimes to see you again if I must. Love always wins.”
Tears streamed down my face.
His fingers reached for mine. I reached back. But we never touched. Just like the carving on the cavern wall—two figures forever stretching toward each other, forever falling short.
We both collapsed, cheeks and stomach against the ground facing each other, the strength gone from our souls. The other gods arrived then, sweeping in from the dark.
Palto waved a hand toward our bodies. “I drugged them and got a head start. I’ll let you finish them off.” Then he sauntered to Theron and whispered in his ears.
I kept my eyes on Theron, memorizing the line of his jaw, the curve of his mouth, the way his eyes found mine. His face began to shift, no longer the one I recognized. As understanding dawned—who Theron and I truly were—my memory revealed his true face.
The scar was gone, smoothed away like it had never been there. His hair had lightened, streaked with pale gold. His eyes still burned blue, flecked with something like lightning. Sharper jaw, higher cheekbones—similar to Theron but different.
“My love for you will never die.” His voice came soft, barely a breath.
“Not even our end can keep me away from you. Across death. Across lifetimes. I will find you.” His eyes turned storm dark.
“Look for the stars, Yeri. Every one you see, I put there for you. I’ll keep filling the sky until we find each other. ”
His eyes closed. Whatever the other gods did to us, I couldn’t see, nor feel their power. But Calroy’s legs became ash first, a slow unraveling that rippled higher—his chest, his arms, his face—until his body scattered into the wind. Just before, the god of the afterlife had whispered in his ear.
I wished I could have heard, but it didn’t matter. I became nothing but ash and bone.