Only when my lungs stopped aching did I sit up. The chamber I found myself in was large, the source of the pale gray light impossible to determine. There were old wooden boxes stacked against the far wall, and in the center of the room was another pool. It was perfectly black, like spilled ink. Beyond that, a pile of rubble had collapsed out of another tunnel entrance.
There was no way out. Only back, through the water, toward the monster that waited on the other side.
There was no way out.
I sat there in silence, staring at the dark pool until my eyes ached. My stomach growled, and my mouth was so dry that I sipped some of the murky water from the tunnel I’d just swam through, but it tasted bitter and muddy, and did nothing to quench my thirst.
This couldn’t be it. It couldn’t. No one would ever find me down here. My parents…Inaya…they would never know what happened to me. Cheesecake would never understand why I didn’t come home. I’d rot away in the dark, never buried, lost like those miners over a century ago.
I dug into my back pocket, reaching around the light, and my fingers shook as I pulled out the torn, dampened page from the grimoire.
I couldn’t read the Latin on the page. I couldn’t remember the circle I’d drawn to summon Leon, no matter how much I tried to recall the details of it, nor did I have any chalk to draw it with. The chances of him still being alive were slim. I could only guess that days had passed since I’d been taken, and if he hadn’t found me yet…
Then he wasn’t going to.
My soul was meant for him, not a God. I was certain of that. My soul was meant for the one who’d protected me, who’d given up his immortal life for a mortal one. I should have offered it to him sooner. I doubted it would have made things any different, but at least I would have the hope that, maybe, when I left this life, I’d find him again.
“My name…in your flesh…and…blood…”
I knew it was too late now. It was too late for regrets, too late for useless symbolic gestures. But even so, I carefully laid out the grimoire page in front of me. I pulled off my boots and peeled off my soaked pants and laid them aside, my bare legs covered in goosebumps. Jeremiah had marked me for the God — but I didn’t belong to his God. If I had any choice in where my soul was to go, there was only one being I wanted to have it.
I was so cold that I didn’t even feel it when I sliced the knife along my thigh. I followed the curves and lines of Leon’s mark, recreating it in my skin. It tingled, but it didn’t hurt like Jeremiah’s blade had. It was just smooth pressure. When it began to bleed, I wasn’t scared.
I didn’t really care if I bled anymore, so long as I bled for this: for love. It was the only thank-you I could offer — my final devotion he’d likely never even know I gave. But at least my choice was clear now. My soul was Leon’s, even if the God stole it. It was his, always, as was I.
I lay down the knife, feeling calm and small as I stared at the mark on my thigh. It was a comfort, a defiance to the ugly cuts across my chest. I scooted myself back against the cavern wall, pulling my legs up to my chest with a heavy sigh.
“My soul is yours to take, Leon,” I whispered. “If you’re still alive…if you can hear me…it’s yours.”
I closed my eyes, as tiredness settled over me like a heavy blanket. I wanted to sleep now; sleep until this was all over. But as my blurry eyes grew heavier, right before they closed, I saw that perfectly-still black pool move.
Something was emerging.
Jeremiah peered down at me, his blue eyes bright. He nudged me with his boot, and scoffed as I groaned. “The Reaper broke you. Useless now, aren’t you?”
“Fuck…you…” My voice rasped over my aching throat. I wanted to tear him open, but I had no strength left. They’d taken Rae. Taken her away screaming. And I did nothing.
I could do nothing.
“Leave him here to rot. I have no use for a broken tool.”
The words echoed long after Jeremiah had gone, long after Rae’s smell had faded from the forest around me. It had been hours. Maybe days. Time didn’t pass with the ticking of a clock, but with the cracking of my bones as they slowly knit back together. Muscles and sinew reforming, blood pumping painfully through my veins, my heart pounding so hard that despite how weak I was, it kept me awake. I couldn’t sleep.
I could only lie there, cold as the rain fell around me. Creatures came near, sniffing curiously, but not one of them dared to scavenge.
I wasn’t dead.