That morning, I’d loved him more than anything. Now, I hated him more than anyone I’d ever known.
“We burn our dead,” I said flatly, looking at the dead man lying on the ground.
Caelum jolted in a flinch, grabbing me by the shoulders and spinning me so he could stare down at me. “You don’t. Not anymore,” he said, grasping my chin between his finger and thumb. “I am required to give all Fae and Fae Marked their proper rites in death. Anything else would be barbaric on my part.”
“So, because it isn’t what you believe, it’s automatically wrong?” I asked, crossing my arms over my chest and pursing my lips.
“No. It is wrong because all beings deserve to know they will be a part of this world after they’ve passed. To take what they once were and burn it is a crime against them,” he said.
“Because that’s what you believe.”
“Because I am the grandson of the Primordials themselves. Because I understand the dead and death more than perhaps anyone else in the two realms. Because for centuries I have guided souls to the Void to await the judgment of The Father and The Mother.”
“What do you care what becomes of us after we’re gone? You didn’t know him. You likely never will,” I said, and I realized the vehemence had faded from my voice. I wanted to understand, wanted to grasp why this male, who seemed to value so little, cared so much for what came after our souls left our bodies. And yet, he was willing to desecrate these bodies and pull them from the ground for his purpose, depriving them of their so-called burial rites.
The skeletons finished digging the shallow grave for the Fae Marked male, and Caelum crouched down beside the man to lift him into his arms. He lowered the body into the hole carefully, reaching into the pocket of his trousers and pulling out two shining silver coins. He placed one on top of each of the man’s eyelids, turning his attention back to me as I studied him intently. “I care because I would want someone to do the same for you if the time ever came. I care because the witches cursed us to maintain the balance of nature after the Fae became too powerful. The cycle of life is all a part of that balance, and to disrespect it is to threaten nature itself.”
“Why the coins?” I asked, closing my eyes as the skeletons began to push the soil they’d pulled from the ground back into the hole.
“The ferryman doesn’t work for free. Without the coins, the souls may not be permitted to cross the River Styx and enter the Void for decades. I’ve paid his fee countless times over my centuries of life, but I am not in Tar Mesa to do so now. All who die in the meantime are vulnerable,” he explained, stepping away from the hole in the ground and making his way toward the center of the street where the other Marked waited.
He raised his hands from where they hung at his side, tendrils of inky darkness spreading from his palms and forearms to fall to the ground all around us. The corpses of the Mist Guard rose once again, moving to the dirt expanse outside the city center. They knelt on the soil, digging their hands into it in the same way the others had dug a hole for the man.
“There is something cathartic about watching your enemies dig their own graves,” he said, turning back to me. His eyes glowed blue, the power pulsing off his body turning the air suffocating. The breath was wrenched from my lungs, leaving them seizing in my chest when that powerful gaze narrowed on me.
Even knowing what he was now, even seeing him in all his glory, there were still traces of the man I’d fallen in love with. There were still notes of the human within the God, and I wondered if it would ever not hurt to look at him.
“Don’t look at me like that,” he said, brows drawing together as he seemed to understand the emotion consuming me. But something else matched the heartache within me: malice rending my insides as the thing inside me fought to get free. My heart convulsed in my chest, phantom claws digging into my beating flesh, as if the creature they belonged to might devour me to gain its freedom. His enemies digging their own graves only made me want the same for mine. His soul only drew from the darkest parts of mine, making me long for that sweeping vengeance I shouldn’t want for myself.
“Caelum,” I said, my voice a plea even though I didn’t want to offer any weakness. What existed inside me now had never been there before, the shadowed tendrils on my hand begging to reach out and touch the power he used to control the dead. They called to me, tugging me toward them as if I belonged more with the dead than I did with the living.
“Do you know how much it hurt? To know that every time you looked at me, you didn’t really see me?” he asked, stepping toward me. Each slow step brought his power closer, wrapping me in that suffocating embrace as the scent of musky decay, like the rotting of leaves in autumn, washed over me. There was something fresh and crisp behind it, the smell of Caelum permeating through the haze that came with his power. “To know that if I showed you my true form, you would run from me?”
“Do you know how much it hurts to know that everything was a half-truth?” I asked, bending over and pressing a hand to my heart as I fought for control. He would tear whatever he’d put inside me free, by force, if he touched me, yanking the power I didn’t want out of me.
“We have all the time in the world, min asteren,” he said, pausing a step away. As if he could sense that I wouldn’t be able to tolerate his touch, wouldn’t survive being dragged one more step away from my humanity. “You’ll see soon enough that everything I have done has been for you, to ease the inevitable transition in your life and protect you from what’s coming.”
“What’s coming? Do you mean something other than being forced to be your mate?” I asked, and if it hadn’t been for the pain riding my body, I might have scoffed. He acted as if he were the victim, and he had no control over what happened to me because of the bond I hadn’t asked for.
“I cannot force you to accept the mate bond,” he said through gritted teeth. “No matter what you think of me right now, the Fae do not cross some boundaries that humans have no qualms about crossing. We do not rape. We do not force a bond that will last for an eternity the way you would have been forced into a marriage you didn’t desire.”
“You’ll just force me to come to Alfheimr and live by your side, either way,” I said, my legs threatening to give out beneath me. The God of the Dead narrowed his eyes on the hand that I pressed into my chest, as if I could shove that power back inside of me and keep it from escaping. He tipped his head to the side, raising his hand with the circle on the back of it to linger over my chest.
“No,” he said, shaking his head sadly. He dropped his hand slowly, his shocking bright blue eyes clouding to black as he glanced over his shoulder at the place where the Mist Guard dug their own graves. All but one of them dropped into the holes they’d made, pulling dirt back onto themselves as the remaining members assisted in the burials. “If you choose it, I will leave you to live out your life in the Winter Court. My mother will care for you like one of her own, and I will stay away.”
I studied him, my brow furrowing as I fought to understand why he would make that concession. Why would he allow such a thing when he’d gone to so much trouble to make me fall in love with him? This entire conversation felt like a trap. “I don’t understand.”