Total pages in book: 115
Estimated words: 110034 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 550(@200wpm)___ 440(@250wpm)___ 367(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 110034 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 550(@200wpm)___ 440(@250wpm)___ 367(@300wpm)
But I wasn’t. I’m not.
It was just a lie that I told myself.
I am in love with Death.
My husband.
My God.
An immortal God who should have never been able to die.
Fuck.
A raw sob escapes me and the tears now pour like a waterfall. I collapse onto his body, pressing my ear against his chest, hoping I can hear a heartbeat, even if faint, but there’s nothing, nothing at all. Each moment that passes contains the singular realization that he’s never coming back.
“No,” I cry out. My fingers wrap around his leather vest, the shirt underneath, and I’m pulling it off, undressing him until I see his skin, feel it beneath my touch. He’s growing colder.
I press my lips to his collarbone, his chest, tasting his skin and then I pull back to look him over. He’s a fully bronzed color, like he’s spent all his life under the sun instead of the exact opposite. There’s not a single line of silver on him. No more runes, no more traces of the dead that have gone before him.
No sign at all that he was a God.
I sit back and stare, having never seen him like this.
He almost looks human.
Mortal.
Is this what he is now? A fallen God becomes a fallen mortal?
“I love you,” I whisper to him, barely able to speak. My throat feels like it’s closing up, choking on tears. “I should have told you that I loved you, but I didn’t know. I didn’t want to know. I was so afraid. Afraid what loving you would mean. I shouldn’t have been afraid, Tuoni. I don’t want to be afraid anymore. Fear is…” I close my eyes, trying to breathe through the pain, “Fear is the real death. It’s what keeps us from living. I should have been fully alive with you.”
Despite the urgency in my words, the love in them, the honesty, the room remains quiet. I don’t even hear the rest of the Inmost. It’s like we’re the only two people left in Hell. I have to wonder if that’s true. If Salainen and Death’s Shadow Self go on to impersonate me and Death, then they could turn this City on its head. They could imprison those in Amaranthus down here, they could let the Inmost dwellers have control of the Golden Mean. They could raise the Old Gods, cut open a hole to Kaaos, and let all of Tuonela destroy itself.
I feel like I’m in the last scene of a horror movie, when all the world outside is crumbling, monsters running amok, and I’m one of the last sane people alive, locked away in an asylum. God, I hope that’s not happening out there.
But then again, what does it matter if I’m going to die?
It matters because of your father, a voice inside my head says. It matters because when he dies, he won’t have Death to guide him to where he belongs. He will be in Hell along with everyone else.
“And what the fuck am I supposed to do about it?” I growl. I’m trapped here, with my dead husband. If the God of Death can die, there is no hope for me, no hope for anyone.
And yet…and yet…
I find myself reaching down for Death’s hand, sheathed in leather. I grip his mid-forearm, just where the glove ends, and hold his hand up. It’s heavy as a log and limp in my grasp.
I reach for the tips of his fingers and then gather the leather in-between mine, slowly pulling the glove off until his hand is bare.
I stare at it, gawking, his bare hand in the soft glow of the sunmoonstone. How large and strong and beautiful it is. How bare it is without the crisscrossing runes.
If he is dead, then he no longer has the touch of death.
And if I am wrong, I will find out soon.
Oblivion might be a better Hell than this.
I bring his hand toward me, still holding him by his forearm.
A single tear rolls down my cheek.
I suck in my breath.
Before I lose my nerve, I press his bare palm against my cheek, placing my other hand over it to hold him in place.
Nothing happens.
There’s no sensation but cold.
I press his palm harder against my cheek, feeling how terribly soft his skin is, wishing upon wishing that I could have done this while he was alive.
And still, there is nothing.
He does not stir and I am still here.
My eyes flutter closed and I cry. Just holding him, holding on. I don’t know what I thought would happen, and I still don’t know if I’m able to touch him like this because he’s dead or because I’m the prophesized one, but I hold him close just the same.
I don’t know how long I must sit there crying, letting my tears spill over his fingers as I hold his hand to my face, but it feels like the room is getting brighter somehow.