When I was done, my breaths were still heavy, but even. The devil watched me in silence, his expression unreadable as his golden eyes studied me. He was devastatingly beautiful once more, and shame flushed through me at the state I was in, at how I had devoured the sap so brazenly. But when I looked at him, his eyes held no judgment. Only that same molten gold.
He extended his hand once more. “Come to me, Odessa.”
I didn’t move. My feet felt rooted to the earth. “Not until you tell me who you are.”
A faint frown touched his brow, but it smoothed. “As I said, I am yours.” He stepped closer. “And you are mine.”
I took a step back as he advanced. “I don’t know who you are.”
“That isn’t true,” he said, taking another step forward. “Your memories may elude you, but your body remembers. It calls to me, just as mine calls to yours.”
“I—” My voice faltered. Flashes returned to me, the way we were entangled, our lips lost on one another. I remembered that hunger, that overwhelming need I felt for him.
“I’ve waited for you,” the devil said, standing before me. “For so long.” His head tilted, eyes searching mine. “I knew you’d return to find me in Torhiel.”
I shook my head. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“You know my name,” the devil said, voice low.
“I don’t know you.”
“Say my name, Odessa,” he repeated.
“How could I?” My voice rose. “I’ve told you, I don’t know who you are!”
“You do,” he said evenly.
“No, I don’t!” I clutched the sides of my head, squeezing my eyes shut.
I had buried these memories so carefully. Sealed them away in a tomb I vowed never to disturb again. I’d ignored them in Brier Len. Suppressed them in Hyrall. Tried to dismiss them in Falhurst.
But here, in Torhiel, I couldn’t hold it back. Not anymore. I was tangled in a web of my own weaving, and now the threads were coming undone. My past had risen to meet me, and I could no longer run from it.
My face crumpled, and I shook my head as tears slipped down my cheeks.
The devil stepped closer, closing the space between us. He cupped my face in his hands, brushing the tears away with his thumbs, as if he could erase the pain, or carry the weight of it for me.
He whispered quietly, “Who am I?”
There was silence, then I answered, “You are Raithe, demigod of Vengeance.”
36
Raithe.Yellow eyes, bright as canaries.
Raithe. Golden eyes, molten, burning, endless.
I had met Raithe when I was young, though I didn’t understand what he was at the time. Each encounter, I tried to forget, to lock that part of my life away as if it had never happened. But memory, like fate, has a way of returning. I found it ironic that the very beings I had feared as a child were the ones I later revered. Demons. Devils. Gods. Whatever name they wore, it was all the same. They shifted roles: kind in one breath, cruel in the next, indifferent soon after. There was no true good or evil, only action and consequence.
I learned that lesson early, with Raithe.
He found me when I was twelve, in the woods of Brier Len. He claimed I had summoned him, though I hadn’t meant to. That night, I ran into the forest, terrified that my mother had been killed by my father. Fear, panic, and adrenaline crashed through me in tandem. I was just a child, and so was he. Raithe looked no older than me, maybe a year at most. He watched from the shadows as I wept, my body trembling from the trauma I’d just endured.
He told me he had heard my cry. That my fury had reached all the way to Torhiel.
He said the wrath in my soul was so potent, he couldn’t ignore it even if he tried. But he hadn’t come to strike a bargain. He offered me a gift, his power, raw and divine, with nothing asked in return. No price. No pact. He only said that no deal could ever be made between us, and that one day, I’d understand why. He wouldn’t tell me more.
“If Torhiel wills it,” he said, “you will come to know.”
