“Another,” the shadow whispered.
“Another?” my mother said.
She struggled to sit up, scooping the little baby into her hands. She brought it to her bosom, cradling it until its little hands flexed. My mother stared at it, her face vacant of expression as the newborn gradually came to life in her palms.
“Another,” she said softly. “He does not need to know.”
“He does not need to know,” the shadow repeated.
Beg the devil, little one,
but the devil does not bargain with mortals.
~ Christopher Elliot II
I watched the sun sink into the ocean like a dying angel being swallowed up by hell. The water fell dark again, as did the sky, and still, Dahlia had not opened her eyes. It was feeling more and more like I’d lost her with every passing day. A very familiar cavity was forming in my heart where the people I cared about were being taken away from me and leaving emptiness behind. I had made an effort once not to hold people so close for that reason and I had failed without even knowing it. An old rigidity was grinding at my soul and as I glared into the sea, I swore on my life that I would find him somehow. Akareth. I didn’t care what he was or what he could do. I would find him.
The camp was more solemn that night when I returned from the beach. The men were getting restless. We’d been on that damned island longer than I had intended. That no xhoth or sirens had come to attempt an assault was either luck or part of a bigger plan. Considering my current prisoner, I was inclined to think it was the latter.
“Does it exhaust you?” Lyla spoke through the silence as I passed her tight little prison. “Hanging onto hope when you know it’s useless? The longer you hold onto it, the more it will hollow you out when it’s gone.”
I turned slowly toward her, all will to react to her prodding comments gone and decayed. In front of her sat a plate of half-eaten fish. I was tempted to put the harness back over her face before she finished just so I could be rid of that conniving tone.
“I haven’t the energy to ask for your help anymore, Lyla,” I muttered.
“Perhaps you should sleep. I hear you slept rather peacefully the other night,” she giggled.
The urge to cut off her bottom jaw so she could not speak such taunting words whispered through my hands, but still, I did not act. It was no use. And perhaps it was my lack of action that upset her the most. I could hear her shifting against her binds. Being tied with her arms behind her for days must have been taking its toll, though she had not shown it.
“You know how to save her,” she whispered. “You are too much of a coward to do it, though.”
“There is—”
“You have to kill her. You realized it the first time you asked for my help, deep down. Why don’t you do it? Give her that sweet relief. I’m sure she’s been begging for it in that nightmare she’s been living in for three days. Imagine wanting it all to end and going unheard. If you care for her, you would—”
“That is what you don’t understand. Dahlia won’t break. I know her too well. You,” I scoffed. “You may have shared a womb with her, but you know nothing of the woman she is. If he has broken her, she would be awake. You said it yourself. That’s what he wants, for her to go to him. She sleeps because she is fighting. Because he cannot break her.”
“You think too highly of her.”
I slowly leaned in, searching for any hint of regret in the monster before me. If it was there, it was less than embers.
“I do care for her. And I know her enough to be certain she feels sorry for you, even if you are the worst of it all. Iloveher and Iknowshe will come back to me.”
“Do you know how pathetic you sound, wishing for more than impossibilities? Even if she comes back, Akareth is inside her. He’s a part of her and she will never be the same. What use will you serve when she realizes Akareth has won? You were her shield against his influence and now he’s wriggled past you. You failed.”
“Want me to gag her again?” Cathal asked.
I shook my head, exasperated with the whole situation.
Lyla huffed, trying to smile, but I could tell it was an effort to do so. Her eyes grabbed me like barbed hooks, and I could see she was searching for something. Something she wanted but could not find.
“What is love, hunter?” she whispered. “Why do you all cherish it so?”
“Something you’re incapable of feeling.”
“I know. Which is why I want you to explain it to me. Assuming you understand it any better.”
Narrowing my eyes, I shifted my stance to face her fully. “Love is what I feel for Dahlia. That is all I can define it as.”
