And if this was hell… did that mean there was a devil?
Every culture I’d ever studied had some version of it. The Greeks had Hades, the Norse Hel, and the Egyptians called it Duat. Always a heaven. Always a hell. Always light and dark.Balance.
That word again, the one he kept using over and over.He was telling me his people had once been that balance and had lost their way.
My stomach twisted.
What the hell had I gotten myself into?
I rubbed at my arms, trying to chase away the chill. Why me? Out of all the humans stolen by the Cryons—millions, maybe billions, spread across stars and cages and auction blocks—whyme? Why had the Abyss bent to drag me here, now?
I thought of Ed, the moment his hand slipped out of mine, his voice calling my name as the ground shook and split. He was probably gone, just like the others. Ninety-nine people, and I was the only survivor, sitting at a table with a golden war-god who claimed me as hisAelyth.
I wanted to scream. I wanted to laugh. I wanted to demand answers from a universe that wasn’t listening. Instead, I sat there, my hands curling into fists and my throat tightening.
Why me?
And why did some traitorous part of me feel the answer wasn’t random at all?
I cleared my throat; the sound was too loud in the heavy silence. My palms were damp, my heart racing, but I forced the words out anyway.
“Not to be insensitive,” I began, fighting against the growing lump in my throat, “but I still don’t get what myroleis in all this. Why me? And…” I swallowed because with every word, every thought, my mouth became drier. “What are you going to doto me?”
The question hung between us like a blade. Making me think of the pendulum from the Edgar Allan Poe story. What was it called? How did it go? It didn't matter; my mind was just going haywire, trying to hang onto something, anything, no matter how unimportant. All so it could avoid dealing with Zaph.
For a heartbeat, nothing happened. Then, without warning, an image slammed into my mind—I always had a vivid imagination. A stone altar slick with blood, a body laid across it, pale arms bound, a knife glinting above.
Me.
I jerked back, bile rose in my throat, and my hands trembled. It wasn’t real. It couldn’t be real. And yet, here, in this place where nothing obeyed the rules I’d always believed in, it felt horribly possible. My stomach churned, and I pressed a hand to my mouth. “God,” I whispered, “am I just—what? A sacrifice? Some… offering?”
I squeezed my eyes shut, willing the image away, but it clung to me, the weight of it pressing into my chest. When I dared to look up, his black eyes were already on me, burning through the fear I couldn’t hide.
He didn’t laugh. Not out loud. But I could almostfeelhis chuckle, like it was vibrating in the air between us, warm and sharp and utterly infuriating.
“Do you know what a soulmate is?” he asked.
The words hit me like a slap. My brain scrambled, flipping through every definition I’d ever heard. Of course I knew. Everyone knew—two people who were destined for each other.
Made for each other.
Two people who…
My eyes locked on his, which were black and burning and far too intent. My heart climbed into my throat, hammering so hard it almost choked me. Two people in love. Two people who belonged to each other. Two people who were crazy about each other, by all accounts.
I swallowed; my gaze searched his features desperately for the joke. The smirk. The crack in the mask. Anything to tell me this wasn’t what it sounded like. Nothing. His expression was carved in stone, his aura pulsed faintly gold around the edges, steady as a heartbeat.
My stomach flipped.No. No, no, no. He had to be insane. That was it. A crazy alien stalker. Like those guys who send women handwritten letters in crayon about how the CIA implanted a chip in their teeth and onlytrue lovewill stop the invasion of the mole people. Or like those doomsday preppers who hoard canned beans in a bunker and swear the government is controlling the weather with microwaves. Only instead of beans, he collected galaxies, and instead of a bunker, he lived inside a black hole.In a palace, my snarky self added.
Another idea hit me, maybe he was like that person in that movie,10 Cloverfield Lane.The one where the guyrescuesa woman after a car crash and locks her in his basement, swearing the world outside is overrun by aliens. At first, you’re like,yeah, right, buddy, she’s obviously been kidnapped by a lunatic with a bunker fetish.
That was me now. Sitting across from the lunatic.At least until… my heart plummeted, because in the movie—God help me—in the end, the guy had been telling the truth all along—he was still batshit crazy, but that was beside the point.
What if that was Zapharos, too? What if the crazy wasn’t crazy at all, but reality had twisted so far past what I understood that it only looked insane? That madness had glowing skin, a murder sword, and the unnerving ability to bend physics around his pinky finger.
Great. My soulmate was an immortal, overpowering space lunatic.
Fear made my skin prickle, my pulse rabbit-fast. And as always, when terror tried to choke me, my mouth saved me. “So how come I’m not head over heels in love with you, huh?” I shot back using my sarcasm as my last defense. “Shouldn’t I be swooning by now? Throwing myself at your feet or whatever?”
