“To heal requires great sacrifice on my part,” I murmur, my tone turning unexpectedly gentle—as if her mere presence is softening edges I thought permanently sharp.
She lifts her head, eyes darting helplessly in the darkness. I can see perfectly; she cannot.
“Healing me would cause you suffering?” The distress on her face stops me cold.
No one has ever cared about the cost to me. I am merely a means to their ends.
Her expression crumples, and I watch, transfixed, as a tear catches the starlight on her cheek. “Then I’m sorry to have disturbed your sanctuary, God of darkness.”
I stand frozen, astonished. She would simply... leave? Abandon her plea because she learned it might harm me?
“You come to me displeased with the form you were given?” The words emerge rougher than I intend. She is still lovely. Her world allows her to exist among them. Whatever suffering she imagines?—
“It is killing me,” she says simply, face still bowed. “And I live in constant pain.”
“Many know pain,” I say, but something in my chest tightens. “Many die. Why should your case matter?”
She bows her head lower, and my enhanced vision catches every precious tear trailing down her cheeks—each one landing like a physical blow to whatever remains of my heart.
“It shouldn’t. I’m nothing special, and I know others suffer more than I do.” Then she raises her face again, though her bodyremains prostrate. “Perhaps you do, too. We who suffer... rarely find kindness in this world.”
The words hit me like a physical blow. My mind reels at this impossible creature before me.
I have the power she seeks, yes. My existence is pain, so what is a little more?
This—or its shadow—was part of what Creator-Father intended when he made me. Had he been capable of love, I might have granted such gifts gladly. But love was beyond him, especially for me. And so I have remained alone all these endless years.
Yet this tiny, exquisite being comes seeking the impossible, no doubt warned about this mountain and its monster... and still she climbed to me.
To me.
The courage required for this journey. The desperate determination. The way she crawls toward danger because her need is greater than her fear.
Or perhaps she simply despises her limitations and craves wholeness that desperately.
Either way, I find myself...intriguedby this unfamiliar feeling when I thought it long dead. I am condemned to this existence, and if she seeks miracles, perhaps I can ask for one in return.
“I will grant you the healing you seek?—”
Hope transforms her face like dawn breaking.
“—but I require something in return.”
“Anything,” she breathes, too quickly, because she cannot know what I will ask.
I feel my heart—if I still possess one—skip strangely before I speak my price.
“I will heal you on the condition that you remain with me. As my consort.”
Shock replaces hope on her features.
“For... how long?” she whispers.
I find myself almost smiling into the darkness, though she cannot see—and the expression feels foreign on my monstrous features. My request feels less like a demand and more like... a desperate plea I’m trying to disguise as power.
“Forever, of course. In exchange for your life and freedom from pain, you become mine.”
Mine to protect with every breath in my body. Mine to worship. Mine so that I will finally, finally not be alone anymore.
