“Victoria, I’m not here to sacrifice myself,” he says gently. “I’m here to bring you back.”
“But…”
He twists to face Krokan. The old god seems amused by this turn of events. At least so far as I can tell from the wriggling of his tentacles and the gleam in his emerald eyes. His rage has dissipated…at least for now.
“I have come before you, Your Greatness, to ask for you to return this woman to me. If she cannot quell your rage, then permit her to stay with me in the Eversea until the end of our natural days when we will come to you again, as willing offerings.”
“She has been marked for me. A promise has been made by your people—an oath. Such things are not so easily broken.”
Don’t I know it?I’ve paid and paid for broken oaths. And…I’m so tired of the cost.
“Weren’t you going to cast me aside?” I take a half step toward Krokan. The old god bristles, tentacles tensing briefly. “You said I was not worthy. That I was a failure of an offering. If I was so terrible, then let me go.”
Ilryth weaves his fingers with mine. “I am here to change what we must, to change fate itself. Lord Krokan, I would like to propose we come to a different arrangement. As I am sure you can see, we will stop at nothing to be together. Your storms have grown worse, the rot thicker. It is clear she is worth more to me than to you. Give her back, I beg of you.”
“Tell me what she is worth to you,” Krokan demands.
Ilryth nods. He stretches out his arms as if he’s trying to hold the whole world in his reach. Instead, he fills the entirety of the Abyss with sound. The notes, shapeless and as flowing as the sea, radiate off him as strands of pure light that break free of his glow. They drift through the ether that surrounds us, curling, splitting, changing shape. I recognize them as a variance of the marks on my skin and his. This is how the language of the gods was born. From this ether where all life crawled from, and where all will return.
The song is a variant of what Ilryth sang at my send-off but I can truly hear it now in all its meaning and glory. It tells the same story of our love, but holds nothing back. It isn’t curated or curbed for any reason. It is raw and powerful. He beats his chest with his fist. He pleads and begs through music.
It makes my soul feel so light that my feet barely touch the ground. He wants me, truly and completely.He wants me. I never thought it could feel so good to be wanted again. That it could ever happen. Even if Ilryth’s plea doesn’t work, this moment is more than enough to give me peace for the rest of eternity.
But I wonder if it will be enough for Krokan to agree to Ilryth’s proposal. The old god has gone still, listening. He sways slightly with the rhythm of Ilryth’s words.
Ilryth falls to his knees before the divine being, holding one last, sustained note, and then is silent.
If I had breath to breathe, I would be holding it. Ilryth doesn’t move. We are both trapped in the stasis of awaiting judgment. I do not expect my lover’s plea to work, but then Krokan turns to me.
“And what of you? What is your song?”
“My song?”
“Yes, he has so eloquently laid himself bare. But we wish to know, are his affections one-sided? Do you feel as he does?”
As he does… The words repeat in my head. I heard his song now, and when I left the mortal world. I know what every sound meant, and yet I still doubt. I still question what I felt—what he feels.
This is all so fast, so sudden, so soon. I feel as though I have known Ilryth for my entire life, and yet not at all. We only existed as we were because wecouldn’texist. We shouldn’t be together and so, when we were, there was no fear, or doubt, because there were no expectations. There didn’t have to be a future. Or the questions of whether we could work. Everything could be a dream, rather than the concerns of a practical reality.
And yet…I want to find out. I want to know what our possibilities could be.
Thatis where my song begins: With the end. With the here and now. With wondering what we could be if we were given the chance, if the world was designed a little differently.
My song is as slow as I wish Ilryth and I could’ve taken our relationship. It is as delicate as the mending pieces of my heart. I never allowed myself to wonder what could be next. I never thought there might be love for me again someday. I wasn’t supposed to feel these emotions in the aftermath of heartbreak.
All of this was supposed to be simple. I was supposed to selfishly live to my fullest during the five years I was granted and then die without much thought. But none of it happened the way I thought. I lived for my family and for my crew as much as—if not more than—myself. My death wasn’t quick and thoughtless. It has become a bundle of complexities that I wasn’t supposed to hold and don’t want to let go of.
I find the notes as I go and pour myself into every single one. When I’m finished, I am on my knees next to Ilryth. Krokan is still.
“You have moved me, mortals. But perhaps, more importantly, you have moved my bride.” Lord Krokan’s eyes go dim, as though he’s closing them, communing with his entrapped partner high above the waves. I think back to when Ilryth took me to the beach, to when I imagined Lellia looking down on us from her wooden prison and thinking to herself that finally an offering had honored her and Krokan correctly.
Not with sacrifice and estrangement…but with love.
“I shall give you one final chance,” the old god decrees. “You shall return to the surface and have your opportunity together. But how long that opportunity lasts will ultimately be up to you.”
Ilryth flashes me a look of disbelief, a relieved smile that stretches across his cheeks. He thinks we have won. But I am far too experienced in negotiations such as this to think that it will be so simple.
“What must we do to ensure the opportunity lasts as long as possible?” I ask outright.
