Too fucking right, they can’t.At least someone realises this. Too bad it isn’t the snake, and it would slither off back to where it came from, never to be seen or heard from again.
But that’s the kicker, right?
The snake is somehow the Wraith Crown. And the Wraith Crown needs a wearer. Someone who isn’t a god. And yet I’m being told I am one, just not fully realised yet. These contradictions are making my head spin, and then it all becomes clear, even though it was in front of me the entire time.
To shed your mortal coil.
I have to die to ascend.
I scoff, shaking my head as I pick up pace. “Why wasn’t once enough?” I pant to no one.
Because the universe loves a punchline.
I slow to a jog, but I don’t stop. I am not negotiating with that thing. Not now. Not when it has tripped me up by demanding my mortality. Blood, truth, fear… any of those things would’ve been fine. But no. It wants the one thing I can’t give.
“Are you there?” I pant out loud.
The snake’s voice echoes in my head.Always. You can’t escape me.
“If I give you what you want, how does that make me able to stop the Devourer?”
Silence that isn’t silence answers. Then the thought threads through my bones like wire.
A mortal cannot command the dead. A god cannot wear the leash. Become neither.
“I’m already neither,” I bite out. “Newsflash. Complicated bitch here.”
Not neither. Between. Shed. Moult. One death for the crown. All deaths for the Devourer.
I slow to a walk, lungs burning, eyes stinging from the wind. Moult. Of course the bastard would use snake metaphors.
“What does that even mean?” I ask, glad that the gods have decided to give me my space.
It takes its time answering. Of course it does. Ancient things never use one word when a riddle will do.
The old skin must split,it breathes into my bones. Leave it on the stone. Step out between.
“You want me to… moult my humanity like a snake?” I ask. “Do you hear yourself?”
Silence. Then:Yes.
I roll my eyes, and I stop dead, chest heaving as I place my hands on my knees to catch my breath. The wind skates over my damp skin like knives. “I thought gods couldn’t touch you.”
It chuckles.Most cannot.
“Who can?”
You.
I nod grimly with a sigh. “Of course. Why me?”
I jump when it slithers around my ankle and makes its way up my leg. “You killed Aethel.”
“And if I hadn’t?”
It doesn’t answer me.
Chapter 12
