“It is all going to be alright, Finny,” Eleanor said, her eyebrows drawn together.
“I am cursed. You speak of a man I do not recall.” His racing heart drummed in his chest, pulling the muscles painfully taut. He pressed his trembling hand on his pec, tracing the snaked spill of his curse mark. “I do not know what is real anymore.”
And that terrifies me.
13
A SOUL FOR A SOUL
Cassian
The Past
Do not seekme out again. I mean it.
Cassian sat on his throne. He brushed his thumb over his bottom lip in a repetitive motion, mind lost in the final moments he’d shared with Finnian a few days prior.
The young god’s touch, the taste of his lips—they haunted him. How long could he stay away from Finnian? Was that truly what Finnian wished?
Cassian glided a hand through his hair and sighed.
A light gust brushed across his cheek. In his periphery, Mavros materialized beside him.
“My lord,” he greeted, reverently.
“How many souls today?” Cassian asked, continuing to peer through the long stretch of his throne room.
“One. He has come to you several times before.”
Cassian rested his head back on the stone. “Bring them in.”
“My lord, before we begin, I must inform you, there are over one-hundred souls unaccounted for today. The Erraisay it is the young god.”
Cassian’s jaw set, a stone hardening in his chest. “I will deal with it.”
“Iliana has sent herboydenwith a message requesting an update on the issue.”
“Mavros,” Cassian turned his head to look over at his attendant.
Mavros’s gaze flitted down at him. “Yes, my lord?”
“Please bring in the soul so I can move along with my day.”
Mavros gave an exasperated sigh and bowed his chin obediently. “Right away, my lord.”
The massive iron doors unfolded at the end of the hall. A soul flanked by two Errai entered down the velvet pathway lining their feet. The hem of the deities’ graphite cloaks swayed at their ankles as they strode. Their plated masks glistened like liquid white and black marble under the firelight.
Cassian took in the soul between them. It appeared in its human form, but Cassian could see the beaming orb of red tinges flaring at different capacities, like a ball of berry crimson, levitating in the space of its ribcage.
Once a soul entered the afterlife, they could choose to shed their human forms and scour the Land in the natural forms of their spirit. However, the trend was to do it only at night or deep within shadows of the wisteria. As the dusk fell upon the realm, glowing orbs of light filled Caius and illuminated the trees like vibrant treasures.
Cassian loved to sit and watch them on the balcony of his bedchamber, swirling around the midnight sky.
Like fireflies.
Finnian, feathered in the snowy moonlight, appeared in his thoughts.
He swiftly dismissed the image and refocused, analyzing the soul a bit longer.
