Her love for Acacius could be the thing to break her, but it could also be the thing that she’d longed for her entire life.
I will never disappoint you. She held onto his promises.
Not once had he failed in keeping his word.
Marina lowered her arms from her father’s neck, and grabbed onto his hand. “I have to go back, to the one that I love.”
Father cupped her cheek, smiling softly. “Go back and live the best life that you can. Forgive yourself. Do not cry for me any longer. When you killed me, you set me free, Marina.”
Her lips quivered, fresh tears burning her eyes as she tilted her head into his palm. “I love you, Father.” She grasped at his knuckles, memorizing the touch of his skin one last time. “Deeper than the earth.”
He laughed lightly, slipping his hand around her hair and pulling her forehead to his lips. “And I love you, deeper than the earth.”
She bowed her head, unable to control her blubbering breath.
Fissures cracked in her heart, swelling through her chest. It hurt, the grief and knowing that she would never see him again. And suddenly, she understood her little brother’s obsession of fighting the throes of death.
You set me free.
Marina remembered Father’s journey into the Land of the Dead, greeted by his lover and their child, and how his entire being had let out a breath of relief, holding them in his arms.
Pain is a lesson.
A heartbreak that had woken her up.
Perhaps, eventually, she could find the strength to forgive herself.
Father squeezed her hand as he dipped his forehead to hers. “I am so proud of you.”
Before she could respond, he lurched her forward off her feet.
She plummeted through the water beneath them, sinking into its vast stomach. Its frigid temperature shocked her system, and her body tensed under the weight of the waves. The ebony water filled her lungs.
Marina,a voice quaked, its sound muffled in her drowning ears.
She felt her pulse flutter in her throat, a lifeline that she grabbed onto, letting it anchor her back to where she belonged.
The shadows came alive below her, like an umbral, sentient whirlpool. Tendrils slithered up from its body and curled around her ankle, snatching her under.
Marina!
She choked on the lump swelling in her throat, watching the silhouette of Father from above fade into a glimmer of light.
I am so proud of you.
The words sank down into her soul, hugging the ten-year-old version of her that had longed to hear his praise.
She smiled as her wounds mended.
MARINA!
She was pulled into the heart of the chasm, drowning out the last of the light.
The midnight, it felt like home.
35
FEEL IT ALL TOGETHER
