And I loved it.
I refused to give up my bond to her, and they wrenched it away from me! Now I’m down here—does that mean she’s dead? I cast about for the bond but can’t feel it. Her death would’ve been the only thing that could plunge me back down here. I scramble around, searching my spotty memories for her soul passing through me to the otherworld.
I don’t have a memory of it.
What does that mean?
Could one of the other horsemen have been there? Did they help Baba Yaga and Lechuza? Did they all work against me? Rage floods my insides, and I release the nuclear bomb the humans leveled at me. The place I’ve been sleeping explodes outward, and suddenly, I’m nearing light again.
But instead of finding myself on the surface of earth like I should. . .I awaken into a place I’ve never seen. It’s a place of light and dark—so bright I can barely see, with deep shadows so dark they look like stains of sticky pitch stretching dark and ominous toward the invisible horizon. “Hello?”
I stand and walk across the strange chamber. It seems to have no end, and no beginning. It just runs on and on.
“Where am I?” I shout.
Nothing.
So I whisper. “Why am I here? Where is this?”
Child, you have changed.
As if to punctuate the words, the shadows ripple, and the light beams shift and scatter and reform.
“Where am I?”
You should be asking where you are not. You’re awake, but you are not in your place, doing your work.
“I—I was doing my work,” I say. “But. . .” I can’t quite bring myself to explain that I abandoned my duties for a human. Because I like her.
You’ve changed. You were glorious, pure dark energy, but now, you are more. You’ve formed into a shape, a unique and strange shape.
A gong sounds and my entire body and soul vibrates right along with it, my energies floating up in front of me. I’ve never seen my own soul. I had no idea it was so dark. I never thought I was truly bad.
Not bad, child. The darkness isn’t the same as the evil strands you see in others. You’re pure death energy, my own creation. My shepherd to bring my souls back home. But now.
Another gong.
My soul ripples in front of me.
A bright, golden strand twists through the rest, casting shadows across the other strands, pulsing strong and bright.
“What is that?”
You have changed. She has changed you.
“But what does it mean?” I feel almost frantic. “And can you tell me whether Whitney Brooks’s soul passed through to the otherworld?”
The sound of chuckling is strange, but unmistakable. The bright strand in my soul ripples and widens right in front of my eyes. You change even now. Your soul longs for hers.
I shake my head. “No, I don’t. I’m just worried about her. She’s like a pet to me. Like my axolotls.”
Not so. You can lie to others, but never to me. You long for her deeply. She has changed who you are in your very center.
“If I’ve changed. . .am I no longer your horseman?”
You face a choice. You may pluck the light that has sprouted inside of you because of the child of balance. Or you may feed it, and you may draw nearer to her, but if you choose to nourish that sprout, you may no longer be my horseman of pure dark.
The voice is sad. That’s unmistakable.
