Into the Deep Wood

No matter who you see or meet in the coming days, you must never speak of that. No one.

Gods.

The ghast had done what it intended in retaliation. Val would not let go, not until it was unbound. And now… Now, Marat’s eyes were on her. His look stole any breath she had to spare for words.

She did not mean to hide anything from him… she had not meant to lie.

How could she tell a hunter that she’d become his prey? How could she tell the man who searched the world and beyond for her that she’d given up and let someone else into her bed?

How could she break him so soon after he had made her whole?

“Val…”

The thin streams of blood had spilled down his chest, drawing stripes across his skin and dripping onto the floor. He held his hand to it but otherwise seemed oblivious.

“Marat…”

“The creatures lie, and she had plenty of reason to.” He lifted his hand slightly, in its stead following a barely audible squelch of skin and blood separating. “But I do not think it did just then.”

“Please…”

“What did she mean.” His tone.

She tried to find the words.

“I’d thought you dead… he was–”

“Gods, Val!” He stood, and the blood drops from his chest smeared on the floor under his foot. “Not that. As if I did not know. One second with the man and it was written all over him, come on. What did she mean about the Nothing? The Mother?”

She paled. He’d known…

“Can we sit?” She stepped to the bed, lowering herself on the messy sheets where they had slept so peacefully so recently that they were still warm. He walked to her but did not sit down.

“You keep them around as pets, befriend them –gods, but you invited it for tea!” She heard the familiar anger. It had been so long since she heard that.

Some things, even death, had not changed.

“I spent too long in the woods…” she whispered. “She told me once, long ago, ‘the forests eat you from the inside; you can’t spend so long in the woods.” And that is what I had done. I went back to the Glade. I lived there. I wanted to do what the Hag could. I wanted to shift time to find you.”

He brought both hands up to his face, taking a deep breath as he ran them across it in frustration. The bloody one left a long trail of dark red across his cheek.

“Valeria.” He said, and it seemed like he wanted to say more but couldn’t find the words.

“It was where I learned names, Marat. The first I’d ever said. ‘Sirin’.” She continued, even though hearing him say her name that time had sent a painful shiver down her spine. “But, I felt the pull before that. I don’t know when it was, but Sirin told me - I stopped smelling of sugar rot. None of them wanted me anymore. Time stopped for me; I have not aged a day since.”

“I know what a Sirin is. What the fuck is ‘sugar rot’?”

Again, so sharp. But where at one time it would have made her shrink away, it did not. He was but a man. A man who saw her as she was, and she’d seen him as well. And even this had been him.

“It is what they smell on mortal souls. She said men especially reek of it.” She explained, knowing that he was not truly asking.

“You forfeited it…” Quiet. Heartbroken.

This one had hurt more than the anger. More than frustration. He sat down next to her on the bed.

“I couldn’t hear them the way I do now. I couldn’t touch them then. I had only been aware that there was a thread and a tether to the Hag herself. Had I not, I wouldn’t have been able to close the Wound.” Val felt herself speaking faster, trying to reassure him. Her hand moved to find his, but when she touched it, he did not react.

“The entire time you were in the Glade…”

Her heart sank further. That was why he couldn’t find her… she knew that at this moment, he’d been thinking just that.

Seven years lost, and her soul gone.

“There’s more…” It was too late to go back. Something she had not told Ivan, not Iros, and not even admitted to herself at times. “Marat, I need you to trust me. Whatever I say next, just trust that I have done as I thought best - and I believe so still. With all my heart.”

Did not make a sound. But his hand twitched slightly, and she felt his fingers find hers.

“They all called her the Mother. And, when I went - she was all but gone.” Her voice did not waiver, even though inside, she felt a storm. “Korschey had done things to her. Things more evil than she ever had. She’d been hung in a trap of silver and gold. He’d chained each to something of hers inside. She could not speak, so she showed me all that he had done. She was angry. So angry; I had never felt a force like it before; it was not of this world. She wanted vengeance, and in that, she had surrendered what was left of her. To me.”

Quiet. Quieter than the spell of the Upyr. Maybe it was that blood rushed in her ears so fast that she could not even hear herself think.

“You took it.” It had not been a question. She could only give a single, slow nod.

“Not only did I take it. I welcomed it. I hear them. Not as she did when it drove her mad, but I hear them when I reach out. They are pain. They are hunger, fear, and regret. They’re lonely. And because of her, I can end that for them. In a way that they do not have to return - in a way that they do not come back out of a Wound to do it all again. I can release them.”

“Sometimes,” He said, “I forget how deeply your compassion reaches.”

She let out a very controlled breath of relief.

“But, at what cost to yourself?”

“I think,” she said, “this makes me a better hunter than even you - body for body.”

She felt the chuckle in the tremble of his chest; even if she did not hear it, it gave her a smile, however tense she’d been.

“Forgive me; I know I am not taking this well.” He said after a moment. “I cannot help but think of us, of the things that could have been in those seven years. But I think it is a selfish thought. One where I want you for myself. I realize now you do not belong to me.”

“Marat–” She felt the panic rise, but he stopped her.

“In the same way that I cannot fully belong to you. My heart is yours, and yours is mine –I know. But there are things far larger than you and I. And it seems that there is a bitter irony in that.”

“What do you mean?”

“The thing, it told you I had taken a life –a name.” He said. “It didn’t lie, but it was not quite the truth. I have not wanted to speak of this; our time had been too precious to me. I thought that if you knew, it would change things. I suppose we are similar in that.”

“Your death…”

“I did die, Val.” The silhouette of his face turned to her. “And then, you’d given me someone else’s life.”

“What?” She did not understand.

“Do you remember, once we left the River Cities, how you’d said you felt it in you? That you just knew? You haven’t mentioned it since you’ve returned, and I know why.”

“Marat, I was mistaken. The poison of the fig wine, I kept tasting it on my lips. After some time, it simply stopped.”

“No.” He shook his head. “You were pregnant, Val. We both knew it. We both knew it was a boy. We both knew it was a godchild.”

“I wasn’t…” She whispered, her eyes widening as the deeply buried memories flooded back. With how many horrors she had seen every night since that time, she seemed to forget one part completely.

Gods…

“I named it.” Barely a whisper, truly only a breath that escaped her mouth.

“You’d named him for me.” He said. “You’d willed the name of life to be mine to have. And so, it was. I don’t know how long you’d been gone when I woke. I would still be lying on the road, a sack of living bones, had Iros not come to get me. If Dimos had not commanded him.”

She’d named him. Like Korschey, she’d stolen her son’s life.

He felt her shaking and scooted closer, the warmth of his skin against hers. The cool sensation of the blood on him sticking to her skin.

“I am sorry you had to find out. I did not wish to resurface more old pain than I must.”

“I’m glad you told me.” Val said, the only thing racing across her mind was the emptiness - the absence she felt as she waited, waited for the ninth month, just to be sure. “What does this mean? I mean, for you?”

She thought again of Korschey. Emrys, he’d named his son. Immortal. Before he had consumed his flesh. What was it that she had named theirs?

“It means that I am the last. The last named god. With the River Cities destroyed, there will never be another.”

Her head snapped to him. She looked for any signs that Marat had been joking, it was very much like him to do so at very inopportune times. This, surely, would have been his finest work.

“Korschey did not wish for anyone to contest him. He’d burned the River Cities and, with them, the line that could produce the godchildren. Every last one. Every last Golden.” He continued, and she realized he had not been joking at all.

This was what she had seen… the vision, the man atop a horse while the cities burned.

“And so, I am the last.”

“But Dimos?”

“Dimos had been born of it. I’d only stolen someone else’s part. He was named for his people, and so that is what he has done - ensured the safety and wealth of his father’s kingdom. He still does so through me. And I,” Marat did not sound so certain, “I will simply never die. A sword will slay me still, but time will not. Dimos had said that when I walk with an army, the enemy will miss all but one of every ten shots. A sword will not dull, and a shield will not shatter. He told me I must lead the armies North to lessen the fog of death that follows war. He’d made me a general, a leader, that I was not. Not until I found you. Now, I must fulfill the oath asked of me.”

They sat in silence, their hands clasped together, a reminder that neither had been alone in the room.

He’d been right—a bitter irony.

Living outside of time, outside of death’s long reach.

And neither of their lives belonged to them now.

“I suppose this means that you do not have a mortal soul either, Marat.”