Removing even the tiniest specks of corrosion from her form, I stroked her cheek, willing her muscles to ease and give where her shoulders wanted to stiffen. “Shh… it is almost over now. Take two deep breaths. One for you. One for our baby.”

“Our baby,” she said, then inhaled.

Inhaled again.

Nodded.

“Wait,” I said when Eilam stepped closer, letting my arm clasp around Ada’s waist while I cupped her face. “Any moment now, you will leave the prison of your death. I will be neither guard nor master, neither punishment nor absolution. Only your husband who loves you very much. The question is, what will you be? I need to hear it.”

Say that you love me.

For a couple of breaths, Ada only stared at me, but understanding soon dawned on her as she mirrored my gesture and cupped my face. “And if I don’t answer, will you keep me trapped in death?”

I forced a smile. “Facing the premise of losing you this very moment, I just might.”

Ada smiled back and patted my cheek, thumbing the emerging stubble on my chin the way she did often and seemed to enjoy. “If that is true, then you don’t deserve the answer until after.”

That made me grin with its painful truth. No, I had botched our relationship once by wearing it down with old distrust, and I would not risk it again. Would trust she had found some love for me. That my little one would return to me. Always and forever return to me.

If not… well…

…I could always collar her again.

I gave her a nod. “Stubborn, obstinate, beautiful woman.”

“Arrogant, cruel, annoyingly handsome god.”

I placed a kiss to her lips, trying to taste the remnants of the vows she had given, the devotion with which she had once spoken them. “I shall ask you again once your heart beats on its own.”

Eilam leaned slightly forward, bringing his lips close enough to hers that my jaws clenched, leaving but a sliver of air between them. Air which turned frigid, letting even my little one’s breath billow. Eilam’s eyes blackened further, seemingly turning into liquid tar.

I watched with sheer wonder, having never witnessed my brother’s power of giving and taking life.

But only until all strength was sucked from Ada’s form, as though she was nothing but a puppet with its strings cut unexpectedly, and I could not keep her upright.

Heart hammering in my chest, I caught her in my arms and pulled her against me. “Ada! Ada, what is it?” No reaction. Not even a blink. “What have you done to her?”

“This has never been attempted before, Enosh.” Eilam frowned at my wife, observing her, and I could find no malice on his face so unaccustomed to hiding its emotions. “I presume she requires more life than I usually give, its force so strong that her form cannot endure as it enters her. You ought to… do it for her somehow.”

“If it is strong enough to threaten her form, the same might be true for her soul, and we ought to call upon the God of Whispers,” I said, then spoke into the room for Ada and the other mortal to hear. “Yarin, brother, you are needed.”

Nothing.

No Yarin.

I mumbled a dozen curses before I tried again with more vigor. “Uncle Yarin, you are needed.”

“Anything for my little niece or nephew. Ada, is that not what you mortals—” He stiffened while he still came into his form beside us, wearing nothing but breeches and one boot. “My, my, my… it seems as though I have missed all the fun. Whyever is your wife’s soul spinning?”

“You ought to ensure that its chains remain intact while Eilam gifts his breath. It was strong enough that even I failed to keep her standing.” When my little one shifted in my arms, I cupped her cheek. “Nothing but a fainting spell of some sort. We will try again now, yes?”

A heavy gulp tugged on her throat, but she nodded. “I’m ready.”

Yarin stepped closer, bringing his palm to her sternum as his eyes narrowed with focus. “Let’s get this on with. There is something I need to… finish.”

When the air turned frigid and Eilam’s eyes blackened once more, I braced against the violent force of his breath. It swirled around us, cold and biting, leeching all strength from my muscles, unleashing havoc on my focus as it tousled through my hair. Until, with a beat of entire stillness, as though time suspended itself for one breath, we all froze.

Ada sucked in a deep breath and stared at us as color flushed into her face, eyes frantically bouncing from Eilam to Yarin and from there to me. “Have you done it?”

I swallowed, extending my mind toward her as shock paralyzed my extremities. “I cannot say.”

We had certainly done something.

Because I no longer sensed her bone.

No longer felt her flesh.

OceanofPDF.com

Chapter 24

OceanofPDF.com

Ada

Three gods stared at me as though they’d witnessed lightning for the first time, all while a rush of energy drove the coldness from my bones. It tingled in my fingertips, the roots of my hair, beneath my toenails. What was happening?

‘Mistress.’

A jolt went through me at a woman’s whisper, her voice utterly unfamiliar. “Who said that?”

Enosh lifted a brow at me. “Who said what?”

‘Mistress, my mistress,’ came in a cacophony of different voices from all around me, as though hundreds of people whispered in unison. ‘Mistress. Let me come to you, my mistress.’

‘Mistress.’ A man.

‘Mistress.’ A girl.

‘Mistress. Mistress. Mistress.’

“Oh my god.” I swallowed a gulp of saliva that had pooled beneath my tongue and wiggled off Enosh’s arms, all while sweat pearled on my forehead. “Something’s… something’s not right—”

A billion thoughts flitted through my mind. Pictures of strange lands, the resonance of words I’d never heard before but understood nonetheless, how the sun and moon danced in a pattern through night and day… It all came to me, pouring into my head until my temples throbbed.

Worse was the pounding panic.

The one that didn’t belong to me.

At least… I didn’t think so, for it came not from within me, but right over there. From the mortal man. The rush of blood in his veins trembled the space between us, every change in his body like a language I understood.

The hot blood pumping through his arteries, that one clogged vein in his left leg that tore with hairline cracks, how the hairs at the nape of his neck lifted, growing, stretching, changing. I felt it all, and my brain tumbled inside my skull at the potential explanation for this madness.

I stared from one god to another.

They stared right back.

Eilam slowly tilted his head. “What… is… she?”

Exactly! What was I?

Alive, yes, with a heartbeat that quickened with every passing second and breasts that suddenly ached like they had in Elderfalls. A realization that brought a spark of joy to my core, but the confusion of this lingered.

In a movement too quick for me to dodge, Enosh gripped my waist, fell to his knees, and pressed his ear against my chest. There, he listened to the beat of my heart, presumably, only to stare up at me from wide eyes two beats later.

“A heart shaped to perfection, not a single out-of-tune beat.” A tremble hushed over his bottom lip before he added, “I believe she is… like us.”

Like them.

I swallowed more saliva as though I’d forgotten in death to do that regularly. And did that not explain how I sensed the strong beat of the boy’s heart, how his inhales scraped on the snot in his nostrils, and how his eyes still felt puffy from all the crying?

‘Mistress.’