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The ache stopped. “That’s barbaric.”

“As am I.” He smiled.

“I’m already giving you my soul for all eternity. Claiming my honor and integrity is unnecessary.”

“These are my terms,” he said simply.

“They’re unfair terms.”

He cocked his head slightly, his eyes growing angry. “You fail to understand the heft of your request. It’s much easier to honor superficial desires like wealth and power, but to directly interfere with the living is a much greater matter. It changes the course of the future, changes the impact on this world. She will mother more children, children that shouldn’t have ever been born. I need your soul to fester and sour and become more potent, which is why my demands are high.”

I didn’t understand the last part about the festering of my soul, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to understand.

“Once you agree, it’s forever binding. It can never be undone. Think carefully, Callum Riverside.”

I didn’t have the time to think carefully. I feared she wouldn’t even be alive by the time I made the return journey. Instead of saying goodbye to my wife, I spent those last moments in a dark forest with the God of the Underworld. Another failure on my part. This journey couldn’t be for nothing. “I don’t have time to think carefully.”

“Yes, she’s very close now.” He had no emotion, no empathy for the sick and the dying. “The fade has begun.”

“It’s bad enough to let my wife think the worst of me, but please don’t make me do it to my sons.” My eyes started to mist with pain. “I can’t let them think I just walked away from them.”

Without any trace of humanity, he just stared.

“That I don’t love them more than anything…”

Nothing.

My eyes watered further, at the crossroads of an impossible decision.

“Even if you’d left three hours ago, you still wouldn’t have made it back in time. She will die alone, your brother’s hand a poor substitute for your own. She stays on this side of the veil in the hope you’ll walk through the door, but her strength wanes.”

“Fuck.” I sniffed.

“What will you decide, Callum?”

“What will happen to her?” I asked quickly.

“If you agree? She will fall asleep. And when she wakes up tomorrow morning, she will feel the sunshine through the window. She will draw breath and feel the absence of the strain. She will be in disbelief at first—but then realize the sickness is gone. She will live a long and happy life. She will remarry and have more children. She will see old age.”

Tears continued to burn in my eyes because it was what she deserved. My sons wouldn’t have me, but they would have her. I would be hated and then replaced and forgotten, but they would have the life they deserved. “I agree to your terms.”

His eyes sharpened. “Last chance to change your mind.”

I closed my eyes and released a painful breath. “Save her…please.”

I tied the horse to the post then approached the house, my heart on fire in the pit of my stomach. I stared at the door, the last time I would ever see it, and it took all my strength to grab the handle and open it.

“Dad!” Darius was the first to run to me.

I almost broke into tears on the spot.

“Uncle Gael said Mom isn’t doing well.”

I squatted down and gripped him hard, harder than I ever had, my chin on his head.

Darius tried to move out of my hold, but I wouldn’t let him.

“Stay,” I ordered, using my angry voice even though I wasn’t angry.