Page 93 of Evermore

“Fantastic. I’ll put that on my headstone.”

I reached out with my power, trying to get a sense of our surroundings, but the Forgotten resisted me, its essence slippery and elusive, like trying to grasp smoke with bare hands. This place was a manifestation of everything I had locked away, everything I had tried to erase from existence. And it didn’t appreciate our intrusion.

“We need to find shelter,” I said. “Somewhere defensible where we can regroup and plan our next move.”

Paesha let out a humorless laugh. “Shelter. In this place. Right. And I suppose you’ll just conjure up a cozy little cottage with a white picket fence while you’re at it? I don’t suppose you banished a castle in one of your giant god tantrums?”

Despite the situation, I felt my lips twitch into a smile. “I was thinking more along the lines of a creepy abandoned ruin, but I’m open to suggestions.”

“Maybe a giant bathtub and fully stocked kitchen?” Her Remnants calmed slightly at the familiar rhythm of our banter. “No? Fine. Find the creepy house, but if we get eaten, remember I’ll die but you’ll live eternity in the stomach of a monster. Unless he shits you out.”

“I’ll find a way to send you back before I let you get eaten,” I said seriously.

She lifted a shoulder and I could see the discomfort. Too much too soon was going to push her too far, and I’d never get her back. I tightened my grip on her hand, drawing comfort from the contact even as my mind raced to find a solution to dangers around us. We picked a direction and started walking, straining to see through the oppressive gloom.

Shapes began to emerge from the darkness as we pressed forward, crumbling walls, shattered statues, the bones of buildings long forgotten. The architecture was unsettling, with jagged edges and impossible angles. I’d forgotten these things and the realms they used to belong to. They weren’t here simply because they were banished, but because they were altogether forgotten. By everyone.

Paesha gasped and jerked to a stop. Drifting through the ruins were ghosts of the Forgotten. They paid us no mind as they passed, their transparent forms phasing through the decaying walls, their faces locked in expressions of unending sorrow or distant blankness. I saw gods I had banished millennia ago, their once-powerful forms reduced to little more than wispy echoes. Isaw mortals too, those whose lives had been erased from history for their crimes.

“They look so lost. Do you think they know where they are? Who they were?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “This place is a reflection of my own actions. My own failures. I thought I was maintaining balance, but look at the cost.”

“You didn’t create their crimes or their choices. You only created the punishment.”

“And what gives me the right to such a punishment? Forever is a long time.” The questions that had haunted me for eons spilled out, the doubts I had never voiced, never allowed myself to fully contemplate. “If I was wrong, even once, then an innocent soul suffers eternal oblivion because of me.”

Paesha was quiet for a long moment as we walked, the only sound the soft whisper of her Remnants and the echoey rasp of our footsteps on the cracked obsidian ground. When she spoke again, her voice was softer, almost gentle.

“Regret is a heavy burden for anyone to bear. But it means you’re not as far gone as you think. It means there’s still a shred of decency in you, something real and raw and honest. Don’t let this place trick you into believing you’re as much of a monster as the ones you locked away.”

Her words settled into my chest, a flicker of warmth amidst the chill of this forsaken realm. She still saw something in me worth believing in. It was more than I deserved, but I clung to it like a lifeline.

“There,” I said, pointing to a structure that looked marginally more intact than the rest. “That might work as a temporary sanctuary.”

Paesha eyed the crumbling house. “Remember that time you revealed yourself as the Lord of the Salt? But just before that youbuilt it up to be someone else? Please tell me this is where you reveal your secret career as an interior decorator.”

I huffed a laugh as we approached the ruin, shadows still writhing at the edges of my vision. The battered stone walls formed a rough excuse for a shelter, with half a roof still clinging stubbornly overhead.

“It’s not the Parlor, but it’ll have to do.”

We stepped inside. Paesha’s Remnants spread out to fill the space, mapping every crack and crevice. In the center of the single room, a tarnished oven flared to life, casting distorted shadows on the walls.

“Cozy,” Paesha deadpanned, but I could hear the exhaustion beneath the sarcasm. She sank down against the wall furthest from the entrance, pulling her knees up to her chest. Her Remnants wove around her in a protective cocoon, restless and agitated. And then she was there. Not the strong, punch you in the face and steal your wallet woman she pretended to be, not the woman with thick armor and thicker mental walls. It was her. Just her. The one that’d kissed me in the rain. The one that’d run into my arms when Jasper had been taken. Just the woman.

She’d been steadfast and shaken, resilient and unraveling, all within a breath of time. The whiplash of her emotions were another burden she bore, laced with madness, comforted by her anger and held together by the sheer force of her will. She burned and froze in equal measure, a storm barely contained, her fury the only thing keeping her from breaking entirely. But she’d let me see it all and that was enough for now.

I joined her on the floor but was careful not to touch. I knew she was at her limit, her mind and body pushed to the brink by this place and the voices that plagued her. She melted. Her shoulders sagged as she laid her head on her knees and took a deep, full bodied breath and released it.

“Paesha, I—” I started, but she cut me off with a sharp shake of her head.

“Don’t. Not now.” Her eyes met mine, glittering with unshed tears in the sickly light. “I can’t… I can’t do the apologies and the promises and the lies right now. I’m doing my best, okay? I’m just doing my best.”

I swallowed the words and the desperate need to fix what I’d broken. This was vulnerability, something rare coming from her. “Okay,” I said instead, infusing the single word with all the understanding and acceptance I could muster. “What do you need?”

She tipped her head back against the wall as her eyes fluttered closed. “Distract me. Talk to me about anything else. Tell me a story that doesn’t end in blood and betrayal. Where there’s no madness. No voices of every woman you’ve ever loved.”

I hesitated for a moment before reaching out and taking her hand. She tensed but didn’t pull away, allowing the contact as if it were a lifeline tethering her to sanity.