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“I don’t know who this ‘devil’ is, but your soul is what I would require, yes.”

“Then no.” Her answer was firm. “I’d rather die faithfully than trade my soul to an unknown god who won’t even show himself.”

A tsk reached her ears. “You sound just like the others. Do you not seek revenge for what has happened to you?” Her eyes peeked open to narrow in his assumed direction, and she received a chuckle. “Ah. That has caught your attention.”

Okay, so maybe having the chance to go off and harm those men for payback did sound enticing. “My answer is still no. I would rather go to heaven.”

“Whoever your ‘God’ is, he has abandoned you. And, if you die, you will go to my realm, Tenebris, whether you want to or not. There will be no heaven for you.”

“What?” she rasped, her eyes cracking open even further. “What do you mean, I won’t go to heaven?”

“I am a god of death, and you currently lie within my mist. It is how I felt your presence here on the border of this canyon. If you die, I will take your soul to my afterworld.”

“Don’t you mean the afterlife, then?”

“There is no life in death, merely another world in which souls linger. Those that I have consumed.”

“It’s not fair,” Lindi sobbed out, her shoulders shuddering. She brought her knees tighter to her chest, hating how that made the coarse rope around her ankles scratch at her flesh. “I did nothing to deserve this.”

“Whether that is true or not, there are no other options.”

“This is so cruel!”

Her faith was being tested, and she could feel herself... breaking. She felt abandoned in her hour of need, betrayed that it was the reason she was here to suffer. A woman, a virgin, a fucking sacrifice for someone who apparently wasn’t listening or didn’t care to.

But there was another here, offering her salvation, and she wanted to take it so badly.

She didn’t want to die. The fact that all the rules and restrictions she’d followed closely her entire life meant nothing was terrifying .

She wouldn’t be able to go to Eden, she wouldn’t meet her maker.

She couldn’t even confront him for abandoning her on the edge of the. .. the Veil, as those men called it.

If she wasn’t lying in this faceless being’s mist, would she have been allowed to? I don’t want to go to the afterworld. I don’t want to die.

A light wind brushed around her, and it blew a mingle of pleasant scents from the forest, and the light tangle of a pungent odour, all through her. She wanted away from the warm dirt, the light, the fear that clutched her gut like a horrible sickness.

She wanted to remove the leaves and twigs from her hair, have a bath, and feel safe and secure once more.

She wanted to go home.

She wanted to die peacefully, and quickly, and go to the heaven she’d always imagined in her old-age death.

Instead, she was in this long, lulling limbo where she was conscious enough to have a raspy conversation as she felt her life slowly sapping away.

Only to lie here like a grand noble’s meal to two terrible beasts like a pig on a platter – all she was missing was the apple in her mouth.

“Are you a bad god?” Lindi asked through her tears, tucking her face away from the setting sun – despite the temporary salvation it offered.

“I have never taken a life, nor have I ever resorted to trickery. All I do is ferry the souls who are already dead and protect thresholds. I am neither good nor bad, for I am nothing but a carer for the deceased.”

“Then why do you need a wife?! Why would you want to bond yourself to a human?”

“I need servants, and I wish to breed them through you.”

The honesty in his statement shocked her. Her eyes widened and her jaw dropped.

“Excuse me? You want to use me as a... as a baby maker?”

“Yes. I have no other means to do so. I will also need you to collect souls for me and act as my physical form in this world, as I am intangible to it. You would have many tasks.”

The laugh that broke from her was spiteful.

“And yet I’m still tied up. It’s not that I don’t have any other choice – you’re just refusing to provide me with any other.

If you really were a benevolent being, you would have saved me by now.

” She shrugged a single shoulder. “Why should I help you when you won’t even free me? ”

“My power is limited outside of my own realm. It is why I’m unable to reveal myself to you. I cannot even touch you, or those Daekura, in order to save you. All I can do is witness.”

“How can your power be so limited you can’t even save me?”

That sounded like a useless god to her.

“I gain power from each soul I eat, but I also waste it in cleansing them, among other tasks. I have, in fact, rather enervated abilities in comparison to other deities of my realm. I need servants who can obtain souls beyond my reach and ferry them to me. I need a mate for that. Someone who, hopefully, will empower me, as I empower them.”

“And all I get out of it is living?” Lindi snorted a laugh once more. “I’d rather not. You sound like a pervert. Why not just take my soul by force if you need a woman so badly?”

Why is he giving me a choice? Lindi didn’t understand why this conversation was even happening. Didn’t most gods do what they wanted without care for humans and their free will?

“Although I very much could take your soul by force, I’d rather obtain my servants consensually.

I have no desire to take what is not freely given, and I would like a trusted bond with my female.

I am offering you power through me. To live forever, deathless.

The ability to go back and take revenge for yourself. ”

“I’m not that petty.” She actually was – she was just being stubborn.

However, the idea was becoming more enticing by the second, and he didn’t seem too bad. At least he wasn’t forcing her, and he seemed to be truthful – from what she could gather. And to live forever while having power did sound pretty generous.

She just couldn’t shake this nagging uncertainty.

Perhaps if I was allowed to look upon him, I wouldn’t feel so unsure.

What if he was ugly or monstrous? Lindi grimaced at the image of having sex with some unknown face that could even be more horrendous to look upon than the creatures still frothing at her feet.

“What about protecting others who will be brought to this cliff?”

Her lips tightened into a hard line. “How many women have been brought here before me?”

“Those that brought you here? I didn’t see them, so I am unsure.

They’re all different, although they chant the same words, pleading for the cleanse to cease.

It is not a cleanse but a plague of Daekura – and nothing they do will end it.

” Then, when Lindi didn’t say anything but rather glared at his nothingness, he sighed.

“Dozens. I am unsure how many. Most are thrown from the cliff before I can speak with them. Only a handful are discarded on the edge here like you to bleed out or be eaten as an offering, abandoning you so they may run before the Daekura come.”

Her hands bunched behind her back as her annoyance deepened. Why did her heart ache for all those women more than it did for herself? Was it because she’d experienced their pain, their fear, their helplessness?

This horribleness needed to end.

I could go back and see my mother. Perhaps Weldir would let Lindi help her on their farm, so she wasn’t alone, especially as Allira wouldn’t be able to maintain it on her own. Gosh. I’m so worried about her. Please be okay.

“Make your choice.”

“I don’t know!” Lindi yelled, her chest heaving with anxious breaths.

Her heart was beating so hard in worry that it was causing her wound to throb unbearably, and she was being forced to make an unbelievable decision on the cusp of death. Her mind was foggy, her thoughts disjointed and lazy. She wasn’t in the right state to make such a decision!

“Then so be it. I will try with another–”

“W-wait!” She wriggled, as if that would help her face him when she had no idea where he was, and then fell towards her front. Her nose peeked over the edge of the Veil’s canyon, and she suddenly wished she could shuffle away from it. “Please wait. Please don’t go.”

His sensual voice had been oddly comforting, and it had been nice to know she wasn’t alone as she lay there.

“I told you – I am a witness. It is all I can do for you sacrifices until you die.”

A droplet fell from her eye to run down her cheek, onto her nose, and down below. “So, you’ll stay?”

His voice held such a gentleness when he said, “I will remain with you until the end.”

She didn’t know if she was just trying to hear kindness in him that didn’t exist, or if he really was, but she needed that more than anything. She needed someone to care right now that she was in pain and scared, and who wouldn’t abandon her just because she didn’t give them what they wanted.

Why was it his choosing to stay that convinced her the most?

“What would it entail? What kind of power would I have? What restrictions? I-I can’t make a decision without more understanding.”

“Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear you have any time left.”

A cold blade of fear cut down her spine, and she gasped as she looked down. Right there, just beyond her foot with less than a palm’s worth of space between her and them, stood both the dark creatures. They were pushing each other as they snapped their jaws at her, ready and waiting.

Her skin crawled in disgust, and Lindi screamed when one braved shoving their hand through the sun to try to grab one of her ankles. They missed when she rolled onto her side to get away from it.

“Okay! Okay! I will give you my soul. I will give you my life.”

“I have your vow on that? That you will become my female, and you understand what is expected of you?”

“Yes!” she squealed, thankful the creatures didn’t brave ducking their hands through the sun a second time – especially as one was now writhing on the ground in pain.

Its finger bones were showing, as if its very void-like flesh had melted from being in the light for less than two seconds.

“Then our deal has been struck.”

As if to punctuate that, Lindi stopped squirming, and a strange orange flame was pulled from her chest. She gasped, despite the lack of pain or even feeling.

It was then, and only then, that she saw any part of him.

His hand, tipped with long nails or perhaps claws, reflected the light of the flame as if he were made of clear glass. It glistened and flickered like a reflection, and the same happened to his body when he brought the flame closer to a leanly muscular chest.

Lindi gawked at him, at what it revealed, while also offering very little.

Then she watched as he seemed to lift her flaming soul to what must be his mouth.

He parted his full lips, revealing long canine fangs, and slid her soul inside.

She could still see it, although it lit up half his face in the process and became murky.

She couldn’t tell by just the bottom of his face being lit up if he was handsome or not, but at least he was humanoid.

That was a relief!

Her soul dimmed as it moved to the back of his throat and then down it. The moment it hit his sternum, it and he disappeared.

She thought they may have been staring at each other, although she could no longer see him now that the reflection of flames was gone. She hated that she couldn’t see him anymore.

Then... she waited.

And waited.

And nothing happened.

She kind of expected to feel cold, but she felt no different whatsoever. She still felt alive, despite continuing to bleed out. She was still dying, from what she could tell. She was still weak and powerless, unable to free herself.

She was still lying there, helpless.

When the silence went on for too long, and a gust of wind rolled a leaf against her cheek, she yelled, “Well... what are you waiting for?! Please, save me!”

“I told you, I cannot. I’m merely a witness in this world. I don’t have the power to aid you.”

The heat bled from her face. “What the fuck do you mean you can’t?! I thought you would save me.”

“I don’t know anything about this bond, as I’ve never done it before. All I know is that we are connected.”

Her jaw dropped, and her gaze dipped down to beyond her feet.

She whimpered and wormed herself away from the frenzied creatures until her head nearly dangled off the edge of the cliff.

Her long hair swayed and ruffled in the wind, as if a gust was tearing through the canyon and pushing the hanging locks with strength.

Oh shit.

She was still in the same damn predicament, and Lindi still had the same decision to make.

To fall or be eaten alive...