Page 2 of Zel (The GriMM Tales #2)

Sophie fell, dropped from the sorcerer’s grasp, and though she would have collapsed, Gregor was there to catch her. She lived, but if the price was her beloved, she would not pay it.

“I had intended to take you both,” the sorcerer snarled. “Sophie, is it? You taste especially sweet having eaten of my garden, my rapunzel , but your soul is not alone in your body, which may yet save you.”

“What are you saying?” Gregor asked with a tremor in his voice, keeping Sophie upright. She soon regained her balance, much as she panted from almost having become the next husk to be found outside the tower.

“What does it usually mean when one body contains two souls?” the sorcerer queried.

As one, Sophie and Gregor looked at Sophie’s stomach. She was with child? Finally, at last, she was pregnant.

“I do not tolerate thieves,” the sorcerer continued, “especially those daring enough to trespass inside my tower. A boon will be needed in exchange for your lives.”

“You would spare us because we are with child?” Gregor asked.

“I will spare you in exchange for your child.”

“No,” Sophie said immediately, with rising horror and a hand placed over her belly as if to protect the babe within.

“I do not mean to raise it,” the sorcerer said. “The child, as a child, will remain yours. But all parents part with their children once they reach adulthood, and so too shall you.”

“You want our child when it comes of age?” Gregor questioned. “Why? For what?”

“They will come to me here in the tower and live with me for one month to determine if they are a worthy exchange for your transgression. If it comes to pass that they are, we will unite in marriage, and your debt will be paid.”

Sophie was already shaking her head, but Gregor placed his hand atop hers on her stomach.

“If we refuse?” he asked.

“Then you will die where you stand, and I will have a meal of all three souls.”

Sophie was still shaking her head. The horror of such a fate, to be this monster’s bride, she could not imagine cursing upon her child. But refusal meant it would have no fate at all.

“Take the brush. A gift to seal our promises. Take all you gathered from my garden as well, but heed this.” The sorcerer somehow stood taller, his galaxy hair lifting and flowing as if caught by wind around his dark, fierce face.

Eyes near enough to galaxies too, housing the doom of worlds, glowed with some of the violet light running through the veins of his blackened hand.

He pointed at Sophie with one of those fingers.

“Only you are to eat the lettuce. More will arrive for you to consume each day until the babe is born.

Then only the child shall eat it, every day, until the day they are of age and ready to come to me.

“If anyone goes against this and eats the lettuce in yours or your child’s stead, they will perish instantly. Make no mistake about that. Follow all my instructions and you may yet live to meet your grandchildren.”

“Please,” Sophie said, hanging her head that she had finally stopped shaking, for looking into the sorcerer’s eyes made it too real. “We have waited so long for this child.”

“Then enjoy them for all the time you have them. When they are no longer a child, they will be mine. Do we have an accord?”

Sophie could not speak, for either option felt equally damning.

“We do,” Gregor said.

“Gregor!”

“It is this or death, my love, to us and the babe before it has even known breath. We have no other option.”

“No, you do not,” the sorcerer said. “ Do we have an accord?” he asked again, looking solely at Sophie, as if needing both to confirm so aloud. Maybe he did for whatever magic this pact required to work.

If only she had not been filled with lustful greed for more, they might have had all they had ever wanted without needing to give anything up. But she knew they had no choice.

Lothar would be furious. They could only hope he would be understanding once they returned to the guild and explained that only Sophie could eat the lettuce he had sent them to retrieve.

Though it was not the vow Sophie had been hoping to exchange, she answered the sorcerer, “We do.”

ULRICH

“ T wo more items to heed,” Ulrich said, staring down at the thieves. Surely, the woman, Sophie, had not consumed more than a single leaf of his lettuce, but it had been enough that the taste of her soul had been ripe and invigorating.

The taste of the second soul, however, had proven a hundred times as tantalizing. The idea never would have occurred to him had a pregnant thief never darkened his door. At last, might he meet someone who could prove his equal and end the torture of his solitary existence.

“First, be under no illusions that to eat of my lettuce makes you immortal.” Ulrich reached for Sophie’s cheek and sliced a thin cut with his nail just deep enough to draw a trickle of blood. “My garden serves its purpose, but it is not why I live eternal.

“Second, you will name the child for what you have stolen from me so that you are reminded daily of our pact. Your babe shall be called…”