Page 160 of The Nightshade God
She smiled, her eyes wet. Strange, how easily she could cry now. “Proud of You.”
The Fount sloshed at her again.Now go. Like you said, you have things to do. People to meet.
Her heartbeat kicked up in her chest, anticipatory sweat on her palms. “I’ll be keeping an eye on You. As long as I’m able.”
Live your life, little goddess, the Fount said.Make it full and beautiful and kind, Lore. We will keep this world, and watch it become better.
Lore put her hand on the lip of the Fount, over those pieces that had once been broken. Then she turned away.
Moss furred the floor of the cathedral, grown up around the fallen beams. It made the ruins look softer. She supposed years would do that. They had certainly softened her.
On the other side of the ruins was another cliff, one she’d discovered in her long imprisonment here. It was hidden from view, only reached if you climbed through the underbrush, the now-blooming trees and vines that crowded the back of the once-grand structure Apollius had built. Only the stones stood now, everything else long rotted away. Lore climbed through it, the hum in the air intensifying, every nerve in her body alight. And as she did, the vestiges of godhood fell away like a shed snakeskin. The cracks in her hands healed over, hiding the gold. Her eyes dimmed down to hazel.
They stood on that cliff. They looked exactly the same. Bastian and Gabe, both here and both hers, holding hands.
She fell into them.
They all sank to the ground, and she didn’t realize she was sobbing until Gabe brushed a tear off her cheek, until Bastian pulled her close and kissed her forehead. “There, dearest,” he murmured. “Compose yourself.”
She laughed, the feeling still odd, burrowed into his shoulder. Gabe laid his head in her lap, and she ran her hands through his hair, across his neck.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured. “I’m so sorry.”
He caught her hand, kissed it. “Don’t be. It’s in the past.” He chuckled. “Long past.”
“So what…” She didn’t really know how to ask, didn’t know what shewantedto ask. She looked between them, her monk and her prince, at a loss for words. “How… was it?”
A moment of silence before they all burst out laughing, collapsing into one another again. When they quieted, Gabe’s hand on her cheek and Bastian’s running through her hair, Bastian sighed. “Good news,” he said. “Apollius was lying.”
She sat up from where she’d reclined against his chest. “He what?”
“Not lying, I don’t think.” Gabe ran a hand down her arm, like he had to keep touching her, his head still in her lap. “But His experience of the afterlife wasn’t everyone’s.”
“He made His own hell,” Bastian continued, picking up the strings of Gabe’s conversation like they were of one mind. “And it was a dark void where He was powerless.”
“So where did you two end up?” She almost didn’t want to know. Didn’t want to imagine them locked in hells of their own making.
“Not sure,” Gabe said, smiling. “But I think it was the Shining Realm.”
She’d accepted the former god’s word as fact, made her peace with this life being all there was, and after only darkness. But apparently she hadn’t bought into that quite as fully as she thought, because some heavy weight on her heart lifted, with a flood of intense relief. “What was it like?”
“Oh, you know.” Bastian shrugged. “Endless wine, perfect weather, the sound of singing all the time.” He looked at her, soft-eyed. “They’re all there, Lore.”
Her family, her friends. People she’d see again, waiting beyond that starry doorway.
But first, a life. Here, with them.
Bastian read the thought on her face, gently kissed her brow. “But as of right now, I am more concerned about this world than that one.” Bastian stood, held out a hand. Lore took it. Gabe took her other one and planted a kiss on it, then her cheek. “We’ve kept our lady love waiting long enough, I think. Let’s go see the world Lore saved.”
The Goddess of Waiting ended. Lore began.
