Page 79 of Fated In Forever
That knowledge was the only thing that made the crushing loneliness endurable.
I can bear this,I told myself, the words echoing in the vast emptiness around me.
I have endured other losses. I can endure this.
But even as I spoke the words, I knew they were a lie. Nothing I had suffered in two millennia of existence compared to the world-shaking ache of my soul mate’s absence.
When I couldn’t remain still any longer—when the silken sheets on my bed and the faint scent of flowers in the halls became too fucking much—I wandered out of the castle, determined to explore this realm—my realm. The Underworld stretched endlessly in all directions, a maze of black, caverns and corridors, abysses and craters. I had mapped out every inch of the castle, but this was the firsttime I’d been outside, and I plunged into the valley, followed by a stream of lost souls.
Adrift, hopeless, with nowhere to go.
At least we were all in the same fucking boat.
I had been walking for hours when I heard the sound of rushing water, impossibly loud in the perpetual quiet of this place. Such an odd sound, that at first, I didn’t register what I was hearing. But when I emerged onto a vast cliff, there it was: a river so wide I could barely make out the opposite shore, its waters dark as midnight and moving with a current that seemed to tug at the shadows above those churning waves.
But it wasn't the river itself that made me stop and stare in wonder. It was what lined the closest bank.
Souls. Thousands upon thousands of lost souls, glowing at the water's edge like a ribbon of pure light. The ones around me danced faster, their ethereal forms flickering in excitement as I started down the hill.
At the water's edge,I knelt and dipped my fingers into the current. The water was cold beyond description, and I felt the pull of those dark depths immediately—a force that would drag me down to the bottom and pin me there as I fought for breath.
I wondered if I could die.
Or would I remain there forever, drowning, over and over again.
The ribbon of light was shifting, spooling toward me, like I was a fucking soul magnet and this close, from thismany, I was able to hear them. Whispers of sound, indistinct murmuring, nothing I could understand, except for their intent. En masse, they pushed me, pushed me along the stony bank, their hush hush voices blending into the river’s roar.
My feet were not made for this rocky sand, the chunks of obsidian worked up between my toes, and I had to stop more than once to pick them out. By the time I stopped, the bottoms of my feet were cut, bleeding, raw.
For too long, I stared at the reason I’d stopped.
The boat, strange and solid and real, looked like something out of my nightmares.
The vessel had to be fifty feet long, flat and curved, like a Viking longboat, with one seat in the center and two tall carved open-mouthed gargoyles rising from both the hull and the keel. No sail, no place for oars, but the surface of the hull was covered in carved swirls, like waves.
A heavy chain was piled on the shore, every square forged link marked with the same runes that marked everything else in this place. I picked them up and studied the strange figures by the light cast by the swirling souls, a vague understanding taking hold.
Then stared at the boat.
Carved from obsidian, there was no way this thing would float, no way it wouldn’t sink beneath that crushing current like a rock, no way I was getting into that fucking thing, because despite all my years, I’d never learned to do one very basic thing.
Swim.
Stupid, given the task staring me in the face, but there it was. The reason I was here.
My task. Taking the souls across to the very dark opposite shore, where they’d…who the fuck knew? Live a life of happiness and comfort in the equally grim and barren other side?
But these were the souls trapped in this liminal realm with no way forward and no way back, and they’d been trapped here for an eternity. Or since the last Orcus kicked it.
And now, I was supposed to be their ferryman.
I could have refused. Could have turned away and left them to their eternal waiting. I could have gone back and sat in my throne and pined away for Evie, who would kick my ass if she knew I’d chosen wallowing in self-pity over helping those in need.
Besides. I wanted her to be proud of me, and even though she’d never know of my good deed,I’dknow,and there was seriously something wrong with me that I was even considering this.
And yet, I found myself saying, “Well, don’t dither about. I’m not going to wait around forever. Get in.”
Was there a weight limit?
