Page 62 of The Surrender

“She went to Kronos?” I interrupt in no more than a whisper.

“I did.” He stiffens. Sets his jaw and tugs on his robe. Paces again. “Erya had far too much pride and anger to go to Kronos. I offered my soul in exchange for hers. He laughed. He had sampled bits of her spirit already and asked if I wanted it back after his tongue had penetrated it. I didn’t give a damn. But Kronos never does an equal exchange.”

“What else could he want?” My nerves tighten with thoughts of Kronos. I hope Nuriel offers more of the story before my mind can drift to Qora.

“He sent me to the Underworld. He sent me to hell wrapped in a bow for the God of Death.”

“God of Death?”

“His brother. Kronos does not always keep his souls. He sends them to Death at times. Only those without souls are deemed fit to become demons. Do you know how demons achieve their scars? The more scarred the demon, the higher its rank. The higher the rank, the more a demon has the power to torture instead of being tortured. They earn their scars vs. others scarring them.”

I dig my fingers into my arms and swallow the acid swelling in my throat. Because...I know what that feels like, too. And this newfound and misplaced empathy is stripping me apart.

“I should have known Erya would not have been satisfied returning to the angel realm. Even with threads of her soul missing, much of her was restored. Her heart was another matter. It was never the same. I recognized it the first time we met. Angel and demon. Our love had turned as dark and broken as we were.”

My heart sinks to my stomach, feeding the roiling sickness. Something unravels inside me. I don’t want to shed any tears for him. I blame it on the damned hormones.

“The next time, we went to Kronos together. One last bargain. We had nothing left to give. Nothing for him to take. He’s only ever desired one thing he could never truly have.”

My monsters. My kings. My gods.

“If we failed, we knew the price. If one enters the Waste from the outside, if they are killed in the Waste, they are lost to the Waste. Their spirit joins the Veil of Souls for eternity. So, Kronos sweetened the deal. He agreed to restore our souls and even give us the rule of our realm, our race. He had but one price.”

“Kyan,” I whimper.

“It is not simple to kill a god. Even in the Waste, they will heal and regenerate. So, a slit to the throat would not have been enough. His soul needed to be broken before we could kill it. Of course, Kronos told us where he hid it. The height of irony!”

His laughter guts me. It’s a deep, dark cackle strangling my nerves.

Those wraithlike shadows fall over me again. I’ve curled into a little ball again, rocking and squeezing my body as much as possible.

“Do you know the best way to break a soul is to break the heart?”

I double over. My fingers land in little piles of bone dust. I heave but somehow keep the contents in my stomach.

One lone finger brushes my cheek. I flinch as Nuriel traces my tears while crooning, “She was so close. We knew she was close. The night before their wedding, she came to me. I loved my mate in these very caves, never believing it would be the last time. Animal bones were the only ones that filled these hollows back then. I starved myself for a year, maintaining a low profile while Erya did her work.”

Triggered by the last part, I lash out wildly, scraping my nails against his cheek. “She tortured him! She starved him, too!”

He catches my wrists and seethes. My skin crawls, flesh turning to sheer ice from those demonic shadows brewing.

“She was a monster,” I stab the words at him, matching my fire against his ice. “You are a monster.” I wince and grasp for breath, my eyes swirling across the baby bones. Little skulls. Little corpses. Little wings.

Veins strain in his wings as his eyes deepen, and he retorts, “We are all monsters, my Lady. So, I have fed. Much like all those in the Waste feed upon one another. Little different than those who consume animals. Little different from your beloved monsters who ravage maidens on Hollow Night.”

“They were babies!” I scream, jerking on my wrists, but he grips them tighter, harder, splintering me with those deadly gray eyes.

“Painless, quick deaths for the spawn. I simply put the malformations out of their misery. And punished the people who spurned my mate’s name after her death. They spit upon her grave. The same people who aligned with the damned god who became far more monstrous than all of us. The God of Air.”

All my being stills. Like I’ve been sucked into the eye of a tempest.

Drago...Thiago, my dragon, my...God of Fire.

Kyan...Kyanatu, my fallen angel, my...God of Air.

I should have known I was courting insanity. Wanting something far too great and powerful for a little gray girl of the Borderlands.

“You should never have gone to Kronos. You should have helped them. And Kyan.”

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