The Will and the Wilds(15)

Maekallus chokes as the soul fills him, evaporating every lesion and boil from his skin, spinning away the bloody slurry as though it had never been. Swelling vanishes, pain fades, and hunger quenches. He rasps as crisp, clean air fills his stinging lungs. Relief stronger than any his soulless body can feel on its own winds cool circles under his skin.

The soul’s vigor—its emotions, its power, its life—dances inside him, a newly lit flame, bright and real and . . . incomplete?

Maekallus blinks, coming to himself. Looks at the trodden but clean grass underneath his fingers. His skin, unmarked and clear. He pushes himself onto his knees, his back popping like freshly kindled firewood. He rolls his neck, flexes his fists and arms. Yes, the vigor is unmistakable, but it feels . . . different. His eyes shoot to the trembling mortal foolish enough to save him. Her blue eyes look back at him, pained and deep and very much alive. They lack the dullness and complacency of a mortal whose soul had been devoured.

She solidifies the assessment when she croaks, “What did . . . you do to me?”

Maekallus is up on his hooves in an instant, cloaked by the thickness of night. He presses a hand to his chest, where the soul burns—and where the gobler’s binding tugs him earthward. Still the thread holds him to this realm. The feeding—can he call it a feeding if it’s incomplete?—has not broken that.

He curses, but his attention steals back to the girl.

This has never happened before. Somehow . . . yes. Somehow, he only absorbed part of her soul. He stares at her, trying to figure it out, all while his limbs flood with energy, aching to stretch and leap. Her soul invigorates him, even if it’s only a piece.

He steps back, then forward, holding her gaze, trying to decipher it. What makes her different? Was this, perhaps, why the goblers had come for her? Had they sensed she’s special?

She pulls her gaze away first, focusing on a bloodied bandage around her hand, where the deal had been struck. She tugs off the gauze and holds her hand to the light. It reflects off a thin, smooth scar. Had the bargain been fulfilled, there would be no mark at all. But this . . . this exchange had healed it, for now. Maekallus looks at his own hand. His own matching scar.

He licks his teeth and flicks his tail, considering. He can break the bargain, of course. Free the mortal. But then she’ll have no further reason to help him. He’ll die and descend into nothingness, but not before going mad by this cage of trees . . . gods below, he’s still bound to this cage.

Even if he refuses to release the mortal from their deal, no consequences will come to her should he die. Yet his survival depends on this woman—this strange woman—believing otherwise.

He breathes deeply, savoring the vitality, the feeling, inside him. “What are you?” he asks.

Her eyes look back to him, one shadowed by night, one lit by the lantern. “What do you mean?”

“You’re different from other mortals,” he says, crouching so he can see the rest of her soul through her eyes. Humans have such telling eyes. “What are you?”

Her fine brows cross. “I am what you call me! What have you done to me, mysting?” Her gaze falls to the narrow web of red light projecting from his chest. “Why is it not broken?”

Maekallus growls. “I don’t know. I don’t know how to break it, without killing the gobler. And I cannot kill the gobler because even if I could leave this forsaken glade, I wouldn’t know where to find him. Not until he resurfaces in this realm.” And close by, else Maekallus might be unable to decipher the tug of the bargain. Perhaps if he can get the blood of a mystium . . . but that is just as unlikely as finding the ga’goning bastard who’d bound him here. The only binding spells he knows are the ones that seal promises between mortals and his own kin.

The woman clutches her breast, breathing deeply. He can almost sense her pain through the partial soul’s vigor. How strange.

“What is your name?” he asks.

“Perhaps if you answer my question, Maekallus, I’ll be tempted to continue answering yours.”

He grins. Fiery, for a mortal. “Part of your soul lives within me.”

Her head snaps up, eyes brighter than the lantern. “What? But you said—”

“I said I wasn’t sure what would happen.” He stands to his full height. A lie. A partial one, at least. He hadn’t known this would happen, but he can steal the soul of any mortal with a willing kiss, whether or not he wants it—though he always does. To feel the way humans do, with their cluster of ever-changing emotions and vitality, even for the few hours it lasts . . . yes, he always wants it.

Humans attribute their emotions and their ability to experience them to their hearts, but hearts are simple flesh, just like all the body’s organs. It’s the soul that hosts those sensations, and the soul alone.

She takes several deep breaths before speaking again. “But you are healed . . . and so am I.” She grabs the lantern and struggles to stand. The light from the tiny flame swings through the glade, making the trees’ shadows lean and bend.

“For now.” He studies the binding, passing his hand through its red shimmer. “For now.”





CHAPTER 8

The best song for keeping away mystings is “The Widow’s Lullaby”: Bai sharam, sharam, on whi. Bai sharam on whi, repeated over and over. I theorize that it is not the words that stave off evil, but the rhythm in which they’re said.