The Will and the Wilds

by Holmberg, Charlie N.

  I collapse at his side, imagining this house empty of him, another stone placed in the yard beside my mother’s, grandfather’s, and grandmother’s. I take his clammy hand in mine and squeeze. “Please, Papa.”

  I’m so tired. I rest my head on the edge of the bed and close my eyes. Sleep refuses me. I roll onto my pallet as the colors of sunset dance through the window. I’m weary enough to hurt, weary enough to risk more nightmares, but even that unquiet slumber evades me. I cannot rest.

  I stumble out of my father’s room and toward the hearth. Stare at its patternless flames. I feel as though I could fall asleep standing up, but I know I will not.

  The doctor. The doctor should come again. Maybe he’ll have something new for my father. Maybe then my mind will grant me slumber.

  More coughing. My feet are unsteady when I return to my father. This time, he’s already finished when I reach him. I take another blanket to the wash, but can’t bring myself to scrub it.

  How will I have the strength to dig his grave?

  There’s a snap inside me, almost like the breaking of my soul, but this sensation is planted firmly in my chest, like my own heart has detached from the rest of me. I press the heel of my hand into it. The scar across my palm is pink.

  Looking at that mark, I sense him. He’s nearby, in the wildwood. I stare at the flames, inching closer until the heat is almost unbearable. I close my hand around the scar. He’s coming. Nearer, nearer.

  I move to the door, my tired feet scuffing against the floor. I open it. The night air feels cold compared to the hearth. Stars speckle the sky.

  Hugging myself, I step onto the dirt path that leads away from the door. Suddenly, I’m at the ring of oon berry. Did I forget traveling here because of fatigue, or because my soul is too small?

  I see him then, a shadow against the wildwood. I know it’s him, but I don’t know why he’s here. Boredom, worry . . . Would he worry?

  The oon berry won’t hurt him. I know that instinctively. It’s not a plant that would hurt a soul, and he has most of one.

  Starlight glimmers off his horn. He comes closer, closer. Eyes the oon berry, steps over it. Looks at me and pauses.

  “Enna?” he asks.

  New tears spring from my eyes. Tears of sorrow, of fatigue, of hopelessness. I take one heavy step toward him before I fall into his arms and cry against his naked chest.

  CHAPTER 20

  The differences between a male and a female gobler are slight. Females have lighter skin, larger eyes, and tend to be slightly smaller than their male counterparts.

  “Enna.”

  I blink, surprised to see the fire before me. I don’t remember coming into the house. I sit in my father’s chair, slouching, leaning toward the flames. Maekallus is near me, standing, hunched so his horn doesn’t scrape the ceiling. Is it shorter? If it changed after our last kiss, I didn’t notice.

  I touch the side of my neck. Stare at the flames. “I can’t sleep.”

  Maekallus is silent.

  I drop my hand. “I can’t sleep, but when I do, I dream of a horrible place. There’s no sun, but everything glows dull red . . . and there are sounds I don’t know. Screams. Monsters.”

  He shifts. “The Deep.”

  I meet his eyes. They’re still amber, even more so in the firelight. I shiver, despite the heat. “That’s it? That’s the . . . other realm?”

  I’ve always wondered what the monster realm is like. There’s no literature on the subject. At least, not that I’ve found with my limited means. Papa has never spoken of it willingly, only in occasional mumbles when he’s asleep. All I knew, until now, was vague and half-formed—that if the mortal realm is above, the monster realm is below.

  If that is where they live, no wonder they come here. No wonder they visit our woods, our streams, even when lingering hurts them so. How they must long for relief from those sounds and smells.

  I hug myself. “What an awful place.”

  “For one unaccustomed, yes.”

  His voice is soft. He stares past the floor for a moment, his thoughts elsewhere. I say, “Even accustomed, it’s a terrible place.”

  He nods. I open and close my hands, feeling that squishy, sucking ground beneath my palm. “My father is ill.”

  “You said.”

  “Very ill.” I shake my head, finding solace in the fire. It’s easier to look at the flames than at him. “He barely eats. He has a horrible cough—”

  As if to punctuate the statement, my father begins hacking in the other room. I grab the armrests of my chair to stand, but he calms quickly, and I relax. This chair has the indent of his body in it. Almost like he’s holding me.

  What if that’s all I’ll have left of him, come the morrow?

  I swallow. “Do you have family, Maekallus?”

  “No.” He hesitates. “Not that I remember.”

  “Remember?”

  He shakes his head. For a moment he’s somewhere else, somewhere distant, but he returns within the space of two heartbeats.

  “I told you about my mother.” The flames dance, coiling around one another. The charring log beneath them splits in two. The light dims a little, turns redder, like my nightmares. “My father’s parents used to live near here, but they’re both gone.” I can’t believe there are tears left in me, but one builds in the corner of my eye. I wipe it away with a knuckle. “I’m afraid to be alone. I never have been. If Papa dies . . .”

  I shake my head and wipe the tear on my skirt. Maekallus moves closer to the fire. The light spills across him, making his skin almost as red as his hair. He has human-shaped feet now, but they’re the same color his hooves were. I look over him, finding a few black specks on his arms. Otherwise, he’s safe enough from the devouring of my world.

  “I know . . . the feeling.” He speaks as though the words are iron, or his throat is too small for them. I stay very quiet, even in my breathing, not wanting to scare away his voice. He folds his arms and finds his own solace in the fire. “I didn’t, before this. But your soul . . . makes me notice solitude . . . differently.”

  “Is that why you wandered here?” I ask. The red light at his chest is hidden by the firelight, but the string gleams in the shadows, piercing through the wall of my home as if the wood and stone didn’t exist. “You were lonely?”

  Maekallus scoffs. “Don’t judge me by mortal standards.”

  “I don’t know how to judge you, Maekallus.” His gaze turns to meet mine. I will strength into my body, my heart. “You are a mysting with a soul. Almost a soul, at least. In a way, that makes you part of me.”

  My eyes are heavy, and I rub them. In the black behind my lids, I see unworldly creatures from the realm beyond. I jerk my hands away. Blink firelight into my mind.

  “Enna.” My name is so soft when he says it. Like a prayer.

  I shake my head, wipe my eyes before tears can come. “I still see them,” I whisper. I drop my gaze to the scar on my hand. “You’re growing more human, but what’s happening to me? Am I becoming one of them? A monster?”

  The fire crackles, dims a little more. I should put another log on it.

  “Do you think I’m a monster?”

  I turn toward him. He no longer watches the fire, only me. As though I am the fire, and nothing else exists in the space around us. I open my mouth to answer, but I’m at a loss for words.

  His lips quirk, but there’s no mirth in the expression. He crouches before the fire, careful with his horn, and grabs a cooler piece of charcoal from the edge of it. Walking into the shadows before the door, he draws a circle on the floor, just large enough for him to stand in. Extends the lines, marks the eight-pointed star. The descent circle.

  He tosses the charcoal aside and stands in the center of it. The lines flash blue. The light fades until it’s dull as fog, but it lingers, and I realize Maekallus is pulling on tendrils of power.

  His horn disappears. His feet smooth out and turn as peachy as the rest of him. The specks on his arms
vanish.

  I stand. “Maekallus?” A dull ache like a rusted rod pulses from the base of my neck to my navel. He’s hiding the parts of him that mark him as a mysting. He looks perfectly human.

  So beautifully human.

  The fog fades, as does the power. Maekallus’s horn returns, its peak a finger’s width from the ceiling.

  A question rises up my throat, and I almost dare not ask it, but I’m too tired to hold it back.

  “Do you want to be freed?”

  His gaze turns sharp. “Do I want to be a prisoner? Do I want to be caged and eaten by your ethereal demons?” He takes a step forward, smudging the charcoal. His voice has an edge to it that’s almost frightening. “Do I want to feel this way?”

  He winces and touches his forehead as though the horn is too heavy for it. “They never last this long.” His rough voice is almost pleading. “They’re not supposed to last this long, but you’re keeping it alive.” He rips his hand away. The fire in his eyes overshadows the one burning in the hearth. He lifts an accusing finger and stabs it toward my chest. “You’re doing this to me, with that cursed stone. You’re making me feel this way. For what? So I’ll sympathize? So I’ll serve you?”

  The words strike me like an open hand. “Of course not! I’ve done nothing but help you!”

  He growls. “You’ve done nothing but help yourself. You’re using me like a puppet, just like you did that gobler.”

  “You’re a fool,” I spit. “You may have my soul, Maekallus, but anything you feel is entirely your own.”

  My pulse quickens, sending new energy through my blood. What am I making him feel, precisely?

  I lift my wrist and tear at the clasp of my bracelet. It comes undone. I toss silver and stone at Maekallus’s chest, where he catches it with both hands.

  “There.” He gapes at the stone before his eyes flicker to me. He’s silent for a long moment, his expression a mix of surprise and sadness. I’ve given him perhaps the most powerful weapon known to mankind or mysting. He does not wield it against me, only cradles it in his hands, making it look small and unimportant.

  My anger fizzles. I step toward him. “I promise I haven’t . . . manipulated you, Maekallus.”

  “But you have,” he whispers. Not accusatory. The fire in his eyes dies down to a smolder, the ruddy light fixed on me. I can’t look away. There’s a spell in their depths, different from my stone and his binding, different from the bargain we made. Stronger.

  He palms the bracelet and reaches out, touching my shoulder, running his fingers up the side of my neck. Tucks a lock of hair behind my ear. I place a hand over his and lean into his touch, entranced by his eyes.

  I whisper, as though my voice would sever the sorcery between us. “Are you afraid of being human?”

  His gaze flicks to my mouth. “I wish I were.”

  I knit my fingers between his. He studies me like he’s seeing me for the first time. Like he’s waking from deep sleep and is out of place, out of time. The urge to hold him, to make promises to him, is so strong I could weep anew. I squeeze his hand. He comes closer. His other hand rests against my waist, traces the round of my hip. We breathe the same air, but now, in this moment, it’s not enough.

  I stand on my toes, tilt my face up to him. He looks into my eyes, and I wonder what he sees there.

  His hand shifts to the back of my head and pulls me close, until his lips crash against mine.

  He’s warm, so blissfully warm. My fingers dance up his chest to find his soft hair, his neck, his jaw. My heartbeat swims in my skull. Maekallus tilts my head to the right to claim the whole of my mouth. I part my lips, welcoming him, sighing when his tongue traces mine. I foolishly cling to him, to his warmth, to his sweetness, to the scent of the wildwood that cleaves to his skin.

  But even beautiful things must end, for even most of a soul cannot change what Maekallus is.

  I kiss him, and another piece of myself breaks. In its wake, I’m left cold and hollow.

  CHAPTER 21

  There is no sun in the Deep, also known as the realm of monsters. Its source of ruddy light is unknown.

  But it is a horrible place.

  She turns to ice in his arms.

  Maekallus wrenches back from her as the new piece of soul collides with him, fueling the passion and need devouring his insides, lacing them with something sour, frosted, and heavy. He knows the sensation, knows it in an almost nostalgic way, and hates it instantly.

  Guilt.

  “Enna?” He grabs her by the shoulders. She looks dazed and hangs limp in his grip. Her skin is cold. Too cold.

  His fault. What had he been thinking? Did he suppose this time would be different, that he could kiss her and it wouldn’t do . . . this? That if he puts on the costume of a human, he can be like her? That he can belong in a world that despises his kind? He doesn’t even need more of her soul, not yet, but he stole it from her, and now she—

  She groans, his name a whisper on her lips. Her lips.

  Spitting every foul word he can conjure, he picks her up and lays her on the rug before the fire, spitting another curse when his horn nicks the mantel. Even in the dim light she looks too pale. She curls in on herself, turning toward the fire. Maekallus searches for a blanket, but finds none. Fumbling with the Will Stone, he presses it to her palm and forces her fingers around it. Live, live.

  In the back room, her father coughs again. Enna’s eyes flutter with alertness. After a few long seconds, the coughing stops.

  Enna shivers and tries to pick herself up off the rug. “Is he . . . ?”

  Maekallus turns for the hallway.

  “Don’t . . . let him see you.”

  Setting his jaw, he ducks and hurries through the halls, finding the room that held a middle-aged man. He stays only long enough to hear the rattle of his inhale—he has some sort of sickness in his lungs—before returning to Enna’s side, again hitting that mantel. Narvals aren’t built for human homes.

  “He’s fine.” Maekallus grabs the edge of the rug and drags it, and her, closer to the fire.

  The new piece of soul inside him bares its claws and rakes them from the base of his throat to his stomach. Your fault. Your lies.

  But he hadn’t wanted this. He hadn’t meant to . . .

  Idiot. Ka’pig.

  Her teeth chatter.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispers, the words strange on his tongue. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

  She opens and closes her hands. “I can’t . . . feel my fingertips.”

  He takes one of her icy hands, the one not holding the stone, and places it on the side of his neck, willing his warmth into it. To his shock, she smiles. It’s a barely there tilt of her lips, but there’s no mistaking it.

  “You’re warm,” she whispers.

  His grip on her loosens. “Enna. I . . .”

  The guilt claws him raw.

  He swallows. “The bargain—”

  “C-Cold.” She shivers.

  Pressing his lips together, Maekallus lowers her hand and scours the hearth until he finds quarter logs beside it. He throws three onto the dying fire, coaxing it into violent life. Then he lies down on the other side of Enna and draws her close. Her body is soft and fits well to him, something he might have lingered on were the damnable soul inside him not making his hands tremble.

  Her shivering eases, but that grants him only a sliver of relief.

  He holds her for a long moment, willing the warmth of her captured soul back into her. For a moment, he thinks she’s fallen asleep, or lost consciousness, but she stirs the silence by asking, “Do you believe in Shava?”

  The mortals’ notion of an afterlife. “You’re not going to die, Enna.” Even if she loses her soul in its entirety, she won’t perish. Not right away. She’ll just be empty. Blank. Just like . . .

  He shakes his head. No. He hasn’t thought about her in years, and he won’t start now. That had been . . . different. Enna won’t meet the same fate. She can’t.

 
; He will guarantee it.

  “I didn’t . . . ask that,” she says. She pushes her head back, resting the crown against his neck. “Do you believe?”

  “No.”

  She turns her head just enough to look at him. The fire tries to cast her blue eyes green. “No?”

  Maekallus doesn’t know what happens to souls he consumes. Although he doesn’t understand the workings of human theology, he imagines they just cease to exist. Can a partial soul still find purchase in its afterlife? “For you, perhaps, there will be something beyond mortality. But not for me.” He lets out a long breath through his nose, lifting his gaze to the flames so he won’t have to see the pain in her eyes. “I am the afterlife. I was created by death. I am the end. When I perish, I am gone.”

  He kneels by the young woman, her dark-blonde hair sticking to the trails of tears on her cheeks. He wipes the wetness away with his finger, crooked from that mishap with the ax in his boyhood. “Now, now, we’ll sort this out.”

  The girl shakes her head. “It was the Factio. You don’t resolve anything with them.”

  Maekallus shuts his eyes hard. A headache erupts in his right temple, like his brain is bleeding. The memories that have begun to awaken . . . and they aren’t from this life. He doesn’t have crooked thumbs. He doesn’t—

  “No god would be so cruel.”

  Maekallus opens his eyes. The searing flames fill his vision. “I don’t have a soul, Enna. I don’t have a god. I just am.”

  She shivers. He holds her tighter.

  They lie in silence for a long time, until Enna’s questions subside, until her eyes close and her breathing evens. It’s a slumber without nightmares. She needs the rest. At least Maekallus can give her that.

  The guilt carves her name over his heart.

  When she’s deep in sleep, Maekallus slowly pulls away. Moves the rug back from the hearth just enough to keep any sparks from hurting her, then wraps the side he’d occupied over her back. He stands, careful of the ceiling, clenching and unclenching his fist until feeling creeps back into his arm. The light from the gobler’s spell burns into his chest, beckoning him back to the glade. Even though she’s been left with a flake of a soul, her will had called to him. Not an order. A call. Almost like he was wanted.