Page 143 of Hellbound

Warm, welcome memories of things she loved, of the people who gave her the space to be herself. There are none like them of her family, but she doesn’t care.

She finds a way to live in the company of others. And still, there is more to see.

But she’s out of time again.

Marian’s mouth fell open in a wet rattle. She looked up pleadingly into his eyes as blood and tears streamed down her face. “I want to live.”

Vale held her head in her hands, features pinched.

“My leiah. My headstrong, heedless, leiah. Hold on.”

Her mind must have been shutting down, because those words didn’t sound like English, yet she understood their meaning just fine. One word processed slower than the others, the truth of it tangled up in so many knotted threads.

Leiah.

She knew what it meant. And it cracked her heart in two. Rivers of tears flowed freely down her cheeks.

“My light in the dark.”

Her last breath slipped out of her unlabored as true release carried her away. She savored the fleeting, unfettered feeling while it lasted. Her vision swiftly faded to black, and then it was over.

Marian died.

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

The dead world welcomed her for the final time with a deep, yawning groan. Slate mist hung heavy in the air when she opened her eyes. But it was not the Hell she remembered.

There was no sky, no endless horizon and the skeletal remains of a ruined city. She’d materialized in an enormous dark cave. Behind her lay remnants of the gate she’d opened, its barbs and lattice shredded on the ground. The air was downright arctic; something had changed. She lifted her eyes to the gargantuan beast sitting in the distance, its form obscured by shadow and gray.

It towered above her, its many red eyes blinking out of sync. The teeth that didn’t fit into its mouth gleamed in the faint blue light emanating from depressions in the ground.

But Marian wasn’t afraid. She knew this creature. It helped save her.

“I know you,” she whispered. “You brought me back to life once.”

The beast watched her in silence. Long, splintered claws protruded from crossed, hairless paws. The creature appeared solid—unlike the Remnant. And succumbing to decay.

It sat sphinxlike as Marian stood like a mouse before an indifferent lion.

“Is it finished?” The creature bellowed in her mind.

“Yes,” she replied. Her part of it, at least.

“Then Death has closed the door. He does not return.”

Marian exhaled a slow, shuddering breath.

Death. All this time, you bargained with Death.

Death, who’d stood in her home, who’d fed and clothed her. Death, who never let her go without a fight, who’d kissed her like she meant something. Insufferable, arrogant, constant Death. Why did that realization hurt so much?

It didn’t matter now. Her life was truly over. And she’d realized too late that she didn’t want it to be.

Tori’s alive. Paul is free. The Argent can die.

Could that knowledge keep her from madness here? Could it ward off the pain of eternity? And what about every other soul trapped in the Remnant?

“And the ixyura?” Marian asked.