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He smiles at me halfheartedly. “We will see,” he tells me, though I know that his mind is already made up.
But his illusory double approaches me, standing mere inches from my body as he looms overhead.
“Why don’t you just leap from the cliffside, spare yourself my mercy? You know that you’re no good to me, and that eventually, I’ll find that out.”
I shake my head, closing my eyes.
“You think I can save you? How can I do that when you can’t save yourself?”
“What’s wrong?”
I didn’t think Peliel was capable of concern. I had even considered that perhaps I’d misjudged his divinity and that I’d fallen in with a spirit, or a cursed being.
“It’s nothing,” I say, my eyes still closed. “Just a headache.”
“Ah.”
I hear the rocks dislodge under his feet as he shuffles away through the cavern.
Then I think of all the things I’d considered. The floor plan I spent time laying out.
But I’m a stranger to him. Why would he offer me any kindness?
A stranger who fucked your throat multiple times.
With everything considered, it was still a far more pleasant interaction than any we’d had to this point. But there’s still so much about him that I could never hope to understand.
I’d be a fool to think I could change him into something other than he is. Why would I entertain the notion?
He has a higher cause that I can’t even begin to grasp.
A week passes, and I begin to forget what it felt like to be desperately lonely, not having a single conversation partner.
“I haven’t spoken to anybody in three years.”
He sits on the edge of the bed, watching me drink water he procured from the stone. There’s a slaughtered animal he incinerated after conjuring it here.
I tear through it, though it has no flavor and the meat might break my teeth if it doesn’t broil my tongue.
I am his guest, I think. To be honest, I’m not sure if I’m here of my own will anymore.
Either way, I shouldn’t be rude and refuse his offering of food.
“I thought as much.”
I raise my eyebrow at his candor. “That’s a bit rude, isn’t it?”
“You talk to yourself a lot,” he says. “Also, I don’t think I’ve ever spoken to anybody. Generally, I speak at them.”
I don’t bother to correct him, specifying that the people I talk to speak back to me in return. Eids, the god of weather, has been standing in the cavern entrance for about the past three days and happily reports that the sun is shining every two hours.
But I’m starting to understand what’s real and what’s not.
“I yell at people when I flay them alive,” he clarifies.
“I figured that’s what you meant.”
I watch his eyes as he surveys me. I never notice how brightly he shines in this dim cavern. The white light he shines illuminates the room brighter than even Warren’s grace.
