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Jealous. The word echoed through my head. No. I was not jealous of his hands being on her, the same hands that had wrung pleasure out of me and made me wither against their touch.

A hand that had my mark etched into his skin.

Edgar crossed the room in two long strides, catching Cerilla before her knees could meet the stone.

She twisted violently in his arms, exhaustion stealing the strength from the movement before it could become escape.

“Let go of me,” she hissed, every word sharpened by pride. “Filthy god.”

The word struck me harder than I expected.

God.

My eyes snapped to Edgar.

Of course he was a god, it made sense seeing he was trapped here with the others. Yet I had refused to believe it.

I had whispered desperate prayers in the dark, begging for salvation that had never come.

A hollow laugh escaped me, too brittle to be amusement, yet too broken to be anything else.

Edgar tightened his hold enough to keep Cerilla from falling, his head dipping as though he could not bear to meet her eyes. His golden hair spilled forward, shadowing the grief carved across his face, and for the first time since I had met him, the priest looked less like a monster and more like a man carrying something far heavier than the female struggling in his arms.

He didn't argue, didn't defend himself, just held her as though setting her down would shatter whatever fragile thread was holding him together.

Selkie took one step into the darkness and froze, her strangled gasp echoing off the walls. “They're coming,” she whispered through my fracturing thoughts.

Her voice barely rose above a breath, yet the words slipped beneath my skin like cold water.

Her eyes were fixed somewhere deep within the darkness, her head tilted ever so slightly, as though she were listening to a conversation none of us had been invited to hear.

“Can you hear them?” she breathed.

The question wrapped icy fingers around my spine.

I listened, the sound of my own heartbeat drowning out the world around me.

A whisper slithered beneath my skin like decay, the taste of rot sliding across my tongue with my next breath.

The one whisper turned to hundreds. They were so quiet they barely existed, like dried leaves scraping across stone, each voice too distant to understand and yet close enough that I could feel them brushing the inside of my skull.

Selkie's breath caught. Her violet eyes widened, fixed on something moving beyond the torchlight.

“The souls…” she whispered, colour draining from her face. “They're coming.”

Chapter Thirty-One

Into the Deep

Lyra

“They're coming.” Selkie’s whisper echoed against the damp stone, the stench of rot growing thick enough to make me gag.

She stumbled backwards, violet eyes widening as if she could see something we could not.

“Go!” Helion snapped, the flames burning over his hands surging.

We ran.