196

196
Marrel pov

The forest no longer wants me here, and I truly no longer care.

I step between the trees as if they have not begun to shift away from my presence, as if the undergrowth doesn’t grow silent with every footfall and as if the wind doesn’t recoil the moment it brushes against my skin.

There was a time it welcomed me, pulled at the hem of my cloak like a child begging to be heard, opened the paths before I even knew I needed them, but not anymore. Now it watches me and it waits.

And if it has not yet made up its mind whether I am to be devoured or spared, then I will decide for it.
I don’t want forgiveness, I want the truth.

The witch has nothing left to give me. No matter how I return, with words calm or voice raised, or fists clenched around the last scraps of control I still pretend to possess, she only looks at me with that same unreadable calm, as if all my grief is a prophecy she already outlived.

She won’t name what she knows, won’t explain what she sees. Her riddles rot before they reach meaning and for all the power she holds, all the twisted magic that coats her fingers like sap from cursed trees, she is not the only ancient thing in these woods.

There are places even she doesn’t tread, so I follow what calls and leave her behind.

It takes me three days to find the temple, or perhaps it takes three days for it to let itself be found. I don’t sleep, don’t eat, don’t speak to the birds that circle above and the creatures that slither too close just to  retreat again. I follow instinct, not map - need, not memory.

And when I see it, when the edge of the forest splits open to reveal stone carved into the mouth of a cliff, half-consumed by vines that seem too deliberate to be natural, I know I am not the first to come here, seeking something they were not ready to receive.

But I step forward anyway because I already know too much and still not enough.

He is waiting for me, not cloaked in dust like a relic of old faith, but standing tall, alert, as if my arrival was the final step in a ritual long delayed. He looks at me the way Lester once did when he was young and ruthless and convinced the future could be bent to his will.

“You came late,” the priest says.

“I wasn’t summoned.” I say calmly, keeping my voice even and respectful.

“A god does not summon, he suffers the arrival.” The priest announces loudly, his powerful voice echoes against the ruins of what once was a temple millions visited to worship and kiss the floor in.

I clench my jaw. “I need answers.”

“You need absolution, but I can only give you stories.” The priest hums and waves toward the once mighty tempter and I follow him into the dark.

The inside of the temple is colder than I expect, but not lifeless. The walls breathe, the air pulses and the shadows don’t shift when I walk, but they twitch when I speak. This place doesn’t welcome, it endures.

Candles flicker, statues loom and the smell of old blood lingers under the incense, as if memory itself is too stubborn to fade. And then he gestures toward a mural that stretches the length of the wall, carved into stone deep enough that even erosion hasn’t swallowed the meaning: A faceless boy next to an overflowing vessel. A crown, not made of gold but of thorns pressed into bone. A mirror, held by a thousand hands and yet reflecting none.

And beneath it all, words etched in ancient tongue - translated only when one is willing to understand:
He will love what he kills, or kill what he loves. There is no middle.

I don’t breathe because I know that shape. I have watched him tremble under weight not meant for any mortal, watched him bleed and still call it love and watched him carry names that don’t belong to him.

“This is about him,” I whisper, and the priest only nods. “He’s not a god," I snap, though my voice doesn’t sound like mine. “He’s just a boy. Arvin is just a boy still, a human unfortunate enough to be brave and fight for his life only to be noticed and chosen by the Prince of the undead. He is not a god!”

“That is what makes him holy,” the priest says, setting down a clay cup filled with something too thick to be called tea. “Not because he chose it but because he didn’t.”

“He didn’t ask for this.” I shake my head fast, eyes still focused on the mural.

“No god ever does.” The priest hums under his breath.

I sit across from him because standing feels like arrogance here. The floor is cold and the room becomes quieter than I can stand. “Tell me,” I say, my words catching in my throat.

“He is a vessel,” the priest says, calm and unshaken, “but not the first. There have been others. All of them failed and eventually broke.”

“Why?” I choke out weakly.

“Because they were filled with what the world wanted from them, not what they were born to carry.” The priest speaks in riddles the same as that forsaken witch does, but his words make more sense than hers.

I stare at the flames, my hands ache just from looking. “And what is he carrying?” I finally ask.

The priest doesn’t smile or blink as his voice turns hollow. “The ending.”

Suddenly, I remember Arvin in his sleep, the way he whispered names he never told us in daylight.
How sometimes he stared at his hands like they belonged to someone else and every touch that tried to soothe him seemed to ripple deeper into some wound I couldn’t see.

He was unraveling, not because he was weak, but because he was becoming.

“Can it be stopped?” I ask, voice too hopeful for my own good.

The priest lifts his eyes to mine. “Would you want it to be?”

I nod. Yes.”

“Then you are a coward.” He mutters like he has heard this plea a million times before.

“I’m trying to save him.” I insist.

“No,” the priest says softly. “You are trying to save yourself.”

The words sting because they’re true, because I remember what it felt like to promise myself I wouldn’t fail again and to promise Lester I’d never let this happen. But the priest is right, this isn’t about Arvin, it’s about the terror of watching something divine crawl out of the body of a boy I was supposed to keep human.

“There has to be another path,” I say. “There has to be a way to fix this.”

“Fixing implies it is broken while it’s not. It is exactly what it was meant to be.”

I look up at him again. “Then what do I do?”

“You watch,” he says. “And when the time comes, you decide if you’ll kneel or run.”

When I rise to leave, my body feels heavier, like I’ve taken something with me. A weight that won’t leave and a knowing that stains. The priest walks me to the threshold and places a hand on my shoulder. “We raised the wrong god.”