Citadel Firstlight had never before felt like such a tomb.
Mithras jammed his fingers under his cloak, warming them as best he could. He wasn’t sure why he felt so cold. Someone had left a window open—or a guard dwindled at his post exchange too long, allowing the night air in as they spoke with their replacement.
Damn them , he thought, channeling his rage at no one in particular.
His anger had better use targeting a ghost. There was no ‘them’ in these halls tonight. There was no open window or door. No one to blame, condemn, or lash out at.
But damn them anyways.
Because the more he could focus on a ‘them’ , the more he could forget that the cold was coming from him .
He could feel it working through his veins. The bitter otherness of the thing that swelled within him. It would soon worm up his throat, stiffening his jaw and chilling his breath.
Hurry .
It hurt to breathe. His feet felt sluggish and dull.
Hurry .
He slammed his shoulder into the nearest door, stumbling inside and leaning heavily against it after it shut.
The third-floor chapel.
How fitting.
He locked the doors behind him, staggering to one of the seven mirrors that towered behind the altar. They were designed to reflect the congregation; designed to honor the Maker and the seven Weavers who saw all. Tonight, they would reflect only him.
Him and the spirit of another.
When he was ready, or near enough to it, he looked up. The red eyes that met him in the mirror were not his own. He watched, disgusted and helpless as his mouth opened and closed.
“You are running out of time, Mithras,” the demon inside him hissed.
He regained control of himself just long enough to speak. “We’ve found a suitable host,” Mithras gasped. A few breaths, if that, were all he was given in these conversations. “As soon as he is ready, I will bring you to him.”
Mithras’s skin itched. Like the thing inside him wanted out .
“I will be the judge of his suitability. ”
“You always are, my lord.”
“Hmm, ” the creature rumbled. Mithras’s hand began to move, and his head tilted down to behold it. He shoved down the overwhelming urge to recoil. The demon had never demonstrated this amount of mastery before. “The longer I am here, the more I enjoy this body.”
“I am glad it serves.”
“Perhaps you are more of a fit than I realized. ” There was that hand again. Moving without his will. It moved higher, connecting with the muscles and ligaments of his arm, and traced part of his reflection. “Would you deny it from me?”
Mithras swallowed and shook his head. It was all he could manage.
“No, you are too weak. My powers are manifested through your anger and your shame. A god does not belong in the body of a coward and a fool. ” The demon drew his hand away. Mithras’s eyes—his own, but not—gleamed in the chapel’s blue light, glowing crimson-red and smoking as if they were aflame. “A god wishes to be in the body of one who commands the dark and makes it bend. ” His eyes smoldered; smoke rose from them in horrible rivulets, burning his skin. “I think you are hiding them from me, Mithras. I think you are hiding them—and I will devour their souls and wear their skins before you can stop me.”
And in another breath, the demon left him.
Mithras fell to his knees, retching violently as he dug his fingers into the stone and tried to keep himself from screaming. He trembled as his fingernails clawed down, down, down, trying desperately to ground himself in his body again. It was harder this time. It was harder every time. It used to take him a few minutes—seconds, even—to feel like himself.
Now it sometimes took days.
He did not recognize the tears as they fell. They curved down his frozen face and dripped onto the stone. Some wet the tops of his hands, but he couldn’t feel them. He was afraid to think. Afraid to speak. So he wept in silence, tears carving trails across skin that did not feel like his own.
“I’m sorry,” he finally whispered, fingers digging into the floor. It was a pathetic plea to everyone he’d ever hurt, betrayed, or tried to protect. Everyone he’d tried so desperately to save from the monster within him. Esmer. Erebus. All of them. He was about to break—shatter into dust. “I’m sorry .”
