Page 146 of Hellbound

“No. Your vessel is beyond repair.”

Then it really was over. So what was next? Did she join Hexceit and its memories? Or take her chances wandering this place and look for her dad? If there was anything left to find.

“You seek your father.”

Marian’s head snapped up.

“What did you say?”

The monster shook its massive canine head. “Many try to escape the ixyura. Few succeed. All become something else among the many; the living do not perceive them as they were. The one you seek found you, but at a great cost. Only fragments remain, but what is left of his soul is free.”

Marian cried out as she was thrown yet again into the rushing current of time. The memories came through faster, sharper, imperfect.

The dark blots keeping her company in her room in the wake of nightmares. The little shadow spiders urging her to live when she’d given up on herself.

The moments replayed, and this time, the ruse fell away.

She heard Bennett Meyer’s voice as moments of her life replayed themselves.

Pleading as she sought her first end.

“Stay. Please. Don’t give up on this life yet. I love you so much, sweetheart. I’m so sorry I never got to tell you in a way that mattered.”

Reassuring her when she returned from her first dive, the pain of living again an agony she didn’t think she could bear.

“Take it easy, kiddo. Just breathe. I’m here. I know what it feels like, trust me. Death’s a real bitch.”

Screaming through the Remnant that caged them both.

“Look at me! Remember these lines, the way they connect. It’s a seal. The one he’s looking for. Make it a part of you. Live and end this, Marian. Fuck, I’m so sorry.”

All this time, he was there.

“This isn’t the life I wanted to leave you. But I hope you’ll find the strength to fight for a better one.”

Marian tore herself from the memory and staggered backward.

He loved her?

And now he was truly gone, banished to be another shadow in her life. But he was free.

All this time. Hell was never empty. Every soul was here, trapped for a miserable eternity. Marian couldn’t stand it.

“Va’hael,” the creature howled the most soul-crushing, baleful howl Marian had ever heard. “Forgive us, that we too may die.”

She had to end this. Whatever that end was, it had to be kinder than endless existence.

“I bear the mark,” Marian said as she examined her wrist, turning it slowly until the black sigil faced her. Her palm filled with smoke, then a knife. “I wield Death. I am …”

A word burned in her memory.

“Hallowed.”

Hexceit lumbered forward, then turned its great head toward a distant, spine-chilling sound. A sob welled in her chest. Was this eternity? Battle the Remnant or succumb to it? Or would Hexceit be her future?

The knife gently elongated in her hand as it had in life, reshaping itself to take the form of the weapon that killed Verinne. A long, curved blade, its edges undulating like water. Long enough that Marian needed two hands to grip it, though its weight remained unchanged.

Hexceit shifted from paw to paw, jaws snapping. Its dozen eyes flickered, pupils shrinking.