Page 41 of Ashen Souls
Harper’s hand clamped around my knee under the table. “You okay?”
“Fine,” I lied, my heart pounding so hard it made my vision pulse.
Hale continued. He moved easily between ancient Mesopotamian myths and medieval folklore, between classical poetry and Victorian medical texts that had tried to categorize desire as an illness. He quoted Ovid, then Sappho, his voice never rising, yet commanding the entire room’s attention.
“Notice the pattern,” he said eventually, writing CRAVING / CONSEQUENCE across the board. “We want something. Then we pay for wanting it. The question, of course, is whether the payment is worth it.”
He turned to us again. “Thoughts?”
A student with a man-bun raised a hand. “So… were incubi basically just an old way to explain wet dreams?”
“Partly,” Hale replied. “But they also gave people a language for discussing consent and power long before those words existed in their modern sense. Myths are more sophisticated than we often assume.”
His gaze swept across the room again. “Ms. Hart?”
My head snapped up. “Yes?”
“Do you think the payment is ever worth it?” His tone hadn’t changed, but the question felt pointed.
“I think,” I said slowly, “it depends what you get in return. And who you become because of it.”
He let my answer sink in, stretching the pause until the space between us felt taut. “Good.”
The rest of the hour passed in a blur of stories where it was impossible to tell where devotion crossed the line into depravity. Hale didn’t lecture in the traditional sense. Instead, he guided the conversation with an ease that made the room feel alive, steering us with dry comments that landed sharp enough to keep everyone on edge.
By the time the class ended, it was obvious half the room was ready to hand him their souls.
Judging by the erratic rhythm against my own ribs, I wasn’t exactly an exception.
The lecture ended in a rush of zipping backpacks and shuffling paper.
Hale raised a hand, stopping the exodus in its tracks. “One more thing before you go.”
The noise died down, a hundred pairs of eyes refocusing on him.
“I’m changing the midterm essay prompt.” He picked up a piece of chalk. “Because I find predictability to be the death of actual scholarship.”
A collective groan rippled through the hall as he turned to the board.
A visitation: choose a myth where the boundary between worlds is crossed. Argue whether the crossing was consensual.
“You may keep the original prompt if you’ve already started,” he added, dusting the white powder from his fingers. “But if you’d like the new one... there it is.”
A few students looked intrigued despite themselves.
“Office hours are posted.” Hale gathered his papers into a neat stack. “If you need help choosing a myth, or if you’d like to argue with me about any of this, I’m very persuadable.”
Harper elbowed me. “Go. Ask about your essay.”
“I haven’t even chosen a myth.”
“Pick one on the way down.”
“What if I trip and die?”
“Then I inherit your smut books.”
I rolled my eyes but stood anyway, sliding my bag over my shoulder. Standing sent a jagged ache through my side as I joined the line forming at his desk.
