Page 22 of Incarnate

"It is vague, because some of it I only know secondhand." She wraps both hands around her cup. "When you were last here in Nethram, you were Nara. A goddess of a dying pantheon. And Kallúm became your bind."

"My what?"

"Your mate. We refer to the linking of souls as a bind. It is unique to demons—a primal, physical connection. The actual forming of the bind is through consummation after a ceremony, and continued… intimacy is necessary to keep it healthy. It's how a demon connects with their mate's soul. How they heal. How they grow."

My mouth opens. Then closes. I glance down at the dark tea, my gaze unable to settle on anything in particular. "I'm the mate? The one Margaret kept talking about? The one Katie wanted to replace?"

"Yes."

As much as that kind of explains things, I literally can’t believe any of it. "Okay,” I say, probably in a state of some kind of shock. “So then something happened where I got reborn as a human?”

"Yes."

My sigh turns into a grumble. "Do you have anything stronger than this?"

"No. You need to stay grounded."

"So, what happened, then?” I ask, as if it’s something casual. How can I possibly allow it to sink any deeper?

"You damaged the bind. Severely. It's still there, broken, but present. And for some reason, you returned right under his nose." Judica's eyes narrow with something between amusement and exasperation. "You probably did it on purpose. Your soul has patterns, Penelope. Even across lifetimes. I told you—I knew you would come back to him."

I’m trying to imagine a life as an actual goddess, looking over my hand and recalling how my anger broke the stone beneath my feet. I’m trying to imagine Kallúm and actually being bound to him as his mate.

It’s beyond preposterous.

"How did I leave? How did I damage the bind? How did I go from a goddess to Penelope?”

She takes a slow breath. "I will be honest, because your soul will know better. Nara loved him. She really did. Or else the bind would not have solidified so profoundly. It's not something that can be forced to hold. It requires something genuine underneath." She pauses, rapping her fingers against the mug of tea. "Choosing the mandarin at the Devotion confirmed it. That was your fruit, Nara's fruit. It's why it awakened Kallúm through the statue. It's why I tried to give you that damn pomegranate, and when I saw you left it behind, I knew I had to move immediately. You bear the face of Nara, so I knew he’d recognize you.

"He cannot have you right now." She leans forward. "The bind between you is open. Damaged. You have free will right now. If he reconnects it, if he touches you, consummates with you, it will seal again, and you will lose yourself to it. It will be decades before he lets you leave his side."

Something in that sentence has an unbidden effect that I am deeply uncomfortable admitting.

I drink more tea, unsettled by the desire just conjured.

I nearly jump when a wooden owl statue on the wall opens its beak and speaks with a voice like brass: "This is a message from the Primus Seraph. On orders from our Dominus Kallúm, there are measures being set in place due to a security breach. The gates to Nightfell will require a full Reaper inspection, as well as all carriage rides. There is a thief among you who has stolen something that belongs to Dominus Kallúm. If you hear or see anything out of the ordinary, and it leads to the capture of this thief, the reward will be immediate eternalization. If what has been stolen from Kallúm is safely returned, then deification will be rewarded."

"I'm not a thief!" I yell out.

Judica laughs, a real laugh, full and delighted, her stained teeth showing. "He's talking about me. You're the thing I stole from everyone's precious Kallúm."

"I don't… understand."

"Yes, you do. You just don't want to hear it."

I get up and examine the owl, the wood still cold underfoot, which gives me a reason to look at something that isn't Judica's face while I process the fact that a demon king just put a bounty on my return. Deification. He's offering to make someone a god if they bring me back.

"So," I say, licking my lips. "I was his mate. The big, scary demon."

"You are his mate. That bond never truly shatters, unless… well, we will get there. It's currently broken but still present. Like a bone that healed wrong and needs to be reset.”

"And he wants to reset it."

"He wants to do significantly more than reset it."

A chill washes through me, settling in my navel as if some part of me welcomes that. The ring on my pinky is even heavier, like I want to take it off to relieve the discomfort. I sit back down. "Tell me about the bind. What it actually means. And how did I become a human? There’s a lot of missing steps.”

She holds my gaze. "My understanding is that he forced the bind on you before you were ready. What I know is based on when I saw you, briefly, before the end. You told me that you and Kallúm were genuine soulmates. That you were designed to come back together. But he is a demon, and a dark one. You sensed right away who he was, and you planned to leave, to come back in a few hundred years when he was less… demonic. A little more loving. More palatable. And in the meantime, you wanted to help us. Help your old pantheon that was dying.”