Damaged Gods by K.C. Cross, J.A. Huss

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE - PELL

My light grows, the darkness fades, and then, suddenly, I am in the woods. My woods. No. Our woods.

I run with my horn torch held high. Looking for her. Calling for her.

At first the crashing of my hooves in the underbrush drowns it out, but then I hear it. I hear her. The small tinkling of tiny bells around her neck, and her wrists, and braided into her hair.

She is running towards me. Leaping over long-dead trees, leaves smacking her face.

We race towards each other. But when we meet up, we change. Become small. Become kids.

I look over at Pie, no longer holding my horn torch, no longer needing it. The sun is shining above the forest canopy and little pillars of light find their way through the web of leaves, illuminating her face with golden light.

She laughs. We both laugh. And I take her hand so we can run together.

We run through our forest of white-trunked trees and bright-yellow leaves.

And we still pause when we get to the boundary of the flower meadow.

We still consider our options.

But this time, when she calls her moths and sends them forward, I do not let her go without me.

I take her hand and we step into the clearing together.

Grown up now, we look at each other one more time, just to make sure.

“Yes?” I ask.

“The curse won’t be broken,” Pie says. “But the boundaries will shift.”

We stop walking in the middle of the meadow and I pull her towards me. “That could mean anything, Pie.”

“I’m ready for all of it,” she says.

I kiss her.

She kisses me.

I gaze into her wood-nymph blue eyes and she searches my satyr-yellow ones. And then, finally, we really are ready for what comes next.

There are more monsters caught in this curse than us. And when we turn back to the woods, they are there. Waiting. Monsters of every shape and size. Horns, and hooves, and wings, and tails peek out from behind the burnt-orange leaves of the temple woods.

We stop at the edge of the trees. And one by one they come forward, some angry, some sad, some just beaten down and tired.

But they come and they follow us across the meadow. They run with us through the woods.

We take them back through the darkness, my horns—whole again—lighting the way.

And when we step out of the darkness and back into the light, we walk back into the sanctuary.

And we bring all the monsters of Saint Mark’s with us.