Page 5

Iwas angry. Boiling, my consciousness bubbling like a pot on a blazing fire.

But my anger served no good. Not to myself, and certainly not to the incredible creature who’d chosen me to love and to be with for the rest of time. My anger brought nothing useful to the table, and I dared not let it take over. No, we had come a long way. Death’s secrets were coming apart at the seams, and I wanted to know everything.

I was tired, too. Tired of the lies and unspoken truths. Tired of the hypocrisy.

Biriane felt like the epitome of everything I had come to despise Death for. The World Crusher had been brought here. Hidden and locked away, and I wanted to know why. As much as the mere thought of my maker irked me at this point, I had to admit that she’d often had solid reasons for doing what she did. The World Crusher’s incarceration was no different; there must have been a reason. I wanted to understand what had driven her to make such radical decisions.

It didn’t minimize the gravity of her deeds. Oh no, I dared hope the universe would eventually repay Death in kind for all the times she’d disrupted its balance for her own personal benefit—Thezin and the soul fae’s survival were two solid examples, and I had a feeling the World Crusher would turn out to be a clear third. I couldn’t help but wonder what other things she’d been keeping from me and every other Reaper in the realm.

Dwelling on the big picture was too much to handle—it only made me angrier. So I focused on the Temple of Roses. I focused on the ghouls and the city itself. On the stories that needed to be told. On the man who’d chosen to walk this world with me, to build a life and a family with me. It was infinitely better than giving into the anger that nipped at my nerve endings.

“They cherished their city,” Tristan said after a few minutes of silent walking. He’d been looking around, studying the details and drawing conclusions regarding this place. “A lot of work went into the architecture. No house was left on its own. Not a single wall or roof was allowed to digress from the overall aspect. Notice the metal roof tiles. The same type of stone bricks and white sand mortar used for the walls.”

I offered a faint nod. “I suppose they functioned on a certain aesthetic.” We both knew the truth of this world was dark and probably dangerous, but peeling away at it layer by layer felt like the only sane approach. What had killed these people? And was there a connection to the World Crusher? Had this been like Visio, but worse?

“They did. All white. Minimalist lines. Sharp corners but perfectly round forms for the tall towers,” he said, then walked over to a villa ahead on the right side of the alley leading toward the city center. “And look here. Three steps in front of each house. Everything is slightly elevated,” Tristan added. There was certainly a pattern, an adherence to certain architectural and functional norms. Tristan continued, “My guess is the river would overflow sometimes, enough to flood the houses. So they built this final version of the city about five feet above.”

There was a story already weaving in my husband’s head. I loved that about him. He found meaning in everything, even where I’d never bothered to look before. It had come with the territory of being a living creature, and I looked forward to experiencing that for myself—the awareness of having limited time in this world.

As much as I enjoyed Tristan’s anthropological observations, however, there was something else I needed his advice about. He had yet to steer me wrong, and I’d become accustomed to relying on his counsel for major decisions. I followed him as he moved closer to the villa, then sat on the bottom step, looking up at him. “Death will expect me to reach out soon,” I said. “If I tell her we’re on Biriane, she might pull the plug on this operation.”

“You think? She did let you go ahead with the other two,” he replied, joining me on the step.

In front of us, the alley stretched from left to right with almost identical houses, each with a five-foot foundation and tall, rectangular windows with black iron frames. Square planters lined the street, but the dirt was sterile. Trees and greenery had grown in them once. Now there was nothing, only a white dust that had settled over everything. It made me feel a little sad. I was the very concept of everlasting life, yet I sat here surrounded by death.

“Maybe she considered her soul fae secret to be more of a misdemeanor,” I said. “She didn’t want to talk about it. Just told me to get on with it, specifying that we’d discuss everything later.”

Tristan sighed. “And she didn’t remember Thezin, so getting to the bottom of that mystery was important to her too.”

“Yes. But this… this is an atrocious lie. She said I was her first. She treated me as such, but she lied. Not just to me, but to everyone else, including my brothers and sisters. Imagine what the Soul Crusher will say when he hears about this. Or the Time Master, who still worships Death and adores her more than anything. It will break them, Tristan. She won’t want us to go ahead with this.”

“What will happen, then, if she pulls the plug on our mission here? You’ll be ordered to come back and renounce your dream of having a family, I guess… but what about Anunit?”

“Death will probably have one of my siblings finish the race. Or maybe she’ll come here herself if I refuse to back down. Either way, none of the scenarios that begin with me telling Death about the World Crusher and Biriane will end well,” I said.

He thought about it for a moment, but his response didn’t come as a shock. I was already thinking it. “Then lie to her,” he said. “You can make yourself unseen to her. She won’t be able to track you.”

“If I lie, we can get to the bottom of this completely undisturbed.”

“Anunit must be stopped, too,” Tristan added. “She’s got too much power for my comfort.”

“I agree,” I replied. “To be honest, I’ve made my peace with the possibility that I might not see this dream of having a child come true, when all this is done.”

Tristan frowned, eyeing me closely. “It’s literally half of the reason we’ve come to this forsaken place.”

“It is, but let us consider something. Do you think Death would have locked away the World Crusher without good reason?” I asked. “I wouldn’t release her if it meant wreaking havoc into the universe. It’s where Death and I come apart. I would never do anything that would hurt the living, or my siblings for that matter. Anunit’s deal means I can get a body and have a child, have a family with you. Who am I hurting with that?”

“No one.”

“But if I let the World Crusher go… and she does something unforgivable, where does that leave me? My aching desires are not worth such horrible things,” I decided, despite the pain that throbbed in my chest upon reaching this decision. “No. We will learn the truth about the World Crusher, Tristan, but we can’t complete the third trial if it endangers others.”

He smiled a little sadly, and I knew we were on the same page, knew I’d made the right choice by bonding my soul to his. Not a day went by that I wasn’t blissfully aware of this marvelous truth. I had found love in the strangest of places, in the most difficult of circumstances. His light had brought me back to the surface. I refused to do anything that might endanger him or our relationship. This third trial was one such thing, even if Tristan didn’t say it himself.

“And once we have the truth and the three days have passed, we’ll capture Anunit and bring her back to Death,” I added. I had scanned the area prior to this statement to be sure the Reaper had really left us and wasn’t listening in.

“What if the World Crusher is harmless? The name is worrisome, but—”

“The Soul Crusher’s name is enough reason to put him away forever. Yet he roams freely, twisted as he is, but in love and thriving and doing more good than evil,” I replied. “If the World Crusher is innocent of the punishment she’s had to endure for so long, then we will free her. The trial will be completed, and we will have our family after all.”

Tristan got up and breathed in deeply, stretching his arms out as if he’d just gotten out of bed. “Well, then… it sounds like we’ve got a good plan for what’s ahead. Let us go, my love. The Temple of Roses awaits.”

He offered me his hand, and I took it, pleased with where we stood my anger muffled by layers of love and gratitude. I only hoped it would stay that way until the end of this complicated affair. Rage had brought out the worst in me before, and I didn’t want it to resurface when a clear head was so essential.

The closer we got to the city center, the more I could feel it. Not my rage, though. No. The World Crusher’s. It lingered in the air, thickening the very atmosphere around us. The sky was clear, but I felt a heavy cloud coming down, like a layer of lead pressing on my shoulders. For the first time in years, I experienced what I could only describe as a shortness of breath.

“We’re definitely getting closer,” I said, my eyes stinging. These physical sensations normally belonged only to the living, but I was experiencing them too.

Tristan gave me a worried look. “To the World Crusher?”

“Yes. Remember the Black Fever?”

“How could I forget?” he replied with a dry chuckle.

“It feels like that, only much worse. Oh, Tristan… What if the World Crusher’s suffering spilled out into this world and killed them? What if the ghost city we’re in is proof of her unwitting devastation?”

He stepped in front of me, gripping my shoulders tightly. “We will find out. And if there is anything we can do, we will do it. Remember, we’re in this together.”

The answer was simple. In theory, everything was simple.

It was the practical side of the world that worried me, especially where a potentially uber-powerful Reaper was concerned. It had taken Death to step in and destroy the Spirit Bender, and only because he had given her no choice. She had never wanted him gone. She loved all her children—that much I knew for a fact, otherwise I would’ve been wiped out a long time ago. The Spirit Bender would’ve met his end in the nothingness much sooner too.

So it had been love that stopped Death from eliminating the World Crusher. But the same love had doomed this Reaper to an excruciatingly long time sealed away in this place. It had to be a fate worse than the nothingness…

“It’s going to get harder for me to think,” I warned Tristan. I could already feel the tendrils of World’s misery tickling my senses, eager to play with my mind. “I need you to keep me on the right path, my love. I want us to see this through, no matter what.”

“And we will,” he said, and I believed him.

I had more faith in Tristan than I did in Death. It was time for me to reach out and speak to her before things got too heavy for me to bear. I worried my lies might not flow as smoothly once we got closer to the Temple of Roses. Hugging my husband tightly, I rested my head on his shoulder and closed my eyes.

My mind reached out to Death. It was a lonely journey every time, my soul wandering off into the vastness of the universe. A mere sparkle of reason in a sea of black and planets and cosmic dust. Connecting with Death felt even worse, an emptiness taking over once our minds bonded and the words flowed freely.

“Unending, darling… How are things on your end?”

Her voice echoed inside my head, but I pulled my defenses up. She would not be able to track me. “We’re on Kellen,” I said. The lie had already been weaved minutes earlier, its seams tightened so that nothing would slip. “There’s a dangerous ghoul here that I’m supposed to capture. One that has been eating every Reaper that came for it. It’s killing the locals, too. Anunit wants me to deal with him.”

“That’s strange,” Death replied. She sounded like she believed me, though. I had heard rumors about Kellen before. Whispers from Reapers who didn’t dare go there, knowing what fate their predecessors had found. It wouldn’t matter once I got to the truth about the World Crusher, anyway. This was merely a device meant to buy me a few days here without Death’s interference. “I would’ve expected Anunit to find something else from my past to throw at your feet.”

The statement surprised me. Death had expected more dirty laundry to be aired between us. But it was her tone that bothered me most. Like it didn’t really matter. Like she didn’t really care how I felt about this.

“Are there more secrets to discover? More things you have kept from me?” I asked, allowing the coldness of my voice to flow through to her. I wanted Death to feel my dismay.

“Unending, I have done many things I am not proud of. I never claimed to be perfect.”

“But you expected us to be perfect and obedient.”

“Because I made you. I am absolute in that sense.”

I scoffed. “The absolute authority, yes. Do as I say, not as I do.”

“Is there something you wish to discuss with me, Unending? Now would be a good time, I imagine, before you go hunting for a wretched ghoul. Though it does sound like an easy assignment for you.”

“It might not be,” I said, deciding to steer clear of any conversation that might light a fuse. “Anunit has flung last-minute surprises at me before. There’s probably something more to this ghoul than anyone knows—Anunit included. I will figure it out, and I will complete the third trial.”

“Good. And then you’ll bring her back to me. She and I have a lot to discuss.”

“You most certainly do,” I muttered.

“Be careful, Unending. And remember. Nothing she does is selfless. There is a purpose there. Anunit seeks to do harm of some kind, either to you or to me, or both.”

She was right, and I knew it. I also hated it. She couldn’t even make it easy for me to be angry with her. Sometimes there were reasons, good and solid and understandable reasons for her actions, especially where Anunit was concerned. It made it hard for me to control this blistering anger, so I decided to end the communication before I let something slip.

Pulling away from my husband, I gave him a peck on the lips. “Let’s go.”

The alley snaked through the city, traversing several small hills. We crossed abandoned squares with large hexagonal stone tiles and remnants of wrought iron tables. People had gathered here to talk over drinks and perhaps even dance under the moonlight. Trees must’ve grown taller than the buildings here. I could almost hear the glasses clinking and the water trickling in the massive fountains whose stone ghosts still reigned in their centers.

We passed large, administrative looking buildings with wide steps and elegantly sloped roofs. But even here, time had left its mark. The facades had been eaten away, the mortar and bricks revealed.

The Temple of Roses loomed ahead. It no longer had a roof. There was only the skeleton remaining, a hundred columns atop a gargantuan platform foundation. The columns were white marble with ornate bases and equally detailed crowns. The massive cylinders were partially worn down, of course, like everything else, but I could still see the sculpted fine lines of roses and leafy vines. In some places I could even make out thorns, poking from the stems.

I felt queasy. It hurt deeply to be this close to the World Crusher.

Tristan held my hand, his grip tightening as we took a few more steps toward the temple. Despite the light shining down on the city, the space between the columns was dark. A black mist persisted there, obscuring everything, keeping it a secret from the outer world.

“Well, here we are,” my husband muttered. His expression told me everything I needed to know. He was just as uneasy, and it made me wonder.

“Can you feel her?” I asked.

He nodded once. “I think so. I can’t offer a better explanation for the dread that’s been growing inside me for the past couple of hours.”

Towers pierced the blue sky: four giants with sharply pointed conical roofs, the light dancing off their metallic tiles. They were tall and slender structures, and I imagined at least a couple thousand steps between us and the top. I wondered what purpose their height served other than observing the areas surrounding the city. Then I noticed the bells. Each of the towers had been fitted with big, black, iron bells. I doubted they had been rung since the civilization had perished.

A low growl emerged from the temple, sending chills up my spine.

“They’re here,” I whispered.

One by one, the figures emerged from the darkness between the columns. To my surprise, they didn’t look like ordinary ghouls. No… they looked more like Reapers. Slim and clad in black and white, they carried half-moon scythes in their bony hands. They had pale skin, almost white, and obsidian eyes where the stars had long ago burnt out.

There were six of them. Six men of fae origin, I noticed, with long pale blond hair and eerily identical facial features. I wondered if they’d been born brothers, died brothers, and then become Reaper brothers before their eventual downfall. It didn’t make sense that they still had scythes, however. Ghouls and scythes did not belong together.

One of them bore a scar down his right cheek, a delicate pink line that traveled from his temple to the left corner of his mouth. He sneered as he descended the temple’s steps, black boots clicking on the white stone. He gripped his weapon tightly, knuckles almost tearing through his pearlescent skin.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” he said. His voice made me tremble.

Tristan’s blood was frozen. His temperature had dropped a few more degrees, and his hand was sweating as it clutched mine. These ghouls had a powerful effect on me. I loathed to even imagine what they were doing to my husband, an otherwise fearless creature.

“And yet I stand before you,” I replied, raising my chin in defiance. “You’re keeping a secret in there. I want to know everything about it.”

The scarred ghoul threw his head back and laughed, while the others grinned in amusement as they too reached the ground floor. Mere feet remained between us, and my free hand was already moving toward my scythe. One more step, and I would be forced to use it sooner than I’d hoped.

“You’re brave, I’ll give you that,” the scarred ghoul said. “State your name, so we know who it is we’re sending away.”

“I am Unending, and you will accept my presence, soul eater! Who are you to think you can stop me?”

He smiled. “We are the Ghoul Reapers of Biriane. And we’ve never eaten a soul.”

The statement hit me like a sledgehammer. Its implication didn’t make sense. How were they ghouls and Reapers at the same time? How was this even possible? Questions flooded my mind as I beheld these strange creatures. Unfortunately, Death was not a reliable source right now. I would have to get my truth from the so-called Ghoul Reapers of Biriane instead.