Page 27 of Queen of the Wicked (Afterlife #1)
“Different how? Why would the king of Heaven want anything to do with a witch?” Her brows furrowed as she tried to remember the lessons her mom spent hours instilling in her. “I suppose there are good witches, although I have only met Allegra, and she was…”
“She is a good witch,” he clarified. Then, as he rapped his knuckles against the dark cherry wood of the table, he seemed to debate something before sighing excessively.
“I am telling you this because it is in the interest of your safety, but what you are about to hear cannot leave this realm. It would endanger me, my close confidants, and all of the demons here who wish to live a better life.”
Alessia nodded slowly, then pushed the book to the side, giving him her full attention. “Okay. I promise I won’t say anything.”
Her word didn’t seem nearly enough for a secret this significant, but Erebos didn’t need much convincing.
He confided in her seconds after. “King Bastian has had a fascination with dark magic for centuries.
His moral compass was the opposite of King Amos, and it infuriated him that his brother had assumed the throne after their father's death instead of him. He spent years building an army of like-minded individuals to steal the crown, and two decades ago, during the Battle of Blood, he succeeded. It resulted in the murder of his brother.”
“That’s…horrible.” Alessia swallowed a rare lump in her throat, tears springing to her eyes. For the life of her, she couldn’t understand why she was so emotional.
“It was.” Erebos nodded with a forlorn expression. “Amos was a ruler everyone looked up to. His wife was pregnant when Bastian attacked the Celestial kingdom, and she died along with the heir to the throne inside of her. ”
That power awakened, the feminine, sinful voice saying, 'Listen, listen, listen. '
“But how was Bastian able to create an army of like-minded people in Heaven when only the righteous are admitted?”
Erebos’s lips quirked, impressed with her ability to catch on so quickly. “You are not the only one who has questioned that.”
Alessia’s skin buzzed beneath her flesh, feeling like a scientist on the brink of discovering a universal breakthrough. It was on the tip of her tongue but just out of reach, and it was unbelievably frustrating.
“What you said to Kael when he visited…about the souls going missing…”
He nodded for her to continue.
And that’s when it clicked.
“Bastian is stealing evil souls from the soul yard to bring them to Heaven?”
“That is my suspicion,” he affirmed. “With no proof, there is little I can do at the moment, but I have been preparing since there has been a shift in the realms. Things on Earth have been…escalating. War is raging, dictatorships have begun, and it won’t be long before the Makers take matters into their own hands.
I want to be ready when they infiltrate. ”
Alessia had learned about the Makers who created the realms. Mara, the Goddess of Sunlight.
Killian, the God of Darkness. Allistor, the God of Nature, and lastly, the sisters: Aster, the Goddess of Death, and Astra, the Goddess of Life.
It was rumored they watched over the realms from the afterlife, overseeing all they’d created in the stars and in the very air they breathed.
With Bastian tampering with the balance, Alessia was unsurprised the Makers were pissed.
“What do you mean by infiltrate?” she asked.
He shrugged. “By creating something newly made. A harbinger, of sorts. They will steer the realms back to where they need to be and restore the balance. I will offer my army to whoever that responsibility is placed upon. Ally with them to send Bastian into the Unknown.”
Listen, listen, listen.
“The Unknown?”
Erebos reached across the table to grab the Book of Death, flipping to one of the first pages, which displayed a map.
The levels of Heaven weren’t surprising to her, since she had memorized them by heart at this point.
Telestrial, the lowest level. Terrestrial, the middle, and Celestial, the highest. Alessia had heard that the levels varied in scenery, but all she had was her imagination, based on the stories her parents had told her about them.
But this map had a lower portion than the one she was shown as a child, the crinkled pages depicting the levels of Hell. She spotted the castle, indicating they were on the highest level, with Earth directly above them and acting as a barrier between the realms.
Her eyes drifted downward to the section of level one. It was larger than the level they were on, but that wasn’t what captured her attention.
It was the section beneath level one, where Erebos’s finger was pointed.
The Unknown.
“When a demon is too evil to be redeemed, they are sent to the Unknown, where their soul will rot for eternity in the everlasting darkness.”
Alessia swallowed thickly. “Do you send a lot of souls there?”
“I used to when there was an abundance of souls to process, but since the soul yard has been vacant, I suspect the ones who belong in the Unknown are now in Heaven with Bastian. Now and then, Izara brings a soul back to Hell, but it is never one that belongs in the Unknown. My intuition tells me that Bastian sorts through them before we arrive, plucking the ones with the darkest intentions to indict into Heaven.”
Alessia continued to stare at the map, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t comprehend a word Erebos was saying.
Heaven was meant for virtuous, honorable people—those with pure souls who earned their spot and could live in peace for eternity. She was told her family had originated from there, and what if that was where her mother was now?
To think about her possibly living in a place now tainted with evil…
“Why are you trying to help?” she found herself asking. “You seemed to be fond of King Amos, but why, if you’re the Lord of Hell?”
Erebos smiled sadly. “King Amos helped me during a time few would, and for that, I am forever indebted to him, even if he has moved on to the afterlife. I will see to it that Bastian suffers in his honor.” Then, when Alessia thought he was finished, he added, “My past has not been an easy one, Alessia, and there are some pieces even I do not understand yet.”
Fragments of her nightmare filtered through her mind, and when the Lord of Hell’s expression grew haunted as if he, too, were reliving the past, she wondered if she had been right all along.
Perhaps the horrors that penetrated her mind weren’t a figment of her imagination at all, but rather pieces of history that made Erebos into the cutthroat, merciless lord he was.