Page 16 of When Death Called Life Home (When Deities Awaken #1)
Chapter 16
Eleven Reapers, Eleven Strikes
ASCIAN
T he forest creatures found him when he moved to leave.
He’d expected them with Osiris, always having trouble keeping a hold of his control, especially when it came to anyone other than Reapers. However, Ascian didn’t expect the violence he saw within the forest nymph’s eyes.
“He beat her that badly?” He shouldn’t have asked the question, but he’d witnessed Xylia walking, even if she required help.
“Don’t pretend like you didn’t expect him to. He has never been able to show restraint.”
Ascian shrugged and dusted off his clothing. He spotted the weapons they carried the moment his gaze shifted to fully take them in. Rage filled his entire body. “No. Not in this field. They leave or their weapons do.”
The nymph at the front, Haelyn, a colourful masculine figure, raised his brows at the man’s words. To witness a Reaper ban weapons from anywhere was a rare occurrence.
“You’re low on power, young commander, are you sure you want the weapons gone?”
“If any of you try to use violence here, you’ll find your life ended before you can finish the move,” Ascian stated. Not a threat, but a fact. He’d made sure to protect this place, no matter the cost. The colourful nymph beheld the truth in his gaze and took a step back. “What do you want, Haelyn?”
“Your permission.”
“You have it.”
The nymph stopped, his face contorting into an expression Ascian witnessed frequently. “I haven’t stated what I wish permission for.”
Ascian folded his arms in front of him. “You don’t need to. Your ‘greeting’ was enough to tell me you wish to punish Osiris for his actions. Permission granted.”
Haelyn bowed his head in thanks but still didn’t depart, though a couple of others he’d brought with him did. Likely disappearing off to find the brute, before he gave them the slip, from where they last saw him.
“Do you need my permission for something else?” Ascian enquired, studying him.
The nymph slowly nodded, taking his attention off of Ascian and instead gazing around the clearing, at all the flowers blooming and giving their pollen to the flutterbees. A small wave of his hand and poppies sprouted up amongst the amorsa. Ascian’s jaw ached from the pressure building there, easing the urge to use his recuperating power to decay the poppies immediately.
This was no battlefield. It was not a patch for a fallen soldier, and Haelyn knew that. He baited, seeing how serious Ascian was about no weapons in the field.
“It would be a formality,” the nymph hummed, eyes snaking back to Ascian. “My assumption is that you will not give your permission, though.”
Ascian’s back tensed. “What else do you seek permission for, and why?”
“I would appreciate your permission in attaining your whole … murder of Reapers, so that I ma y deal out the punishments required, after they slaughtered a whole village of Nymphs.”
All sounds from the forest ceased to exist. The birds and their chirping faded into white noise, along with the wind rustling leaves and the fluttering of the insects. Everything but the nymph’s heartbeat. It wouldn’t be easy to reach out with his energy and influence a forgetful thought, as much as he wanted to try. It also wouldn’t remain in place for long. Haelyn would remember eventually and they’d repeat this whole encounter again. Not to mention the fact that Ascian couldn’t repeat the action on the rest of them.
“The act was a command from our Elders. If a punishment is due, should it not be on them?” Ascian asked.
Since the formation of the Council — the three groups of Elders consisting of Vitarce, Reapers, and Forest Nymphs — an unspoken peace had grown between a vast majority of the Forest Nymphs and the Reapers. Those like Osiris, who held a grudge against them for helping the Vitarce rather than remaining neutral in the conflict, were the only reason the Forest Nymphs carried out any violence towards them. Ascian hadn’t understood the Elders’ command to kill everyone within the camps, and now this?
Haelyn shifted on his feet and swallowed. “I have already spoken with them. They never specifically commanded you to kill the Forest Nymphs present. Only all of the Vitarce.”
Ice chilled his body right down to his toes. Liars. Every single one of them. He’d been too blind to see it before, his mind occupied with thoughts of Alora’s disappearance and their return. His Reapers didn’t deserve to be punished for something he should have picked up on. Something he should have questioned the Elders about further when they’d first given the command.
“No,” he shook his head. Gods, if he weren’t so weak right now, he’d return to the Elders and show them what happens to those who lie to him. Who put his people in danger.
“See? I was right in my assum-.”
Ascian cut him off. “If you’re looking for someone to punish for that massacre, punish the Elders. My Reapers and I were simply following through on orders.”
“You expect me to be the one to overthrow those Elders of yours?” The nymph laughed, tears springing to the corners of his eyes. “Absolutely not. The punishment will go to your Reapers. They carried out the orders.”
“No.”
No matter how much he fought against it, he couldn’t stop the word leaving his mouth again. Ascian wouldn’t let his people receive a punishment not meant for them. It didn’t matter what the nymph thought, the punishment he knew they’d deliver was meant for the Elders. They were the ones to demand such action be brought upon the treehouses. They were the ones not budging on decisions that had no effect on them whatsoever.
Ascian swallowed and straightened his back. “You will not touch my reapers for this. Whatever punishment you had planned for them, give it to me.”
For Ascian gave them the order, too. Yes, the Elders had been the ones to demand it, but he was responsible for ensuring those demands were, or were not, carried out. If he hadn’t gone through with killing every single being present at the camp, the Elders would have been the ones carrying out a punishment on him.
The nymph froze in his spot and took in a sharp breath. “You- Give you their punishment?”
“Yes,” Ascian confirmed.
“That’s absurd,” the nymph replied, shaking his head. “You would not survive it.”
A muscle in Ascian’s jaw twitched. “I assure you I did not gain my title by skipping through a poppy field.”
One of the men behind Haelyn choked on a laugh, clearing his throat to try and disguise it. It pulled the nymph’s attention away for a moment, enough to shake his shock and allow himself to accept Ascian’s decision.
“If you demand it so. I will at least allow you the choice of where you wish to receive the punishment.”
A ridiculous notion that Ascian almost, almost, laughed at. Allowing someone to choose where they received their punishment was like allowing someone to choose their own poison.
Would you like the view of a rock or a waterfall while I make you scream in agony?
I’ll take the rock, thanks, then I can smash my head into it and numb the fucking pain.
Again, ridiculous.
“I don’t care,” Ascian grunted. “Just not in this field.”
The nymph gave the slightest bow and motioned towards the edge of where the amorsa started. Ascian complied, grabbing his scythe on the way past.
Haelyn and the remaining nymphs led him away from his clearing until Ascian barely recognised the forest. The wildness of it was more extreme than he’d ever witnessed. His attention landed upon a perfect square of tiny rocks amongst the grass. The closer he got, the more he focused on their sharpened edges.
Haelyn kept back while two of the other nymphs grabbed his arms and pulled him roughly towards it, a third planting their foot against his back and sending him to his knees right atop the pointed stones. Ascian couldn’t stop the pained groan from leaving his lips.
“Leave us,” Haelyn commanded.
Ascian heard, rather than saw the hesitation of the small group, but their retreating steps told him enough about whether they would defy their own leader. He’d expected them to stay and be witness to his punishment. To relish in the blood spilled in compensation for that of their own kin, if they could even stomach it.
Haelyn walked towards him slowly, his approach quiet and steady. At the same time, mimicking his pace, a vine from the tree before him reached down like a serpent and coiled around Ascian’s neck. It tightened to a snug fit, pressured but not cutting off any air supply. Not yet, anyway.
When Haelyn reached him, the nymph removed the layers of clothes that covered the top half of his body, setting them aside while smaller tree roots broke the surface of the ground either side of him and the square of rocks. They wrapped around his wrists and pulled his arms out to the side, straight and taut. It forced his back straight, no longer hunched forward and he tried, with little success, at distributing his weight more evenly to dull the pain in his knees and shins.
He’d need to change his pants after this. Not for any other reason but that they’d be ripped to shreds. A stupid thought to have, but one his mind focused on. Anything other than the whip Haelyn picked up from the ground, made of vines with sharp stones attached to the ends of them.
The first strike dizzied him. Unexpected and brutally deep into the layers of skin that covered his back. Blood splattered against flesh, loud enough to reach the innermost depths of his brain. Ascian closed his eyes, gritting his teeth as the second strike hit him, and if he thought the first had been bad, the second nearly sent his soul from his body. He feared his teeth would crack under the pressure he put on them. Instead, it was his silence that cracked after the fifth whipping lashed his broken skin.
His cry echoed around them and Haelyn paused his next strike. Ascian’s head dropped forward, taking the short relief to allow himself to breathe, no matter how much pain it brought him.
“Eleven Reapers, eleven strikes.”
The words didn’t make any sense for a start. Just jumbled nonsense between the cracks of his sanity.
“Others have counted to help.”
The nymph had to be insane. It was the only explanation for his words until the sixth strike finally landed and Ascian realised he was counting, and Haelyn had simply given him a finish line.
Counting helped.
Seven.
The small slivers of sharp rock drove into his muscles.
Eight.
His back arched as tingles sweep through his spine.
Nine.
Ascian didn’t think he felt his legs anymore, numbness providing an unwelcome sweet relief.
Ten .
One more.
Eleven .
Ascian’s frame slumped forward and then jerked at the searing pain that swept over the length of his back. Would he survive if there were more to come? He doubted he’d be able to walk after the whipping alone, never mind whatever else was involved.
Haelyn stepped in front of him and crouched down, holding a stone that’d been chipped away at, to form nature's own sort of weapon. Ascian’s gaze fell to it wearily. He knew this punishment was far from over, that Haelyn would spill more blood before he was finished with him. It coated the nymph already in a light layer, his colourful attire now consisting mostly of a deep red. That told Ascian further about the state of his back.
“One hundred cuts, nothing close to the amount of Nymphs you and your Reapers killed within the camp, but enough that your soul will be put into Death’s hands,” Haelyn murmured softly.
Ascian gathered his strength, jaw working to relax enough for him to speak. It had the nymph’s brow raised in question .
“You have final words? Please, enlighten me.”
Through the pain, Ascian curved his lips into a smirk. “I don’t answer to Death, Death answers to me.”
Haelyn let out a huff of a laugh before his smile dropped and he sliced the dagger over Ascian’s chest. Ascian clung to his words, repeated them over and over again in his mind. Focused on them to provide him with the strength he needed not to let out a sound.
I don’t answer to Death, Death answers to me.
I don’t answer to Death, Death answers to me.
I don’t answer to Death, Death answers to me.
Again and again with each new cut that peeled his skin apart and pulled new racing trails of blood down his body. A hundred of them accumulated until the light from the sun dimmed with the return of the moon to the sky.
Haelyn threw the stone dagger away when he finished, staring down at Ascian’s shaking, blood-covered body while he stared right back. The roots around his wrists loosened and receded into the ground, his body slumping from the loss of them. The pressure from the vine around his throat increased, not because of anything the nymph commanded, but because Ascian no longer held enough strength to keep himself up.
Oxygen grew less available. His vision less sharp. It wasn’t the darkness of night that greeted him first, no, it was the sweet relief of unconsciousness. His last sight was that of Haelyn who watched him curiously.