I followed his ghost to the corridor, into the winding central stairway. The walls were painted with portraits of widely varying sizes, styles, and states of decay. Near the top of the staircase was an intensely red rendition of the late Obsidian.
“How did you stay here for a whole week?” I asked, breaking eye contact with the painting.
His face drooped, and some age returned to it. “I’ve lived in this tree for over a century. Just as the God Tree can invoke its wrath, so too can it grant more time to those that have cared for it, as I’ve tried to do my entire life.”
The old king put a hand over his heart and looked at me with mournful eyes. “I saw what happened to the doctor. A good man, who deserved to live. The Wilds are a savage place, and the Reaper does not let humans forget their role. Melodia’s malicious actions and violence, all of it angered the trees, the real gods of this forest. It was an indiscriminate type of anger. I’m so sorry.”
A fire in my heart moved through my blood. The image of Melodia’s black smoke voice burned inside me.
“Keep your hatred under control,” said the king.
I startled. Was he tuned in to my feelings somehow?
We stopped at a door with an unblinking eye carved in the center. He touched the black pupil and continued, “Your destiny has barely started, young man. It was hatred that killed the City doctor. If you succumb to it and give it control of your actions, you are weak. Hatred starts the chain of death anew.”
He phased through the door. I sat with his advice for a second. I knew he was right, but what was I supposed to do with this fire? What was it supposed to consume?
I followed him into a small reading room. Shelves crowded with books surrounded two fat, blue reading chairs and a circular table. One wall had no shelves, but lines of carved text indented across its surface. The most pronounced carvings were the stanzas of the prophecy containing my name.
An orange light occupied one of the chairs. The King addressed her. “Do you mind giving us a moment, Ore? And if you run into Puma, send her up here.”
The fortune-teller glided from the room.
“She can hear you?” I asked.
“She can see and hear many things. Fortune is truly the most mysterious power in the Divine Pantheon.”
He ran a ghostly hand over the writing on the wall, a collection of carved poems ranging dramatically in length and form. Some were so faded they couldn’t be read, and some of the deep ones overlapped with cuts from long ago.
“Why is the one with my name the deepest?” I asked.
“Depth shows the relevancy of these visions.” He indicated a faded word. “The tree has almost consumed this one. I don't remember what it used to say, only that it foretold the rise of Wyvern Of-the-Wind. After his death it will be lost forever.”
“Why did you send her to get Puma?” I asked, suddenly remembering what Ore accused my mother of when she was young: sneaking into the Dark Prophecy room.
“Fate can be funny sometimes, don't you think?” He tilted his head to the black, starry ceiling. “Your mother and your grandparents were excellent farmers. Best strawberries I’ve ever had. A charming family, and one of few outside merchants we allowed all the way into the God Tree, back in better days. Puma was a delightful child, but she had a rebellious streak. It got her into trouble."
“What did she do?” I wondered.
“Ignored me,” he answered simply. “We told her not to enter this room, so of course the first thing she did was invisibly slip through the door when it was open. Her crime was innocent curiosity. I don't think she truly understood what she’d set in motion.”
I touched the edges of the word ATMOSPHERE, expecting them to be rough, but they were sanded smooth.
The king sighed. “Some people believe names are prophetic, and by choosing your name from the poem, she gave it life. Don't hold it against her. I believe you know something about making mistakes.”
I exhaled a burst of air. Understatement.
He pulled a book from the shelf and handed it to me. My arms strained with how heavy it was, and I felt a rush of anticipation. The cover was designed with intricate spirals of rare sun-silver, and the golden title read, The Compendium of the Divine. Inside would be the answer I needed: Who has Divine One?
“Take a look,” the king said. I was sure he could read my mind. “I recommend the fifth page.”
I flipped it open to list of the Pantheon. The ink shimmered, infused with powerful silver material on black paper, drawing my eyes to my own name, written in my own handwriting somehow. REAPER was written above the name in a simple white font. Ivory’s name was written in a loopy hand underneath CHARM. Gold-and-Silver’s name was nearly illegible underneath LITERATE. With trepidation, I searched the page for ATMOSPHERE.
PhoenixOf-the-Wind. There it was, in childlike cursive. The name of the girl who had saved Willow’s life, and the confirmation that the holder of this power was still alive, much to King Wyvern’s dismay. Wherever she was, she held the counterpart to Reaper. Destiny would bring us together someday, that much I knew for certain.
After a moment, the king interrupted my reading. “Let me tell you a truth you won’t like hearing.”
I closed the book shut. “Does death make you blunt?”
A single, low laugh. “No. I've always been this way.”
“Fine. I might as well hear it.”
He touched the side of the bookshelf, painted with simple blue flowers. “On the day you took the Fruit, describe the sensation to me.”
I returned the tome to its place. That day felt one hundred years away, and at the same time the memory was vivid. “The sensation? It felt like… like I’d died.”
He touched the word reap, inscribed deep into the wood. “That's because you did.”
A chill shot out through my body. I grabbed my wrist. “What do you mean? That can't be…true.” My eyes locked on him, and my hand locked around my cold, pulseless arm.
He attempted a reassuring look. “It’s not as bleak as you think. Sometimes Divine energy must protect the soul, like it does with Marrow. When our body dies, the soul lives on, but it lives outside this plane. Your soul is alive, just elsewhere.”
“I'm…like Marrow?” The image of Sharp's blade piercing through his heart flashed in my head.
“Not quite. Reaper makes you like a Ghost Tree. When you’re in the real dimension, you’re fully alive, sustained by the borrowed light of your friends and family. Your real soul is held even deeper in the Unseen. Unlike Marrow, your body can be killed permanently.”
No words came to my lips. No heartbeat thumped against my chest.
