His voice boomed through us all. It made me shake like a leaf. Paralyzed, I could only watch as he stepped forward, basically walking on water until he reached the stone edge and tossed Taeral on the ground. Eira bolted toward him, sliding down on her knees as she reached him. Taeral was still alive, coughing and wheezing from the Widow Maker’s clearly herculean grip.
“You’re the Widow Maker,” I said, my voice faltering.
His eyes found me, and I felt as though he’d just stripped me bare to the bone. I’d never experienced something like this. It was as if Death herself was looking at me through his eyes. Oh, boy… Maybe she is looking at me right now.
“Semper Telluris, Phoenix!” Eva whispered, trying to reach out to GASP. Good call, I thought. They definitely had to know where we were. The Widow Maker snapped his fingers and waved his hand. Immediately, sharp pain burned through my chest. It affected everyone. Painful whimpers left our throats, followed by a profound silence.
“Nope, not gonna fly with me,” the Widow Maker replied. “I want total privacy for this. Speaking of which…” He muttered something under his breath, snapping his fingers three times. A pulse burst out of him and seeped through the walls, making the entire underground tremble for a couple of seconds. My breaths were labored and short as I tried to understand what was going on. “That’ll keep the Hermessi out, just in case,” he added.
“You… You can do that?” Taeral croaked, rubbing his throat. He managed to get up, his bones cracking as he straightened his back. This ancient Reaper was already ahead of us, in more than one way.
Suddenly, I was overwhelmed. Panic threatened to shut me down altogether, as I realized that there was no way we could possibly beat him. The Widow Maker had thrown us all against the wall without moving a muscle. With one snap of his fingers, he’d cut Telluris off completely. I couldn’t even feel our connection to Phoenix, or anyone else, for that matter. With three snaps, he’d blocked the Hermessi out, leaving us alone with him… his, to do with as he pleased.
He reached out behind him, revealing Eirexis in his gloved hand. The symbols carved along its black bone length shimmered in shades of blue, as if speaking to us. I couldn’t make out a single message coming from it, but I could sense it had meaning. It was something profound, far beyond my supernatural comprehension.
“I can do a lot of things,” the Widow Maker said. “I am one of the first Reapers in existence, after all. The job does come with some phenomenal perks. Now, seeing as you’ve made it this far, which one of you wants to die? I doubt you’re able to defeat me, so let’s just fast-forward to option B.”
We looked at each other with genuine confusion, then back at him, hoping he’d give us more to go on. “For the moment, you’re the only one who knows the rules to getting Eirexis,” Taeral replied. “Would you at least elaborate?”
“Ah, yes. Right. It’s been a while since I’ve had contact of any kind. My social skills are a tad rusty,” the Widow Maker said. “You want Eirexis, I presume. If you ask me, it’s a miracle you’ve made it this far, but you’re not the first. I doubt you’ll be the last, unless, unlike your predecessors, you go with option B, directly.”
“What’s option A?” Taeral asked.
“Fight me in physical combat. Defeat me, and you get Eirexis. I strongly advise against it,” he replied. “Others have tried, and they failed, miserably.”
Taeral glanced at Eira, then Lumi. He took another second to look at us, as well, and I could feel the fear oozing out of him, thick and heavy. It didn’t take a scientist or a savvy witch to figure out that the Widow Maker was telling the truth. We’d already been told that much, since Death had mentioned to Taeral that all the previous knights who’d gone after Thieron had perished on their first try.
“And what’s option B?” Taeral replied.
The Widow Maker sighed, sounding as though he didn’t like any of this, either. I figured Death had set these mechanisms in place for a good reason. It was a shame she couldn’t undo them, just this once. Then again, when was saving the world ever easy?
“One of you must offer yourself as a sacrifice to Eirexis,” the Widow Maker declared. “Die, and you shall have the first piece of Thieron.”
His words were like a punch in the gut. In the blink of an eye, death for one of us became an idea—the kind that we couldn’t shake until we considered it. It made me want to scream with anger and frustration. It wasn’t fair, because I knew physical combat would get us all killed. There weren’t enough abilities and certainly not enough magic between us to stand up to an entity like the Widow Maker.
He was giving us a choice: either we all died, or only one of us died. But how could we make such a choice to begin with? Yes, we’d talked about it. We’d always been conscious of the possibility that not all of us would come out of this alive. How could we choose, though? Which of us would go? And what would make the rest of us deserving of survival, then?
Oh, Death, you timeless… heartless wraith.
Vesta
“Kelara, even you have to admit that this is the one instance where it’s okay to bend the rules a little,” I said, unwilling to give up on my mission of convincing her to help us.
She shook her head. “No. For the millionth time, no.”
Ben and I had taken her aside for a more private conversation, while the rest of the Novak fae were keeping the other Reapers busy with a variety of topics—from saving Crane to their past lives, prior to becoming agents of Death. Not all of them were talkative, but Rudolph and Sidyan did most of the chattering and unknowingly diverted the others’ attention from us.
“The living need to know that we’re buying them time, here. Most importantly, they definitely need to know that one of us is about to die!” I replied. “What if they’re caught in the middle of whatever’s about to unfold, and innocent people die before their time? It’s already an accepted fact that what’s happening here goes against every natural law in existence.”
She scoffed. “Since when are you an expert on cosmic regulations?”
“Since I woke up in this state with nothing but a flimsy chain keeping me tethered to my body,” I said. “It’s not right.”
“I can’t let the others see you. If I do, the consequences will be dire for me, and I’ve got a potential eternity ahead of me. I’ll feel the pain. You, on the other hand, will die, eventually. You won’t care, and you certainly won’t get the brunt of it. I will.”
“So you’re being stubborn solely for the purpose of self-preservation?” Ben asked, raising an eyebrow at her.
“Hey, man, you try being in my shoes for once, then talk. You don’t understand time and existence the way I do, so you can’t possibly understand the importance of self-preservation,” Kelara replied.
“Does it matter?” I sighed. “What’s the worst that can happen to you, as opposed to what can happen to our friends and family if one of the affected fae dies before the Hermessi reach the five million they need? There’s nothing but death and misery in store for us. Will it be the same for you?”
She didn’t answer, but I knew it was a clear no. If there was one thing I’d learned about Reapers, it was the fact that they were practically obsessed with obeying the rules. Few were as flexible as Seeley. Kelara had potential, but it wasn’t going to be easy—that much I knew. Still, I could break her. I had to, before it was too late.
Crane was hanging by a thread. Despite our efforts, he simply couldn’t pull himself out of the slump. He could barely speak, his gaze always low as the last link on his life-chain slowly faded. Nothing we said had worked, and, if he lacked the will to live, regardless of the reason, then there wasn’t much hope left for him.
“I can’t do it, Vesta,” Kelara said.
“Are all Reapers this spineless?” Ben asked sharply.
She shot him a cold glare. “Mind your words, buddy.”
“Or what? You can’t do anything to hurt me… no more than I already am,” he replied.
“I’m sorry it turned out this way for you, but—” Kelara was interrupted by a scream from across the hall. She stilled, then swiftly turned around and vanished. A second later, she reappeared on the other side, closer to the source of the scream.
“What just happened?” I asked, my voice barely a whisper.
“Whatever it is, I doubt it bodes well for us,” Ben said. “I think we both know what happened, though.”
We walked forward as far from our bodies as we could. We weren’t the only ones interested. Grace, Vita, Caia, Lucas, and Kailyn joined us as we tested the lengths of our life-chains in order to get a better look.
About fifty crystal casings away, Crane stood, motionless and pale. He held his chest, but his life-chain had fallen to the floor, the last link blackened, no longer able to connect the soul to the body. The scream had come from him, I realized. His mouth was wide open, his face frozen in an expression of grief and horror. As hopeless as he’d been, he probably hadn’t understood the extent of the damage that dying would do to him.
A black spot remained on his chest. He touched it with trembling fingers and yelped from the pain it caused him. “It hurts… It hurts so much…”
Kelara was right next to him, staring at his chest. Malleus and Sidyan had joined her, equally concerned. They exchanged words, but none of us could hear them. “He died,” I said.
Arwen heard the endless beep of his vitals monitoring system and rushed across the room. Upon reaching him, she gasped. Pressing her palms against the glass casing that had been protecting his body, she made it pop open, like a casket. Like an actual casket. Oh, man…
“I don’t think she should touch him,” Ben murmured, suddenly alarmed.
Crane’s body was glowing amber, still, but the intensity was stronger. Without a soul in it, the flesh had become a conduit for the Hermessi, and Arwen knew that. Why was she touching him, then?
“She’s trying to resuscitate him,” Grace said.
Indeed, Arwen was applying rhythmic pressure with both hands against Crane’s chest, trying to get his heart beating again. Mona ran over, downright horrified. “Arwen, no! Get away from him!” she shouted.
“I can help him!” Arwen replied. “I can still help him!”
