The white light didn’t behave like… well, light.
It was a powerful energy blast. It viciously threw us against the wall. I heard my body hit the stone. My ears rang, the high pitch making it difficult for me to even process what was going on. I blacked out for a split second.
When I came to, the high-frequency sound persisted in the back of my head. My body ached, as if every bone had been broken and every muscle had been twisted and strained. I sucked in a breath, realizing that it was, more or less, a sensory illusion. I could move, and I raised my head and saw the rest of our crew facedown on the stone floor. Grunting and moaning from the pain, they, too, began to move.
But the truly fearsome sight was that of Taeral, his feet dangling in the air above the pond.
“Oh, my Lord,” I gasped, recognizing the Reaper who’d gripped him by the throat, casually holding him suspended, at arm’s length.
“Is that…” Eva whispered, pushing herself up into a kneeling position.
“The Widow Maker,” Raphael said as he rushed to my side and pulled me upright. My knees were still weak, so I held on to him until some of the strength returned. Dread froze my blood, making it hard for me to do anything, let alone think any of this through.
The Widow Maker stood, literally stood on the water’s surface, clad in black leather from head to toe. All I could see were his eyes, visible through a slit in the material—two clusters of microcosms, from which thousands of galaxies shimmered, swirling endlessly through the black abyss. He was tall, his shoulders broad and muscles bulging against the leather. A single white element adorned his strange suit, a tear-shaped pearl that had been embedded into his right shoulder.
“Holy—” Varga didn’t get to finish his thought, as the Widow Maker spoke.
“Congratulations. You’ve reached your end.”
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.
