Silence followed.
“You realize no one is going to think less of you for this, right?” Raphael replied, watching him. “I think we’d all do the same thing if we were in your shoes.”
Eira nodded, taking Taeral’s hand in hers. “Sherus would want you to do this, as well.”
“I know,” he whispered, but it was impossible to ignore the tears gathering in his eyes. This hurt him deeply, and we were all witnesses to the kind of suffering he’d managed to keep to himself until now.
“Nethissis, my darling!” the Soul Crusher said. “Would you be able to live with yourself, going forward, knowing that Acantha was persuaded to sacrifice herself in your place?”
This question was like a punch in the gut for all of us, but Nethissis took it the worst, and understandably so. She gasped, gawking at us without the Soul Crusher here for her to stare at, directly.
“What… What are you talking about?” she asked, her voice uneven and weak.
Lumi was baffled. “How could Acantha have known that Nethis’s life was at stake? None of us knew, at the time. We were all offering ourselves as sacrifices for Eirexis. What… What are you talking about?”
“Oh… Oh, my, you didn’t know,” the Soul Crusher replied, clearly amused.
“This isn’t funny!” Nethissis screamed, tears already streaming down her cheeks. “This isn’t funny at all, you son of a bitch!”
Eva and Lumi wrapped their arms around her, as Nethissis caved in and let out a hearty cry. She’d been holding a lot of pain in since she’d lost Acantha. Lumi was old enough to process the loss differently, but Nethissis was still green, still prone to emotional breakdowns and perfectly natural weaknesses where her closest friends were concerned.
I’d known, the moment I’d met her and Acantha, that they were like sisters. Their auras carried a permanent golden glow for each other. I’d seen the crimson mist coming out of her body when Acantha had died. My heart had broken with hers…
“You’re being an asshole,” I said, glancing up, wondering if the Soul Crusher was somewhere above the ceiling. It made sense, since there were no levers or hidden mechanisms there to trigger. “At least tell us what this is all about!”
“I’m not going to,” he shot back. “But you should definitely ask Seeley when you see him.”
I was baffled. What did Seeley have to do with this? He’d saved us from Yamani, but we hadn’t seen him since. This was not just confusing; it was bordering on insane.
“What on earth are you—” Lumi said, but the Soul Crusher hurried us away from the topic, as if he’d stepped into something he wasn’t that willing to handle.
“Moving on! How do you all feel about Taeral, Eira, and Lumi being unable to die, huh? Isn’t it annoying? Death marked them, but not the rest of you? Huh? Isn’t it… I don’t know, insulting, maybe?” the Soul Crusher asked.
It hit me then. I understood what he was doing. And I didn’t like it one bit.
“We don’t like it,” I said. “But it wasn’t our decision, and it wasn’t Eira’s, Lumi’s, or Taeral’s, either. In the end, it doesn’t matter. We’re in this together! Hell, if these three survive, at least they can carry on with the mission, and all won’t be lost.”
I spoke from the bottom of my heart, and I didn’t need the serum to tell this truth.
Taeral gave me a half-smile, meant as a thank-you. I welcomed it and shook his hand in return. I hugged Eira, too, which caught her by surprise. “I’m serious. Whatever happens, we’re in this together. It doesn’t matter what our abilities are.”
“What matters is what’s in our hearts,” Riza replied. “I feel totally useless without my ability to teleport, and I’m totally crushing on Herakles, too.”
We burst into laughter, caught off guard by the last nugget of information. Herakles cupped her face and kissed her deeply. Raphael pulled us all into a group hug, his long arms holding us together.
“Whatever happens, we’ve got this, okay?” he declared. “Weak or strong, scared or not… We’ve got this. Ninety-nine levers left. Let’s do it!”
“I’m not liking your attitude,” the Soul Crusher grumbled.
“Well, you can stick it up your—”
“Raphael!” Amelia chastised him, though she struggled not to laugh.
Inebriated by the sudden strength in our dynamic, I separated from the group. A grin stretched across my face as I took in our surroundings. “Forget the psycho Reaper for a moment. He’s just messing with us, making it harder. Let’s focus on the damn levers.”
“Finding the right one is still a needle-in-a-slightly-smaller-haystack situation,” Eva replied.
I took her hand in mine, squeezing gently. “You heard Raphael, right? We’ve got this.”
And I meant it. This had been a difficult and emotional rollercoaster ride for us, and it would only get worse. We’d managed to move past the bitterness, the unspoken and unpopular opinions, the fears and concerns about one another and about our ability to overcome this challenge. We’d accepted one another for who we were, not what we could physically do.
Instead of tearing us apart, the Soul Crusher had inadvertently brought us closer together. We could see past our differences and accept each other exactly as we were. I realized that, until recently, we’d more or less thought of one another as crew members and good friends, but we were still bogged down by our abilities. This time, however, we’d been reduced to an even playing field, where only our wits and characters could save us.
Looking at the crew now, I couldn’t help but hold on to my satisfied grin. We weren’t out of this room yet, but our friendship had grown stronger… and our fears were accepted as parts of us, integral cogs in the machine that would eventually push us ahead. We couldn’t go back. We couldn’t cancel this Hermessi apocalypse, either.
The only way for us was forward. Ever forward.
Raphael
The sense of urgency never left me, but the Soul Crusher’s tricks and gimmicks had done a bang-up job of keeping us distracted. The truth serum had worn off, and we were still debating which of the marked levers to pull—those we’d identified by sound as linked to a mechanism. Whether said mechanism would let us out of this room or try to kill us was a matter of luck, at this point.
We’d made progress with ourselves and our team dynamic, but I worried it wouldn’t be enough to help us survive the challenge. The anticipation of what might come next was taking its toll on our frayed nerves. I’d always felt invincible. And since my genetic design had made me so difficult to kill, I’d stared every potentially deadly scenario straight in the face, fearless and without hesitation. But that perk had been taken away, thanks to the Soul Crusher’s magic… and my enthusiasm had dwindled. I was more than eager to keep moving, but I couldn’t ignore my own fears. Not anymore.
“I should pull the next lever,” Amelia said, her voice trembling. “Come on, we’ve been at this for long enough.”
“If more toxic gas is released, we’ll be in a heap of trouble,” Eira replied. “Your blood heals, but not as fast as the potions or the volcanic lake water.”
“Then we keep the doses for those of us who actually need them,” Lumi declared. “Taeral, Eira, and I will not use any. Since we can’t be killed, we’ll survive whatever the Soul Crusher throws at us. That way, there will be more for the rest of the crew.”
