Following his gaze, I noticed Eirexis and Zetos were glowing white beneath their straps. I hadn’t seen that before. Surely, I would’ve noticed it. “What’s happening here?” I mumbled.

“They’re getting reacquainted,” the Soul Crusher replied.

My instincts. He’d mentioned my instincts. I’d thought about this earlier. About putting them together…

Brendel swelled into a giant ball of fire, constantly expanding. The remnants of the coral mound were swallowed by her flames. Only a handful of loyal Hermessi remained, the others consumed by Brendel to increase her power. None of us had even imagined that she could do such a thing. Was she perhaps relying on the deceased Hermessi’s children to ascend and keep those worlds going?

But my instincts. The Soul Crusher had hinted at something. I needed to focus.

“What will it be, Taeral? Your father and your friends, or your delusion that you actually have a shot at stopping my ritual?” Brendel asked. “Can you not see? I am unstoppable.”

“But are you, though?” I replied, that earlier thought of Eirexis and Zetos weaving its way through my head. No one else dared to speak as I took a step forward and pulled Thieron’s handle and blade out. “Why did you destroy your allies? You left their worlds without elements. I thought you were all in favor of keeping the planets intact and simply purging their resident life forms. How will you do that if you kill their Hermessi to make yourself more powerful? Which, by the way, is just so… horrid.”

One thing had escaped my mind throughout this insanity. Derek and Sofia were on a mission to steal the Hermessi children back from Yahwen. I wasn’t sure how much time had passed since we’d first gone into the Zetos challenge, but, if I gave Derek and Sofia’s plan away now, Brendel still couldn’t go back to Yahwen. Not without leaving me and Thieron’s pieces behind. I should’ve thought of this sooner, but, then again, my father had always said that a stroke of genius never comes when asked for.

Brendel scoffed. “You know I have their children. They will be more than happy to ascend in their parents’ place. And, once the ritual is completed, they will have clean slates, fresh new worlds to fill with the most wonderful creatures, better and more obedient than your wretched ilk. It’s a natural cycle.”

“Only, it’s not that natural, is it? Since Death has stopped you, over and over, from pulling it off,” I replied, chuckling. “Also, are you sure you still have their children?”

The silence that followed was so thick and heavy that my knees nearly gave out. My instinct, the Soul Crusher had said. Glancing down at Eirexis and Zetos in my hands, his words rang truer than ever. They were getting reacquainted. In close contact, they had begun reacting to one another.

Meanwhile, Brendel was starting to realize what I’d just insinuated. “What are you talking about? Of course I have them.”

“Hm… Are you sure you don’t want to head back to Yahwen and find out?” I replied, raising Zetos and Eirexis in front of me. The closer they came, the more my whole body quivered with excitement. As if every fiber of my being knew what was about to happen.

Brendel didn’t say anything for a while, but Fallon-Kabbah’s brief laughter proved I was on the right path. “Hold on, Tae. I think she’s trying to make a call,” he said, nearly doubling over.

“What… What did you do?” Brendel’s voice thundered through me.

“What, no answer?” I replied.

Before she could say anything, I brought Zetos and Eirexis together. To everyone’s astonishment, including Brendel and Fallon-Kabbah’s, the pieces fit seamlessly. The blade affixed itself to the long handle, glowing white and graceful.

I had two thirds of Thieron in my hands, and I could feel the energy soaring through me, like vibrant sunshine mixed with sweet threads of honey. Oh, the Soul Crusher had known about this all along, and yet he’d kept me in the dark. He’d let me languish between Brendel’s impossible choices, without so much as a hint, until the very last minute.

My muscles flexed, my hands gripping incomplete-Thieron as if parting from it might kill me. The Soul Crusher grinned. “I knew you’d get there yourself if I gave you long enough,” he said.

“What did you do, Taeral?!” Brendel snarled.

The gigantic fireball came at me in a fit of fury, but I was no longer afraid of her. Not because of Death’s mark, but because I felt Thieron tugging my strings, quietly teaching me a neat new trick. I heard Eira and the others screaming out my name, telling me to get out of the way.

But I held my ground. I let Brendel hurl herself at me.

And when she was mere feet away, I slashed her with incomplete-Thieron. The blade went through as though she’d been made of butter. She gasped, and the fire broke into thousands of tiny amber swirls, like pieces fallen out of a whole.

All of a sudden, Brendel had been broken down into bits, wandering aimlessly through the water. She couldn’t pull herself back together, though it was obvious that she was struggling to do so. She couldn’t even speak anymore, but the little flames burned angrily as they tried to reach one another.

“Holy mother-friggin’ crap!” Varga shouted. “What the hell just happened?!”

“You didn’t kill her,” the Soul Crusher said, quick to rain on my parade. “She’ll recover, eventually, and she’ll come after you thrice as hard.”

“You’re such a party pooper,” I retorted.

But there was no time for banter. The remaining Hermessi scrambled to come at us. It wasn’t exactly over. And the Soul Crusher was right. If Derek and Sofia were successful, then it would all get so much worse before I could even reach Phyla.

Riza teleported herself next to Eira and caught her wrist. She quickly grabbed the rest of the crew around her and zapped them all next to me. The Hermessi bolted toward us, but the Soul Crusher raised his hands, smiling as he snapped his fingers.

Before they could even realize what was happening, all the Hermessi vanished.

“Whoa. What just happened?” I asked him.

He shrugged, as if it was no big deal. “Oh, I just dropped them in a few tiny time-space hiccups. Or pockets. Whatever you want to call them.”

“You can do that? Of course you can do that,” Herakles replied, gritting his teeth, understandably exasperated.

“Nice. It would’ve come in handy much sooner, you know,” I said, glowering at the Soul Crusher. “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t just cut your head off, right now,” I added, raising incomplete-Thieron in his line of sight.

He giggled. “First of all, it’ll break the pockets and set the Hermessi I trapped in there loose, once more. Second, you can’t kill me with two thirds of Thieron, you noob. You need Phyla. Let’s get out of here. It’s a little too wet for my taste.”

“Also, there will be more Hermessi coming. What Brendel just did, it can’t have been without consequences,” Fallon-Kabbah replied.

I nodded, smiling at my friends. I knew they could only see my eyes since I had the breathing mask on. Nevertheless, I felt like smiling at them. They were still here, and so were Zetos and Eirexis. On top of that, we’d made some new friends, too—some more psychopathic than others.

“I take it you’re coming with us?” I asked the Soul Crusher.

“You look like fun to be around,” he replied.

Rolling my eyes for the millionth time since I’d met him, I slipped incomplete-Thieron into my thigh strap and reached out to the crew. We linked hands, and I teleported them out of this place. The worst was yet to come, as the Soul Crusher had warned me, but, even so…

We’d made it farther down the line.

Eira

We were back in the Fire Star’s royal fae sanctuary, having left the bottom of the ocean behind. I had yet to fully wrap my head around what I’d done earlier against the Hermessi, but there was one thing that had become clear in the meantime. Something had clicked inside me upon exiting the Soul Crusher’s puzzle. Whether it’d had anything to do with the old Reaper, I wasn’t sure—and I doubted he’d tell me. But I felt different. Stronger. I’d tapped into an internal force that I’d always known was there, yet I’d never dared to even consider approaching.

But push had come to shove back there, and I’d had no other choice. I’d pushed myself so far that I’d delivered serious damage to numerous Hermessi. I’d even kept Brendel distracted. Later, I knew I’d have to just sit down and think about this properly. There had to be a reason for all this.

Nuriya cried tears of joy when she saw us. First she took Taeral in her arms, holding him tight and laughing and sobbing at the same time. “I can’t believe you’re here, alive and well… My sweet, sweet, insanely stubborn child,” she said.

Taeral laughed, a weight lifted from his shoulders. “It’s good to be back, I’ll tell you that.”

Moments later, Aisha and Horatio burst through the door, thrilled to see their daughter. They’d been on the Fire Star lately, helping Nuriya out with kingdom-related issues. Without Sherus, Nuriya needed all the support she could get. In an instant, Riza was snuggled between her parents, the three of them giddy and crying at the same time—after all, who knew when they’d see each other again, given our complicated and dangerous mission?

Taeral brought them up to speed on everything that had happened down there, and they listened carefully—especially Nuriya, who digested every word while her gaze occasionally wandered across our enhanced group. She politely waited for Taeral to finish before nodding at the Soul Crusher and Seeley. “Who are these two?”

“I’m what your son just referred to as ‘crazy, older-than-time psycho Reaper’ in charge of protecting Zetos,” the Soul Crusher replied, visibly amused. The guy had a thick skin. “Actually, brief correction. No longer protecting Zetos.”

“And this is Seeley.” Taeral introduced the second Reaper, whom we’d all met previously, on Hellym. “He’s the one who saved us from Yamani.”