That left me speechless. Then what? Another mind-boggling search across the entire planet? Wouldn’t Yamani’s scythe help us again? I had a feeling the answer was no to most of my questions, but that only confused me more. How were we going to find Zetos, if our previous strategy wouldn’t be good enough this time around?
Seeley
Taeral and his crew still weren’t aware of my presence. I wasn’t entirely comfortable with that, even though I’d been accustomed to being on my own for more than a thousand years. But Death had made it clear from the very beginning. I wasn’t allowed to reveal myself unless she allowed it.
Guilt had been eating away at me since I’d whispered into Acantha’s ear, urging her to sacrifice herself to Eirexis. It would’ve been her or Nethissis, if one was to analyze their odds of survival in this hot mess that Brendel had started. They wouldn’t have known that, though. I’d peered into the possible futures of every single crew member to get that insight. Nethissis had been one step closer to her grave, compared to Acantha, but I’d intervened on her behalf.
I couldn’t tell why, exactly. Or maybe I could, but I just wasn’t ready to be honest with myself. Either way, it didn’t matter in the long run. A sacrifice had been needed to release Eirexis, and they’d made it with Acantha. But it does matter, doesn’t it?
Yes. My choice between the two young swamp witches had been personal and selfish. I would never stop punishing myself… or maybe I would, eventually. How long could guilt survive in the soul of a Reaper?
“Then what are we supposed to do?” Nethissis asked. Her voice alone was enough to send a most peculiar hum through my chest. “Yamani’s scythe won’t work?”
The Widow Maker glanced at me for a moment. We’d already talked about this, and we knew the best way forward for them—he was it, in fact. The Widow Maker and Eirexis were their best guides to Zetos. I’d spent half the night discussing several issues with him, some less pleasant than others. For one, he didn’t understand why Death no longer answered his telepathic calls. He hadn’t spoken to her since she’d locked him inside Eirexis. Millions of years had gone by, filling the space between now and their last conversation. Death, too, had changed, ever so slightly. She’d said so herself.
By sending me out here to watch over Taeral and his crew, Death had basically pushed the laws of the universe. Interference by greater forces was never appreciated in the affairs of the living, but these were still special circumstances. Even so, she was wary of pushing it, of tilting the universe in the wrong direction if she specifically sanctioned more than one Reaper to help Taeral’s team. If the Widow Maker wanted to help them, that was his decision. Part of the binding agreement he’d had with Death for Eirexis was that he’d become a free soul upon his release.
A free Reaper, entitled to eternity in this form, or a soul to be reaped, so he could move on, if he so chose. Those were his options now, and, for the time being, he’d chosen to remain a Reaper. He was no longer bound to Death, though. And any telepathic communication between them could be seen as a conspiracy to further bend the natural rules—she’d already pushed it with my involvement, special circumstances and all. She didn’t want to risk going further.
Naturally, the Widow Maker had understood this. He didn’t seem to like it much. Like me and every other Reaper who had been fortunate enough to exchange words with Death herself, he found it hard to be without her. At least during his time inside Eirexis, he’d been dormant, for the most part. Time had passed differently for him, quickly enough that he didn’t have the chance to miss her. Awake once more, however, the Widow Maker felt her absence deeply.
“Check out Eirexis,” he said to Taeral. “Notice anything remotely different about it?”
Taeral took Thieron’s handle out from its thigh straps and looked at it. The black bone carried a peculiar sheen, something he hadn’t noticed before because it hadn’t been there. “What’s this?” he asked, slightly confused.
“It’s reacting to Zetos,” the Widow Maker replied.
“Why isn’t Yamani’s scythe reacting, too?” Eira murmured.
“You kids were lucky that Kabbah sent you in the right direction,” the old Reaper said, clearly amused by the fortunate coincidences that had brought them to this point. Deep down, I wondered if they had indeed been just happy accidents, or if the universe had given events a nudge here and there, without anyone noticing. “Eirexis is the first piece of the quest. It’s the first to activate, and the only one to be sensed by Reapers’ scythes. Forget anything else you’ve been told or taught until now. I know Thieron better than most. Zetos is too subtle in its plane of existence to be sensed the same way.”
Silence settled over the room, as Taeral’s crew waited for the Widow Maker to explain. I doubted that would happen. The guy’s ability to pick up on social cues was infantile, at best. Solitude inside Eirexis had its repercussions.
“So, Eirexis will help us locate Zetos, this time around?” Amelia asked.
The Widow Maker nodded. “Yes.”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake! How is it going to do that? The Fire Star is enormous!” Taeral exclaimed, quite exasperated. “It’s shimmering now, ever so slightly, but that doesn’t tell us if we’re closer to Zetos or farther away. Where do we go? Where do we start searching? We don’t have time to do a full planet scan!”
“You don’t have to,” the old Reaper said. “Point Eirexis to your right. What do you see?”
Taeral exhaled sharply but did as he was told. Aiming Eirexis to his right, he stilled for a moment, then shrugged. “Nothing.”
“Okay. Now, do a slow 360-degree turn with Eirexis up.”
Taeral moved, his gaze fixed on Eirexis. As expected during the turn, the symbols on Eirexis took on a slightly more contoured sheen, as if reacting to the direction of Zetos. I smiled, my arms crossed as I watched the Widow Maker. I didn’t need to see his face to know that he was grinning beneath his mask.
“Whoa…” Taeral mumbled. He turned farther to the left, noticing the glow’s intensity increase before it went away completely, leaving him with only the faint glimmer of the black stone dragon bone—which signaled that they were simply on the right planet. He moved back to where Eirexis’s symbols had lit up the brightest. “Oh… I see…”
“It’s a divining rod, basically,” Amelia said.
“What’s that?” Raphael asked.
“The humans used it a long time ago. It was basically a stick they used to find water below the earth. It was more or less fiction, if you ask me, but for some it worked. The stick would vibrate if it was near a water source,” Amelia explained.
The Widow Maker walked over to me, leaving the crew to wonder over Eirexis, as they tested different directions and eventually agreed that they would need to go west if they wanted to find Zetos. Thieron’s blade clearly had a pull on Eirexis.
“You need to explain to me why Death insisted on this Taeral boy,” he whispered, making sure no one heard him. He could’ve just disappeared from their sight to talk to me in our Reaper plane of existence, but he probably didn’t want to give them any cause for concern. No one likes a frequently disappearing ally. “What makes him so special, huh?”
“He’s important to the ritual’s end, I told you,” I said bluntly.
“How, though? Is it about his heritage? Am I missing something? Come on, Seeley. I don’t know you, and I can’t speak to Death directly. Help me out here. I need to know what I’m getting myself into,” he replied.
“You chose to stick around and help them,” I chuckled.
“So I wouldn’t have to cross over, you noob!” the Widow Maker hissed. “I’m not ready to move on, and my options were clear the moment I was released from Eirexis. I’m a free Reaper now, yeah. But I still deserve some information here!”
I shook my head slowly, regretting that I couldn’t tell him everything I’d learned from Death. “He’s the only one who can make a real change in this wretched cycle that the Hermessi have established. He can shift things, after millions of years.”
“Better than Death?” he asked, sounding surprised.
“Yes.”
“We’re ready to go,” Taeral said after a while, looking at the Widow Maker. He couldn’t see me unless I allowed it, and yet I couldn’t shake the feeling that he was watching me, somehow. This fae-jinni hybrid prince was certainly special, and he had zero clue as to his own potential. It was fascinating to observe like this.
The Widow Maker walked back to the crew, hands behind his back. “You’ve figured out your direction?”
“We’ll keep going west,” Taeral replied.
“We’ll teleport across patches of ten to fifty miles at once and see how close we can get before Brendel and the others come for us,” Riza added.
Nuriya put a hand on Taeral’s shoulder. “I believe the Widow Maker severed your Telluris connection to Viola,” she said. “Make one with me, instead. I need to be able to reach you, no matter what.”
“Good idea,” Eva replied and prepared the ingredients required to establish a soul link between their group and Nuriya.
I was a little worried about them. The Widow Maker was no longer fused to Eirexis, and his powers could no longer be amplified. He could still do most of his Reaper spells, but at a reduced level. But even that was better than what I was able to do. The guy had tens of millions of years on me, if not more. Granted, he’d spent a lot of those eons trapped inside Thieron’s handle, but still, I felt like the noob he’d referred to me as in comparison. He was a good ally for them, and so was Kabbah. But it wasn’t enough.
Brendel played dirty. She was ruthless and had no moral compass. Most of her associates were the same. Heartless entities that were desperate to see the ritual completed, no matter what it cost. While I applauded those who stood against their brethren, I knew that Taeral and his crew would need more than a few allies to push through and complete this mission for Death. Unfortunately, Reapers couldn’t undertake the challenge of retrieving Thieron.
At the same time, I couldn’t stop thinking about Vesta and the other fae. They were in so much trouble in those sanctuaries. They didn’t deserve any of this—particularly poor Crane, who’d died because of the Hermessi’s influence. His life was over. It had been snuffed out by Brendel and her allies. The thought alone was enough to make my blood pressure spike. If only I could just turn them all off like one did with a glitching appliance…
Unfortunately, that wasn’t possible. I could, however, focus on Taeral and his team. The hope of every single world out there rested in their hands and in their ability to outsmart Brendel and get Thieron back. I dared not fantasize about what that moment would look like, but I was certainly willing to give it my all in order to make sure I’d get to witness it.
Amelia
Once our Telluris link to Nuriya was established, we were ready to leave the palace. There wasn’t anything else we could do here, and we were needed for Thieron’s retrieval. I knew Taeral would’ve given anything to be able to go out there and look for his father, but I also understood that Brendel wouldn’t have made it easy for anyone to find Sherus.
The fae king was her leverage against Taeral, but she’d underestimated our reasoning capabilities when the fate of the entire world hung in the balance. She could’ve taken everybody in Taeral’s family; he still wouldn’t have surrendered. This was one of those awful situations where our personal interests didn’t matter. The good of the many outweighed the good of the few. It hurt to even think this, but it was the truth.
