What I didn't like was that Soul, Phantom, and Widow were as lost and as confused as the rest of our crew. It didn't bode well. To be honest, I would've been more at peace with Soul withholding some other valuable piece of information just for the fun of it, like he'd done until now.
An ignorant Soul Crusher put us all on the same page. A blank sheet of paper, with Death still missing and absolutely no direction to go in.
"I… I don't know," Soul mumbled, frowning at his scythe. "This is weird. I don't get how the tracking spell is working, if she isn't here."
"For what it's worth, I still don't sense her," Seeley said, walking around the platform. His gaze wandered all over, as if he was searching for something—what, exactly? He didn't know, but I had a feeling he would, once he found it.
"How can this be?" Phantom asked, then gave her brother a nudge. "Are you sure you did it right?"
"Did what right?" Soul replied, scowling at her.
"The tracking spell."
"Don't be a dweeb. Of course I did it right! Don't insult me," Soul retorted, already insulted. "The spell is fine! Look at it! It's still working! It's resonating with Death, but I just don't know how. She isn't here."
Lumi and Nethissis did a tour of the platform, too, their hands lighting up as they used the Word's magic to find whatever it was that had brought us here. "If it wasn't Death, it was something else that drew your spell here," Lumi said to Soul. "What could it have been?"
The First Tenners thought about it for a moment. Phantom was the first to reply. "Whatever it was, it has Death's energy signature. Perhaps an object of hers?"
The tension was killing me. Poor Taeral was livid, unable to speak anymore. The strain was torturing us all, and there wasn't much we could do to stop it. Our emotions were free, and we were all falling through a dark tunnel with no light of salvation in sight.
Surrendering, I dropped to my knees and exhaled sharply, shuddering in the process. Raphael joined me, kneeling in front of me as he cupped my face and smiled. "It's not over yet," he said.
"I know. I just… I'm so tired," I whispered.
"We all are," Riza chimed in. Only then did I feel the hot tears streaming down my cheeks. I was crying. I was shaking and crying.
Herakles came over, as did Eva and Varga. Amazingly, they were all more concerned about my state of mind than the absolute dead-end we'd stumbled into. Maybe my broken soul could be fixed, unlike this situation with Death.
Seeley stopped in the middle of the platform and bent down, picking something off the ground. He inspected it carefully and brought it over to us. I could see it clearly as he held out his hand.
"What in the world is that?" I asked, hearing my voice tremble.
"It's a pebble," Seeley replied. "Well, not just any pebble. It's a message."
His expression inspired hope and curiosity, but I dared not allow myself to feel anything until he told us more about it.
Phantom, Widow, and Soul came closer, each of them gawking at the pebble, on which I could make out several etchings. Something was written on it, but I didn't recognize the symbols. Seeley, on the other hand, afforded himself the luxury of a confident smile.
"Death left this for us to find," he continued. "I can feel traces of her on it. What I couldn't sense earlier, I do now."
"She left us breadcrumbs?" I managed, remembering an old tale from Earth about a little boy and a little girl who'd gotten lost once, and they'd used breadcrumbs in the hope that their father might find them before they starved.
"It's her old language. The very first she invented," Phantom said, and looked up at Seeley. "Do you know of it?"
He nodded. "She taught me a few words. It's the one language Reapers don't have access to unless she allows it," he replied. "But I can't tell what she's saying. Can you?"
"I'm a little rusty, too, but I can tell you one thing. The words are jumbled." Phantom sighed. "They're not meant to make sense in that order. We need to figure out the message on our own."
Widow scoffed. "Why would she do that? And how did it mess with Soul's spell?"
"I don't think it did. Not on purpose, at least," Soul said. "It's her energy signature. Like Phantom suggested, my spell reacted to an object of hers."
"Why didn't it take us to her, directly?" I asked.
The Soul Crusher seemed uncomfortable. I figured he didn't have an encouraging explanation. "Because she's probably untraceable. Either by her own devices or by the Spirit Bender's doing. So the spell brought us to the next best thing… something she left behind for us to come across."
Lumi cursed under her breath, looking up at the sky and closing her eyes for a moment, as if praying. Maybe she was, in fact, praying. To the Word… to all the forces of the universe.
"Then why did she leave a puzzle and not a clear message?" the swamp witch asked. There was tension in her voice, and I felt it all the way down in the pit of my stomach.
"I'm afraid we're going to have to ask her when we see her," Phantom replied.
Thunder boomed as lightning sliced through clouds I hadn’t even noticed gathering. A storm was swallowing up the moons, and the wind swelled, making my cheeks freeze. Instinctively, I got up, and Raphael joined me as we turned to the east. Something was coming.
Kabbah was already standing on the eastern edge. His fists burst into emerald flames as lights emerged from the clouds, flickering anxiously in different elemental colors. The Hermessi were coming. Normally, I would've said this was to be expected. But leading the pack was Brendel. I recognized her orange fire anywhere, these days.
"How did she know to come here, to this mountain?" Eva breathed, horror widening her yellow eyes.
"The pebble," Seeley replied, realization dawning on him first. "This was a trap."
"What?!" Taeral shot back.
It made sense. As the lights grew bigger in the clouded sky, and as lightning webbed across with bright, nerve-wracking flashes, I understood. "The Spirit Bender took Death. They were here, at some point, long enough for Death to leave us a message," I said. "Whether it was suggested by the Spirit Bender in the first place, or whether he let her do it… it doesn't matter. Leaving the pebble here was deliberate. The energy signature… Spirit knows his brothers better than anyone else."
"He knew we'd be coming," Soul concluded, his lips twisted with disgust and anger. "You're right, Seeley. We walked right into a trap."
As the Hermessi descended upon us, led by Brendel, we all became aware of an impending reality. There was no more running from the Hermessi leader, not this time. This was our turning point, the moment in which we'd fight to the very end. We would either win, or we would lose.
