I ran as fast as I could, with the ghoul galloping on all fours and snarling after me. Lights flashed past, and I decided that I would not go down like this. I’d escaped a ghoul’s clutches before, and I could do it again.
Whatever was going on here, it was swelling and festering and swallowing more Reapers as they came along. How many more would this underground maze take before Death sent a whole army down here to put these wretched fiends out of their misery? I’d have to survive in order to find out.
So I ran. I kept running.
Maybe I’d survive another ghoul attack. Maybe I wouldn’t forever-die in here.
Maybe not today.
Lumi
Taeral and I went into one of the secret chambers of the Fire Star’s palace, leaving Eira to finish the letters. Once we got in, Taeral locked the door and took out Thieron, which he’d learned to conceal by using a little bit of death magic, as far as I could tell. It was a big weapon and not easy to keep hidden, and yet that was exactly what Taeral had accomplished.
Taking it out and revealing it looked like a sleight-of-hand trick. I couldn’t help but smile. “I see you’ve picked up more than a couple of Reaper tricks.”
Taeral chuckled. “I’ve had time to practice. To eavesdrop on the right people,” he replied. “They all do this, otherwise the scythes would poke out of wherever they’re holding them. It’s a sort of synergy between one’s body, regardless of its form, and the scythe. It can vanish and yet stay on me, at all times. It took me a while to figure it out and lots of practice. Hell, I nearly stabbed myself a couple of times.”
“It’s as beautiful as I remembered it,” I whispered, admiring the long handle made of stone-dragon bone, with its carved runes; the long and arched blade that seemed to whisper in contact with the air around it; and the black iridescent sphere mounted on it, slowly revolving as it held Death’s purest power. Eirexis, the handle and bearer of knowledge. Zetos, the blade and taker of life. Phyla, the gemstone and giver of life. What an exquisite piece of primordial energy, materialized into one of the most volatile and most powerful weapons in existence and beyond.
“I’m learning more and more about it,” Taeral said. “Death insists that I don’t fiddle with it, but sometimes I feel like it wants me to use it, if that makes sense. I never push it, though. Everything I can do with Thieron, everything I have learned, it’s only because the scythe has allowed it. I’m sure of it.”
“You’re a most fortunate soul to be its keeper, then,” I replied. “Now, tell me, what are we doing? Where are we going?”
“Lumi, my dear, I’m taking you on a Reaper-like trip,” Taeral declared, beaming with the enthusiasm of a young boy about to jump from great heights into the ocean. There was a devilish glow in his amber eyes, and it almost made my heart sing. His eagerness was downright infectious.
Staring at Thieron, I exhaled sharply. “Okay. Treading worlds, then?”
“Indeed. You might want to hold on to me,” Taeral said.
Hooking my arm around his, I braced myself for whatever such a journey might entail. We’d only done it once with Phantom, and I was already getting dizzy from remembering the sensations such a voyage had left me with. Taeral was nowhere near as experienced as any of the First Ten, so I assumed things might get bumpy.
He brought Thieron’s blade up to his lips and whispered a word into it. I didn’t recognize it, but it was old-timey death magic, which once again left me in awe of how resourceful the Fire Star prince and future Reaper truly was.
The runes on Eirexis lit up blue, shining like sapphires in the moonlight, as the world around us began to shimmer and ripple. Matter and space became soft and bendy, like delicate fabric, and we both stepped forward and through it.
The secret chamber fizzled away like ink washed off the table with a jet of cold water. The blackness of cosmos took its place, and my knees got weak. A knot formed in my throat, as I was suddenly weightless and senseless, with no control over myself or anything around me. I had become a flicker, an insignificant blip in the endless net of time and space, as Taeral walked us through a plethora of galaxies.
We were in the In-Between again. I recognized the stars, the reddish suns, the vibrant streams of pink and orange stardust. Glistening in the distance, with its fuchsia mists and giant sun, was Eritopia.
“Are you okay?” Taeral asked as we kept walking, quite literally, through an invisible wormhole that cut through billions of light-years in a matter of minutes.
“Mm-hm…” I breathed, trying to focus on the path ahead.
Before us, a mysterious solar system became visible. A group of fifteen planets, all titans of the universe, bigger than anything I’d seen before. These behemoth marbles came in shades of ochre yellow and lilac, delicate blue and turquoise green. They orbited an equally enormous sun, a star so bright that I couldn’t even bear to look at it, directly, without my eyes stinging and hurting.
“What is this?” I asked, barely feeling my own body at this point.
“I don’t know what the system is called, but we’re going there,” he said, and I followed his gaze.
The thirteenth planet was… off. It was a deep red with orange streaks and loose powder and stones all around it. A hole had recently been formed in its northern hemisphere, a bowl-shaped void from which phosphorescent lava seeped out in loose bubbles in the absence of gravity. The closer we got, the better I could see.
The orange streaks were clouds scattering away, losing their structure. The planet had been hit by something massive, and there were still traces of the thing around it. Something large and black, judging by the obsidian shards that mingled with the rocks and the lava droplets. My stomach tightened as I tried to wrap my head around this catastrophe.
“What happened here?” I whispered, feeling my eyes widen as we walked toward it.
“This used to be called Akryos,” Taeral said. “Up until a couple of days ago, it was a prosperous and peaceful world, with a species that cannot be found anywhere else in the In-Between. Some kind of Druid-related humanoids, though I know very little about them. Only what I’ve heard through the grapevine.”
“The grapevine?”
“Reaper radio,” Taeral replied. I looked at him, understandably confused. “Sometimes, if I focus on Eirexis hard enough, I can hear Reapers whispering, talking to one another. I can tap into their telepathic connections, though I have no control over who it is I’m listening to. I can’t even stay on for too long before my head starts to hurt, but I know something awful happened to Akryos. A massive asteroid, to be precise. And everything… everyone… they’re gone now. Dead.”
“Oh, no… That’s awful.”
“If there’s one thing I’ve understood better since I’ve been snooping on the Reapers, it’s the enormity and the complexity of the universe, of its dimensions… of the calculated rules that set it in motion. Worlds like Akryos perish every other day, and others are born elsewhere. It’s a constant cycle of sorts. It would take lifetimes just to fully grasp it all.”
Once we reached the surface, I felt extremely hot. Taeral whispered something else into Thieron, then gently pressed the blade against my skin. In an instant, I felt much better. My skin was cool, and I could breathe, effortlessly, despite the absence of an atmosphere.
“It destroyed everything,” I said, looking around.
The entire crust had been cracked. Lava rivers burst from below, dripping upward and outward without any gravity. Whatever Thieron had done, it was keeping us alive and anchored to the ground, despite all the conditions that dictated against it.
“They didn’t stand a chance,” Taeral said. “They saw it coming days ago, but they didn’t have the knowledge or the technology to evacuate. Millions of them.”
We walked along a sharp ridge, and I did not let go of Taeral’s arm. He insisted on that, stating that I would immediately lose Thieron’s privileges if physical contact between us were to cease. Remnants of glorious cities were scattered all over, the entrails of iron and steel snaking around, unbound and broken. White-and-pink marble chunks littered the sweltering red desert that had swooped in and swallowed them all. Fractured towers and molten glass. Charred trees and blackened skeletons.
There was everything and nothing, all at once, and the air was replaced by swirling mists of black smoke and ash. Upon impact, the asteroid had destroyed whatever stood in the path of its shockwave. It had splintered the planet’s outer crust. It had ripped apart the atmosphere itself, somehow, and it had turned everything to dust and dirt.
It broke my heart to see all this, while my mind struggled to keep up, to understand everything laid out so ruthlessly before my very eyes.
