Traditionally, Death represents transformation—the end of one thing, and the beginning of another. It’s neither good nor bad. It simply is.
The scene on this particular version of the card showed me sitting in a white room with my legs crossed, my back to the wall, hands hidden behind my back. Clearly, the card was saying that I would transform somehow within my cell.
A little unnerved, I set the card down beside the first two, hoping the next would bring some clarity to the reading. I licked my lips, cleared my throat, and drew the next card.
Five of Swords. Traditionally, this card represents battle and loss. However, it speaks of not giving up—all is not lost. The fight matters, and there’s still a chance of victory.
The scene on the card showed eight figures, all wielding a weapon of some sort, be it mundane or magical. I stood in the foreground, the largest of the figures, Mercy raised high and glowing brightly. Isfet stood close behind me, blonde hair floating and hands alight with silvery fire. Farther in the background, I could see Anapa, Re, Dom, Mari, Susie, and Syris, all six of them ready for a fight.
I placed the card on the floor beside the others, studying them as a set, rolling their collective meanings around in my mind. Waiting. Sacrifice. Transformation. Battle. It spelled out a clear, if vague, story. But it didn’t tell me the one thing I really needed to know—how was I supposed to get out of my cell?
“How do I get out of here?” I demanded, fingers hovering over the deck.
There was a zap, and a sharp sting stabbed into my hand through the palm of the hand holding the cards.
“Ow!” I yelped, dropping the deck of tarot cards and shaking out my hand.
The deck spilled out on the floor, a few of the cards landing faceup. They were all the same.
Death.
They all displayed the same subject—me—and the scene in each was similar, but with minute differences, like my position in the white room or whether I was standing or sitting.
I reached out with one shaking hand and flipped over one of the facedown cards.
Death.
“Holy shit,” I said, fingers moving to the next card. It was the same, but different. Over and over, I revealed the Death card, and each time the card was slightly different, but one element was always there: me.
I hadn’t wanted to see it earlier in the reading. I’d done the equivalent of stuffing my fingers in my ears and saying “blah blah blah blah.” But the meaning was impossible to miss now—to get out of my prison, I needed to die.
Probably for real, this time.
Chapter Twenty-Six
It took me a few dozen heartbeats and a handful of deep breaths to get a handle on the whole death deal. You would think that after having had so many quick dying stints the past few weeks I would have been used to the idea by now. Turned out I wasn’t.
“Suck it up, buttercup,” I told myself. My thoughts kept turning to Nik and what my death would mean for him, making my heart ache and my stomach knot, but I couldn’t focus on that right now.
I forced my hands to resume flipping over the tarot cards. There was more to the story waiting to be discovered. My death was the sacrifice—that much was apparent. But what was the transformation that would follow? What did I need to wait for to make death my vehicle of escape from this cell? Because the Mother of All had made it more than clear that simply dying wouldn’t free me from my eternal prison.
It wasn’t until I’d overturned a little over half of the deck that I realized my mind needed to switch gears from the creative side of my brain to the logical, analytical side. For once, the cards weren’t showing me some collection of symbolic imagery; they were showing me a sequence of events, clearly laid out in pictures. It was almost like a flip-book, with each scene progressing the storyline along minutely.
Once I caught on to the trick, I hastily flipped the rest of the cards over. Every single card in the deck was labeled Death, and each showed an image of me. I just had to match each card up with its sequential siblings and arrange them in order. Then—I crossed my fingers—I would finally know what to do.
Turned out it wasn’t quite so easy as dying. Yes, according to the story playing out in the cards, I had to die. There would be a lot of blood, from the looks of it, but I tried not to dwell on the grisly aspects of the plan. The reading earlier had spoken of transformation after my sacrifice and, after that, a pretty epic-looking battle. I would die here, but only to become something more.
My death wouldn’t be the end of me. Far from it. But then, I’d already known that. As things stood currently, I was looking at an eternity as an energy being, trapped within this sterile, white hell. Anything, and I meant anything, would be better than that.
According to the rather detailed story laid out in the cards, I would wait until the right moment, and then I would take my own life. The moment my physical body died, my soul would float out of my body. And—I had to admit, I got a little excited when I saw this part—my ba would float right on out of my supposedly un-break-out-able cell. I would then pass through a portal to my universe, make a pit stop in Duat, and enter the eternal darkness that surrounded Aaru.
That was where my soul’s story ended, but it was not the end of the story told by the cards.
In one card, my body was shown in this white prison cell, but in the next, it was gone. Vanished. On card seventy-eight, the last card in the deck, it reappeared on a snowy mountainside, the final frame in a morbidly hopeful story.
My fingertips grazed the surface of that final card. She—I—looked so small. So pale. So broken. So very, very dead. But there was some comfort in knowing that my body would follow my soul back to my universe. I supposed it made sense; the Mother of All had said the cell was made to hold my ba, not my physical body. Once my soul was gone, there was nothing keeping my body from returning to the place where it belonged.
Which meant that, assuming Aset and Neffe could get their healer hands on my body as soon as possible after its return to earth, they might—super long shot—be able to bring me back to life. Then, Nik could yank my ba back out of Aaru—with Isfet, this time. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. Only together would we be strong enough to take on the Mother of All.
I shifted my attention back to the part of the story where my soul was able to break free from its eternal prison. And to the one true snag—when I died, my ba would return to my universe through a portal. Which meant a portal needed to be open when I died. The cards literally showed a portal being opened, then me dying, and then my soul going through the portal. Unfortunately, only one being was powerful enough to open portals between universes.
The Mother of All.
How was I supposed to swing that? I doubted I could just knock on the walls and ask her nicely to open a portal. Oh no, that wouldn’t be a dead giveaway that something was up. Not at all.
I stared at the storyboard laid out in the cards. It was so specific. So direct. And so damn infuriating with its specificity. There was one single, stupid way out. One impossible means of escape.
I lay back on the floor and stared up at the ceiling, fuming. Tiny threads of At sprouted from my back, sinking into the Essence beneath me. That alien energy singed through me. I didn’t mind the pain so much anymore; it gave me something to focus on besides the overwhelming frustration.
I’d just taken seventy-eight tiny steps forward, and one massive leap backward. I was basically no better off than I’d been before. I was maybe even worse off, depending on how you looked at it. Ignorance was bliss, after all.
A faint crackle broke through my haze of irritation. I propped myself up on my elbows and looked at the tarot cards scattered on the floor beyond my knees. Had they recharged for some reason? Did they have more to tell me?
But the sound wasn’t coming from the cards.
A thrumming whoosh-whoosh-whoosh started on the very edge of my hearing and grew louder.
I sat up all the way, recognizing the sound. A doorway. Someone was op
ening a doorway. Into my prison.
What if it was the Mother of All? What if she saw the cards? What if she figured out what I’d learned? Then the plan would be even more useless than it was now.
“Shit,” I hissed, hands working frantically to gather up the scattered tarot cards.
I was just stuffing the deck back into its velvet drawstring bag when the Mother of All walked through a brand-new opening in the wall.
I scrambled to my feet, shoving the concealed tarot deck into my coat pocket. “What are you doing here?” I asked.
The Mother of All sniffed once, glanced in the direction of my clever little chamber pot, and raised an eyebrow. “I’ll give you a minute to say your good-byes,” she said, positioning her delicate, diamond fingers directly under her pixie nose and turning her back to me to walk through the doorway and out of my cell.
Not a moment later, Anapa took her place. I thought he was a trick of the mind at first. A mirage created by desperation. But after I blinked a half dozen times and he was still standing there, I realized that this was real. He wasn’t in Aaru, not yet. He was here, in my cell.
I wanted to run to him. To hug him and apologize and demand that he tell me everything that was going on. To thank him for being on my side, even if it meant tying his fate to my people’s. I hadn’t known him a long time, but I considered him a true friend. And now, I knew he was one of the few people in the many universes I could actually trust. Too late, maybe, but I had trust issues, so it was a momentous event worth acknowledging.
But my feet were cemented to the floor by shock.
He was still alive. He was still here. I’d written him off hours ago, along with Re and Susie and Syris. In my mind, Anapa was already dead. Already sealed away in Aaru until the end of time . . . or until the end of my universe. After that, he really would die, alongside all of my people.
“Katarina . . .” Anapa paused, just through the doorway, then glanced over his shoulder before rushing to me, arms outstretched. “How are you? Are you well?”
“It doesn’t matter,” I said, shaking my head and reaching out to him with open hands. “You’re still here.”
He took my hands in his, gripping them tightly. “Only for a moment longer. You were my last request.”
I hate crying. It’s pretty much the worst thing ever. But damn it all to hell, tears stung in my eyes, and my chin trembled as I stared into his midnight eyes.
“I’m sorry that—” I shook my head, brow furrowed. “I wish it hadn’t ended like this for you.” I squeezed his long, slender fingers. “You’re a good guy—too good for these dickheads.” My nostrils flared. “Maybe it won’t be so bad for you in Aaru.”
“I’ll find out soon enough,” Anapa said. He released my hands, gripping my shoulders instead. “I’ll find Isfet,” he promised, “and if there’s a way to get her out of there, I will do it. I will come back for you.”
His words were lovely. Heartfelt and soul-warming. But my mind didn’t care about any of that. It cared about the soon enough. This was the moment foretold in the cards. This was the thing I’d been waiting for.
I raised my hands, molding them to either side of Anapa’s elongated face. “When?”
His angled brows drew together, and he started to shake his head. He thought I was asking him when he would break me out of this hellhole. I wasn’t. I was asking when he would give me the opportunity to break my own damn self out.
I leaned in, bringing my face within inches of his. This close, his midnight eyes contained a whole galaxy of stars. “When is she sending you to Aaru?” I whispered, desperately searching his sorrowful stare.
Anapa became very, very still. He must’ve picked up on my mood change, even if he didn’t understand the reason behind it. “Now,” he said, voice hushed. “As soon as I leave here, she’ll create a portal to your universe and send me through . . . with an escort, of course.”
“Of course,” I said absently, lowering my hands.
A sense of quietness settled over me. I could feel every beat of my heart. Every twinge of my muscles. Every fluctuation of my cells. I’d never been more aware of my physical body. But then, I’d never been so close to leaving it behind for good. Sure, I was hoping Aset and Neffe would be able to revive me—it was an essential step in the destroy-the-Mother plan—but even I knew that death by blood loss wouldn’t be the easiest thing to cure. Maybe I would find another way to break Isfet out of Aaru. Maybe I wouldn’t need my body at all. There was only one way to find out.
I closed my eyes, smiling faintly. “Will you do something for me?” I asked Anapa, opening my eyes and locking gazes with him.
“I don’t know what I can—” But something in my eyes must have cut his words short. He nodded.
“When you get to Aaru, tell Dom to find me.” I leaned in and pressed my lips against his cool, smooth cheek. When I lowered my hands and pulled away, Anapa looked totally baffled. “And wish me luck,” I added.
“Anapa,” the Mother of All called through the doorway, “come. It is time.”
A slight head tilt and glance over Anapa’s shoulder told me she was watching us. I straightened my neck, blocking my view of the Mother of All with Anapa’s head and raising one finger up to my lips in a silent shhhh.
Anapa held my gaze for a moment longer, then bowed his head and turned away from me, making his way back to the doorway. He paused on the cusp of the opening and glanced at me over his shoulder. “Good luck,” he whispered.
And then he was gone.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The opening in the wall of my cell didn’t close after Anapa stepped through it. Rather, it remained open, giving me a view of the portal chamber and Anapa’s death escort. It was almost funny, considering that he was the inspiration behind the original god of the dead, according to Egyptian mythology. The great god Anubis, being escorted to the underworld by a host of other gods. Hilarious.
I could only assume that the Mother of All wanted me to watch. That she wanted me to see my last ally vanish through a portal. That she wanted me to accept that I was truly defeated.
Well, the joke was on her.
As I watched the Mother of All open a portal to my universe, I backed up until my butt hit the wall. Pressing my shoulder blades against the smooth, featureless surface, I slid down to the floor. I crossed my legs in front of me, slouching a little further than was comfortable. Once I felt I was in a pretty sturdy position, I pulled the push dagger from my belt buckle and slipped it behind my back.
Three deep cuts on each wrist should do the trick. Especially with my hands below my heart. I just hoped I would bleed out quickly enough—and that the damage to my body wouldn’t be impossible to fix. But speed of death was the more urgent matter; once this window closed, it was over. All of it. My people’s future—my sanity—gone. Desperation drove me onwards. Home was calling to me. It was now or never.
Anapa was standing before the portal now. His back was to me, his hands clasped behind him. At least a dozen Netjers crowded around him, ready to drag him into my universe and throw him into Aaru. I supposed their number was a testament to his power; he was among the oldest and strongest of the Netjers.
I made the first cut. Hot blood gushed from the wound, pouring down my hand. The pain was sharp and deep, but it paled in comparison to the agony of tapping into the Essence. It was like a feather tickling my skin. A mere irritation, nothing more.
The corner of my mouth lifted, and I made the second cut.
The Mother was issuing orders, but I tuned her voice out. I needed to focus on me now. On not screwing this up. This was the single most important moment of my life. I couldn’t fail.
I made the third cut.
The Mother of All had no idea what I was doing. She understood power. She understood strength and sheer, blunt force. But she didn’t know a damn thing about sacrifice. She didn’t get that sacrifice held its own kind of power.
But I got it. I’d lived it. It was the final l
esson my mom taught me, the moment she died. I just hadn’t learned the true meaning until now. I hadn’t understood the full, unsurmountable power of sacrifice, until now.
I switched the push dagger to my other hand. My fingers were slick with blood, and the blood loss was weakening me, making the knife’s squat handle difficult to grip.
I clenched my jaw, took a deep breath, and made the fourth cut. And the fifth.
Anapa and his escort were moving toward the portal. The Mother turned partway, glancing back at me. She probably wanted to make sure I was watching. Remotely, I hoped my blood puddle hadn’t spread out enough that she could see it.
My vision grew hazy around the edges, darkening, and my head drooped forward, but I used every last ounce of strength left in me to hold my head up and glare right back at the Mother of All.
She sneered and turned her back to me. She hadn’t noticed the pool of blood spreading out on the floor around me. I had. I could feel it soaking through my jeans, both hot and cold at the same time.
I made the sixth cut. A few seconds later, dark spots closed in until I could barely see. My head slumped forward. And just as the Mother of All had predicted when she first trapped me in this prison cell, I awaited the inevitable.
Dying is hard. Until it’s not. Until it’s easy.
No matter how ready you are, no matter how much you think you want it, you can’t help the part where your body fights it. Where instinct kicks in and claws like hell to hold on to life.
I should know. I’d died a few times already.
But this time was different.
Much as I needed it not to be, this time was probably, most likely, forever.
Alison
It’s been four days since the attack in Rome . . . since Kat, the Goddess, my friend, disappeared and the end of the world began. It’s been three days since the rest of the Nejerets followed her to who-knows-where . . . since the evacuation orders started. And it’s been two days since I went into hiding. Since I became one of the lucky ones. One of the survivors.
Judgement Page 14