by Isu Yin
Jackyl lifted his hand out towards Akira. “Look who’s back!”
The group of Reapers stared silently at Akira before disregarding him.
Jackyl slapped off the hand of a Reaper in a boar mask, then stood. “Y’know, it’s unbelievable how rude you all can be.”
Akira followed Jackyl away from the fire and spoke quietly. “If you defend me, they’ll ostracize you.”
“So what?”
He laughed inaudibly. The few friends he did have excused the rejection of the Universe.
“Funny, huh?” Jackyl said. “I don’t think so. The next time that happens, I think I’ll spew blood.”
“You’ve grown. Now, if only you’d wear your mask.”
Jackyl put a hand to his chest and gasped. “This handsome face has to breathe sometimes. Can’t let it go to waste like some people.”
“Asshole.”
Somewhere between Akira’s response and Jackyl’s laughing, Besil had shifted back into his adolescent form and waved an arm between them. “Focus. Mayuri’s waiting.”
Akira dreaded seeing Mayuri, but he’d promised Besil that he’d go, so he withheld his complaints and returned to his room in the barracks.
When he entered, Mayuri sat at the desk, spinning a pen. This man associated closely with Akira’s coalition of misfits, and considered himself part of their group. He called himself the Wiser—an omniscient man who crossed through time and space without Reaper association. That really just meant he wasn’t a Reaper and interacted with few.
Akira knew him to be a friend and associate of the Grim, but Mayuri wasn’t one of them either. He was a Guardian, a healer of paradoxes through time and space. This made him akin to Akira, at least in their ability to use anima to resolve time-based anomalies.
After noticing Mayuri, Akira snatched the pen and placed it back in its rightful place. “My belongings are not toys.”
“Oh!” Mayuri grinned from ear to ear, pushing a tuft of red hair away from his black-rimmed glasses. He began to throw his arms around Akira and stopped partway. “My child! How big you’ve... gotten? Become?”
“Whose child? What the devil is on your face?”
Mayuri pushed up his glasses. “Don’t I look smart?”
Akira squinted. “Smart?”
“Ooh, you never change. Nothing but your outward appearance, at least. Hug? No hug?”
His mouth twitched once as he scanned the room that had been filled with jars of crystal. “Are you trying to exorcise a demon? Why is my room such a mess?”
Mayuri leaned one leg against the chair at the desk. “I thought we’d try and remove your mask today. Just for a bit. Routine procedure. It’s been a while, and I think it’d be a healthy step to sort out some of that inner turmoil.”
“You’re not my therapist.”
“No.” Mayuri sat down, partially concealing a smile with his hand. “Just your friend.”
“Friend... is that what you are?”
“How rude! After all I’ve done, am I to be snubbed and seconded to Bes and Jax?”
“That would make you third, actually.” Akira sat on a large pillow in an arrangement on the floor, just one of many things brought in by the menaces he called friends. Their hoard of colorful pillows, books, and games cluttered the once immaculate room. They’d claimed it would remind him that he wasn’t alone, but really, it drove him mad.
The bottom of the blanket on his bed rustled and a young calico cat poked out its head. They stared at each other in surprise, and the cat retreated under the bed.
Akira sighed deeply.
Not again.
Mayuri still prattled. “Praise be, it’s like you’re reliving your childhood. Is this... what do they call it... puberty?”
“Do I look human to you? What do you want?”
Mayuri beamed. “That’s much better. There is always a moment of satisfaction in turning the assertive into the underdog. I was talking about your mask, don’t you remember?”
“What a naggy old man.”
Mayuri touched his youthful face. “Old? Me? I think you’re just immature.” His persistence made him a trying opponent, or just as difficult an ally.
After the brief attempt of dissuasion, Akira relented. He glanced at the jars scattered across the floor and bed. “There are more this time, but are you sure it’s enough?”
“I’ve tested it with some of the phantoms in the Abyss. Let’s just hope you haven’t gotten worse. Hmm?”
The mask was the first and strongest seal Akira had on his body. It warped others’ perception of him and erased his sense of identity; however, it also suppressed a majority of the miasma he produced.
Only pure souls such as Mayuri and the Spinner could remove it. This lasted for only short periods, after which he needed it again. If they didn’t replace it, the miasma would slowly consume his soul and spread until he perished completely. If not for Justice Mode, he’d likely have fallen victim to it long ago. The mask and the miasma both hurt him, but they’d been unable to remove the mask without almost killing him in the process.
Mayuri lowered himself to the floor and sat across from Akira. “I warned Jax and Bes about this beforehand, so they promised to guard the room.”
Akira glanced at the jars again. The crystal already glowed from the anima that fended off his miasma. He estimated a total of forty... and fretted. “I’m not sure about this. I’ve been in the Capital for a long time, and I’m still blacking out.”
Mayuri wiped his hands on his pants. “I doubled the amount from the last time. This isn’t the Ussan. You’re in closer proximity.” He reached out to the mask. “I’ll admit, though, that I have no idea what will happen once I pull it off. Are you ready?”
“No.”
“All right. Here we go.” He pulled the mask away from Akira’s face, against the magnetism of its seal.
As it moved, a prickling sensation ran over Akira’s skin, and soon struck his entire body.
“Steady,” Mayuri said.
Akira’s soul quaked and a shrill ringing filled his ears. His bones throbbed. Although he knew the skin on his face remained, it burned so badly that he still doubted the fact. The pain caused a rattling fear in his chest. He tossed his head, kicked Mayuri into the chair, and hit the floor as the rush of miasma shot from his body.
“Akira! Hey!” Mayuri shook his arm and the room spun.
The shrill ringing deafened Akira as he lay on the floor, losing consciousness. His body ached and his lungs strained.
Soon, Besil stared down at him, mouthing something inaudible. His cold hand touched Akira’s face.
As Akira faded from consciousness, Besil’s voice echoed inside his head. “I’m here. It’s okay.”
Since that day, we’ve always been together. I was born from nothing; therefore, I had nothing, not even an identity, and no one to rely on. The sole person I relied on turned his back on me. The family I thought I had abandoned me, but not Besil.
For me, a person who attained nothing, he became everything.
On the day Akira first met Besil, he had already been in Thule for eight turns. By the age of thirteen, he had lost his sense of self.
He leaned back on the legs of his chair with his feet propped up against his desk. The feeling reminded him of suspending, and this put his mind at ease. Particles of luminescent dust scattered in the air above like fireflies ascending towards the ceiling. As he balanced the legs of the chair, he listened to the strange sound in his head, ticking.
It was said to be the sound of a mortal device called a clock, but people in Thule didn’t believe in the measurement of time. Only mortals were confined by it. Since Akira knew the sound, they considered him strange.
He found a likeness to time; no one believed in him, either—not even the person he trusted and loved most in the world.
The gate of his room unlatched with a click, and a robed man crouched through the opening. “Our Lady has requested your presence in the Round Room. Pl...
se... ou... id... nd.”
Akira lowered his chair and sat forward, blinking slowly as he watched the movements of the man’s mouth. “I can’t hear you.”
“Th... in? En... ht... be... r.”
Akira lifted a hand to his ear, but heard only a sharp ticking. “I can’t hear you. Everything is ticking again.” He shifted his attention from the man, distracted by the light accumulating around the floor. A dark haze hung over the room, clouding his vision.
The man patted Akira’s arm, interrupting the deafening sound. “Come with me. Your review will be begin shortly.”
“Review....” Akira lowered his face and spotted his fountain pen lying on the desk.
I don’t want to. I don’t like it.
The haze thickened around him as he wrapped his fingers around the pen, gripped it tightly, and drove it into the robed man’s neck, not once, or twice, but three... four... five times.
The man’s hand clutched the air. He gargled, stiffened, and fell still.
For a moment, Akira heard nothing except his own heartbeat. His pen clacked as it rolled to the floor, leaving an imprint on his hand in the same spot that a small black dot appeared.
He sank to the floor and balled up against his bed, staring at the fresh corpse. The task had been done, but now his crime stared back at him. Soon enough, another member of the Council would search for them and realize what he had done.
Akira chewed the skin from his lip and rocked back and forth as he mulled over his new problem. The spot on his hand itched, and no amount of scratching or rubbing removed the strange black dot.
What have I done? No, it’s not my fault. I never wanted to come to this place. I’m not wrong. I’ve done nothing wrong. It’s them.
A meow disrupted his thoughts, and he returned his attention to the corpse. Beside his new victim sat a black cat, its cobalt blue eyes piercing through him.
He flinched. “There are no cats in the Beyond. What are you?”
The cat responded. “How do you know if you’ve never seen one?”
“Because I know they exist, but I’ve never seen one in the Beyond.”
“But how do you know they exist, and what they look like, if you’ve never encountered one? If you know what you say you know, then you must’ve seen one, and if so, where were you if not in the Beyond?”
Akira opened his mouth but said nothing.
The cat chuckled. “You have just killed a man, and the origin of cats is your first concern. We’ll get along well. I can tell.” Its shadowy body dispersed into smoke and formed a boy, who seemed close in age. “You’ve been caught. What will you do? You’re still young, so I can forgive your actions. Do you wish to be forgiven?”
“I have nothing to apologize for. Stay away from me. You reek of the Void.”
“Guess what....” The boy stepped over the corpse and leaned so closely, his nose brushed against Akira. “So do you. I’ll ask again. Do you wish to be forgiven?”
Akira shook his head. “I’ve done nothing wrong.”
“My, then how rude of this corpse to appear before you. What shall we do about him?”
“I... but....”
The dark-haired boy crouched down. “He deserved it? That is not for you to decide. Are you the Grandmaster?”
Akira scrunched his nose. “I am not.”
The boy chuckled. “Cute reaction. I can help you, but in order to do so, we must form a pact.”
Akira held his ground. He remembered his teachings well. “They call your kind demons. Is this not the trickery of the Void?”
“What makes the Void so evil?”
He said nothing.
“You don’t know?”
“The darkness,” he said.
“Is that what they told you?”
He paused.
“What if I told you that I can not only help you, but I can teach you to harness the darkness?”
He thought hard on it. The boy’s offer appealed to him, but every action had its consequence. “I’ll be punished, but if I turn you in, they’ll praise me. Why should I trust you?”
“If you listen and follow my instructions, I can help you break out of here.”
Akira faltered. He wanted to leave Thule more than anything. “Really?”
“Instead of a deal, let’s call it friendship. How would you like to be friends?”
“Friends?”
The boy recited a line with fluidity. “A friend is one that knows you as you are, understands where you have been, accepts what you have become, and still, gently allows you to grow.”
The deal appealed to Akira more by the moment. He had been told that demons knew how to see into people’s hearts and sense their desires. Now he knew this to be true. “I... want that. I think.”
The boy patted Akira’s head and smiled kindly. “Very well. I shall tell you my name just this once, so you mustn’t forget it.”
“Okay.”
He whispered in Akira’s ear. “Bethshan.” Once he said it, he withdrew. “That’s the name you should call. What’s your name?”
Akira averted his gaze. “It’s Akira.”
Bethshan turned his head to one side and observed Akira with a curious eye. “I meant your real name. Without your real name, we can’t form a pact. Similarly, once we’ve made a pact, it’ll remain no matter where you go in space or time. If you die and are reborn, our pact will still be intact. The only way you may sever it is to betray me or have a Grim sever our ties.”
“I’ve never told anyone my real name,” Akira said. His heart beat quickly, even more so than when he first realized his crime.
Forming a pact with a demon from the Void outweighed the atrocity of the murder.
Bethshan nudged the corpse with his foot. “Another council member will arrive soon, and my time here is running short. If you wish to form a pact, then I must know your soul’s name. Otherwise, I’ll leave you be.”
Time?
When Akira failed to respond, Bethshan moved towards the gated entrance of the room.
“It’s Bedad!”
Bethshan’s eyes widened. He paused briefly, then seemed to catch himself and smiled. “Bedad. That’s a nice name.”
Akira choked back a breath. It was too late to take it back, and that alarmed him, but truthfully, he liked something about Bethshan and much preferred him to the Council.
“I don’t like that name,” Akira said.
“Akira, then. We’re not dissimilar. I also have more than one name. I’m Besil, but you can call me Bes.” Besil pushed the corpse aside and sat close to Akira, face to face.
“Bes....”
“Right.”
“What now?”
“We must exchange anima. Remember, you must call my name. It must resonate with your soul. Please excuse me.”
Akira meant to ask what Besil meant, but soon found out when Besil covered his eyes and kissed him.
Akira had been so startled, he forgot about the resonance, then he heard a distant reverberation. If he closed his eyes and listened carefully, he could also hear his name, so he mirrored this task.
Bethshan.
When the pact had formed, a pain struck his chest.
Besil sat back and grinned. “There. Now we’re friends. Our pact is simple. We must be loyal and protect each other.”
Akira decided not to argue about the strange use of the term friend, because there was still a corpse in his room.
Besil also turned his attention to the body. “Don’t worry. From now on, I’ll take care of everything.”
I can still remember the ache in my soul when he called me his friend. I found myself wishing to make him proud. For the first time in ages, I had someone who truly cared about me. Bes was my family and my world... and oh, how I wish I could’ve given him my own.
Akira opened his eyes as Besil the Cat’s cold nose pressed against his face.
The room tilted, and then Mayuri reappeared with his head pressed against the floor. “Are you all
right? The miasma just stopped flowing.”
Akira sat up, pulling Besil into his arms as he awakened. “Bes... I’m sorry.”
Mayuri griped. “Bes? But I’m the one who asked the question.”
Akira nuzzled Besil’s head and curled up, holding the cat close to his chest. “Don’t leave me again.”
Besil cooed and tapped a paw against his friend’s face.
Don’t leave me again.
END OF SPECIAL SNEAK PREVIEW.
Please scroll down for additional content, including our second Special Sneak Preview:
SHADOW SWARM by D. Robert Pease.
We have always dreamed and hoped for the day when we could begin telling this beast of a story. Isu, being the elder, first began this journey during her early childhood, then Fae picked it up during her early childhood. The struggle has been surreal, so there we’d like to thank those who have supported us along the way.
Thank you Sheila, Charles, & Samuel Dreiling for encouraging us, especially during the early stages of the series. It really meant the world to have close supporters with whom we can share the joy of our milestone.
Thank you Esther Beltran for teaching Yang better grammar. Otherwise, I’m sure our editor would’ve been at a complete loss.
We also owe a tremendous thank you to our early beta readers: Koemi Li, Anna Maria Gamboa, Mai Vee Vang, Nikki Richards, & Maddy Little for giving us feedback. It makes all the difference in the world to have multiple sets of eyes.
Our street team, ARX, has been so incredibly encouraging, supportive, and helpful we can’t even begin to describe.
Thank you Kel Ho, for receiving one of the first editions of the first book and offering words of encouragement, kindness, and support to Fae during such a crucial time. If not for your support, she wouldn’t have gained the courage to move forward.
We are extremely proud to be a part of Evolved Publishing and couldn’t imagine being anywhere else. The team is wonderful, helpful, and talented.
On that note, we’d like to thank our editor, Lane Diamond, for wearing so many hats within Evolved and doing such a fantastic job of it. We feel truly blessed to have such a wonderful editor. Thank you for your patience, wisdom, and consideration.