“We need to sink.”
She stared at me for a while, occasionally looking at the tendrils. They were calm now, but their aggression remained, quietly persistent and obvious whenever we made the slightest movement. They reacted to us, and they were insanely receptive. It was only a matter of time before we’d trigger their violence again. I was sure of it.
“Okay,” she whispered, suddenly relaxing against the light’s firm hold on her. Slowly but surely, she went down, sliding through until all I could see was her head. Following my own advice, I did the same.
Soon we were both engulfed in the white light, leaving the black tendrils behind. We sank for what felt like forever, the temperature rising, my senses unraveling as I surrendered myself to it all. This limbo had served a purpose, I realized. It had confronted the Unending with the greatest challenge that stood between her and her own release.
The Spirit Bender might have tied her down with three seals and left that darkness to fester inside her, but the Unending’s mind had taken measures of its own, for her protection. The memories that had settled in layers, one on top of the other. The gold thread that invited her to discover and understand her past lives, one layer at a time. The white space where nothing had been allowed to flourish, except for the darkness that fed on her grief. Yes, the Unending had already done her part without even realizing it.
As the light swallowed us up, I smiled. Now we were getting somewhere, beyond the trigger that Spirit had placed as a barrier.
My eyes opened slowly, as if waking up too quickly would cause an unpleasant jolt. The Unending was with me. We sat on a flat cliff atop a stony mountain. The landscape didn’t seem familiar, but it was breathtaking. This was a strange world, made of rocks and sparkling rivers. The obsidian sheen of the stone played with the illuminated waters as they tangled in streams across the world. Above, peculiar galaxies with green and blue stars swirled around. At the center of each, a tiny spot of white light glowed around a black circle. Stardust danced in shades of emerald and sapphire, dusting the heavens with its cosmic shimmer.
This was not a place I’d ever seen before. It was startlingly beautiful. It was something I’d imagined the gods might have called home, in any legend, in any culture. Everything was perfect despite its overall chaotic asymmetry. There were no straight lines. Only jagged edges and pearlescent surfaces accompanied by the sweet sound of rushing water. And in the midst of it all, overlooking the mind-boggling splendor, were the two of us.
Unending smiled as she brought a hand up to my face. The feel of black leather against my skin was nice, but I needed more, so I peeled the glove off and welcomed her naked touch. The energy flowed through me as if I’d been gently touched by lightning. I’d felt it before, not long ago.
She took off my shirt. The fabric slipped off me in the blink of an eye, and she took the other glove off, placing her palms on my chest. My heart grew as we gazed at each other, marveling at the love and the beauty we saw in each other’s eyes. I wasn’t myself. Not really.
I was somebody else, and I saw my hands come up to undress her. The white silk was abandoned on the dark stone beneath us, her bare shoulders inviting my caress. I wrapped my arms around her. We were close. Closer than ever before. So close, in fact, that I even felt her heart beating against mine. The Unending no longer had one, and yet… it echoed inside me.
Our lips met in the most tender of kisses. I’d been in love with her for years, before she’d granted me the gift of immortality. We’d spent millennia together since, treading worlds and discovering new civilizations as they developed and expanded over virgin lands. We’d talked for millions of hours, never getting bored, never finding the silent moments awkward or heavy. No, we were the perfect couple—two souls who’d met in the world of the living.
I was Erethiel, the Unending’s lover.
I had her pinned under my body, her physical form responding to my every touch. I kissed the side of her neck, following an invisible trail down to her navel, overwhelmed by the flurry of sensations she sent through me. My spirit sang with delight as we came together under a full and giant moon, the only witness to our eternal union.
This was a memory of the Unending’s from before her binding to Visio. This was one of the single most precious moments of her existence. In it, I played the part of Erethiel. I followed his every gesture, each movement bringing us closer together. We made love, and she whispered in my ear, “I love you. I will love you forever.”
“We have forever to love,” I replied, gleeful at the thought of spending an eternity by her side. She stirred in my embrace as we discovered how high we could go with our physical union. I was her first since she’d become a Reaper. We had put this off for too long, though we’d both been eager to take our relationship to the next level. And now we were discovering exactly how strange and wonderful we were together.
The universe had thrown me into her path, and she’d held me up. She’d cared for me like no one else had before. To me, the Unending was the beginning and the end fading into forever. The same forever we had for ourselves. I looked forward to cherishing her for as long as time flowed. Running a hand through her hair, I rolled over. She was on top of me now, our souls dancing under the milky moonlight.
Suddenly, she vanished like a dream in the early morning—a wisp, a fugitive idea that was there and then wasn’t anymore. I was alone on that flat cliff, my chest empty in her absence. I felt cold. Shivering, I tried to move. The world shifted around me, the same sky but from another angle, the sound of rushing water much closer than before. I looked to my right and realized I was no longer on the flat cliff.
No, I was on a pebbled riverbank. The Unending rushed to my side, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Erethiel… no…” Her sobs broke me. I wished I could do something to end her suffering, but I was paralyzed. Dead. With a trembling hand, she touched my face. “Oh, Erethiel, who did this to you?”
The grief in her eyes was evident. The stars inside were dying, and I could see my reflection in the darkness. My head… my head was no longer attached to my body. I’d been decapitated, and the mere idea made me feel nauseated. Now we were reliving one of the worst moments in the Unending’s existence. How terrible, I thought, to jump from sheer happiness to this overwhelming agony.
“You left me no choice,” Death spoke, startling her.
Unending whirled around to face her creator. Death hovered above the river, her bare feet not touching the water. In the pale moonlight, I saw the resemblance. I remembered Phantom telling us once that Death had chosen the Unending as her first Reaper because she looked a lot like her. The black hair. The shape of her lips. Yes, there were clear similarities.
“You killed him? You killed Erethiel?!” the Unending snarled, the air crackling around us from her rising fury. Death raised a hand to silence her.
“I didn’t do it myself. But I gave the order, yes. I warned you against Erethiel. I told you not to give him your gift,” Death said.
“And so you had him killed? You’re a monster!” the Unending cried, shaken to the core. I wished I could say something, but I was only a spectator this time.
“My child, when will you learn that my will is absolute?” Death asked.
The Unending fell to her knees by my side again and gently caressed my face. Tears rolled down her cheeks. I didn’t even know Reapers could cry. I’d seen Valaine cry, but not this true version of her. Not a Reaper. “You took the single most precious thing in my existence. The only thing that really mattered,” she murmured, trying to retain whatever composure she had left. I figured loss was not something she’d often encountered as a Reaper, which would explain why the Unending was having such a hard time with this. I’d learned that Reapers became immune to certain emotions after a while, especially after millions of years.
But the Unending was different. She’d fallen in love for the first time since she’d been made, and she’d lost her partner to her creator. That had to hurt in so many ways
. It was rare for Reapers to fall in love—let alone the First Tenners. It wasn’t impossible, but the emotional bonds they created had to be intense beyond our understanding. That was how Seeley had once put it, anyway.
“I begged you, Unending. I begged you not to give your immortality to anyone. I explained why I made a mistake with you. I made it clear that I do not wish to destroy you, which is the only way for me to take your power away,” Death said. “You forced my hand. So here we are…”
The Unending scoffed. “You could’ve left us alone. We weren’t troubling anyone. I’m free now. I deserved Erethiel.”
“Letting you off the hook would set a poor example for the others, especially now that there are so many Reapers,” Death replied. “I am sorry, Unending. For what it’s worth.”
“It’s not worth anything!” she screamed, and the sky was cracked in half by the loudest thunderclap. Light flashed above as a violent storm gathered. I wasn’t sure whether this was Unending’s doing or just a really nasty day in this world, but the wind howled and I could hear the water swelling and rushing, the tap-tap-tap of rain falling from the dark clouds that hadn’t been there moments ago. “You’re sorry? You’re sorry? Leave me alone! I never want to see you again!”
“Unending… you don’t mean that.”
“Oh, really?” The Unending shot up again. Electricity charged the air around us. I could sense it tickling my cold, dead skin. It was a bizarre thing to experience. “I don’t mean it? You killed the man I love, and you think I don’t mean it when I ask that you never show yourself in my presence ever again?”
“Time will pass,” Death replied. “Your wounds will heal. And you will see the sense in my decision. I don’t expect you to forgive me now, and I certainly don’t expect you to forget what I had to do. But the day will come when you will understand why I did it, and why your gift should never have been given. Why you are simultaneously the one I love the most and my biggest mistake.”
Seconds passed in utter silence. I could only imagine what had gone through the Unending’s head in that moment. Erethiel was dead. There was no turning back from this. The dice had been thrown, and Death had made her permanent mark on Unending’s soul.
“I want you to leave,” the Unending said, her voice low and cold. “I want you both to leave, so that I may give Erethiel the burial he deserves.”
Death lowered her head. No words were needed. She knew what she’d done, and she would have to deal with it forever. There was a hint of regret in her posture, but sadness was dominant. She’d been honest in saying she’d taken no pleasure in this. It had been the hardest thing she’d ever done.
In retrospect, the many times I’d bickered with my parents over things I could or couldn’t do before I reached maturity seemed like jokes at a party compared to this. Death walked away and vanished into the night, leaving the Unending by my side, quiet and brokenhearted.
“She caused me a great deal of pain,” Unending said. “It took me a long time after this moment, mostly while I was trapped here, in the prison of my subconscious, to realize that she was right all along. I should never have given Erethiel my gift. I made it worse with the Aeternae.”
We were going back to a conversation we’d already had. She knew I’d disagree with her conclusion, but she also knew I couldn’t speak. She gave me a weak smile, gazing at me as if we’d just met after many years apart.
“I’d almost forgotten what Erethiel looked like,” Unending said.
I wondered whether she’d forgiven Death now that she remembered it all so vividly. Unending shook her head.
“I will never forgive her, Tristan,” she replied, somehow reading my mind. “But I do understand why she did it. And I know that, deep down, she regrets her decision. We cannot turn the clock back, unfortunately.”
All we could do was keep pressing forward. We’d gone beyond the seal that had put the Unending inside an Aeternae vessel. We’d reached the realm of her true subconscious, where all the truths were laid bare. Given the insane number of memories she must’ve collected over the millions of years since her creation, I had a feeling we had a lot more digging to do before we could find our way back to the surface.
She took my hand in hers. “We’ll be okay, Tristan. I see it now. I see it all.”
Hope was a dangerous thing. It was a fragile string that could snap under too much pressure. Even so, I reached out, desperate to stop myself from falling. We’d found the truth of the Unending, and we needed to bring it back into the world. She was the only one who could free Death and stop the Darklings once and for all.
Hope was a dangerous thing, yes. But it was also all I had left. It would have to do.
Esme
After the whole ordeal with Petra, we cleared out Kalon’s room so we could have some privacy. Only his brothers stayed, along with Derek and Sofia, while the others took the high priestess’s body away. The shards were safely stored in Amane’s pouch, and we had a better idea of what we were dealing with.
Kalon was looking slightly better—not because of the Black Fever subsiding in any way, but because his mother was gone. He felt awful about it, but Petra had been one of the more considerable hurdles on our path to any semblance of a victory. With her out of the way, we had a better shot at securing the Unending’s freedom and stopping the Darklings’ reign of terror. Time had also managed to put together a protective spell of sorts that covered Kalon’s skin, a death magic quarantine that made him no longer contagious. It was a temporary patch, but it was better than nothing, considering the risk he’d posed to his brothers and the other Aeternae currently in Roano.
“How are you feeling?” Moore asked Kalon as we all sat on the floor in a wide circle.
“I think this quarantine spell is making me a little stiff. Like, my skin feels tight. But anyway, you don’t need to worry about me. Once we free Unending, I’ll be okay,” he said. “Tell me about you. I heard our mother… did something.”
The boy sighed and nodded, trying to contain his sadness. “I couldn’t control myself.” He looked my way. “I’m so sorry, Esme.”
“There’s nothing to be sorry for, kiddo. We all know you’re not to blame. It’s over now. That’s all that matters,” I said.
“What do we do next?” Ansel asked. “Our mother may be gone, but she’s not the only Darkling who can take us down.”
“There’s still Danika,” Tudyk replied, his brow furrowed. “She wants Thayen.”
“Listen, last time we saw Danika, Ridan had her all fried and crispy. It’ll be a while before she can recover,” Derek cut in. “As for what we’re going to do next, I suppose we’ll have to beat the Darklings to the punch. They’re out to get the soul shards, so we’ll need to stay one step ahead.”
“We have to get the shards first,” Tudyk concluded.
“Well, not you. You kids will stay up here in the tower, for your own safety,” Derek said. “Kalon will be back in his interdimensional pocket, but I think you’ll all feel better if you’re together, given the circumstances.”
“We’ll send a team out to track down the remaining Whips,” Sofia said. “Just one crew this time. The rest of us will stay back and protect Roano. Petra might’ve had the smoky bauble ready to break and notify Danika of our location, but there’s no telling who else may have learned about where Petra was going. It’s better if we prepare for the worst.”
I leaned into Kalon, comforted by his steady frame. He’d yet to succumb to the Black Fever, his body still fighting the curse as best it could. The fever was running high, and the dark veins seemed more prominent, but in a few minutes, Time would come up to put him under again. He’d given us half an hour to discuss some things first. “Kailani should lead the crew,” I suggested. “Amane can leave the shards with us, and she can take Ridan, as well. Plus a couple of Reapers.”
“Trev’s intel will be helpful,” Kalon said. “He knows this world better. All the nooks and crannies, that sort of stuff. Kailani’s crew can rea
ch out to him through the comms system if they need guidance of any kind.”
“Yeah, he’s needed here for the time being, to help with the physical defenses of Roano, but I’m certain he’ll be happy to help,” I replied.
“I agree,” Derek said. “It’ll be a small team, anyway. The purpose is to hunt down the Whips, get past any death magic they might surround themselves with, and extract the shards before Danika’s people get to them. Sounds easier than it actually is, and I am not comfortable with any of this, but it’s our only option. Either we kill them, or Danika kills them and revives the Spirit Bender. No one wants that.”
“Will you destroy the shards?” Moore asked.
“We’ve tried that already.” Sofia sighed. “We’ll try again. Lumi will work on something with Amane later today. Before the whole Petra incident, we’d discussed some options. I think Esme is right. Lumi can focus on the shards, and Amane and Ridan can join Kailani’s mission.”
Ansel crossed his arms. He seemed nervous. “What about Roano? Do you think our mother was followed here?”
That was a good question, but none of us had a good answer. There was the possibility that Petra might have been followed, but we should’ve seen signs by now. “When she arrived, the Seniors didn’t sense any other foreign presence. Not around the city, anyway. If there were followers, they must’ve stayed far back. But the Darklings have surprised us before, so we’d rather be prepared for anything,” I said.
“I’ve spoken to the Seniors, as well. Dream and Nightmare will help them plant false tracks around the city,” Sofia said. “They’ll cover a fifty-mile radius on dry land, and they’ll make sure that if anyone gets close to Roano, they’ll find traces that lead them away. Hopefully, that’ll do the trick against Corbin’s troops, at least.”
Silence settled over the room. There wasn’t much left to say, not after everything we’d endured. I was still reeling from the prospect of potentially losing Kalon to Danika, well aware that the Whip would’ve stopped at nothing to get her hands on his heart if the shard had been transferred. I felt bad for Sofia and Derek. They’d taken Thayen under their wing, and the boy needed all the protection he could get. It was one thing to try to kill an adult Aeternae for his heart. It was horrific, but nowhere near as dreadful as killing an Aeternae child for his heart. In that sense, Danika was infinitely worse than Petra.
A Shade of Vampire 85: A Shard of Soul Page 7