Tristan got up and breathed in deeply, stretching his arms out as if he’d just gotten out of bed. “Well, then… it sounds like we’ve got a good plan for what’s ahead. Let us go, my love. The Temple of Roses awaits.”
He offered me his hand, and I took it, pleased with where we stood my anger muffled by layers of love and gratitude. I only hoped it would stay that way until the end of this complicated affair. Rage had brought out the worst in me before, and I didn’t want it to resurface when a clear head was so essential.
The closer we got to the city center, the more I could feel it. Not my rage, though. No. The World Crusher’s. It lingered in the air, thickening the very atmosphere around us. The sky was clear, but I felt a heavy cloud coming down, like a layer of lead pressing on my shoulders. For the first time in years, I experienced what I could only describe as a shortness of breath.
“We’re definitely getting closer,” I said, my eyes stinging. These physical sensations normally belonged only to the living, but I was experiencing them too.
Tristan gave me a worried look. “To the World Crusher?”
“Yes. Remember the Black Fever?”
“How could I forget?” he replied with a dry chuckle.
“It feels like that, only much worse. Oh, Tristan… What if the World Crusher’s suffering spilled out into this world and killed them? What if the ghost city we’re in is proof of her unwitting devastation?”
He stepped in front of me, gripping my shoulders tightly. “We will find out. And if there is anything we can do, we will do it. Remember, we’re in this together.”
The answer was simple. In theory, everything was simple.
It was the practical side of the world that worried me, especially where a potentially uber-powerful Reaper was concerned. It had taken Death to step in and destroy the Spirit Bender, and only because he had given her no choice. She had never wanted him gone. She loved all her children—that much I knew for a fact, otherwise I would’ve been wiped out a long time ago. The Spirit Bender would’ve met his end in the nothingness much sooner too.
So it had been love that stopped Death from eliminating the World Crusher. But the same love had doomed this Reaper to an excruciatingly long time sealed away in this place. It had to be a fate worse than the nothingness…
“It’s going to get harder for me to think,” I warned Tristan. I could already feel the tendrils of World’s misery tickling my senses, eager to play with my mind. “I need you to keep me on the right path, my love. I want us to see this through, no matter what.”
“And we will,” he said, and I believed him.
I had more faith in Tristan than I did in Death. It was time for me to reach out and speak to her before things got too heavy for me to bear. I worried my lies might not flow as smoothly once we got closer to the Temple of Roses. Hugging my husband tightly, I rested my head on his shoulder and closed my eyes.
My mind reached out to Death. It was a lonely journey every time, my soul wandering off into the vastness of the universe. A mere sparkle of reason in a sea of black and planets and cosmic dust. Connecting with Death felt even worse, an emptiness taking over once our minds bonded and the words flowed freely.
“Unending, darling… How are things on your end?”
Her voice echoed inside my head, but I pulled my defenses up. She would not be able to track me. “We’re on Kellen,” I said. The lie had already been weaved minutes earlier, its seams tightened so that nothing would slip. “There’s a dangerous ghoul here that I’m supposed to capture. One that has been eating every Reaper that came for it. It’s killing the locals, too. Anunit wants me to deal with him.”
“That’s strange,” Death replied. She sounded like she believed me, though. I had heard rumors about Kellen before. Whispers from Reapers who didn’t dare go there, knowing what fate their predecessors had found. It wouldn’t matter once I got to the truth about the World Crusher, anyway. This was merely a device meant to buy me a few days here without Death’s interference. “I would’ve expected Anunit to find something else from my past to throw at your feet.”
The statement surprised me. Death had expected more dirty laundry to be aired between us. But it was her tone that bothered me most. Like it didn’t really matter. Like she didn’t really care how I felt about this.
“Are there more secrets to discover? More things you have kept from me?” I asked, allowing the coldness of my voice to flow through to her. I wanted Death to feel my dismay.
“Unending, I have done many things I am not proud of. I never claimed to be perfect.”
“But you expected us to be perfect and obedient.”
“Because I made you. I am absolute in that sense.”
I scoffed. “The absolute authority, yes. Do as I say, not as I do.”
“Is there something you wish to discuss with me, Unending? Now would be a good time, I imagine, before you go hunting for a wretched ghoul. Though it does sound like an easy assignment for you.”
“It might not be,” I said, deciding to steer clear of any conversation that might light a fuse. “Anunit has flung last-minute surprises at me before. There’s probably something more to this ghoul than anyone knows—Anunit included. I will figure it out, and I will complete the third trial.”
“Good. And then you’ll bring her back to
