in this peculiar world, on this eerie planet where Death had made herself at home.
The aggressive spirits were gone, and so were the Reapers that had hounded us before. Despite what I’d just learned from our encounter with Death, I allowed myself to breathe a sigh of relief.
“We told Viola where you were,” Amelia said. “They’re waiting for us to let them know when you’re back.”
“Before that, we all need to talk,” I replied, motioning for everyone to gather round so Taeral, Eira, and I could tell them about our brief encounter with Death and the Word.
Amelia and Raphael, Riza and Herakles, Varga and Eva, Fallon, Acantha, and Nethissis all listened quietly as we recounted our experience. They learned about Thieron and its three pieces, along with the powerful Reapers that guarded them. They understood the sibling relationship between Death and the Word, though we weren’t sure how to make sense of that. We agreed to refer to that particular cluster as “forces of the universe,” functioning on the assumption that there were others like them, as the Word had said.
They were made aware of the trouble that lay ahead, and they had to come to terms with what Eira, Taeral, and I had been sworn into, frowning at the sight of our shimmering red wrist tattoos—Death’s mark and promise that our lives wouldn’t end until we delivered Thieron back to her.
“Oh, wow, she’s a piece of work,” Raphael observed. “You do all the work, and she just flips a switch and stops the Hermessi? Again?”
“Pretty much. We were in no position to make demands, obviously.” Taeral sighed. “That’s Death for ya. All we can do is take this one surefire chance we have to stop the ritual and follow through until we succeed.”
“It’s better than nothing,” Eva said, “and it’s certainly better than what you went in with. Let’s do something about it, then.”
Varga smiled. “I’m totally on board, of course.”
“We all are,” Acantha chimed in, one arm casually resting around Nethissis’s shoulders. Nethissis nodded enthusiastically. I had to admit, I was impressed. As tired and as worn out and terrified as we all were, we’d still found the strength to keep moving, to fight until we saved ourselves and all our worlds. Maybe that’s why the Word left me on Neraka with those monsters. Maybe it wanted me to meet these incredible people and bond with them.
I had a feeling that the universe didn’t simply work in mysterious ways. That maybe we were all pieces to a grand puzzle, the forces of which functioned to bring us together at precise times and in the right places, to generate the perfect conditions needed to combat aggressive elements such as the Hermessi. It was the only thought that gave me some comfort as to why the Word had never told me about its origins and its bond to Death.
“First and foremost, we need to get out of here,” Taeral said after a brief pause. “We know what we can do with the pink waters now.”
“We can’t go back to Calliope, but we can head back to Persea, meet with our people there,” Amelia suggested.
We linked hands with Taeral, who teleported us back to the pink water cave. I welcomed the darkness and the trickling sound of the primordial fluid, taking a few moments to breathe in and calmly gather my thoughts.
Eva and Varga checked the supplies and gathered more of the Devil’s Weed, since we’d need it. Amelia reached out to Viola through Telluris and delivered the good news—well, news that was as good as it could get in this situation, anyway. The consensus was as expected. Viola would dispatch a leadership team to Persea to meet with us, while we’d take the pink water route.
As we jumped in, one after the other, and lit up in different colors as a natural reaction, I couldn’t help but think—this seemed a little too easy and a little too difficult, all at once. Death had turned it all into a mere quest for three objects. We didn’t have a location for them, but we knew we’d have three of Death’s most powerful Reapers to confront once we found Eirexis, Zetos, and Phyla. Taeral had a scythe he could make full use of, but the Hermessi were bound to come after us even harder than before. And the fate of our worlds was dependent upon finding three objects, three needles in a cosmic haystack.
This time, we all knew to stay away from the