he gazed at my unconscious body in what I’d begun to refer to as “my premature coffin.”
“Caia’s got five black links on her life-chain, now,” Seeley said, his voice low. He’d been doing this for the past hour, at least, sitting on top of my crystal casing, at my feet, and counting the infected links on the other souls’ life-chains. I couldn’t see them, but he would sometimes tell me the numbers. Ben had five links compromised. Grace only three, but it was only a matter of time before more would be affected. Hers had been a sporadic development—at first, just one link, then two at once.
“Either way, it’s not looking good,” I grumbled. Even so, a part of me was so enraged, so determined to live, that I couldn’t possibly accept death as an outcome. In my mind, I’d been going over ways of getting some messages across to Zeriel. He’d felt me, earlier, and that had encouraged me to think of something more concrete. After all, I wasn’t dead yet. I could still be useful.
It was only a question of finding the right method of communication. One that would allow me to tell Zeriel that not only was I still here and very much conscious, but that I also had a Reaper on my side who’d given me some pretty important information. It wasn’t as much as I would’ve wanted, but it was certainly more than what Varga and the others had.
“Your friends have Yamani’s scythe, remember?” Seeley replied. “Their odds just increased, if only by a smidge.”
“What do you mean?” I asked. “How will a scythe help them against the Hermessi?”
His expression turned to stone. “I’m not at liberty to say.”
“Then don’t bother telling me,” I snapped and resumed my quiet gazing at my fiancé, the mighty Tritone king, my beloved goofball. He was smiling, his eyes moving as he took every part of me in, as if he’d never see me again.
“You’re grumpy.” Seeley sighed.
“Wouldn’t you be, if you were in my shoes?”
He nodded. “Yeah. Sorry, Vesta. I’ve distanced myself from the emotional side of things. I don’t process these situations with as much empathy as you’d like. It’s not personal.”
“It’s fine. What irks me is that you know a lot more than what you’re telling me, and I’m worried that, among these chunks of information, there is something that might help my friends when they reach Mortis,” I said. “It’s not your soulless attitude. I’ve actually gotten used to that.”
Seeley didn’t respond. Unless he’d be willing to tell me everything he knew, he’d already understood that I wasn’t interested in any excuses or additional insights into his motivations for withholding this knowledge. I only cared about results.
I focused on Zeriel instead, trying to make myself visible. I wasn’t sure how or if I’d be able to do that, since Seeley had been pretty specific that the living couldn’t see spirits, but I wasn’t dead yet. Maybe there was a loophole in the system that I could take advantage of. I willed myself into it, staring at the crystal casing in front of him.
Moving toward it, I could feel the energy bubbling inside me. My will was stronger than ever, and, when I got closer to the crystal… it reacted. A thin sheet of frost formed on its surface, prompting Zeriel to suck in a breath and straighten his back.
“Oh…” he murmured, eyes wide as he stared at the frozen patch, which was only about ten centimeters in length and width, uneven and shallow.
“This might work,” I said, almost feeling Seeley’s persistent stare.
I desperately needed Zeriel to know that I was here. I’d seen him fading away over the past couple of days. There were dark rings under his eyes, and he’d lost some weight, too. All this was taking its toll on him, and I wanted him to have at least an ounce of my hope and ambition. He didn’t know the things I knew, though he was likely aware that my soul was still around. He’d been talking to my body, but even that had become rare. More often than not, he’d just watch me, silently, probably not knowing what to say, maybe thinking I couldn’t hear him, anyway.
So, I wanted him to hear me.
The frost was only a first step, and I was already feeling tired, but I knew that, if I managed to do this, I could go even further.
“I can do it,” I whispered, mostly to myself, and pressed my ethereal