to have you back, brother. You are the least irritating among our kind."
The ghouls gathered around us, all of them wary of our presence, now. They kept a reasonable distance, nervously eyeing the Time Master, in particular, and whispering between themselves. I managed to reach out to Seeley, but his voice didn't sound encouraging.
"We've got a trace for Death, but Brendel caught up with us," he managed. I heard him cast a series of attack spells. "We're a tad overwhelmed here!"
As soon as I got his location, I looked at Dream, Nightmare, Time, and Herbert. "We've got work to do. The bearer of Thieron is in trouble. Brendel got to him. The others are trying to finish her off, but they need us. All of us."
None of them batted an eye, and I felt as though a weight had been lifted from my shoulders. We'd made a certain amount of progress, but not as much as I would've hoped for. We had the Time Master, but without his ability to stop time. Even so, it was still better than nothing. With nothing but hours left, we had to move fast.
We had to help Taeral.
Zeriel
No one had noticed me standing back during the evacuation protocol in Luceria. River must've thought I'd slipped through with Bijarki and the others, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. Not only could I not leave Vesta behind, I refused to abandon my home planet. So, unbeknownst to anyone, I'd snuck out of the group and made my way through the castle's tight service corridors, unseen and unheard.
I'd come back to the sanctuary, my heart aching and burning.
Bijarki had every reason to go to The Shade. He had to be a father to Chantal. Frankly, I couldn't hold it against anyone from Calliope or the rest of Eritopia who'd chosen GASP over their home worlds. The decisions were individual and justified, as much as mine. Only, I'd chosen to stay.
And if I were to die, I wanted to die as close to Vesta as possible. Somewhere, in the back of my tormented head, I hoped that if we died together, we might end up in the afterlife together—provided, of course, there was something beyond. Our legends had never questioned what happened after death. We'd been raised to appreciate life and go down swinging when needed.
My stomach was the size of a pebble, and it ached terribly, as if a knife had been plunged in and twisted, repeatedly, over the course of hours. I could barely stand. My lips were dry. I hadn’t had a drink of water in a while. Us Tritones were quite attached to water, and the connection ran deeper than the mere need for hydration.
We got ill if we didn't swim for too long. The lagoon had been my home, an intrinsic part of my existence for as long as I could remember. But even so, as tired and as thirsty as I was, I didn't want to be anywhere else.
Looking up, I wondered if she could see me—at least from one of the windows.
Every muscle in my body was strained. My eyes hurt. I was all cried out and broken. The fact that I could still stand was a miracle. My body was threatening to shut down, but my soul refused to surrender.
"Zeriel, where are you?" River's voice came through the earpiece, which I'd forgotten to throw out.
I closed my eyes for a moment, taking a deep, scratchy breath. Pressing the answer button, I exhaled deeply. "Where I'm supposed to be."
She gasped. "No… please don't tell me you're on Calliope."
Tears welled up, clouding my vision. I was surprised I still had any.
"I couldn't go. I tried, River. I tried, but… Vesta is here."
"Zeriel, you can still survive this."
"For how long?" I asked. "A few more days? Months? Do you really think the Hermessi won't have enough power to raid the Earthly Dimension, as well? Let's not fool ourselves. I'd rather die here, with Vesta, than out there."
"You don't know that for sure," River insisted, though I could still sense the doubt in her voice. "The Earthly Dimension is different."
"No, it's not. Hermessi rule there, too. It'll be the same."
"Zeriel, be reasonable. There isn't enough evidence to suggest that."
I laughed, though it was bitter and mocking. "River, you're smarter than that. Understand that I am not leaving the love of my life behind. I'm useless against the Hermessi, anyway. We all are! Even the Daughters stayed here."
River didn't respond. For about a