gotten this kind of knowledge? Did any of the Reapers know? Did Death know? I couldn’t use Telluris in my snake form, but I was definitely going to reach out to Taeral for this. Someone needed to bring Death up to speed here, because something terrible was brewing in the basement of Visio’s royal palace.
I wondered if Danika or Acheron knew about this… of course they did. They had to. This was literally happening in their house. They had to know.
Zoltan stopped in front of the three prisoners, annoyingly calm. “I’ve been asking you to tell the truth for a week, now. I’m not sure how much more your bodies can take,” he said. “As you might’ve already noticed, I haven’t fed the ghouls. The moment I let them loose, you’re the ones they’re coming for.”
The Rimians, three young males, didn’t even look at him. They kept their brownish red eyes fixed on the dirty, wet floor, their bodies shaking from the cold. I could only imagine what it all felt like.
“First, they’ll eat you alive. They’re accustomed to raw flesh. Then, they’ll eat your souls. By the time they’re done with you, there will be nothing left. No body. No spirit. Nothing,” Zoltan continued, matter-of-fact in his approach. “Is that really how you want it all to end?”
“We don’t turn on our people,” one of the Rimian boys replied, his voice raspy and weak.
“Tell me who your leaders are, and I will give you a quick and easy death. Take me to them, and I will bestow upon you riches that your kind has never even gazed upon,” Zoltan insisted. “My offer still stands.”
“Screw you, bloodsucker!” the second Rimian spat.
Zoltan shook his head. “Civility is such a rare thing to find these days.”
The guards smirked, definitely enjoying the show. With no other option left, Zoltan selected another, smaller key from his ring and walked over to the ghouls. “Very well. No one can blame me if I go ahead with this. I’ve tried everything. Bribery. Torture. Reasoning with you people is almost impossible. That fact that you have the audacity to claim that you have rights beyond what we give you is downright ridiculous,” he said, then looked at the ghouls. “Sit. All of you, sit.”
Like obedient dogs, the ghouls’ hinds hit the floor. Their muscles twitched, bursting with anticipation, but they did as he asked.
“Do not move until I tell you to move,” Zoltan added as he used the smaller key to unlock their chained collars. As soon as the irons fell off, I saw the symbols burnt into their translucent skin. More Reaper runes. From my experience, those had something to do with the ghouls’ behavior, much like the collars. This whole thing reminded me of the Nerakian pit wolves. The daemons had used swamp witch magic to subdue their hounds like this. The similarity between Death and Word magic did not go unnoticed.
The ghouls waited, as they were told, while Zoltan stepped back, one hand in his pocket. He threw the Rimians a dark glance. “Last chance, Aemilius. One last chance to tell me the truth. Who is trying to put together a Rimian rebellion, and who, among my people, is funding their movement?”
“I will die a thousand deaths before I tell you,” the Rimian identified as Aemilius replied. “If your own kind don’t want to rule us anymore, who are you to stand in their way?”
“I won’t cut off an entire empire because of the stupid self-righteousness of a few,” Zoltan said and smiled at the ghouls. “Go on. They’re all yours.”
In an instant, the four ghouls pounced on the Rimians. Screams tore through the room. I slithered back, horrified by what I was witnessing. Bile rose up in my throat. I looked away, unable to watch anymore, as the ghouls fought over and dismembered the Rimians. I heard the flesh tear, the bones break and pop from their joints, the blood gurgle… It was too much.
The guards stepped back, not willing to stand too close to a bunch of ghouls feeding. Zoltan seemed unaffected, turning his back on the bloody, awful scene, as the screams were muffled, swallowed by a most violent death.
“What do we do next?” one of the black armor guards asked.
Zoltan shrugged. “Find me more of them. It’s only a matter of time before they start to break,” he said. “Look in the taverns, late in the night. That’s when they like to meet. When they think we’re all asleep, without