A Shade of Vampire 79 A Game of Death - Bella Forrest Page 0,54
bearer of knowledge. Zetos, the blade and taker of life. Phyla, the gemstone and giver of life. What an exquisite piece of primordial energy, materialized into one of the most volatile and most powerful weapons in existence and beyond.
“I’m learning more and more about it,” Taeral said. “Death insists that I don’t fiddle with it, but sometimes I feel like it wants me to use it, if that makes sense. I never push it, though. Everything I can do with Thieron, everything I have learned, it’s only because the scythe has allowed it. I’m sure of it.”
“You’re a most fortunate soul to be its keeper, then,” I replied. “Now, tell me, what are we doing? Where are we going?”
“Lumi, my dear, I’m taking you on a Reaper-like trip,” Taeral declared, beaming with the enthusiasm of a young boy about to jump from great heights into the ocean. There was a devilish glow in his amber eyes, and it almost made my heart sing. His eagerness was downright infectious.
Staring at Thieron, I exhaled sharply. “Okay. Treading worlds, then?”
“Indeed. You might want to hold on to me,” Taeral said.
Hooking my arm around his, I braced myself for whatever such a journey might entail. We’d only done it once with Phantom, and I was already getting dizzy from remembering the sensations such a voyage had left me with. Taeral was nowhere near as experienced as any of the First Ten, so I assumed things might get bumpy.
He brought Thieron’s blade up to his lips and whispered a word into it. I didn’t recognize it, but it was old-timey death magic, which once again left me in awe of how resourceful the Fire Star prince and future Reaper truly was.
The runes on Eirexis lit up blue, shining like sapphires in the moonlight, as the world around us began to shimmer and ripple. Matter and space became soft and bendy, like delicate fabric, and we both stepped forward and through it.
The secret chamber fizzled away like ink washed off the table with a jet of cold water. The blackness of cosmos took its place, and my knees got weak. A knot formed in my throat, as I was suddenly weightless and senseless, with no control over myself or anything around me. I had become a flicker, an insignificant blip in the endless net of time and space, as Taeral walked us through a plethora of galaxies.
We were in the In-Between again. I recognized the stars, the reddish suns, the vibrant streams of pink and orange stardust. Glistening in the distance, with its fuchsia mists and giant sun, was Eritopia.
“Are you okay?” Taeral asked as we kept walking, quite literally, through an invisible wormhole that cut through billions of light-years in a matter of minutes.
“Mm-hm…” I breathed, trying to focus on the path ahead.
Before us, a mysterious solar system became visible. A group of fifteen planets, all titans of the universe, bigger than anything I’d seen before. These behemoth marbles came in shades of ochre yellow and lilac, delicate blue and turquoise green. They orbited an equally enormous sun, a star so bright that I couldn’t even bear to look at it, directly, without my eyes stinging and hurting.
“What is this?” I asked, barely feeling my own body at this point.
“I don’t know what the system is called, but we’re going there,” he said, and I followed his gaze.
The thirteenth planet was… off. It was a deep red with orange streaks and loose powder and stones all around it. A hole had recently been formed in its northern hemisphere, a bowl-shaped void from which phosphorescent lava seeped out in loose bubbles in the absence of gravity. The closer we got, the better I could see.
The orange streaks were clouds scattering away, losing their structure. The planet had been hit by something massive, and there were still traces of the thing around it. Something large and black, judging by the obsidian shards that mingled with the rocks and the lava droplets. My stomach tightened as I tried to wrap my head around this catastrophe.
“What happened here?” I whispered, feeling my eyes widen as we walked toward it.
“This used to be called Akryos,” Taeral said. “Up until a couple of days ago, it was a prosperous and peaceful world, with a species that cannot be found anywhere else in the In-Between. Some kind of Druid-related humanoids, though I know very little about them. Only what I’ve heard through the grapevine.”