that they’re on the run,” Sidyan said. “I mean sure, they’ve practically taken over Visio in terms of Reaperhood and death magic, but the rest of the empire doesn’t seem to agree with them.”
“Many don’t even know they exist,” Seeley chimed in. “At least, that’s what we’ve understood from the many conversations we’ve been able to eavesdrop on.”
Somehow, that didn’t quite convince me. Visio, though beautiful, harbored many secrets. I knew, perhaps more than most, that if we dug deep enough, we’d unsettle some things. That we would unearth events and deeds that belonged in the darkness, not in the light. In fact, I was willing to bet that no one, at least in the upper echelon of Visio, was a saint or a true innocent.
This was an empire that had conquered two planets to secure its own sustenance. They’d let the whole blood slavery issue slip through, and I was certain it wasn’t just thanks to Zoltan. Every single Aeternae that had purchased a blood slave from the Darklings, even if they didn’t know whom they were purchasing from, was responsible for what Visio had turned into.
The Darklings had thrived because of the Aeternae’s willful ignorance and desire for comforts. We were about to bring it all into the light, and that was bound to bring forth some previously undisclosed enemies. My only hope was that Derek and Sofia would be prepared for that precise moment.
Crap was about to hit the fan for everyone involved.
“That aside, I find myself fascinated by ghouls these days,” Seeley mused aloud. Glancing back, I found him watching Maya and Rudolph with a mixture of interest and amusement. His feelings were completely justified, given what we had on our hands.
Maya was an anomaly on her own, but that was just it. She wasn’t the only one.
Rudolph resisted his animalistic side, finding comfort in helping us, in remaining loyal to what was left of his Reaper nature. Yes, he’d eaten souls, but he meant well. And, just like Maya, he had not asked for any of this.
And then there was Herbert, perhaps one of the best examples I could give in terms of how multifaceted ghouls really were, and how many had been simply misunderstood.
“They seem to be getting along pretty well,” Sidyan replied. “Maya is a good creature, though. I’m not surprised. She’s skittish, too. I didn’t expect her to be so vicious with the Darklings.”
“She tore those suckers apart.” Nethissis chuckled.
“Believe it or not, it’s not like her,” Sidyan said.
“Maybe she understood what was at stake,” I suggested. “It probably had something to do with how the other ghouls were being kept there. All that pain… What if she was able to empathize with their condition, her violence merely a form of retribution?”
Sidyan shrugged. “I suppose it’s possible. Rudolph is still very young as a ghoul. Parts of his former self persist. I’m shocked by how quickly he has degraded, though.”
“That’s Zoltan’s doing. Whatever death magic he’s using to make ghouls, it’s some powerful stuff to force such a change. Days ago, Rudolph was a healthy Reaper, after all,” Nethissis replied.
And that right there was what made me skittish about the Darklings’ capabilities and the threat they posed, not only to the living, but also to those who’d died and had yet to cross over. This was some cosmic mojo they were messing with, and it was an abomination that they’d been allowed to get this far.
“It bugs me that they’ve kept such control over Visio until now,” Seeley said. “At least I understand how that was possible. No Reapers, because they catch them and turn them into ghouls. No spirits wandering around, because they let their ghouls loose to feed on them.”
“I think we need to start asking ourselves… Why did the Spirit Bender do this, in the first place?” I said. “Why come here? Why give them death magic and such dangerous tools? What was his endgame?”
Seeley and Sidyan exchanged worried glances. I didn’t like that. It made me think they’d talked about this already, in one of the moments when Nethissis and I had not been close enough to listen. After all, we’d all had significant minutes to ourselves since we’d been reunited.
“It was commonly agreed upon that everything that the Spirit Bender had done, like, say… decommissioning the Time Master or the Morning Star… it had been because he’d sought to get the First Tenners out of his way so he could disable Death with the Thousand Seals,” Seeley