“You’re lying!” Unending hissed. “How else do you explain his presence here? Do you realize what you’ve done?! You should’ve at least made him mortal when you left him. The people here think he’s a god, they worship him, and who knows what horrid things he’s done and gotten away with? You’re to blame.”
Death looked at me. “She’s upset, and I can’t blame her for it. But maybe you can listen to what I’m saying. I don’t know Shezin. I don’t remember him. And I would have no reason to lie about this, not when you clearly know so much already. There is something afoot here. Something has been taken from me, and you must find out what that is. I want the truth as much as you do.”
“I hate myself for saying this, but I believe you,” I replied with a heavy sigh.
Unending gave me a confused frown. “What?”
“As far as I can tell, she’s being truthful,” I told her.
“Keep working Shezin,” Death suggested. “Get to the bottom of this, please. I must know what is happening there. I must know how Shezin got away with it for so long. I know myself, Tristan. I would never let him wander freely this way.”
I wasn’t sure that was true. Perhaps Death was deceiving herself and trying to deceive us, too. Unending didn’t buy it. Without another word, she slapped the mirror away. It smashed against the nearest tree, shards falling to the ground. There was anger in that gesture—the kind of anger I hadn’t seen in my beloved since Visio. It worried me, because her pain was mine, and I wanted to do everything possible to secure her happiness and freedom. It was why we’d come all the way here.
“My love,” I said softly as she shuddered and struggled not to cry. “Let’s find Shezin’s room. We’ll find more answers there, I’m sure of it. He didn’t want the priestesses to hear our conversation, and I’m confident he doesn’t allow them in his most private quarters, either. I’m willing to bet there’s something useful there. Something to shed light on this mystery.”
Unending looked up at me, galaxies exploding in her black eyes. “Do you really believe her when she says she doesn’t remember him?”
“I’m not sure. To be honest, I didn’t see any signs of deception, and while I may be better than you are at reading people, like you said, I am no expert. I could be wrong. But we should try to keep an open mind, because if Death is actually telling the truth, then we’ll have to figure out why she doesn’t remember Shezin. He obviously remembers her… Do you think he used the same trick on Death? Made her forget him?”
“No. This is Death we’re talking about, not some run of the mill Reaper. He wouldn’t have such power. She would never allow it.”
“Then we must dig deeper into Shezin, since she claims to have no recollection of him whatsoever,” I said.
She nodded slowly, and we moved away from the small orchard, dusting ourselves off. “You’re right,” Unending said. “We need to find his room.”
Upon reaching our floor again, Unending wanted to make us both invisible so that we could explore the temple undisturbed. “We’ve got a problem,” she muttered as her scythe flickered white and red—a combination I’d never seen before. It startled her. “The invisibility spell isn’t working. Something is affecting my weapon.”
“Hence the weird light?”
“Mhm… I think Shezin put some ancient wards up. The kind that tamper with my blade,” Unending replied. “Son of a…”
I didn’t want that to stop us, though. “We’ll have to sneak around and be careful, that’s all.”
“There are fifty priestesses in this place, plus Shezin. What are the odds we won’t get caught?” she asked, giving me a troubled scowl. “You can take an invisibility pill, but it won’t work on me since I’m not of the living.”
“When did we ever let fifty priestesses and a liar posing as a god stop us?”
Unending smiled, her cheeks glowing with a pinkish blush. Quiet and light on our feet, we made our way down the hallway first, my ears twitching as I listened to every sound around, above, and below us. We went down the stairs, stopping and checking every level. It took us about an hour, and it didn’t deliver much of a payoff. Luckily, the priestesses were nowhere in sight, so we had that working in our favor. Unfortunately, none of the rooms we’d been through seemed to belong to Shezin—there were fifty that had been assigned to his temple ladies, and plenty more left unoccupied, but none bearing what looked to be his personal effects.
Unending tried a spell or two to help us locate it, but we soon realized that Shezin had placed additional charms on his room, likely to discourage us from searching for it. He didn’t know us well enough, though, and he’d clearly underestimated Unending. Once we reached the ground floor, we hid behind the altar as the sounds of footsteps grew louder. The priestesses came in carrying candles, followed by Shezin. They hummed a melody as they passed us by and went through another door—one we hadn’t seen before. It had been carved into the wall, meant to be hidden.
As Shezin went through and the stone slab closed behind him, Unending and I headed the opposite way, retracing the priestesses’ earlier steps. It turned out there were more hallways on the ground floor as well, along with stairs leading to the basement. Eventually, we found the most warded room in the entire temple. “Oh, it’s definitely his,” Unending murmured, her voice strained. “I can feel the sigils on the door. They’re acting as deterrents.”
“Can you break them?”
“A normal Reaper wouldn’t be able to, but Shezin clearly doesn’t know the difference between me and the others,” she replied, taking out her scythe. She scratched off some of the symbols—which I could only see once they were touched by the tip of her blade—each one glowing white before fading away. “Now, let’s see what he’s hiding…”
I liked things easy sometimes. In my twenty years of traveling with Unending, I’d learned to appreciate the simpler moments. Breaking a sigil and freely sneaking into a false god’s room counted as one such moment, so I decided to make the most of it. “I’ll keep watch,” I said, keeping close to the door while she rummaged through every drawer and opened every closet.
She was meticulous, putting everything back just the way she’d found it, making sure Shezin wouldn’t realize we’d been here. That meant she’d redo the sigils once we left, too. “There’s nothing noteworthy,” she said about half an hour later, almost exasperated. “Nothing.”
I looked around, carefully analyzing every inch of this room. The bed was enormous, with a delicate blue velvet canopy. The sheets were soft linen, and a furry black throw had been left draped over the foot. Shezin had been living here for a long time, yet there was nothing personal in here. Nothing specifically his. There were candles and fresh towels in the bathroom. Papers, a quill, and a bottle of ink on the desk. A tray loaded with small bottles of oil for his hair and skin on the nightstand. It looked more like a hotel.
Yet the stone floor caught my eye, particularly the slab under Unending’s right foot. It seemed loose. “Could you step back?” I asked her. She did, and the slab shifted slightly. She followed my gaze and understood, quickly dropping to her knees.