Once the square was relatively full, Unending used her scythe to perform a variety of “miracles,” as Shezin had called them. When Embry asked if she could turn dust into water, my wife graciously kneeled and grabbed a fistful of dirt off the ground. She pressed the scythe against her knuckles, whispering the appropriate spell, and crystalline water began to drip from her hand.
“A miracle,” Embry said, almost breathless.
“No. It’s death magic,” Unending replied. “Your god is no god at all, but a man gifted by Death with a trinket and a few good spells. The true forces of this world would never barter like this with its inhabitants. It goes against the laws of nature and the rules of being.”
She went on to perform other spells. She made clouds appear and cry tears of blood, scaring many of the Dainians, but they stuck around. They were compelled to stay, for they were now seeing the truth. By noon, we had about a thousand people gathered, and Unending continued to preach against Shezin, unmasking him as a fraud. She showed them death magic spells, she told them about her realm, about Death and the other Reapers. Normally, that would’ve been forbidden, but Unending knew Death wouldn’t punish her for it. This was the one exception that had to be made, because it was our best and surest way to get that cockroach out of his temple.
The more she spoke, the angrier the Dainians became—especially those who had sacrificed their children. This hurt them the most, but they had to know the truth. They had to understand that they’d all been the victims of a fraud.
“If you wish to find meaning in your life, do all that you can so that a balance is maintained. Apart, we are mere specks in the universe. Together, though, we are the driving force that makes it spin,” Unending said, and I loved her even more for the strength and dedication she was showing. This wasn’t about Shezin anymore—or not just about him, anyway. No, this was about freeing the Dainians from their emotional shackles.
They cheered and applauded her. My heart swelled with pride, but it also trembled slightly as there was still no sign of Shezin. “We need to get him out of his temple,” I whispered as the noon sun came up. “The clock is ticking…”
“Give it time. He will not resist,” Unending replied with a soft smile. “He’s a malignant narcissist, my love. Once the people of his kingdom come flocking to me, he will be compelled to come try to win them back.” Pausing for a moment, her expression brightened as she came up with something even better. “Or… wait, I’ve got it.” She turned to the people and raised her scythe, kissing its blade as she launched a new spell. This time, her voice echoed through the entire city and across the river. The mountains rumbled as the stone giants responded to her call. “Stone giants! Shezin is blaming you for the death of innocent children. Will you truly let him get away with this?”
Slowly but surely, the ridges of the surrounding mountains came apart. My breath caught in my throat, and the Dainians around us gasped in awe as they witnessed the rise of the stone giants. Their joints cracked as they shook off their centuries-long slumber. They were enormous but slender beings, like supersized Dainians, in fact. Their long limbs were made of limestone, and some trees grew across their chests, the canopies trembling as they moved.
Finally, they surrounded the city and kneeled before Unending from afar, careful not to trample or hurt anyone. My wife smiled again, and I already knew what she was about to do next. “He has thrown us out of his temple because we discovered his lies,” she said, her melodious voice rippling over the river and brushing past Shezin’s temple. Using a Dainian looking glass I’d borrowed from one of the nearby men, I peered over there and noticed the priestesses in the rooftop gardens.
My heart leapt when I realized they weren’t moving. Adjusting the lens, I managed to zoom in closer, and I instantly felt queasy. “Oh, no.”
“What is it?” Unending asked, giving me a panicked look.
“He killed them. The priestesses.”
I could see them clearly. All fifty of them were impaled on wooden stakes and mounted high in the middle, their robes drenched in blood. I couldn’t remember ever hating anyone as fiercely as I hated Shezin. For all his faults, the Spirit Bender was not a coward. He would’ve taken us on. But Shezin… he knew he was no match for Unending. He’d spent too much time there with limited knowledge. He understood that Unending was a true Reaper and that there weren’t enough tricks in his book to delay or avoid the inevitable. This told me he was indeed vulnerable. That he could be killed.
Most importantly, it told me that he was aware of our ability to find that soft spot and mercilessly pierce it until he died.
“Your priestesses are dead,” Unending shouted. The Dainians were taken aback. Some of them sobbed, likely friends or relatives of the deceased. My heart broke for the nightmare we’d inadvertently unleashed upon them. But this was more or less like peeling a band-aid off a wound. Best to do it fast. It would hurt, and then it would heal. “Shezin killed them because they dared to speak up. How many other lies has he used to maintain this farce? How many priestesses went into that temple to serve him, only to find their end at the hands of a bloodthirsty fraud?”
We were kicking off a revolution. By the afternoon, the streets were packed with Dainians—men, women, children and elders alike. They walked in a peaceful procession, gathering more people and swelling the flow toward the temple. “And now, time for the grand finale,” Unending whispered, then looked to the giants. “You, stone creatures and guardians of this realm. For too long you have slept while Shezin pinned his crimes onto your good names. You built his bridges, and he spoke ill of you. For countless nights, the Dainians looked up to the mountains and thought, there they are, the monsters who stole and ate our children. Will you let this go unpunished?”
The giants trembled with anger, their heads shaking slowly. With every movement, rocks crumbled off to tumble onto the ground. Some made it into the river, splashing waves of water over the banks and washing the nearby streets.
“Then what will you do? For eons, he has been preaching lies from his temple. His temple! Built with stones from your mountains!”
That was the final straw. The giants stood and quietly gathered around the western edge of the city, where the temple gleamed in the afternoon sunlight. One of them bent over and across the outer neighborhood. With a single, simple move, the stone behemoth brought his fist down and crushed the temple into the ground. It crumbled like a sandcastle under the ocean’s furious foams. It fell apart, and then it was nothing.
“Shezin must face the people. He must face the truth, and he must face judgment,” Unending declared.
“And to think that eighteen hours ago you were just that crazy lady shouting in the middle of the city,” I chuckled, and she gave me a playful nudge. They saw her as a powerful Reaper, the first of her kind, and a force to be reckoned with. I saw that and so much more, for it was Unending’s more playful and vibrant side that had always resonated best with me. Here we were, trying to convince an entire city and its mountains to give us Shezin.
And here we were, succeeding.
The end of the second trial began to appear before my eyes as the stone giants plucked Shezin from under the piles of rubble and threw him over to us. He screamed as he fell toward the square. Embry was panicking. “Aren’t you going to help him, break his fall?”