“Wait, where are you going?” I replied as he moved to climb back up the ridge.
“I know Myst is looking for your friends. She’ll be useful in that respect. I, on the other hand, have to patch things up with Haldor and see if I can earn his favor again.”
“Whoa. After he did that to you?” I pointed at his wounds.
Brandon smirked. “I let him do it. Hopefully, he got the hint. Stay safe, Astra. I will find you again soon.”
Before I could say anything else, he vanished, the darkness dissipating in the cold mountain air. I was alone again, my mind already wandering in one too many directions. A new day was upon us. A dark day, but new. We’d finally taken a few steps forward, though the absence of Isabelle, Voss, and Chantal still hurt me.
I’d met Brandon, at last. I’d thanked him. I’d cursed him. And now, I wondered when I would see him again. There was so much about this place I didn’t understand, but one thing was indisputably clear. Whatever the island planned to throw at us, we would rise to the challenge. And with the sympathies of one Valkyrie and one Berserker in our favor, too.
Tristan
I was tired. As the third night settled over a reborn Dain, I found that I was exhausted. Spending a few days in bed didn’t sound like a bad idea, but Unending and I had to keep going. We’d killed Death’s former lover and we’d stolen the Mixer, all to serve Anunit, this rogue Reaper whose endgame still eluded us. The city no longer had a temple, though it had hopes of a better tomorrow now that Shezin was gone for good. Death would reassign Reapers to this world to look after it. One had already come to Dain to retrieve her memories—more would follow, soon enough.
A funeral pyre burned in the city square where we’d killed him. The Dainians had seen fit to bid him farewell. Truthfully, I wouldn’t have bothered, but the Dainians had clearly not seen much wickedness in their lives. I’d dealt with the likes of the Spirit Bender, after all.
“I wonder what Death is thinking right now,” I mused as we stopped by the bridge where Anunit had first brought us over. It would be midnight soon, and our second trial would officially end. “About Shezin and her memories and all this.”
Unending seemed to be wondering the same. “I imagine she’s intrigued. Without a memory of those emotions, curiosity would be a reasonable response. I doubt she’ll put the memories back inside her, though. I’ll bet she’ll just watch them, then put them away.”
“You think?”
“Remember how badly it must’ve hurt for her to remove them,” Unending replied. “As for this whole trial malarkey? I don’t know. I’ll bet she regrets leaving Shezin here with all his gifts. She probably meant well, maybe thought to keep him contained… But boy, did that blow up in her face.”
Around us, life was resuming a more normal rhythm. The night was silent, though cheers and laughter did occasionally erupt from the nearby taverns. Most people were sleeping and dreaming, preparing themselves for a new day. Unending and I were preparing ourselves too, though for something else.
“Where is she?” Unending muttered, turning around a few times. “I’m losing my patience. It’s been three days. Three very long and confusing days. I almost believed Shezin to be godlike when he threw us out of that temple, you know? My perception had gotten skewed. That became painfully obvious when the stone giants tossed him over like a bad pebble.”
“It took you a while,” Anunit replied as she came up the street toward us. “But I’m glad you reached the same conclusion regarding Shezin.”
I frowned at her. “Where the hell have you been?”
“Oh, me?” she giggled and revealed her new upgraded scythe. Anunit had used the Mixer to combine the weapons of Reapers she’d helped before with her own. It was a big piece now, with a long handle and a half-moon blade that carried rose gold reflexes along its sharp edge. The closer Anunit got, the better I could see the variations in color along the handle—remnants of the original scythes. She wore the Mixer as a bracelet, and she was all smiles, clearly content with her accomplishments thus far. “I’ve been taking care of a few things…”
“Nice toothpick,” Unending replied dryly.
“Nicely done with Shezin,” the Reaper said, switching to a more serious tone. “The world is better off without him.”
“Why’d you wait so long to kill him?” I asked. “Why didn’t you use him perhaps as a goodwill ticket for Death? She might have appreciated your support.”
“Don’t be silly. I don’t clean up Death’s messes in exchange for her mercy,” Anunit spat. “That’s what you two are for. Besides, I’ve revealed some of her deepest, darkest secrets. Do you still see her the same as before?”
Unending sighed, crossing her arms. “Where are you going with this, exactly? What’s your endgame, Anunit? These trials you’re giving us clearly serve more than one purpose.”
“I thought you’d never ask. Think about it this way,” she said. “I’m merely the individual pulling the shroud from over your eyes, so that you may see better.”
“So, Death lied about the soul fae, and she kept Joy’s existence a secret. Big whoop,” I interjected, still unsure of the Reaper’s angle. “She didn’t even know about Shezin anymore because she’d discarded every memory she had of him. We found the baubles in his room and figured it out. Death doesn’t know what she cannot remember. That doesn’t exactly count as a secret, does it?”
Anunit narrowed her galaxy eyes at me. “Sure, let’s go with that. But by the time these trials are over, you will absolutely understand what my ultimate goal is. And you will not disagree with my premise, either. I promise you that.”
Unending scoffed and moved away from the bridge. “Okay. Fine. We’re still here. What’s the third trial? Let’s get this over with, already.”
“Your third trial involves releasing the very first Reaper ever made.”
That got our attention. Anunit held her head high as she spoke, eyes glistening with stars as she awaited Unending’s full reaction—she knew the initial silence was only the beginning. Crickets chirped somewhere nearby, and the waters rushed beneath the wind with soft swooshes and rumbles. Other than that, only my heartbeat could be heard.
“Excuse me?” Unending finally said.
“Oh, you really thought you were the first,” Anunit sighed, and I detected a hint of malice in the way she dragged this along. Whether it was purely for dramatic effect or something else entirely, it got on my nerves. What scared me the most was that she’d been right until now, so what were the odds she’d lie about the third trial? “Unending, you were not the first Reaper Death ever made. She deceived you. She deceived you all.”
“What… what are you talking about?” I managed, while my beloved Unending remained speechless, her full lips slightly parted from the shock.
“The first Reaper ever created was the World Crusher. And it’s your task to find her,” Anunit declared beneath the three diaphanous moons that shone over the kingdom of Dain.
Was she telling the truth? Or was she lying and sending us on a wild goose chase? So far, Death had come across as the true deceiver, and Anunit as nothing more than a sullen and resentful Reaper who didn’t mind airing out her maker’s dirty laundry. Unending and I were pawns in some kind of sick and twisted game between these two, but walking away from this wasn’t an option.