“Eithan…this is it for us,” Lindon said. “We’re all gone.”
Eithan brushed off his hands and wiped his face clean with a cloth. He let the cloth fall, and all trace of his tears was gone. He held out his right hand, and revealed that he had been holding something else.
A black marble.
“No,” Eithan said, “just me.”
The marble cracked.
Eithan looked into the sky as he held out the black marble. “Remove restraints and release authority. Authorization zero-zero-eight…Ozriel.”
The world stopped shaking.
Northstrider stared into the reflective black surface of his codex. The turmoil calmed, and the message it had displayed—[A destroyer has come]—now flickered out.
It was replaced with a new message, and if the previous one had brought with it the chaos of panic, this one came along with the silence of the grave.
White letters on a black surface declared:
[The Destroyer has come.]
The screams from the Sage of Calling Storms choked off just as all the sirens and alarms around Reigan Shen stopped blaring.
The man jerked up, taking a deep breath.
Reigan Shen had long since given up and slumped into a chair. “What now?” he asked, with little hope.
“He’s here,” the Sage whispered.
Reigan wasn’t much interested—he figured they were all dead either way. He sighed. “Who?”
“The Reaper.”
Emriss Silentborn had earned her title for two reasons. First, she had a long history with the Dreadgod known as the Silent King. Second, trees were notoriously quiet. She was used to reading meaning in silence.
This silence that covered the world was even more frightening than the trembling had been. It was like an axe poised to descend on her branches.
But it was still a relief.
The axe wasn’t aimed at her.
With Mercy in her arms, Malice’s eyes rolled up into her head.
She found herself back in the World of Night, the technique once again activating without her conscious intervention. She looked across the endless darkness, and instead of a field of smoky statues, she saw only one.
The armored figure in the sky. He held a sword in his left hand and a scythe in his right, and he brought destruction.
Even with the world crumbling around her, she felt irritation. Why show her this? She already knew she was going to die, so there was no point in rubbing her nose in it.
A curved blade swept in from the darkness and sliced the armored figure in half.
It was so sudden that she was shocked, and so quick that she lost track of the blade. As the statue’s top half fell, it crumbled to dust, so that it burst on contact with the ground. Even the bottom half of the statue dissolved like salt in water.
And the other statues returned. The imposing Dreadgods, the statue of Mercy sitting at the head of the Akura clan, half-formed scenes between Malice and the other Monarchs. They all formed slowly, remaking themselves out of particles of dust.
She felt something behind her and turned.
There, looming over her, was a new statue that she had never seen before. It was far larger than anything else, towering even over the Dreadgods. A long-haired figure with a familiar face and a scythe propped up on his shoulder.
Always before, the statues had been motionless and made all of one color.
This statue’s lips stretched, and its smile was blinding white.
Eithan ran a hand along his hair, and it grew out. Long and golden…but as it grew, it got paler, until it was pure white. A veil slid out of his spirit like cloth made from smoke. The veil, the ultimate concealing item. The Origin Shroud, made by the Mad King and repaired by Ozriel.
It dissolved into nothing now, its purpose fulfilled and its conditions broken.
He didn’t want to look back at the others from Cradle. He didn’t want to see Lindon’s uncomprehending eyes, or Little Blue trembling in terror before his true power.
So he focused on the man in the sky.
“You ruined everything,” Eithan said, and his rage wasn’t as cold as usual.
Through the cracks behind the Mad King, even the Void quivered in fear.
“How?” Daruman demanded. “How are you here? You couldn’t have known!”
Eithan hadn’t known.
“I always know,” Eithan said.
Armor flowed through the Way, black liquid slithering around him and covering him, seamless and smooth. The Mad King saw him protecting himself and struck.
With his scythe.
The Iteration split in half as he cut at the fabric of existence, but Eithan held out a hand. The slice in reality stopped exactly at the edge of his palm.
Eithan laughed. “A poor choice of weapon.”
Who could have more authority over Ozriel’s Scythe than Ozriel?
Not that this was the true Scythe, just a thin imitation, but Ozriel still had full claim over it. Eithan simply wished it, and the scythe disappeared from the Mad King’s hand and appeared in his own.
He examined the weapon for a moment. “It’s a crude toy, but not bad craftsmanship. Iri’s work, I think, and someone else’s. Someone who should have known better.”
Oth’kimeth snarled and stretched out from Daruman’s body, and for a moment, Eithan saw the Fiend and the man separate. One was a demonic figure with horns arranged into a blood-tipped crown, with eyes of burning crimson ambition. The other was an ancient king, burdened with power.
The Fiend wanted to fight, furious. The man spoke.
“You left the Court behind already, Ozriel. There is no need to return.”
Eithan took a deep breath as his armor settled around him. The Mantle of Ozriel had been sealed in Sanctum, in the treasure vault of another world, and even now it shattered through its seals and came for him.
“Come with me,” Daruman continued. “Tear down the system and build it anew. Without you, the Judges are worthl—”
Eithan interrupted him. “You should have known I would come for you.”
The Mantle of Ozriel emerged from the Way. It settled onto Eithan’s shoulders, boiling shadow streaming out behind him.
“Maybe I have been away too long,” Eithan continued, “if you thought you could destroy my home and walk away.”
Oth’kimeth and Daruman merged again, and once more the Mad King looked down from the sky. “I assumed you had seen the truth and left.”
“The truth? Here is the truth you deserve. You do not decide who lives and who dies.” Eithan levered the scythe up onto his shoulder. “That’s my job.”
With the speed of the Fox, he moved.
He disappeared from the surface of Cradle, appearing behind the Mad King. He struck with the power of the Wolf.
The Mad King swung his sword back, and the clash between their weapons would have ruined the planet.
But the planet was under the protection of Ozriel. The damage struck a blue shield covering the entire central planet of Cradle, and the barrier held with the defense of the Titan.
The Mad King dashed away, but Eithan had once been declared the heir of the Spider. His awareness expanded to fill…everything.
Nothing could hide from him.
Somewhere in the stretch of empty space in Iteration One-one-zero, Daruman came to a halt. Bloody claws emerged from nowhere to either side of him, manifestations of his will.