AllFreeNovel
Share Us
My hands fall to my sides, my mother’s breathing becomes steady, easy.
And she opens her bright, clear eyes.
“Hey there, sweetie.” She easily pushes herself into a seated position with just her forearms. She’s strong. Strong!
And perhaps even younger. Yes, younger too. Her broad smile has fewer lines.
I don’t notice Barbas stepping out of the driver’s seat, only that I’m the one hugging my mom tight. I’m the one crying on her hospital gown.
Chapter14
Typhon
“What do you mean, she saw her mother’s soul?” Rhygel says, refusing to accept the truth of Barbas’s account.
He takes off his outerwear and pulls a brand new bottle of elixir from his satchel. Before setting it on the bar, he scowls at, well, all of us, and rights the empty bottle of elixir lying on its side.
“Heathens,” he mumbles.
Rhygel likes things just so.
But I believe Barbas. I know what he said is true. I knew it would happen.
Not that specifically. I didn’t expect Lily to see souls. But I knew there was more to her than any of us could fathom. I straighten, smoothing the front of my shirt.
“She’s even stronger than—“
“Quiet, Typhon.” Rhygel rounds on me, and I back down quickly.
The knowledge that Lily is even more spectacular than any of us hoped is enough to keep me in my place.
“I’ve had quite enough of your smug face.”
Malphas hops up from the dining table, leaving most of his dinner untouched, a feat I’d never seen from him previously. “We need to find out if she can see souls without us, on her own.”
Rhygel nods. “Yes. It’s possibly only an ability she has when possessed.”
“But if it’s not…” I let the words trail off, not wanting to test Rhygel. We all knew what this meant.
If Lily can see souls without us, she could potentially alert us to any souls close to expiring on our return.
“It could be just the upper hand we need,” Rhygel says, stroking the stubble along his chin. He stalks across the living space, turns, and does so again, his signature hatching-a-plan stride. Three or four turns about the room and he pauses. “I’ve been to the square.”
Each of us freezes. Even Barbas lets his mask slip, looking stricken for the briefest moment.
We’d all silently agreed to avoid the square and not get exact tallies. None of us were ready to know exactly how fucked we were.
“We’re behind by a steep margin. But I think with Lily’s help, we can gain a higher placement. We only need to rise three positions in the leaderboard to make it to the next trial.”
“Even with our time disadvantage?” I ask.
After the Council of Souls formally granted us permission to work as a team, the remaining contenders filed formal dissent about the decision, stating we had an unfair advantage by combining efforts.
Which, obviously, was the whole point. We’d done so intentionally to gain said advantage and to save human host lives. But neither the Council nor contenders cared about the human lives, and in an effort to quell the dissent, the Council levied us certain disadvantages. The largest ones being we had less time to compete in each trial. So, even if we place first in this event, the best starting position we can hope for in the next is third.
“If we rise three positions, we’ll start dead last in the next leg.”
The room grows deadly still, air going thick with our combined dread.
