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Far from it, Ice Princess. Rise, Elysia!
I stick my nose in the air, brow crinkling, then gather my frost gown and take my first step toward that ethereal throne with his hand still clutching mine.Oh, just let it go already!
Death cracks a grin and checkmates me,I’ll never let you go, Halo-Bearer.
Groaning, I tip my head back before throwing my red face into my hands because he’s overthrown me again. But Thanatos summons me with one prickly touch to my spine, causing me to jerk my face back to his. “You are alwayshigherthan me, Elysia.”
After biting my lower lip and ruminating on that, wondering if I truly am, I ascend that dais until I sit inside that illustrious rose throne so I may behold Thanatos doing Court.
His first action is to summon every Scourge soul because he comprehends how I have questions. A heaviness settles within me while emotion chokes my throat. Far more than the last time. All the souls are a network, bound together by their shared experience, their souls thirsty and craving release of burial instead of the unfinished sanctum of Destruction’s ash. When the veins in Thanatos’ neck swell to his muscles tensing, I understand he is working hard to hold them, to prevent them from fading to Limbo. My gut clenches with the knowledge: Death bears the burden of thousands of soul strings.
I sit up straight in my ice rose throne and address the souls, “Where is the source?”
Thanatos tugs on one string, so she is presented before me, kneeling with her soul form like a wispy glowworm. I shake my head, compelling Thanatos to allow the mother to rise. With one more tug on that tether, she does.
“What do you remember?” I bid her to speak.
In a starry ripple of a voice, she responds, “I went to hunt, my lady, in the Spirit Realm woods,” her voice echoes, sparking like an ember. “A vampire cornered me in those woods and bit me, injecting their venom. It didn’t last more than a moment before they disappeared. All I cared about was that I was still alive and could return to my family. But after a week, the venom didn’t dilute. It spread like hellfire in my veins, my lady.”
I swing my eyes to Thanatos, lift my brows in anticipation. He shakes his head, revealing nothing, bound by some otherworldly law I cannot even fathom.
So, I turn back to the mother and implore her, “What do you remember of the vampire?”
“Nothing, my lady.” Her soul smolders at the edges. “Only that the vampire split into multiple. It began as one…and bred within seconds, but I don’t remember how many.”
I wince, remembering my hundred times bites. Thanatos curls frost along my spine, his icy tranquilizer. After nodding a thank you, I permit him to return the soul to what little peace she may have in the Lake. No other souls experienced the multiplicitous vampire. I heave a sigh, my thoughts tripping over one another. At least, it’s a start.
Hands braced on the sides of my new throne, I beseech Death, “Please…keep them, Thanatos.”
Though Thanatos visibly winces, sinewy neck muscles tightening from the strain it causes him, the Prince of Death transfers the lost, restless souls back into his Lake.
Without warning, dozens of skeleton birds plunge from the sky, caped in wraith-like wings! Bone-chilling fear spikes within me. They screech like stuck pigs, circling the souls. They nip at their strings. No! My heart lurches in my chest. I rush down the dais, pausing at the last step so I don’t tumble into the water. Families cry. They shriek. Brave child souls huddle together, a few screaming. Can souls be stolen? A whimper lodges in my throat.
“Carrion hell!” Thanatos growls at the birds before he alerts me with one shooting of ice crystals into my spine. A Reaper warning. “Get. On. My. Back. Elysia.” A single overpowering command as he drops his tattered robe to display his inner one.
Hold onto me, and donotlet go.
I whip my head around, eyes wide. The rattling of skeleton bird bones against one another echoes its omen deep into my soul. Like the carrion he called them, they circle the souls as if waiting tofeed…oh, Goddess! Without another hesitation, I climb onto Thanato’s back and coil my arms around his neck.
Whatever you do, donotlook at me,he advises in a blood-curdling warning, lips pressed into a tight grimace.
Squeezing my eyes, I anchor myself against his sovereign back, his dark house of muscles. The omen inside me grows to the birds screeching, building to screams, to the rattling of more bones. All my skin crawls. He sweeps the outer robe back on, covering my entire form, protecting me with his shades and frost. My ears nearly bleed to the carrion screams. Breath ragged and desperate, I hold on tight but wrap Halo chains around my back and weave them around his stomach to bind me to him.
A rash pretense of death brushes the air at my back. A mimicry of Thanatos’ shades, cold and corpse-like. More birds fly past me. I dare to peek through a threadbare gap in the fabric of Thanatos’ cape, where I spy several phantasms—skeletal specter wraiths that fly on mockeries of winged shades. Lower reapers. Great bird skulls cover their faces.
“Death! Death!” The carrion wraiths screech closer to the circle of lost souls. “Lost his flames to frosted breath!”
The same words as Pan. The destroyed mark I’d felt on his neck. Tremors shudder my whole body.
“Come to me, birdie bugaboos,” Thanatos taunts the wraiths—a familiar edge of a blade in his voice, a blade of a scythe. No, it’s a sickle. All his body tenses into a crouch. I clench my legs around his waist, around his neck, and bury my face in his crypt-like shoulder. I drown my tears in his inner robe.
“Steal his souls, pretties to reap! Hurt them, hurt them, make them weep!”
Thanatos!I scream inside his mind, begging him to protect the Scourged souls. Fear for them hooks my stomach, tightens my throat.
Do not let go! Donotlook!
“I’ll take everything, bogies…” his voice descends into a deep bass like the depths of the Chasm itself. It reverberates into my chest, quivering my heart…but not the Halo. “I’ll cast you back into Limbo where you belong. Bring your pretty wings to my blades!”
