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Nothing in his expression is perturbed. All that is there is sympathy and affection. Not even pity in those downcast eyes. “Forgive me…” he relents, bowing his head.
“You said he would use me to bring you back, that it was his plan all along. He should be closer to you than ever!” I try to work out the pieces in my mind, pieces that Thanatos has understood or predicted all this time.
“You said yourself, Elysia.” He raises his chin, coaxes mine up so I may not lose his eyes. “He cannot raise a hand to you. And your flesh, your blood, your tooth, your tear, they must all be given. Unless…you’re already dead.”
“What?”
Right after he speaks, I fall to my knees and retch, vomiting Halo-fire and soul-light, coughingbloodonto his floor of frost. Blood: the only thing that may transfer. Thanatos takes my curls in his hands and holds my hair back so I may finish. I stay on the floor, panting and gasping at the sight of the black capillaries that breed along my skin, webbing forth from my veins. The Scourge!
How can this be? How can theHalo-bearerbecome infected with the Scourge?
“The Scourge of Destruction…” echoes Thanatos. When he divorced me, did the Scourge infect me?
“No!” I rise, swiping at the blood on my cheek, and throw myself at him in one last desperate attempt, my distress signal. “If I have his soul, you should be able to bring him here, Thanatos! You should be able to tell him, restore his memories.” I clutch the Grail ring, rip the chain of hair from my neck, and thrust it at him, but Thanatos holds up his hands in defense, moving away from me.
“No, Elysia. I can’t.” He shakes his head and kneads his brow, his voice a deep, silken whisper. “Trust me…if I could, I would.”
“Why?” I whimper, I sob, as I dangle what he’s desired most right before him.This is my life, Thanatos!
Death raises his head, all the gold in his eyes gone, his jaw of iron and ice when he confesses, “I cannot share anything with him, Elysia. For…I am also bound by the laws of the Triumvirate.”
“What?” I almost drop the ring. “How-how is that possible? Is that…” I cough up more blood and rasp, “…why you are bound by the blood oath like him?”
“Yes.”
Incensed, I wrap the hair back around my neck, but it doesn’t want to tie. “Answer my questions for Goddess’ sake, Thanatos! Did you send the Scourge?”
“No.”
At seeing my trouble, Thanatos extends a hand. At first, I refuse, but after a few moments, when he does not lower his hand, when he forms another crystalized rose, I surrender. He did not send the Scourge. The Father sent the Scourge, it’s the only explanation. Thanatos sweeps my hair to one side of my chest and takes the silver hair strand of Neo’s. Instead, I cup his rose gift and hold my breath as he binds my ring’s chain, fusing it with his forever frost. It will not melt when I return.
“I sent Lux,” Thanatos admits, and I freeze, almost ready to sink to the floor from his words.
“Why?” I moan, grappling with my neck, with the onslaught of another cough wishing to escape. I double over in a coughing fit, but Thanatos seizes my waist and lifts me into his arms in a honeymoon hold. I breathe in his familiar scent as he lowers me to his bed—alive with his shades and frost.
Thanatos touches his fingertips to my cheeks in that noteworthy crystalline kiss. “Because I knew she would be the only one who could tempt my brother from you. Because Elysia…when I could not claim you in that tower because you conquered me instead, and when you came to the Soul Plane, and I watched your strength and power to reclaim him and vowed to understand his darkness, it granted me hope for just one moment that you could understand mine.” Thanatos cups my forehead, eyes seeking mine as if knocking as if…praying. “And I do not regret taking a crack of your power, Elysia. Yes, I regret how it made you feel, regret how I robbed you—”
“Igaveyou Noralice and my hair!” I remind him that nothing was stolen but cough more blood onto his bed as he overlaps my words.
“—regret how I manipulated you…but I cannot regret rejecting that damned Satan’s spawn mark. I do not regret giving up my flames or the fullness of my power over the Soul Plane. I regret nothing because it was the first time I trulyfeltanything other thanDeath.” One cold finger descends to my chest, one cold hand pressed to my weakening heart. “For I felt Neo’s newheartbefore you ripped us in two. Felt it fused with mine. So, I claimed all the memories I could in those moments. Every word I spoke to you was true: I would follow you to the ends of the Soul Plane, into Limbo itself—ten thousand times over in order to find you and bring you back to me. Because I love you, Elysia…Ezer Kenegdo.”
Gripping onto his robe, I arch my neck and seal my mouth to his. Clinging to all Thanatos’ words,every last one, I seal himself upon my heart. Part of me wonders if he is the one who holds Neo’s heart, but I know it’s not true…not when the Father claimed it.
After folding back his mouth so I may taste as much of his rose scent as I can, I cough once more, blood sprinkling his bed. “If Neo wanted to bring you back, if the Father wanted to bring you back, how can they possibly do it now?” I consider this Scourge and how much closer to Death than I’ve ever been.
“They can and they will…because of what Nita discovered.”
“What?” I slide my hand along his chest, only to have Thanatos seize it, kissing my fingertips as I grind my head against his sheets, sensing another coughing wave coming.
“Father is using Mordere. This army that Neoptolemus is going to battle…it’s a trap. Mordere was the true bait.”
“How?” I wheeze.
“Mordere agreed to be the vessel for the soul of a necromancer.”
A necromancer! My blood chills.
“What does that mean, Natos? For you?”
