Total pages in book: 106
Estimated words: 100837 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 504(@200wpm)___ 403(@250wpm)___ 336(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100837 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 504(@200wpm)___ 403(@250wpm)___ 336(@300wpm)
She looks around the crypt. Some say that to lay your eyes upon him is to die. Even the Master might suffer that fate. The masks protect both.
I gesture at the candles, but even that feels like I’m tempting the Old Gods to smite me or something. “So who comes down here and lights the candles? Who here worships the Old Gods this way?”
A lot of us, Raila says in a stern voice. There are a lot of us who do. The Stragglers, the leftovers.
Ones who have been rescued from the bowels of Inmost. Ones who wander the halls of Shadow’s End without any eyes. Some of which are hidden by veils.
But I don’t get the feeling that’s Raila. Not that it really matters what the Deadhands and Deadmaidens believe—it’s the least of my concerns. Then again, if they worship the Old Gods and there is talk about an uprising, well, who are the followers going to protect? It won’t be Death, or his family. They’ll defect.
And that’s why you need to get the fuck out of here, I remind myself. Before you get caught up in this shitty situation that doesn’t concern you.
“I think I’d like to go back to my room now,” I tell Raila.
With a nod, she obliges. It isn’t until I’m out of the dank depths of the castle and almost back at my room that I wonder aloud, “Let’s say that I stay here forever and rule as the new Goddess of the Dead. If there was to be an uprising, how would that effect, say, my father back in the Upper World? Or any other mortal? Are there far-reaching implications, more than just what happens in Tuonela?”
Raila pauses and I can feel her stare at me for a moment. Why, if the uprising were to happen and the Old Gods were to take over, and the Creator didn’t step in, then dying itself would be punishment. It would revert to the old days, before Death was called in here, before an afterlife in the City was built. There would be no order, no judgement, no fairness, nor no mercy. It would be Kaaos forever on end. All of humanity, of creatures, of species yet discovered, would suffer for eternity.
I try to swallow as my heart fills with dread, dark like ink.
Okay. So it seems like even when I do get the chance to skip out of here, that there’s a chance that all the realms in all the universes might have to suffer until the end of time. Cool. Cool, cool, cool.
“Well then,” I tell her. “Let’s just hope and pray that damn uprising doesn’t happen.”
I give her a shaky smile but I don’t think she gives me one back.
* * *
* * *
After my visit to the crypt, I shut myself into my room and stewed over the new information. It’s just my luck that the moment I can see a somewhat clear path out of here that there’s a bunch of universe-altering consequences to go with it. Not that any of this is my problem, but the fact that I even know it’s a possibility kind of makes it my problem. I might be the only mortal out there who actually knows what’s at stake.
This is something I want to talk to Death about. I want to know how much of what Raila said is true and how much is just rumor and hearsay. It obviously doesn’t affect him as much as it does me, because if he’s ripped off the throne, it’s not him that has to suffer for eternity, it’s everyone else that’s not a God.
Then again, I don’t know what the Old Gods would do to him. I do know the relics from that era are jerks, like Surma and the flaming children and the murder swan. Then again, Sarvi is a relic too, and so far he seems pretty badass. You know, for a bat-winged zombie unicorn.
But as much as I want to talk to Death about it, I don’t see him for the whole day. In fact, I get the feeling that he’s doing the very human fuckboi reaction after sex, which is to avoid the woman at all costs. Maybe it wasn’t quite what he wanted. Maybe I scared him off. Maybe he’s already moving on by calling up every mermaid in his phonebook. I don’t know.
But even so, just in case, when night comes and I go to bed, I go to bed naked and I lie on top of the sheets.
And I wait.
And I wait.
The clouds finally start to clear, showing a hint of the moon, and then the door to my room opens.
His smell, his energy, his aura fills the air and my mouth waters and my body is already squirming in place, waiting for him. Damn, he’s already got some supernatural hold on me and he’s only had me once. Just once. And yet that’s all it has taken for my hormones to utterly betray me, to make me fucking greedy for him already.