Bonus Chapter
Zera
I wake with a gasp, sitting up instinctively. All around me, glowing silver grain waves in a wind that I cannot feel. My eyes rise heavenward, and I startle. There are three moons in the midnight blue sky, one greater and two lesser, all of them thin crescent shapes.
I have heard of this place. Celestial, realm of heroes in the Nether. A place where the honored dead seek their rest in eternal peace.
I must be dead then. I grimace at the thought. I did not want to die. There was much to live for, much to accomplish. But I gave my life to protect my queen, and I would have done so a thousand times, no matter the outcome.
I go to stand up and find that I still feel heavy with my armor and solid.
Frowning, I look down at my hands. Pulling off my gloves, I see flesh and blood hands, still with dirt under my fingernails.
I thought that when one died, one became a spirit, insubstantial and pure. Why do I still look normal?
Movement from the corner of my eye pulls my focus, and I turn to face whatever is coming. I see what can only be described as a ghost, made of silver mist. I can make out the features of a troll before it floats through me like I am not there. I shiver at the sensation.
That is definitely a spirit. Shouldn’t I look like that if I am dead?
My thoughts are interrupted by a groan to my left.
I start backward at the sound, my hand instinctively flying to my belt, but my blade is not there.
Right, I destroyed my sword in the fight against Grazrath.
I feel a wave of regret at that. My sword was specially made for me, balanced to its optimal weight for me, and enchanted to withstand magical attacks. Its loss is a great one.
Still, I need to see the source of the groan. I peer through the stalks of silver grain, seeing an indistinct form. Then whoever it is sits up, putting a hand to their head.
“Ah . . . fuck . . . that hurt like a bitch,” says Gunag as he sits up.
Fury and frustration well up in me at the sight.
“How is it that I am in Celestial of all places, but still you follow me?” I spit out, angry.
Gunag looks up. I expect him to look as annoying and challenging as usual, to say something arrogant and ungallant, but instead he smiles at me with such relief that I am taken aback for a moment.
“Zera!” he exclaims. “You’re alive!”
“Neither of us are alive, dimwit,” I say caustically, covering up my shock at his smile with venom. “We are in the Nether.”
Gunag looks around, registering my words, and gives a low whistle. “You are right. I should have known that I would make it to the realm of heroes.”
I roll my eyes. Now that’s the level of arrogance I have come to expect from Gunag.
The orc turns back to me and frowns in concentration. Then he stands up, reaching forward. I recoil from his hand, but he merely wipes my face gently with his thumb.
“You have dirt on your face,” he muses. “Shouldn’t that be gone if you were truly dead?”
I feel a wave of embarrassment at his words. How does this orc always say exactly the wrong fucking thing? But he is right, his thoughts echoing mine from earlier.
“I don’t know,” I say. “I saw a spirit earlier. You and I look nothing like that. We look . . . alive.”
“That’s because you are alive,” a new, strange voice says from behind me.
I whirl around at the voice, cursing that I have no weapon. Within seconds, Gunag is beside me, ax at the ready, placing his body between mine and the new stranger. The stranger is huge. At least nine feet tall, enshrouded in a cloak that seems to be made of living shadows.
“Who are you?” demands the orc. “Where are we?”
“Zera was right earlier,” the stranger says, ignoring the first question. “You have fallen into Celestial and are in the kingdom of the Nether.”
“How do you know my name?” I ask uneasily. I get the feeling that we are dealing with something otherworldly.
“I know the names of all who enter this realm. Either through the Iron Gate or through evil demon portals, it is the same,” the stranger replies cryptically.
“You still haven’t answered,” Gunag says, ever brash and arrogant. “Who are you, stranger? Name yourself!”
The stranger reaches up, pushing back his hood and revealing a face that otherwise is inhumanly handsome, but with eyes that appear to be black voids, deep and fathomless.
“I am Lacrys, Reaper of Souls and Steward to the Death Goddess Karnia. You are Gunag ka Strock, Axe of your king, and she is Dame Zera Orden, knight of Adrik. You are trespassing here, neither alive nor dead, mortal nor immortal.”
Gunag and I are speechless, staring at Lacrys. We are speaking to an actual god.
Then Lacrys smiles, the expression somehow menacing. “Come, let us talk.”