Chapter 12
Titus found me in my room later that night.
I’d been pacing, trying to relieve the tension that had plagued me all day.
“Something has changed and thrown the realm more out of balance. Something new.”
“I will find out. And I will take care of it.”
My throat tightened. If I’d doubted before that I was on borrowed time, Death’s words confirmed it. Even if by some miracle she didn’t sniff me out and end me herself, the In Between was unraveling, putting all the realms in danger.
I was cursed, regardless of what the Devil thought. I just wish I knew why. What had I done in a past life to deserve this?
When Titus opened the door, my stomach dropped. “No. He can’t cancel.” I strode forward, shoving my finger in Titus’s chest. “I need to see him tonight.”
“You will.” Titus held up his hands. “He sent me to change the meeting place.”
“Oh.” My shoulders lowered. That was sensible, given what had happened on the bridge earlier. “Where?”
“The Great Hall of our castle. Same time.”
I nodded and stepped back. “Thanks.”
“You’re a fiery one, aren’t you?” He cocked his head as he looked at me, his blond hair glinting in the firelight.
I bristled. “You know nothing about me.”
“I didn’t mean it as a bad thing. Fire equals passion, and you know what they say about passionate people.” His eyebrows flicked upwards in a suggestive manner.
I rolled my eyes. “They make great partners in the bedroom?”
“They can change the realms.” He blinked innocently at me and placed his hand on his heart.
A laugh escaped before I could stop it, and he lit up as if he’d won something delightful. “You’re terrible.” I shook my head, pressing my lips together to keep from smiling.
“You’re not the first to say that.” He moved to the door. “See you around, Maeve.”
I watched the door shut behind him with bemusement. Such an idiot.
Star poked their head out of the flames, and I bent to place the bread I’d saved for them on the floor.
“He better have answers for me tonight,” I said, watching the salamander scurry down from the fire and claim their prize.
I checked the clock on the wall—two hours until I was to meet the Devil—and resumed pacing.
* * *
“Why is my curse like Death’s power?” I asked as I strode over to the Devil in the center of the Great Hall.
He was alone and standing in the middle, waiting for me with a satisfied gleam in his eyes.
“Good evening, Maeve. Diving right in, I see.” His tunic was unlaced and open at the collar, showing off a hint of smooth skin and defined muscles.
Between that, his usual bare arms, and the way his hair curled over his forehead in a tousled manner, he looked like temptation incarnate.
I had a sudden urge to touch him, to bury my face in his chest and see what all that exposed skin felt like against mine.
Shaking it off, I tightened my grip on my thoughts.
“Answer my question.” I was in no mood for games, or to give him his damn report.
I felt ready to burst out of my skin. I needed him to tell me that it was a coincidence, and I wasn’t the reason the In Between was suddenly crumbling.
He regarded me for a moment. I could tell he was sensing my emotions. I was probably projecting. For once, I didn’t care.
“Because you’re the next Death.”
I stared at him, his words echoing in my head as my heartbeat thudded in my ears. Part of me had expected him to refuse to tell me, that I’d have to fight him for answers. Having him give in so easily felt like I’d missed a step going downstairs.
You’re the next Death.
The thought was slippery. I couldn’t grasp it. Or maybe I refused to. It was too big. Too heavy. Too impossible. Yet our deal wouldn’t let me dismiss it. I shrank back, curling inward to ward it off. “That’s impossible. You’re lying. Death is a god, just like you. Immortal. Eternal. I’m—”
“We’re not.” He cut me off. “You’ve been lied to.” His tone brooked no opposition, but I refused to take him at his word.
“By whom?”
“Death.”
“Of course you’d say that. There’s no proof.” I crossed my arms.
“If Death is immortal, why do you have her powers?” He mirrored my stance, his expression hard.
I had no answer to that. His reasoning was circular, but I’d asked myself the same question, because it made no sense that I had them. “There has to be another reason.” I said finally.
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. Anything.” I flung a hand out to the side.
His expression was tinged with something that might be pity. “This is the reason.”
I shook my head and turned for the door. Expecting a reasonable answer from him was stupid. I should have known better.
“Every pair of Death and Devil are meant to be bonded by a Death Chord,” he said, stepping out of the darkness in front of me like he’d walked through it.
I jerked back, both at his sudden closeness and because the word ‘bonded’ snagged my attention. It made me think of the hook to the chest I’d felt during the transition. And then I’d seen him right before I woke up in the In Between. The hairs on the back of my neck rose, and my palms prickled.
“A Death Chord? Now you’re just making things up.” I tried for derision, but my voice shook.
He stared me down, the planes of his face looking like they’d been carved from marble.
“The In Between is all about balance. It’s why souls are weighed to determine their next life.
Why there are two castles, and two gods.
” That, at least, tallied with what I’d been taught.
“Death and I generate power through our duties—sending souls on to their next life or helping them face their previous one.
Sometimes one of us will generate more power than the other.
“A Death Chord would allow power to flow between us, sharing it equally. Providing balance.”
Something like a growl rose in my throat at the idea of him being bonded to Death, taking me by surprise. What was wrong with me? I coughed to cover it. “But you and Death aren’t bonded?”
“No, we aren’t.” Disgust rolled off of him, like the idea was offensive. “We can’t share power, and the realm is out of balance as a result.”
I tasted something sour, because it made sense.
Death had told me about the imbalance, and he was far more powerful than she was.
A bond between the two of them, in the way he described, would prevent that.
My mind spun, searching for an alternate explanation, one that didn’t mean I was the next Death, but the only ones I could imagine meant I was an aberration that needed to be put down to save the realms.
Everything that happened to us was meant to serve us in our journey to the After.
There was always another life, another chance to learn from what had come before and do better.
What was the purpose of the Guardian giving me a curse that was a dead end?
Maybe it made me a coward, but I couldn’t bring myself to believe they would do such a thing.
“We were once human,” the Devil said, seeming to sense my opposition wavering. “Death and me. Just like the ones who came before us. As long as the In Between has existed, Death and Devil have been roles filled by human souls with certain talents. Like your visions.”
I swallowed. He’d said his name was Fen, the first time we met.
“Every couple of centuries, Successors arrive here and a transition takes place. The old Death and Devil move on to the After, and the Successors step into their roles. It keeps things from getting stagnant, from the leaders of the In Between getting too far away from their humanity.
“Or it did, until Death changed it.”
He was an excellent storyteller, his voice soothing and almost hypnotic. His words drew me in, or maybe that was just him. It went against everything I’d been taught as a child about how the realms worked, and yet part of me wanted to believe him.
“When I arrived in the In Between,” he continued, “Death already had a Successor: Sasha. Once it became clear that I was the Devil’s Successor, my predecessor wanted to start the transition, but Death didn’t want to go.
She resisted, wanting more time, and they argued until one night when she called us all together.
” His jaw worked for a moment. “Death shredded Sasha’s soul and gave her Devil a choice.
Him or me. He could agree to stay with her, or she’d shred his soul too. ”
I shuddered, both at the pain in his voice, and because it was what I feared she’d do to me if she found out about my powers. “What happened?” I heard myself ask.
“He refused, and she shredded him. I became the Devil. And Death took advantage of the chaos of the transition to establish a new order. She purged any references to the roles of Death and Devil and replaced them with the lie that we are eternal gods.”
I nearly snorted. The idea that Death had managed to throw out millennia of history for her own version was preposterous. It broke the spell he’d woven with his words. “How did she convince everyone that things were suddenly different?” I raised one eyebrow at him.
His expression didn’t change. “She told them I attacked my predecessor, that I killed him for power.” His bitterness was palpable.
“Many Tempters elected to go to the After in protest. She encouraged Judges to go, too. Within a decade there were very few left who remembered how it had been, only my inner circle and Talia. It was easy for Death to establish her lie as reality.”
I shook my head. It was well known that Judges and Tempters went to the After when they were finished serving in the In Between, usually after at least a century, but to almost entirely replace the population of both castles within ten years beggared belief.
“In the World of the Living,” he said, “she sent orders for a new paradigm, new teachings, both to her Order, and mine.”
“No one questioned it?”
“Would you have?”