Chapter 39 #2
With a wave of their hand, the central pin disappeared, and the pans stayed right where they were. Perfectly balanced.
I stared at them, too stunned to speak. Creating the sentence of my current life had felt effortless. After agonizing over what the trial was, I’d done it. I’d passed.
Right?
Looking up, I held my breath, too afraid I was wrong.
“You have passed the third trial.” My shoulders slumped at the Guardian’s declaration, and tears sprang to my eyes.
I lifted a shaking hand to my temple, suddenly lightheaded at the realization that I’d completed all three trials. I’d earned the Orb and the right to challenge Death.
Fen’s pride and elation buoyed me through our bond, the four perfect notes of our Death Chord vibrating in my chest. It steadied me, reminding me that although I would face her by myself, I was not alone.
“Hold out your hand,” the Guardian said.
I raised both hands in front of me. Every image I’d seen of the Orb had been large enough I’d need both to hold it.
Except what appeared in one of my palms was a blood-red pomegranate seed, glistening like a jewel.
As soon as it touched my skin, the cave disappeared and I was enveloped in the glittering void of the In Between. I was still in my body, my hands holding the pomegranate seed clearly visible in front of me, but I couldn’t feel the ground beneath my feet.
I froze, afraid any movement might send me tumbling into nothing. “Fen?” My voice was muted, just like our bond. I vaguely registered something that might have been panic, but it was too faint to tell for sure. For all intents and purposes, I was alone.
The Guardian said I’d passed the third trial, which meant I was supposed to get the Orb. So what in Death’s name was this?
I stared at the seed in my hand with a frown. It looked like the anchor I’d swallowed during the Ritual in the World of the Living. Why had I been given this instead of the Orb? Did I need to be anchored to the In Between again? Except I thought I already was, through my Death Chord with Fen.
Gritting my teeth, I blew out a breath through my nose. Would this be the last thing I had to do to challenge Death? Or would there be more puzzles for me to solve?
The glittering darkness pressed in on me, and I shook myself mentally. Hating it didn’t get me what I needed. I had to figure this out.
Pressure built at my core, a slow, steady compression that felt a lot like dread, as I debated what would happen if I swallowed the seed. It was the obvious answer as to what to do with it. Unless I was supposed to transmute it somehow? Maybe I needed to use my light to transform it into the Orb.
My palms grew slick and I cupped one hand under the other, afraid the seed would slip and be lost before I made a decision.
If I swallowed it and that wasn’t right, I’d lose the chance to try something else. If I tried transforming it into the Orb, it might be too big to swallow. What if channeling power through it ruined it? I might only have one chance to get it right.
The pressure in my stomach made me wince. It had grown to what felt like the size of a small boulder and was starting to warm. Sweat gathered at my hairline as I struggled to breathe deeply. What was wrong with me?
My fingers twitched, the urge to swallow the seed building.
Except, I remembered the way the anchor had burned all the way down the last time.
What would happen when it met whatever was forming inside of me?
The image of an explosion ripping me apart floated through my mind.
I wished Fen were here to tell me what to do.
It was so much easier to trust someone else to know what the right thing was.
Which was probably the whole point of this.
With a grimace, I popped the seed in my mouth and swallowed. It didn’t burn. I felt a trail of warmth as it descended, like drinking a warm beverage on a cold day. It settled in the middle of the sphere that had formed, and the pressure disappeared.
My torso started to glow as I felt something sprout from the seed.
A tendril of something stretched and curled and then pushed its way up through the center of my chest to my throat.
It wasn’t uncomfortable as it continued to climb.
A tingling sensation, like hundreds of tiny, fizzing bubbles, tickled me as it rose.
I opened my mouth to let out a stream of light that coalesced into a shining sphere the size of my head in the air in front of me.
Gold branches unfurled from the bottom, wrapping around it until they met at the top.
Leaves sprouted there, folding around each other until they formed a salamander.
Light swirled in the center in a hypnotic eddy of ever-changing colors, until it solidified into something that looked like crystal.
Death’s Orb. Even if it didn’t look like the images I’d seen of it, I knew what it was. Something in me recognized it instinctively.
The tingling sensation dissipated, and the Orb hovered in front of me until I held out both hands. It settled gently in them, warm to the touch. The light at the center pulsed softly, as if in greeting, and the darkness surrounding me faded until I found myself back in the Guardian’s cave.