30 Zarev
Rapunzel tries to tuck herself into me, but the force of the explosion sends us to the ground. I tear the blade out of her grip and throw it into the shadows before it can cut her in the fall. We crash into the ground, her hair covering us and my shadows following suit.
There’s a great roar following the explosion and a strong wind crashes against the barrier. I hug her to me, grateful that despite meeting the Mad Queen, we’ve somehow escaped with our lives.
But we still have to get out of Tressa.
When the outside settles, I lift my head. Her hair is everywhere, softly glowing, and beneath our covered canopy, she presses her hand to my chest. I had forgotten that my shirt tore, and the muddy mess Legs threw on me chipped away. Rapunzel’s touch is soft, and she looks up at me beneath the golden glow. There’s warmth as her hand starts to glow as well, her arm shaking, but it only takes a moment to fix the cuts and scrapes.
Her eyes flutter when she’s finished, utterly exhausted, and I wrap her in my arms. Her voice is weak when she manages to speak. “The gold in your chest is gone. D-did it happen when my father died?”
“Before,” I mutter. “Legs threw that muddy mess on me before I left the Red Woods. Whatever it was worked. Even when Midas used his magic, I didn’t feel pain or the pull of his power. I was cured before he died.”
She nods against me, tilting up her head to gaze into my eyes. Her blue orbs are heavy, half closed lids making her look so sleepy as we lay there. “I’m glad… you came to find me.”
I run a finger over her lips, gently tugging at her bottom one. “You’re my life, Princess. If you had to die, I’d be there with you to the bitter end.”
I read the surprise that flashes in her gaze. “I had no plans to die.”
“Things change,” I remind her, leaning in. “Remember, you slept with Death. The afterlife could come for you just as easily.”
Rapunzel shrugs in my grip, leaning forward to press her lips against mine. I kiss her back for just a moment, our tongues dancing together, before I register the silence around us.
We can’t hide here. Tressa is a new land now and we have to see what’s left.
Pulling back from her, I let the shadows fade. She blows out a breath, pulling at her hair until it moves and slides free of us in silken waves that only magic can create so we can see the kingdom once more.
Beyond our small cocoon, Tressa is in shambles. Rapunzel scrambles on all fours, trying to get to her feet, and I drag myself up before pulling her with me. We’re spent.
All around us, pieces of the castle lie missing. Half the trees are ripped from the ground, tipped over, and one lies only a few feet away. We’re lucky nothing came down on us as we hid.
She spins from the wall that’s no longer there, looking out towards the village. With the damage done to the castle, we can see down into the valley and off towards the Endless Sea. Where there should be noise, chaos as people realize that their world is forever changed, there’s nothing. Eerie silence greets us.
In the distance, three ships bearing the green flags sink into the water. The explosion sent out a wave of magic, all made by Midas' hand, and when he breathed his last breath, the magic fell away. It was enough force to strike down the ships ready to storm the kingdom.
I notice figures moving in the water, and press my lips together. There won’t be any survivors to reach land if the merfolk have arrived. They will deal with the soldiers.
“It’s gone,” Rapunzel whispers, looking around at the kingdom. It’s hard to call it much of anything with half the buildings torn apart, and the tower Rapunzel lived in for most of her life is missing, the top ripped from its place high in the sky and lost someplace below. There’s little left to look at.
“I didn’t think it would take out the ships.”
We spin together at the voice to find two spirits standing behind us, Midas and Theo. The four guards' souls are strangely missing, and though I sensed their lifelines snap, I see no spirits. I don’t even feel them around us.
That’s not a good sign. Not if they are controlled by the Queen.
Midas looks old in his ghostly form, much older than he did in life. There’s a pensive look in his eyes, and he studies his daughter with narrowed eyes while Theo stands by silently. I don’t see Rapunzel’s cat, nor do I feel the spirit of an animal. Perhaps her sneaky feline escaped.
I wince, rubbing at my chest. The gold isn’t there any longer, but a weight remains. Rapunzel healed the shallow wounds, but a suffocating pressure builds within me. Midas upset the balance of the afterlife, and I can feel the effects rippling through me.
The spirits, whoever’s left, are surging towards us. I don’t know that I have enough magic to open the passage that they’d need, and the only way to escape the fury that will overtake Tressa will be to flee through the shadows. They can see us but they can’t touch us that way.
Rapunzel swallows, clasping her hands in front of her as she studies the figures. “Father?”
“No daughter of mine sides with evil,” he scoffs, looking between us. “You trusted a Reaper more than your own family.”
She scowls, and some of that defiance she's grown into returns. “My family lied to me my entire life. Even if your soul isn’t passing on, you’re still dead to me.” She throws her hands out at the destruction around us. “Look what your greed brought us.” As Theo and I silently look on, Rapunzel and the King argue about his choices and it’s a rehash of everything he just fought the Mad Queen about.
Not once does he ask about Dorah, showing how selfish he truly is.
I keep my eye on the newly-dead ruler. He might have just joined the afterlife, but he died maliciously and with a vendetta. Corrupt people become corroded spirits, and I can’t allow him to hurt the princess any longer.
Theo approaches at my side and bows. “My soul isn’t indebted to the Queen if a Reaper can send me on.”
“And what debt do you owe her,” I wonder, crossing my arms. The guard looks down, twisting his fingers together that keep disappearing, and his brow pinches. I know very little about the white rabbits the Mad Queen torments, and the last one I had the displeasure of interacting with was on the day of my death when he blew the horn. “You were sold to Midas.”
“A trade,” he says quietly, his gaze dancing to the two royals arguing. Midas’ eyes are wild, but he has no power to do anything to the princess right now. This is her time to vent and grieve before we have to leave the kingdom.
“I know the dead princess,” Theo says quietly, his eyes remaining on Rapunzel. “The one Midas traded and the Queen tossed away.”
Now he’s got my full attention. “Oh?”
He nods slowly, his head momentarily separating from his body. He’s adjusting faster to the afterlife than he should, like he’s resigned to death and happy to go. Being a spirit is like acceptance in his eyes, but he doesn’t know how to handle a formless body.
“When she tossed the child,” he says slowly, pursing his lips. “A man shot from the tower. A beast of a thing, with long pale hair and wings that stretched like skin.”
My eyes narrow, one person coming to mind. Lucius.
But I pause, counting backwards in my mind. More than thirty years have passed since the second princess died. Lucius would’ve been a young child like me back then, not a full grown man. “You’re sure it was an adult?”
“Yes. He returned to the tower as the Queen pulled us along the path, taking the backroads towards her castle. This was before she stopped traveling across Mystica. The man flew up to one of the tallest spots on the palace, and another figure joined him there on the roof. They were too far to see much from where I stood, but they were similar in height. I assume another adult.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
He hesitates, before pointing behind him to his headless body. The Queen left his remains and the timepiece lying in the grass, though his head is now smashed from a tree that fell. The timepiece looks like it’s alright, but I don’t move to pick it up. “Take that with you, Reaper. You cannot let the flowerborne or the Queen’s armies find it.”
“What good is a timepiece to me?”
“Someday, the Queen’s clock will begin ticking again. The timepiece will move. Her reign isn’t infinite, and she knows the countdown is coming. Why do you think she’s trying so hard to claim all of Mystica?”
I frown. I’ve never thought about it like that. She’s remained in power since the King of Diamonds passed and it’s not unusual for the royals of Mystica to live exceptionally long lives. But if her clock isn’t moving, and she isn’t aging, her tyranny could last untold amounts of time. “I assumed she wanted to rule.”
“She wants to control Life and Death,” he explains, looking between myself and Rapunzel, who is glowing now. If she decides to attack her father’s spirit, I won’t stand in the way. With so much destruction already, there isn’t much she can cause further damage to.
And for all the hell her father put her through, a final act of vengeance is the least she deserves.
“Not the people who embody them,” Theo continues, filling the silence as I think over his words. “If she has control of both, she can call the shadows to her even without your magic. Her ability to use hearts and Life for her blood magic gives her power, and if she can play with Death and control shadows like the Reapers do, she’ll be unstoppable.”
“Unless the Mad Queen decides she’s ready to die, there’s no way she can have control of both.” My gaze flickers to Rapunzel, a glowing golden beauty as she rages at her father, and I think of her ability to wield my scythe. She can touch the weapon of a Reaper, because her father gave her power that killed her twin, and possibly, for many moments, claimed her too. “Only those touched by Death have a chance to control the shadows.”
I won’t say any more out loud, but it’s true. I haven’t had but a few moments to consider Rapunzel’s ability to wield a weapon of the dead, but she did so effortlessly. If she can control my scythe, she could possibly wield any weapon that a Reaper carries, since we all built our tools from the stones that crushed us. I doubt the Mad Queen picked apart all of those details, since she wasn’t even around for every step of our journey, but Rapunzel might be one of the only people in existence who has a chance of controlling both Life and Death.
But as I watch her arguing with Midas, I seriously doubt she wants to. Rapunzel has plenty left to discover about herself without tossing in more magical abilities. She’s already powerful on her own. Being able to wield my weapons is just a bonus for her at this point.
Theo clears his throat, drawing me out of my thoughts. He’s been silent, like he’s also trying to decide what to make of things. “The shadow man lives in the Mad Queen’s mind, always. A being of Death and nightmares, unobtainable and haunting. She saw him only once when the King of Diamonds perished. His presence, and whatever words he whispered to her, live on like a prophecy in her head.”
He rubs his ghostly hands together until they disappear, looking out into the fallen trees. “She wants to reach him again. She saw him that one time and claims it was one of the most prolific moments of her life. And when the madness gets too much in her head, she’ll whisper like she’s just recently seen him again in the shadows.”
My eyes flash, thinking of the man I saw standing behind the Queen when I died. “She wants to reach the shadow man? That’s what all this is about?”
His eyes remain unfocused. “I think so… it’s so hard to piece together what she’s saying, Zarev. She’s dedicated to finding him. Surely he can help share her madness with all of Mystica, right? She called him the Boogeyman, the shadow who once visited her in her dreams.”
Boogeyman? Over the years I’ve talked to my fellow Reapers about who we think the shadow man was, but I’ve never heard the name Boogeyman before. When I have time someday, maybe I can ask Lucius to do some research in that dusty library of his. Surely if the Boogeyman ever existed, he would be documented someplace in one of those many, many books.
“She never said much more than that,” he goes on, and I wait to see if this spirit will spill anything else. “But I never did see this shadow man of hers, or Boogeyman, or whatever name she thinks he claims. She sent me here, to Tressa, to try and find a weak point so she could breach the kingdom. That fountain, the Fountain of Youth? Midas uses it to keep himself young with his golden touch and his all-consuming control of the people. But the fountain plays another part too. Remember the looking glass in Wonderland?”
I narrow my eyes. The looking glass is one of a thousand rumors from Wonderland, nothing more. “I’ve heard of it.”
Theo nods, like I’m getting his point. “There’s one here in the fountain, too. Youth is a type of looking glass, is it not? It’s a reflection of time lost. Getting access to Tressa and breaching the wall was supposed to give her access to the looking glass in the fountain, but now that it’s cracked, it won’t do her any good. The connection won’t work as the fountain empties. She wanted a way to travel all the way across Mystica in a matter of moments if need be.”
“And yet she never used it.” My eyes turn back to Rapunzel for a brief moment and it looks as if the arguments between might have run their course. She’s too exhausted from the buildup to right now, and Midas has nothing to hold over her anymore.
“The fountain is contaminated by Midas’ greed,” Theo explains. “He poisoned the magic within with his Golden Touch. The connection is spotty at best. She needed it to be absolute, so there was no fear of the connection hurting her while she passed through the looking glass.”
Sure, that kind of made sense. It sounded overly complicated, but if she needed to be discrete about her plans, she would find a way. “And you were privy to this?”
“All rabbits are. We track time, document dates. We…” he trails off, chuckling. “We’re supposed to be speedy, reliable. I didn’t live up to my duties as I lived in the castle. Midas offered me his daughter’s gift of Life to stay quiet, and so long as I ensured that Queen Dorah and Rapunzel had privacy during tea time, he left me alone.”
I look towards the two again. They’ve stopped arguing altogether now, Rapunzel glowing a brilliant gold and Midas glaring at the two of us. “Be quiet, Theo.” The King’s voice was full of anger, hatred and maybe some betrayal.
“No, you can’t tell me what to do anymore,” he argues, turning from Midas and facing me once again. “The tea was a recipe one of the butterflies in the Red Woods designed, and it’s worked well all these long years. It kept either of them from being controlled by Midas’ power should he decide to use his Golden Touch to drag the souls from their bodies to his side so he could absorb them. With that kind of pull, he could never run out of power.”
“I said enough,” Midas barks, but there’s nothing they can do to each other right now. The King gets in his face, but Theo doesn’t stop talking.
“The tea helped to control the princess’ powers, too, so she couldn’t gain more power than the King. If she stayed with a simple, nonviolent power, like healing, the Mad Queen wouldn’t pay any attention to her. It kept Tressa in the dark too, so she didn’t feel the need to check in on the kingdom unless she had a need to test the fountain. And with everything else she’s got her hands in in Mystica, she didn’t have the time to bother with Tressa for a long while.”
“No, she sent spies like Arthur,” Rapunzel snaps, and there’s no holding her back now that she’s been enlightened. She’s still full of vengeance and rage, and I hope she holds onto that fire. “And then Modred came along with a hidden agenda. Not to mention the fleet of ships that followed to storm the kingdom to kill the citizens!”
Theo shrugs. “Midas took care of that part so there was no need-”
“Theo!” Midas roars, cutting him off. He holds out a hand, aiming it at the guard, but nothing happens. He has no power in the afterlife, and as realization flickers across his face, Theo surges forward, sharing exactly what the dead King wants to hide.
“Midas captured any souls that passed in Tressa because of his magical pull,” Theo explains, focusing on me. “He has the cursed water all the citizens consumed to thank for that. But the wall that surrounds the kingdom? It’s designed from his own Golden Touch. Despite what the King might think, he doesn’t have the strength to draw in spirits from all over Mystica and claim their spiritual power. You know this, Zarev. Spirits have their own energy before they pass on. When people exploit it, it can create power they don’t deserve to control.”
“You know nothing,” Midas growls, but I’m barely listening to him. If this white rabbit wants to divulge the secrets of the Queen’s madness and Midas’ fixation on the dead, I’m not going to stop him. Let him shed his sins before he passes and save me the trouble of digging for answers.
“So what was the purpose of the wall, then,” I ask, “other than to physically keep people like Arthur’s army and the Mad Queen from crossing into Tressa?”
Theo rings his hands, and he’s starting to adjust since this time they don’t disappear. “The wall is like a barrier. There’s a lot of spiritual concentration in Tressa, but you probably never noticed it before, Reaper. It all manifested in Midas’ magic since he stole the souls of anyone who passed within the kingdom, and then when he needed the extra magical push to fight off Arthur’s advancing troops, he called all the gold within his power back to his body. Since the people of Tressa had gold embedded in their blood and souls from the water-”
“It killed all the living citizens to call them back to Midas,” Rapunzel says, filling in the blanks. She looks to her father with renewed disgust, shifting away.
“Yes. Because Midas can control the spirits in Tressa, it offset the balance. The dead are meant to be Reaped, not concentrated. Because Midas would steal them from all across Tressa, the dead never rose. Spirits have a habit of concentrating where the greatest spiritual pull is, or where there are lots of dead. Right, Reaper?”
I nod to Theo. “Yes. Like calls to like. When the dead concentrate in one location, it draws other souls to that point. It calls the Reapers forth too, so we can Reap the dead and help them pass on.”
He glances sadly between the three of us, shaking his head. “Until you both crossed over the wall, there were no souls passing in or out of Tressa. Living, dead, no one passed over the wall. There were rumors in the kingdom and surely in Sherwood that people could, but no one ever made it. The travelers were either struck down by guards or killed when Midas spotted them. The wall alloted absolute control, and the only way in was through the port. So when the two of you passed over the wall, one living and one dead, it shook the magic within and caused the curse to splinter. He couldn’t control any souls that didn’t drink from the cursed fountain, that’s not within the King’s domain. So to keep his gathered souls from leaving to seek a Reaper, or unwanted souls from entering the kingdom and causing him issues, he built the wall. You managed to do exactly what the wall was designed to stop, and it created weakness within the structure.”
Theo is on a roll and I don’t have to encourage him to continue. “When the King panicked about the rumors of Arthur’s troops, the whispers that said the Mad Queen was coming, and his daughter gallivanting around Mystica, he took drastic measures. Purging the kingdom of all the living, except the few who drank the Phoenix Rose, caused unrest. The tea protected us from the Golden Curse and in turn suppressed the princess' power. But the other civilians, guards, everyone? They all died and Midas called them to do his bidding, becoming a part of his power. That magical pull was too much for the damaged wards around the kingdom, so the wall cracked. And when that many spirits rose up-”
“It caused a domino effect,” I grumble. “Too many spirits, too much spiritual energy. It alerted the dead to the new surge of energy, drawing them in. That’s why I felt an overwhelming burst of power, causing me to pass out. It’s like being supercharged with magic all at once, and the spirits took notice. But that wall was still intact, so there was no way for the newly arrived spirits to enter. Now that Midas is dead, they can enter anywhere they wish.”
Theo pauses, as though he’s trying to take a breath that his spirit no longer needs. “All of this happened because Midas wanted absolute power, and paid the ultimate price. The dead must be Reaped, and those left alive will decide the fate of Tressa. The wall is gone, and those ships Arthur sent out following Modred’s death are gone.”
“And Arthur’s going to want vengeance for the ships that were destroyed,” Rapunzel chimes in.
“I didn’t do that,” Midas snaps, waving a hand. “The wall did that when it fell. I’ve fed magic into the structure every day for years, ensuring it was impenetrable so the only way to attack was by sea. And it worked, until I passed. When I no longer had a hold on the structure, it fell. That’s what destroyed the ships and leveled the kingdom. Almost a half-century of magic being dispelled all at once will cause a rush of power to overtake the land.”
I frown at his timeline. “The wall went up when I was alive. It hasn't been half a century.”
Midas grins at me, his ghostly smile malicious. “It wasn’t a wall at first, not like it is today. It started small. I began with a perimeter of golden bricks lining the kingdom, and built from there. Bricks became gates, gates became a wall, and I phased out the openings as my strength grew and my daughters were born, so no one could cross the wall.”
My brows lift. He put a lot of time into barring his kingdom from the world, just for it all to come crashing down the moment he died.
There’s a large gust of chilled wind, and I glance out towards the fallen wall. A wave of white is crossing the land, and my eyes widen as I realize what it is.
The dead. So many spirits called here. I’ve used too much magic fighting, and even if I could reap some, there’s no way I can send all of them on.
Midas turns, grunting. “All that power, wasted. They came when I called upon the lives of this land. It created unrest, apparently. I felt the dead surging towards the kingdom and intended to call them home, but unfortunately you two and the Mad Queen showed up before I could get to that.”
Rapunzel steps forward, ready to get into it with her father again but I place a hand on her shoulder. “We need to move on.”
She glances at me, her brows drawing together. “But… the dead are coming. Don’t you have to deal with them?”
“All at once?” I ask, looking down at my hands. “Even at full power, reaping hundreds of spirits at once is quite a feat. Perhaps if I had one or two other Reapers to help, it could be done, but not after our battle with the Queen. I can’t call out that much power again.”
Midas scoffs, like the idea is absolutely absurd, but Rapunzel slowly nods in understanding. “Okay, then what do we need to do?”
“Leave,” I answer, looking at the two spirits before us. They cannot wander. Both of them know too much and have self-serving intentions. If they are free to roam Mystica until another Reaper arrives to reap them, disaster could strike.
I hold out my hand, the comforting weight of my scythe returning to my palm. “We can go in a moment. It’s best to be away before so many dead take the kingdom. But these two I can send on.”
Theo bows his head, but Midas floats backward a few steps. “Absolutely not! You will not be deciding my fate, boy.”
“Unfortunately,” I say to him, dragging the blade in a wide arch before dragging downward, opening the rift like I did for Dorah, “I can and will cast you into the afterlife.”
Midas growls, but Theo speaks over him. “Please, don’t forget the timepiece. You will need it again someday, I’m sure of it.”
I really don’t know if he’s being truthful, or if like many of the dead he’s just spouting off his sins to cleanse his soul before he passes on. Midas is doing a fine job avoiding that, but Theo is a bit like Modred. I nod, and before I can move Rapunzel steps away, shifting towards the timepiece in question.
I gesture with my scythe to the tear. “Away you go. If you try to run, I’ll cleave your soul in two and cast you out in pieces.”
Theo doesn’t need the threat, bowing once more before shifting forward. I could almost call the look on his face peaceful, like he’s more than ready to greet the next life. He steps through without question, and I turn my attention to Midas.
The King bares his teeth. “Cut me to pieces if you must, but I’m not going through there without a fight.”
That’s what I fear, and Rapunzel jogs back with the timepiece hanging from her neck, the long silver chain leaving it to dangle against her stomach. She’s glaring at her father’s back, and when he refuses to move she steps around him to me.
She holds out her hand, and my brows pitch high on my head. “May I borrow that?”
She wants the scythe, a sacred weapon among the Reapers. It’s something living shouldn’t be able to touch, much less use. But Rapunzel will never be anything less than extraordinary in her capabilities.
I glare at Midas, handing the blade over. “Of course, Princess.”
It’s heavy and I can see the strain of her muscles as she holds the blade aloft. Rapunzel takes a breath, closing her eyes as she takes a breath. A gentle golden glow encompasses her again, and she closes her eyes before she speaks.
“Of the gift of Life, I grant you Death. Of the burden of age, I return the time. Of the curse of passing, I release your soul from here forever more.”
Midas’ eyes widen as she recites the rhyme he taught her, but with her own personal twist to it. She raises the blade high, her arms trembling from the effort, and sends it into a wide arch towards her father.
Golden light emanates from the blade, slamming into the King. It sends his soul falling backwards, the force of her magic hitting him even though he’s dead. And the blade calls his soul home, twisting the angle of her strike towards the tear I opened.
Midas’ soul screams, and he tumbles through the void. Eyes wide, Rapunzel’s grip slackens on the scythe, and I rush over to rip it from her grip, closing the tear before anything tries to crawl back through.
She’s breathing heavily and I kiss her, the adoration I have for this woman growing with every move she makes. “We have to get out of the kingdom.”