Chapter 17
“The Calamity?” I demanded.
“Yes,” Raze said quietly. “We’ve been charged with keeping it contained. But it broke the barrier eight decades ago.”
My head started spinning. Looking from Raze to Kaito, I tried to process this new information.
“The Echoes of Calamity started eighty years ago?” I wasn’t actually sure how old I was, but I got the impression that my birth and adolescence had been an accelerated one.
I wasn’t human and I would have been born through the power of the Incubus King, a Fallen Angel, the Queen of Hell, and a Blood Stone.
It still felt strange that all of this would have begun before my birth.
“Yes,” Raze confirmed. “We’ve kept Calamity contained since the dawn of time, then it all fell apart.”
That information coincided with what Cole and Lucifer had told me. Calamity was a force of life and death, with no end or beginning. It couldn’t be destroyed, so the unicorns had kept it locked away.
I’d learned a version of that story from Fortune Academy, minus the unicorn part. Guess it was time to update the textbooks.
Kaito hummed in thought. “That coincides with Renee’s timeline when it all began. She took out Death’s caretaker. That was the catalyst.”
We all turned to him. When Kaito went into Professor Nakamura mode, it usually meant he was about to drop a bomb.
I furrowed my brows. “I thought that she killed a Fate Witch that was trying to take over the universe?”
He nodded. “That’s the very one. Except, by doing so, she left Death itself unchecked.
Calamity searches for a new caretaker, a task that Renee has taken on for herself to prevent.
She believes that death must find its natural cycle and if we can allow the Echoes to die out, the balance will be sorted.
Meanwhile, she must keep the three major realms intact—Heaven, Hell, and Earth, and in effect, a new Champion must face each Echo of Calamity. ”
That was more information than Fortune Academy had ever taught me, which made sense. Renee had been one of the founders and she wouldn’t want to air her dirty laundry.
All of this was technically her fault, something I would definitely confront her about when I faced her again.
She was a Fate Witch, right? If Calamity needed someone to manage Death, she should do it.
It was her fault that Death didn’t have a caretaker anymore in the first place, regardless of the circumstances.
Raze gave a short nod, eyes still serious and dark. Even his rainbow-colored hair seemed less vibrant. Nothing seemed to surprise him, so evidently this wasn’t new information for him.
“So what happened when Renee killed the caretaker?” I asked.
Raze slid his fingers through the red and orange layers of his hair, slicking it away from his forehead.
“Calamity was set free. Without the caretaker, there wasn’t anyone to keep the bind in place.
Calamity is a force of nature, one that supernaturals contained eons ago in the most powerful realm of them all—the source of realms. The Enchanted Forest.”
I gave him a raised brow. “You’re saying that this forest is the birthplace of creation?”
He straightened, flashing me a cocky grin.
“Of course. Doesn’t human lore mention something about a garden?
It’s close enough.” He scratched the back of his neck.
“Well, there’s a lot more to it, of course.
For every realm there’s a gateway, and that link is centered here, in the Ruins at the center of the Enchanted Forest. The network is so vast that we haven’t been able to document them all.
When Calamity was set free, it launched itself into various realms, but it can’t be in multiple places at once. ”
Hendrik grunted. “That’s why it merged the realms, first. So it could get us all in one place.”
Raze nodded. “The heart of it, though, lies here, even now. The Echoes are just that, an echo. The core of Calamity itself resides here, and you’ll want to avoid it at all costs.”
Kaito’s nostrils flared. “The portal to Hell is nearby. We’ll be quick and silent.” He glanced at the shifter. “You’ve risked yourself to come this far. Why?”
Raze grinned as if we were the punchline of a joke I didn’t get. “Oh, I’m not going any further. You’re on your own, now.” He gestured to a slight break in the forest growth where black sludge marred the dirt. “Follow that path, but I recommend that you ignore the voices.”
“Reassuring,” Hendrik muttered.
“Isn’t it?” Logan quipped before he shifted and scampered into the darkness.
Raze remained where he was, watching us soberly as Kaito followed suit. “Don’t try to face Calamity,” he warned. “If you see it, run.”
The crawling sensation at my nape punctuated his warning.
As we moved deeper into the ruinous shadows of the forest, I decided that Raze had been right—and wrong.
Part of me did want to turn back and leave, somehow find the path where we’d come even if I knew that was impossible.
But another part of me wanted to race straight into the shadows and find the source of all this chaos. So many awful things had happened because of Calamity. And it was here. I wanted to let my claws free and tear into it, destroy it, make it pay for all the awful shit it had caused.
“There,” Kaito said after what felt like eons of walking. He pointed off the path as a whisper lingered just behind my shoulder.
I whirled, finding no one there.
Right, don’t listen to the voices.
A heartbeat thundered through my chest, one that wasn’t my own and brought with it a blaze of heat to my core.
Hell.
We were close enough now that I could sense what Kaito had been tracking.
My nostrils flared as the musk of burning embers hit my nose. It wasn’t just Hell I sensed.
“Lucifer’s here,” I whispered.
Logan yipped. I’ll scout the area, he said in my mind as he licked my hand.
I wanted to argue. The danger here was so thick in the air, I could taste it. But walking ahead blindly wasn’t exactly a safe choice, either.
None of us spoke as Logan melted into the shadows like he was one of them, his paws padding over the forest floor without making a sound.
Hendrik stroked a comforting hand down my back as we followed.
The nerves inside me twisted, churning with the rush of adrenaline.
Hurry, I pushed the word at him, hoping he would heed my call.
All of my Virtues picked up their pace, my urgency infecting them.
A wolf’s howl made my heart twist.
Then everything went silent.