Chapter 83
LXXXIII.
DANTE
The brush of a foreign presence against his wards woke him instantly.
Multiple presences. All powerful. All in his throne room.
Again.
Dante's eyes opened to pre-dawn twilight filtering through the windows. To the weight of Brynn draped across his chest, her arm wrapped around his waist like she was afraid he'd disappear if she let go.
Her breathing was slow and even against his skin. Deep sleep. The kind that came from feeling safe.
He didn't want to move. Wanted to stay here with her warmth pressed against him, her pulse beneath his palm where his hand rested on her back. Wanted to ignore the three presences currently in his throne room like they had any right.
But they wouldn't have come if it wasn't important.
He groaned softly against her hair, breathing in jasmine and citrus. His arms tightened around her sleeping form for one more moment before reality intruded.
Then he slowly extracted himself from the tangle of limbs and sheets.
She made a sound of protest, her hand reaching for him even in sleep. The bond between them flickered with confusion, her subconscious registering his absence.
He paused, watching her settle back into the pillows. Her face relaxed again, features softened by sleep. Beautiful. She was so fucking beautiful it made his chest ache.
She needed the rest. They both did, though apparently he wasn't going to get it.
He found a shirt and shrugged it on, leaving most of the buttons undone. Whoever had decided to invade his domain at this hour could deal with his irritation and informal attire. His body still felt hollowed out from what he'd done. Power returning but slowly, muscles protesting as he moved.
The palace corridors were empty this early. His bare feet made no sound on stone as he stalked toward the throne room. Shadows curled around his shoulders, still half-feral from sleep.
The doors stood open like an invitation he hadn't extended.
All three of them had made themselves comfortable in his throne room like they owned it.
Seraphina leaned against one of the bone-carved pillars, examining the edge of a blade she'd apparently brought with her.
Vex lounged in a chair that hadn't been there yesterday, legs crossed, looking far too pleased with himself.
Thessa stood near the windows, her form catching the light and making her look even more ghostly than usual.
"Why." Dante's voice came out flat as he crossed the threshold, darkness coiling irritably around him. "Are you here?"
Seraphina didn't look up from her blade. "We tried sending messengers."
"I sent them away." Three times. He'd been busy watching Brynn breathe, counting the beats of her heart, making sure she was real.
"We noticed." Vex raised an eyebrow, his gaze taking in Dante's disheveled state with obvious amusement.
"I was occupied."
"How is she?" Thessa turned from the window, concern softening her features.
Dante's shoulders eased slightly. "Recovering."
"We felt the transformation." Seraphina finally sheathed her blade and straightened. "The whole death realm felt it. Your power signature changed. Merged with something new."
Dante's shoulders tensed. The bond with Brynn thrummed beneath his ribs, a second presence that was somehow also his own. He could feel her even from here, sleeping peacefully, her dreams quiet, her warmth something he'd never known he needed until it was almost taken from him.
"Show us what happened." Vex leaned forward.
For a moment, Dante considered refusing. The memory was too raw.
But they needed to understand what she was now. What she'd become. What he'd made her.
He let his shadows flow outward.
The memory took shape in the air between them.
Brynn collapsing. Her soul tearing free, fragmenting, pieces of her essence scattering toward different realms like she was being pulled apart.
His stomach dropped. His hands started shaking before he could stop them.
His memory-self's hands closing around translucent soul-stuff that tried to slip through his fingers. The decision made in a heartbeat. Pour his own death magic into her, rebuild her from the inside out, give her enough of himself that death couldn't claim her.
Living through it again was almost as bad as the first time. His throat closed. His chest constricted. His shadows writhed with the remembered terror, the desperate need, the fear that everything he gave still wouldn't be enough.
Her body convulsing as immortality burned through mortal flesh. Shadows erupting from her skin, white edged in silver.
Silence held the throne room for a long moment while Dante fought to control his breathing.
"Great." Seraphina's lips curved. "Now there are two of you."
"She's considerably more dangerous than I am." The words came out with a pride he didn’t bother to hide. His thief, his companion, his equal. Now immortal and powerful and capable of things that would make other courts think twice about challenging them.
"That," Vex said, his smile turning sharp, "is what concerns us."
Seraphina snorted. "You look pleased about it."
Vex winked at her, utterly shameless.
"The death realm recognizes her." Thessa's voice echoed strangely in the chamber, layered with something otherworldly. "The wards stabilized the moment she transformed. The barriers between realms strengthened. She is what we needed without knowing we needed it."
She belonged here. The realm had claimed her as one of its own.
"Which brings us to why we're actually here." Seraphina sobered, all trace of amusement vanishing. "Caelum's shells. They're gone."
Every shadow in the room went completely still.
Dante's voice came out forcibly even. "All of them?"
"Every single empty husk he created." Thessa's tone was soft but grim. "We've spent the past two days returning fragmented souls to their proper domains. Piecing together what was left of them after his... harvesting." She said the word like it tasted foul.
"The Mourned realm is stable," Vex added, his usual levity completely absent. "The souls who survived, those he hadn't fully drained yet, are still there. Living in that paradise he built for them."
"But they need a leader." Seraphina crossed her arms. "Someone to guide them. To restore what natural death should actually mean, not Caelum's twisted version of it."
Dante's shadows drew in, defensive. "I'm not taking another domain." He could barely manage his own court right now, and Brynn needed him.
"We know." Vex stood, his usual laziness dropping away to reveal the power beneath. "Which is why we brought someone else."
A figure stepped forward from the shadowed alcove near the far wall where Dante's wards should have alerted him to their presence but apparently hadn't.
Dante went completely still.
He was tall, with blonde curls falling to his neck and light blue eyes that held none of Caelum's false warmth. There was a calmness to him. Peace, not the artificial serenity Caelum had manufactured. The kind that came from guiding souls gently, not consuming them.
"Gabriel," Dante said slowly, searching his memory for the last time he'd seen this Death Lord. Centuries ago. Before Caelum claimed he'd faded into nothing.
"Lord Reaper." Gabriel inclined his head with respect that felt earned, not performed. "It's been a long time."
"Caelum said you diminished." Dante studied him, shadows reaching out to test his presence. “Long ago. That you faded from existence."
"He lied." The words came out bitter, edged with rage that Gabriel was clearly fighting to control. "I discovered what he was planning. The soul harvesting. The paradise prison. I tried to stop him, tried to make him see it was wrong."
Gabriel's hands clenched at his sides, knuckles white.
"He locked me in the deepest chamber of the Mourned palace.
Bound me with wards I couldn't break, wards keyed to my own power so that fighting them only made them stronger.
" His voice dropped lower, thick with anger and helplessness.
"Forced me to watch as he collected souls, drained them, turned them into empty shells.
Made me see his plan manifest piece by piece while I could do nothing to stop it. "
Dante's gut twisted. His jaw clenched so hard his teeth ached.
Trapped. Helpless. Watching atrocity unfold and being unable to prevent it. He knew that particular hell. Had lived it while Brynn lay dying and he could do nothing but count her breaths.
"I'm sorry," Gabriel said, meeting each of their eyes in turn. The guilt in his face was genuine, carved deep. "I should have found a way. Should have broken free sooner. Should have warned you before it came to this."
"That wasn't on you." Seraphina cut through Gabriel's self-recrimination. "Caelum was powerful. If he wanted you contained, you stayed contained. We all know what that's like."
"We all missed the signs," Vex added. "His deception ran deep. He fooled us all this time.”
"The betrayal is his alone," Thessa said gently. "Not yours."
Gabriel's shoulders eased slightly, but guilt still shadowed his features.
"There's something I still don't understand." Dante moved closer, his power reaching toward Gabriel as if testing his sincerity. "How did Caelum sabotage the wards in our realms without us noticing? Each court would have felt his presence the moment he crossed our boundaries."
Gabriel's face darkened, lips pressing into a thin line. "The power he gained from harvesting souls, it wasn't just about quantity. He learned how to use it to mask his signature. Make himself undetectable to even the most sensitive wards."
"Impossible," Seraphina said flatly. "We would have felt the void where he should have been."