Chapter 25
Voren
“Subtle as a brick to the face,” I murmur, watching Nyssa fight a smile that softens the hard lines of her jaw. It’s a good look on her.
I look around the hall. The stone floors are polished marble, the rotten wood panelling is back to its former glory, chandeliers hang, glinting in the shadowed entrance hall, and the smell of damp dog has been masked by a floral scent, wafting from the hundreds of fresh flowers in cases everywhere.
It’s a masterclass in deception, but I can still see the ghosts flickering in confusion near the ceiling.
Poor old Agatha is affronted that her favourite water stain is gone.
“It’s a lie,” I remind Nyssa. “But a pretty one. The rot is still underneath.”
“Story of my life,” she mutters, walking toward the back of the house where the kitchen is now a gleaming, modern marvel rather than a health hazard.
I follow her, amused by the way she tests the solidity of the new island counter with a sceptical thump of her fist. “Dastian’s chaos is thorough, if nothing else. He manifests based on desire. You wanted a sandwich; the universe provides.”
I open a sleek cupboard and pull out a loaf of bread that smells freshly baked. “Ham or cheese? Or do you prefer the blood of your enemies?”
She glares at me, climbing onto a barstool. “Ham. And don’t push it, Voren. I’ve had a long morning lying to my family and the Order.”
“Lying suits you,” I say, grabbing the butter and ham from the new fridge and slapping it onto bread with perhaps more force than necessary. “It adds a layer of complexity to that rigid moral code. Makes you interesting.”
“It makes me nauseous,” she corrects, but she takes the plate I slide across the marble.
“Eat,” I command softly. “You’ll need your strength. The truth is far harder to digest than Dastian’s magic bread.”
“Crisps?” she asks before taking an enormous bite.
I dig in the cupboard and find some. I toss a packet of Cheese and Onion at her. She catches it with reflexes that are annoyingly sharp, ripping the bag open before it even settles.
“You’re a savage,” I tell her, watching her inhale the processed potatoes. It’s strangely captivating to watch a slayer reduce herself to crumbs and crunch.
“I’m fuelling the engine,” she mumbles around a mouthful, not looking the least bit ashamed. “Now, talk. You promised answers.”
Dastian wanders in, plucking a grape from a fruit bowl that definitely wasn’t there a moment ago. Dreven materialises from the shadows near the fridge, sucking the warmth right out of the room. Nyssa jumps, nearly choking on a crisp.
“Must you?” she wheezes, glaring at him.
“We don’t have time for pleasantries,” Dreven says, ignoring her distress. He looks like a storm cloud poured into leather. “You want to know what is coming. You want to know why we are here.”
“I’m all ears,” she says, wiping crumbs from her mouth.
“The thing that woke the Tidewraith, the thing that stitched those corpses together... it isn’t a monster, Nyssa. It’s an appetite. A sentient void that eats gods and realms alike,” I say, knowing we have to come clean, at least partway.
“The Devourer,” Dreven names it. The weight of the word seems to crack Dastian’s illusion; a fissure appears in the plaster above the stove before sealing itself.
Nyssa stops chewing. “The Devourer?”
I nod.
She gulps. “I see. That sounds ominous.”
“And you thought the Tidewraith was?” I ask, arching an eyebrow at her.
“Fair point. So, it’s like the Tidewraith only bigger?”
“Bigger doesn’t quite cover it,” I say. “Comparing the Tidewraith to the Devourer is like comparing a puddle to a black hole. One gets your boots wet; the other erases the concept of boots entirely.”
Nyssa looks from me to Dreven. The ghosts near the ceiling are agitated, swirling in disturbed eddies as if even the mention of the name unsettles the dead.
“It doesn’t destroy,” Dastian chips in, popping another grape. “It unmakes. It consumes essence. Magic, life, divine energy is sucked down like a cosmic milkshake.”
“And it is starving,” Dreven adds, his voice grave enough to wilt the fresh flowers Dastian conjured in the vase by the window. “It has waited for this moment.”
“And what moment would that be?”
“Aethel dead, the Pantheon realm bleeding into the mortal realm—”
“Chaos,” Dastian finishes.
“Aethel dead. Does that mean she could kill it?”
“Not exactly,” Dreven mumbles and purses his lips as Dastian and I snicker. We know the truth he doesn’t want to reveal. Shouldn’t reveal. If she knew… she would kill him where he stands, and we would be next.
“Then what?”
“She was a very strong goddess,” I say. “It gave the Devourer pause.”
“Pause.” She narrows her eyes and inhales slowly before releasing it. She goes back to her sandwich, chewing methodically in silence until she is finished. She upends the crisp packet over her mouth and shakes the crumbs in before she scrunches it up. “Drink?”
Dastian magics up a pint of Guinness, which she turns her nose up at, but then shrugs and picks it up, gulping back large swallows before she sets the half-empty glass on the kitchen island. She is hardcore for a woman who probably weighs eight stone wet through.
“So how do I get rid of it?” she asks.
“We get to the crown before it erases everything in its path.”
“Crown?” she asks, her gaze boring into mine.
“The Wraith Crown.”
She locks gazes with me. “The Wraith Crown. Let me guess? That’s not a coincidence?”
“Nope,” I say with a slow smile.
She sighs. “I need more than you are giving me. About yourselves,” she says unexpectedly. I thought she would hound us for details about the crown, but instead she wants to know about us.
“Meaning what?” Dastian asks, moving closer.
“Meaning, there is clearly a hierarchy here that I’m not privy to. You either tell me exactly what the fuck is going on, or I walk and let everyone be erased.”
“Liar,” I snort. “There isn’t a single cell in your body that would allow you to walk away.”
She scowls at me, knowing I’m right. “Try me,” she growls anyway.
The problem is, even the empty threat is enough to constitute a problem.
“Aethel was the Queen of the gods,” I say, ignoring Dreven’s burning gaze. He might not want to reveal all, but we have to give her something, enough to appease her.
“And I killed her,” she says, looking rather impressed with herself. She should be. That was no mean feat.
“You did,” I agree, pouring myself a glass of wine that Dastian helpfully manifests on the counter. “And in doing so, you shattered the chain of command. Aethel was a tyrant, yes, but she held the door shut. With her gone, the draught is letting in all sorts of nasty things.”
Nyssa wipes a crumb from her lip, looking far too pleased with herself for a woman discussing the apocalypse. “So that mad man broke the seal, and I stumbled into a kill far darker and more apocalyptic than I’ve ever encountered.”
“You could say that,” Dreven rumbles. The temperature in the kitchen drops another few degrees, frosting the condensation on Nyssa’s glass. He is vibrating with the need to silence me, but we are past the point of cryptic brooding.
“The Wraith Crown isn’t just a fancy hat, slayer,” I continue, ignoring the death glare from the corner.
“It has been lost for aeons, not even Aethel knew where it was. But it is the only way to save the Pantheon realm and with it the mortal realm and probably every other realm in existence. They will burn to nothing.”
“We need to get it,” she says, simplifying a suicide mission into a grocery run.
“We can’t,” Dreven grumbles, finally peeling himself away from the fridge shadows to join the conversation. “Divine hands cannot touch the artefact without forfeiting their essence. It has failsafes against usurpation.”
“Let me guess,” she says, draining the rest of her Guinness and slamming the glass down with a definitive thud. “Mortal hands only. Specifically, slayer hands.”
“Got it in one,” I say. “You’re the only one who can pick it up without turning into dust. Lucky you.”