Epilogue
Aryn
You win again,” an ethereal voice floated around Aryn.
“Are you sure you’re not just letting me win?” a male answered.
Aryn rubbed the remnants of the Eternal Tryk from his eyes, brushing off the ice from his body. His chest ached fiercely, and he clutched it as he sat up.
A great hall of black and white. A faint scent of ale and ashen wood. There were no doors, but towering windows lined every wall, shrouded by sparkling grey drapes. A polished checkerboard floor stretched out before him.
In the centre were two white chairs and a white square table.
Two figures hunched over it, the one with their back to Aryn was hidden in a dark cloak, their hood low over their face.
Aryn stood, wincing as his chest burned.
He glanced down, but there was nothing there.
His clothes were damp, cold, and smothered in blood from the battle.
Samuel had killed him. His best friend. The despair and betrayal nearly drowned him, but he moved forward to keep the emotions at bay, lest he go mad.
He had no idea what the weapon was, but it’d packed a fucking punch. Strong enough to land him in Umbra.
Light poured in through the windows, but Aryn couldn’t make out what lingered outside. The walls were bare stone, and the ceiling was simple, latticework lining the corners with black swirls.
As Aryn approached the table, a chess game came into focus. The pieces were intricate, not the standard chess set. As he stared closer, the more he realised it wasn’t true chess.
It was the Galenite War. The pieces resembling those who had been on the dock, arranged as he’d last seen them.
A golden statue, outlined in black with an arrow across its centre had been knocked off the chessboard.
Thanos sat on one side, obscured by his cloak, his face hidden in darkness.
Long, white fingers tapped on the table, and Aryn gasped as he looked to the other player.
“Hey, Aryn.” Finlay smiled.
“Finlay,” Aryn replied. “You look well, for a dead person. What are you . . .”
“Doing here?” Finlay supplied. “Death likes company.”
Finlay’s blonde hair was vibrant and short, his dark eyes sparkling like a starry night.
Aryn’s chest pinched again and he rubbed it, frowning.
A white shirt fitted Finlay’s torso, tucked into black breeches and laced boots.
He ran a hand through his shorter, thick locks, his skin positively glowing with a beautiful radiance of death.
“You look dreadful,” Finlay mused.
“I feel it,” Aryn glanced at Thanos. “It doesn’t normally feel like this.”
Thanos faced him, that swirling darkness unnerving Aryn every time he saw the God of Death. There was a reason he’d kept his gift silent, why he refused to divulge what his true power was. His kind no longer existed. He’d been the last one left. Wiped out from an age-old mage faction war.
That is, until Kora.
Thanos reached out, his bony finger running from Aryn’s left ear lobe and down his neck diagonally. He hissed, a burn slicing down in the path Thanos had traced. It pulsed, flaring, and for a moment, weakness overcame Aryn, followed by cold sweats. He felt like dying all over again.
“Every time you die, your power is spent. I don’t like having to mark you repeatedly.
” Thanos procured a chromatic mirror from the folds of his cloak, holding it up to him.
Its edges matched the pattern on the ceiling, lines of silver swirling and overlapping with the darkness.
Aryn craned his head to the side, his mouth thinning at his latest tattoo.
A line matching the two on his cheek, running down his neck.
“You couldn’t have just kept it to the cheek?” Aryn sighed.
Three lives taken. An unknown amount remained. Thanos never confirmed nor denied whether Aryn’s lives were infinite, always making each trip to Umbra more painful than the last.
Thanos shrugged. “Next time will be even bigger. You’re upsetting the balance of nature with every life you use up. Perhaps you should stay a while, consider how you best stay alive next time.”
“No,” Aryn countered. “They need me. Aerion and Kora need me. I died in the middle of . . . there’s things . . . it’s a bloodbath. My body is down there, on an island with an erupted volcano. I have to get back!”
Thanos paused. “I’m well aware of what’s happening. Don’t worry, I’ve ensured your body is safe.”
“Safe? From what? What’s happening?” Aryn stiffened.
His heart thudded unpleasantly into his scorched chest. He had to return to Aerion. Now. The cold sweat increased, snaking down his spine, roiling his gut. He’d been alive for so long, he sometimes forgot what true fear felt like, tasted like. And now it was consuming him on maddening levels.
“How is Kora?” Finlay asked, his stare saddening, breaking the tension.
“Finlay,” Thanos cautioned. “We do not trouble the living.”
“But . . . there’s so much happening. So much they need to know! I can’t live my afterlife out playing chess games with you.” Finlay pointed to the bereft room. “Was John there? Is he okay?” Aryn nodded imperceptibly and Finlay smiled.
He had no idea if John still lived.
“This is more than a chess game,” Thanos answered. “I enjoy our time together.”
“Looks like you’re playing with our lives,” Aryn muttered. Thanos waved his hand, and a matching chair materialised behind Aryn. There was no denying the God of Death. He sat back, quietly waiting as Thanos observed the chessboard. “When are you sending me back?”
“I’m tired of this charade, Aryn. You die, I mark you, I send you back.
The fates will only allow this for so long.
You were supposed to keep Kora safe. You promised to uphold the skildaj bond for me, to keep her close until the fates decided her true path, and now it has been broken.
” Thanos’ spindly long fingers moved a chess piece.
A two-faced figure entwined with water, placed next to a ghoul. A shadow. An embodiment of darkness.
Aryn’s skin frosted, more so than from the Eternal Tryk.
Kora would’ve felt his death, and that fear spiked ever more, causing his fists to clench.
It would’ve been enough to snap her, he was sure of it.
“I kept the bond alive for you. It nearly cost me everything. What are you saying? That I’m dead for real this time? ”
“No, you’ve not exhausted your gift . . .
yet.” Thanos sat back, placing his fingers together.
The hood of his cloak swirled, grey tones blending with the darkness.
A flash of white appeared, disappearing within a blink of an eye.
“I’d like to know more about the mortal realm.
I fear there has been . . . interference with the fates.
Something that may have been predicted, long since when. And has been forgotten.”
“And forcing me into a skildaj bond with Kora isn’t interference?” Aryn quipped.
Thanos’ power rumbled in response, the light flickering beyond the windows, beams of darkness leaking through. The glittering curtain weaves wailed, Thanos’ souls racing across the pattern. Aryn froze, remembering he was sat beside the ultimate god of Devania.
Finlay cringed, his sparkling eyes darting between the two of them.
His stare begged Aryn to back down, to stop poking the God of Death, Life, and everything In-between.
How he managed to spend his afterlife playing games with Thanos was beyond Aryn’s comprehension.
He didn’t care—the only thing he cared about was in another realm.
Thanos exhaled slowly, evident he wasn’t going to answer, and the pain in Aryn’s chest threatened to render him unconscious, begging for him to return to his life. To Aerion.
“What do you want to know?” Aryn gritted out.
The slightest of curious white eyes reappeared within Thanos’ darkness, like rings of lightning. “Tell me, what has my brother been up to?”
To be continued . . .