Chapter 2
Crossing the Desidero
Jesstin was prepared for intense planning, at least a few setbacks, even complete failure, but at no point did he fathom it would be as simple as just walking into the netherworld.
Except it wasn’t simple, not for anyone else. Ryquin wouldn’t have gone to so much damned trouble otherwise.
Elloven would still be alive.
He’d spent only a few moments on good-byes.
He and Sesto had already come to a place of understanding, and Jesstin was damn proud of himself for coughing out some semi-charitable gibberish for the pathetic Considine, especially after what he’d done to her in the sept minutes before she was murdered.
Bigger problems awaited him. He was going where no living person had ever been, at least none who had returned to tell the tale, and, despite this apparent impossibility, he was going to charge in there like he owned the place, track down Mon or another member of his arrogant posse, demand the answers they’d denied him in the labyrinth, and force them to take him to Elloven, and then if he could, he’d help them.
He’d never open a damn thing for Ryquin though.
He didn’t even tell Sesto that part because he couldn’t be sure others wouldn’t rip it from his thoughts.
If Ryquin even suspected Jesstin wasn’t going to help him, Lexsea would surely do something to Elloven’s preserved body.
Sesto wouldn’t make it out of Rivenholde.
You know what to do, mate. Jesstin’s final message to Sesto in the garden had departed with him as he stepped through the undulation where the worlds were only gently fastened. In the next step, the shimmer evaporated in a sharp hiss, leaving Rivenholde behind.
I did it. I actually fucking did—
An alluring orange hue put a swift end to his hubris.
The unyielding illumination was a punch of disorientation after the perpetual darkness of Rivenholde, and it had to be at least ten times the sun’s vibrance.
He peered behind the shield of his arm, which didn’t help much, but it allowed him a closer look.
Shades of saffron threaded through the sky, but also silver and violet, traces of chartreuse.
But the light was everywhere, not only on all sides and above but at his back.
Below was the soft, uneven support of sunbathed sand, sparkling like the grains of the shore at that sleepy village just south of Briarhaven, where he’d spent one of the few holidays from his childhood that hadn’t been erased from his memory.
Gentle waves lapped close to his boots. The indigo water was as dark as the sky at midnight.
The tide arrived without foam or crests, and when he looked out across the water, while he couldn’t see to the other side, it was enough to determine the current was moving parallel to the shore, not against.
A river then, if they had rivers.
More people arrived, appearing as suddenly as he had, milling about on the long stretch of shore.
Their tentative scrutiny mimicked his: squinting at the sky, trying to make sense of the water.
Some serenely took in their new surroundings.
Others were jittery and indignant, like they’d been ripped from life suddenly and were determined to finish their thought.
Most, though, stumbled around in confusion.
Jesstin recognized one, an esguard of Rivenholde who had survived the massacre with grievous wounds but must have later succumbed to them.
Another group joined, but they were different.
A dim orange light spread from the center of their chests, just below the hollows of their necks.
One by one, the newcomers paired with what Jesstin had started thinking of as the newly dead.
The people with the pulsing necklaces took the hands of the newly dead and led them down the shore toward a massive gate that was remarkably out of place.
The metal edifice was free-standing, crumbling in parts from the reddish rust along the tips of delicate curls. Some of the bars were missing or bent. Other pieces of the deteriorating gold-plated iron were still bright and glitzy, reflecting the unnatural light.
Large and strange as it was, it led nowhere except more shore, more water.
Jesstin approached, moving sideways down the sand, but watched to see what the other dead and their escorts did. Everything from there forward would be new. Even Daire knew less than Jesstin did.
But when the others stepped through, they didn’t emerge on the other side.
They didn’t emerge anywhere that he could see.
Jesstin rushed up to the gate, but an intense, nauseating force shunted him back.
Annoyed, he charged again and was bounced into the sand.
When he tried another tactic, reaching instead for the long, winding handles, they also rejected him.
Jesstin pushed off the sand for another round when someone stepped in his path.
“You wouldn’t be the first to try, but will you be the first to succeed?”
He looked up and into the face of exactly the person he needed to see.
“You took your leisure,” Mon said. “Did the necromancers not explain what time of day is safe?”
“You.” Jesstin nursed his arm but was surprised to find it didn’t actually hurt. The beating he’d taken in the maze felt more like old wounds. His cheek was still on fire from Elloven’s chaotic outburst, but that, too, was fading. “Let’s go.”
“You cannot rush the Crossing.” Mon held out a hand. “Nor cross without a custodian.”
Jesstin dusted himself off. “I take it you’re a custodian.”
“We all are, when we wish to be. It’s a system of volunteers.”
“What if you don’t have enough volunteers?”
“Then it’s no longer a system of volunteers.
” Mon’s smile died. “Those gates you lost to are the Golden Lattice, the formal entrance to Infinita Mori. Occasionally, a necromancer slips through the veil between worlds but finds himself trapped here, in the in-between, until another necromancer can fish him out. More often, they die here, because no one knows where they’ve gone.
To cross, you need this.” He reached into his vest pocket and withdrew a pendant so luminous, Jesstin shielded his eyes again.
“Bright, isn’t it? It will settle once you’re wearing it, though you will always have a glow. Like me.”
Jesstin regarded the strange necklace, the same as what all “custodians” were wearing and draping onto the newly dead. “What is it?”
“The more important question is... What will it be once you cross the Desidero and enter the Infinitum as a citizen?”
“Why are you asking any questions?”
“Only positing. No one like you has ever done this.”
“Do I even need it, if I’m not dead?”
“We’ll soon know enough.”
The last of Jesstin’s good humor evaporated. “Yeah, all right, let’s jump to where you tell me what’s going on without making me sing for it.”
Mon crossed his arms over his torso. The pendant disappeared in his glowing fist. “All of the dead are gifted their sacred flame before crossing. It affords them the freedom of passage and the gift of light, which you’ll find is a gift.
Those soul lumens in Rivenholde? A very small piece of each flame is available to the living, which they use to ‘honor’ us.
” He nodded downward. “My soul lives in mine, as others’ live in their own.
My flame, it is unique. There is only one of its kind.
There is nothing I possess that is worth more.
It is my light in the darkest hours, my heat when the ice has forsaken us. It must be protected at any cost.”
Jesstin had heard those words before but couldn’t remember where. “You’re already dead, mate.”
“There are things worse than death there, Jesstin,” Mon said somberly.
“Your soul connects you to your past, your future... yourself. It is what makes you uniquely you. Without you, you become a soulless specter. There are two—I get ahead of myself. We’ll discuss everything you should know on the ride.
But I need you to wear this. No, we do not know if you actually need it or what will happen when you cross, but if there’s any chance it works the same way for you as it does for us, you won’t survive long without it.
You must always be vigilant around others.
Many will try to take it from you.” He withdrew the pendant again.
It looked like any other gemstone, if not for the pulsing light.
“Once you put it on, your soul should fuse to the stone, protecting you. You must never take it off. Never let another wear it. There is nothing, nothing more important for you to know than—”
“Mon, will you put the fucking thing on me already?” Jesstin impatiently stretched his neck back.
Mon sighed, then approached to fasten it.
The metal was uncomfortably heated when it hit his chest, but the warmth soon turned pleasant. “Is something supposed to happen?”
“You’re not uncomfortable?”
“No, except I’m not used to wearing necklaces.”
“Hmm. Curious. For us, there’s a touch of discomfort, even pain, before it settles. How it works for you would be only a guess. Even so, I wouldn’t take chances. Protect it, as we protect ours. Are you ready?”
For what? He wished he could ask Daire. He couldn’t know if Mon could be depended on, but it was Daire who had to initiate contact, and they still didn’t have the first clue whether time would work for or against them. “First tell me what you wouldn’t tell me in the labyrinth.”
Mon glanced nervously at the sky. “We need to be across before twilight, or that pendant won’t be nearly enough to protect you.”
“Why?”
“You’ve come this far, Jesstin. If you stay here, you’ll never know why.”
Jesstin’s custodian thought he had all the power now, but information wasn’t his primary motivation anymore. “And Elloven?”
Mon’s poised posture faltered. “What of her?”
“She’ll be... across? On the other side?”
Mon directed a heavy frown at the river. “Yes.”
“Something you’d like to add?”