Chapter 40
Avi dropped Vega and Arlet gently outside the cave, her landing making the ground palpitate. She skidded to a stop and whipped around, snapping her jaw at Vega.
She definitely felt steam on the last one. Vega jumped back, a crack of lightning striking inches from Arlet’s dragon as a warning.
Death didn’t react.
Vega understood now. She was Death, the very personification of it, but the shadow inside her wasn’t a mirage she’d created—this wasn’t like the firebreathing dragon looming over her.
The shadow wasn’t an extension of her power. It was her power. The shadow was death… a living entity inside her, acting out Death’s darkest desires.
I am Death.
But Death was just a name without the ability to use it. The two couldn’t exist in this way without one another.
They were one.
Vega felt a weight lift off her mind, a soundless sigh of relief flooding her senses.
She had finally figured it out…
It was quiet, empty while Death’s shadow did whatever happened in the deepest part of Vega’s mind after dragging a god into the pit with it.
Vega spun around to Arlet, ready to find out what her dragon was so angry about, when the look on her best friend’s face needed no explanation.
Her dragon was pissed because Arlet was pissed.
Vega held her hands out, palms facing Arlet like Vega was dealing with an angry street dog. That didn’t stop this rabid canine… Arlet shoved Vega’s shoulders, sending her stumbling back a few steps.
“What was that about, huh?” Arlet asked, going in again for another shove.
Bridger intercepted before she could get a third in, putting himself in between the two… and a giant dragon. “Hey, hey. What’s going on?”
Khort grabbed Arlet by the wrist, pulling her back as she continued to charge towards Vega. “Arlet, stop.”
Vega let Bridger back her up a few more paces, staring around his bulky frame when the reality of Arlet’s mood hit her.
“Tell them, Vega. Tell them what you told Marlena.” Arlet flung Khort’s grip off, standing in front of her dragon.
Avi swayed her head, locking in on Vega.
Bridger’s arms fell from Vega’s biceps where he’d held her in place.
“What does it mean?” Arlet yelled. “Why did you tell her you’re Death?” She sobbed the last part.
“What is she talking about?” Bridger asked, his dark brows knitted when Vega looked up at him.
Her heart raced, but she said loud enough for the three of them to hear, “Because I am.”
“What?” Khort gasped.
Vega sighed, her head drooping down like she’d been caught with her hand in the cookie jar.
She’d hidden this from them for as long as she could.
Vega hadn’t planned on keeping it from them forever…
just long enough to get ahead. She had wanted it to be too late for anyone to try and change her mind.
There’s no going back. Her fate might not be fair, but it rarely ever was. Vega wouldn’t have wished this on herself, and if she had the choice she would certainly pick another option.
But it was too late. She’d already made the deal.
There was no way to avoid telling them, knowing what she had to do going forward.
“What did you give him?” Bridger asked only her this time.
Chills shot down her back.
He knew.
Vega wondered when he’d put the pieces together. “I’m so sorry, Bridger.” She truly was. For everything that had already happened and for all that would. “I don’t think any of you are going to like this,” she told him before stepping around and locking her eyes on Arlet.
“When Marlena cursed me to die, the curse promised my soul to the underworld.” Vega fought against the headache starting to build behind her eyes.
Vulcan didn’t go easily. He fought the entire way down.
Death fought harder.
“When I was floating somewhere between Earth and Tolevarre, he spoke to me.” She still hadn’t found it inside herself to say his name…
Not since realizing everything she’d done.
“He told me I couldn’t run from my destiny forever.
” Vega looked at Bridger, biting the inside of her lip to stop it from trembling.
“The sister destined to die.” Vega knew who she’d made the deal with, but saying his name would make it too real.
Vega felt Bridger inside her mind. She watched understanding click for him way before the others.
“I knew I only had two options. I was going to die right then and take you all with me, or I was going to barter my life for yours.” Vega could see the absolute heartache flash across Bridger’s face.
She hadn’t needed to see it though—not when she could feel it in the way her own chest tightened.
“He wanted the gods. I wanted to make sure you three lived, to make sure the people of Tolevarre lived. I wanted Marlena dead. This was how we all got what we asked for that night…” She inhaled a shaky breath.
Vega’s voice didn’t quiver. She made sure to sound as confident in her choice as she was the moment she made it. “He didn’t just give me a power. He made me his property. He made me Death.”
She didn’t want to leave them… but she would to ensure they got to see the world they’d been fighting for. Her life for theirs.
It was an easy trade.
“Gods can’t be killed,” Arlet said without much confidence.
“I’m not killing them. I’m taking the gods from Marlena, killing her, and then delivering their souls to the underworld.
” Since taking the first god, Vega had been lying alone at night, fighting sleep, afraid to slip back into the pit with Diana.
It didn’t happen every night—but it always happened when Vega let her guard down.
It gave her plenty of time to ponder, to ask questions she somehow eventually knew the answer to.
“You. You’re a god,” her best friend choked out, doing what she could to control her tears. “You can’t die.”
Everyone let their emotions roar to the surface, and Vega had a hard time ignoring them all.
She let her eyes sweep over the three people she’d always loved more than anyone else in the entire universe. “I did the moment I traded my soul to become Death.”
She hadn’t realized Death, in its shadow dragon form, sat at the edge of her internal pit, watching her with its hollow sockets made of moving darkness. It was bigger than it had been before dragging Vulcan to the bottom.
It curled up at Vega’s feet, a new, unmistakable warmth creeping up from her toes in a dangerous rush.
“The euphoria I felt taking Marlena’s fire…” Tears threatened to spill, burning her eyes. Vega blinked them away, refusing to show the others how terrified she really was.
“You took her fire?” Bridger asked, the same ice-cold fear she felt slithering down their bond from him.
A low growl vibrated the room inside her head, rattling the door to Bridger’s mind. Her fear slowly faded away, skittering like a scared animal under the eyes of a watchful predator.
Vega extended a steady hand to the swirling shadows of Death. It nuzzled its head into her open palm, and on the outside, the veins at her wrist turned black.
“Vega.” Bridger’s voice bounced off the walls of her mind and echoed down to the pit, where she could feel the newest god taking space inside her.
Death lifted its head and looked in the direction of Bridger’s voice coming through the open door.
Vega returned herself to the real world, slipping out of her mind and leaving Death to nap with its tail curled around the abyss and one leg hanging off the edge.
“I wanted to keep it,” Vega admitted out loud. “It felt so good. The strength, seeing the panic in her eyes as I took something she loved.” She wiped her dirty sleeve across the sweat building on her forehead as the morning sun broke the horizon. “I know I shouldn’t have wanted it, but I did.”
Bridger stared at her with a look she couldn’t place. Fear? Sorrow? Dread? Whatever it was, he’d kept the way it made him feel to himself this time.
“Denying the gods and their powers is going to get harder if it’s anything like the fire that burned through me today.” Vega took a pause to regain her thoughts. “But there’s no other choice.” Thankfully, no one was around. It was only the bonded and Avi.
“No.” Arlet shook her head, her curls bouncing off her shoulders. “No, this isn’t right. This isn’t fair! I won’t accept this.”
Vega frowned. “It’s already been done… There’s nothing we can do to reverse it.”
Khort did what he did best when he got nervous. He paced.
Arlet was still mad. Vega could feel it—they all could. “I refuse, fucking refuse, to let us get this far to lose you in the end.” Her best friend’s tenacity would always be Vega’s favorite thing about her… but when did that stubbornness turn to not being able to let go?
If this was the way to rid their world of Marlena, would they really choose to save Vega over every single other life in Tolevarre?
Bridger had proven he would choose Tolevarre over her—it couldn’t be that hard to get the others on board.
Bridger was too quiet, but Vega felt him on the other side of her open door as if he could see through into the room with her sleeping shadow of death.
“A deal is a deal. We can’t change it. I would trade my life for your happy endings a hundred more times if I had to.
” Apparently willing to add more fuel to the fire of everyone’s anger, she took a deep breath.
“I’m going to have to try and break the bond.
” Vega had once believed there were certain things that couldn’t happen—but that wasn’t the case anymore.
Nothing was impossible. “Our bond ties our lives together.”
It wasn’t what she was taking… It was who.
“It’s not just the powers I’m taking from Marlena.
I’m taking the gods, their lives, their souls.
” There was a short pause where everyone was afraid to breathe.
“I can feel everyone’s.” It was clear she didn’t mean powers…
Vega realized she could when she’d laid her hands on Jak while breaking up the fight.
He’d seemed to know something wasn’t right either.
“If I tried, I could probably snap whatev—”