Imperial (Insight #8)(8)

He let silence take over the night, as he often did. You would never find a subtle argument with the Reaper. I never even heard him break the level tone he always uses.

“Pray tell. What adored would you seek out?” he finally said.

Well, if that wasn’t a stake through the soul, I didn’t know what one was. My line forgot me—that was my last act as a living sovereign. My mother—never. I still had rage for that woman. Vade—not. He did nothing to appease after our last fight. My Creator had vanished long ago. The Reaper was right. Everything I had was right here. Mazing and the Reaper himself.

“I seek change, Reaper. Each of our kingdoms should be free to pass through The Fall without question. The greed of my fellow sovereigns has not only stolen that right from my kind, but from all of humanity. There are lessons that are not only escaping us, but breeding ignorance.”

Mazing manifested at my side as the aroma of mint wafted through the air. Before I could turn or call forth a battle plan, the Reaper reached for my arm, keeping me from vanishing from his sight.

“Do you seek a momentary reprieve from my watch?” The Reaper stated, as if he had not sensed Vade’s line approaching once again.

I glanced to Mazing’s wide, waiting gaze, then to him.

“Is that offer on the table?”

He smiled humbly. “You are granted the first and only reprieve that I have ever given to your kind.”

I swallowed nervously, knowing there was a lesson or test here, one of the two. The time that I needed to guard this Fall in earnest was now. In the past, the Escorts I stopped would have ultimately failed. The Fall itself would have disbursed them, simply because their energy was not as powerful as Vade’s line.

The Reaper was giving me a chance to run like a coward or stay and meet my ultimate demise. Either way, I was doomed. If I ran, I would still find an end, but it would have been like my first death, the result of others’ actions—an effect of their ignorance. If I stayed, I would have a front row seat to the end of time and die fighting. I would be the cause that failed.

“I decline.”

Mazing let out a deep breath, obviously seeing this the same way I had. The Reaper only smiled vaguely.

“I shall rephrase. I’m sending you away from my watch for a brief time.”

I could not fathom why he would do such a thing. Was he trying to end Vade and his line singlehandedly? The thought enraged me for some forgotten reason.

The aroma of mint was growing stronger, moving closer. Close enough to strike. “Is it my Creator that wishes this, or Vade himself?”

The Reaper turned to face Mazing and me. “My child, by some measure the answer is one and the same.”

He lost me there. “How long? How long is our reprieve?” He had to know that I was not leaving here without Mazing.

“Your time is marked by the words you speak.”

“Meaning?”

He looked down, then to the threshold of my doorway. There, Rasp stood. There was no way he should be standing there. The power I used to send him away should have harshly landed him dimensions away from here, and weak as hell. That is, unless the Reaper had protected him.

“I have been assured that my most cherished confidant will be protected. In exchange, I have also assured Vade that no harm would come from you.” With that, the Reaper touched my arm, sending a warm, tingling sensation through my soul. I knew that tingle was meant to take my will to bring harm to anyone in Vade’s line away, including Vade himself, but not even the Reaper could subdue a scorned woman.

“You can’t be serious!” I seethed as Mazing held my arms back. She knew striking the Reaper was what my reflexes were aimed to do, that the act would have had horrible consequences. “You are going to send me away with his line, the line that basically has no care or compassion for me—and you took any power for me to defend myself away? What have I done to deserve this! How have I forsaken you in this manner?”

“You have honored me,” the Reaper responded, “and for that I granted this desire.”

“A desire of Vade’s, apparently. Boys club. Dead or alive. It’s a boys club.”

His smile was subtle. “No man is whole without his adored. Therefore, the club you have manifested in your thoughts does not exist.”

“Actions speak louder than words,” I bit out, throwing an evil glance at Rasp.

“I bid you safe passage.” And with that, the Reaper vanished.

I was now alone with my First, Mazing, and Vade’s First, Rasp. If I let this scorn in my soul rise and strike Rasp, I would not only have forsaken the safe haven the Reaper had given me for countless moons, but I would strike Vade. Creator help me, I still lacked the strength to do that, but I would be damned if anyone beyond me knew of such a flaw.

Slowly, I sauntered toward Rasp. Before I could reach him, he bowed to one knee. He was so tall and so broad that he was only just below my line of sight.

“I shall not bid you to rise unless you speak the truth to me,” I stated with the regal power I was meant to have.

“I am bound to do no less,” Rasp said with the deep whisper he was known to have.

“So if you were not bound, lies would come from you,” I pushed with an anger he had never deserved from me.

His ice blue eyes looked at me from beneath his brow. “I would never wish to not be bound to a grace as beautiful as thee.”