Imperial (Insight #8)(9)

Oh, he knew how to melt my heart. Just how to oppose my wrath. “Speak the truth you are bound to. Has Vade’s line merged with Xavier’s?”

“Has not,” Rasp said with a glacial tone, clearly trying to suppress the anger that was bred into him, “nor will ever, so say Vade himself.”

“Why was your scent lingering with one of Xavier’s?”

A sinful smile echoed on the corners of his perfectly shaped lips. “I struck him. But then I understood where he was going. I chose to let him live, knowing that he would lead me to you.” Seriousness returned to his image. “Time is of the essence.”

“Do you honestly believe that your king could not have found me in an instant if he put one ounce of effort forward?”

An ache waved across his stare. “It was my charge to retrieve you.”

I see. It wasn’t worth Vade’s time to travel to the Reaper’s door. Nice. Good to know. “Where are you taking us?”

“Home.”

My gut clenched. The only home beyond the shack my mother raised me in, and the endless light the Creator redeemed me in, was Vade’s mansion which rested at the highest level of The Realm.

“Did you at least ensure that all of his recent adoreds had vacated the premises?” I uttered with disdain.

“Sovereign, there were none for me or my sire to ask to leave,” Rasp responded humbly.

“Have there been in the past?” I pushed.

Mazing clenched my arm, and in a whisper she spoke, “Do not ask questions that you do not want the answer to. I learned that the hard way, my dear friend and queen.”

Wrath was my emotion, one that I could sense in an instant. Wrath was seething off Rasp as his icy eyes fell to the marble floor. It was hard to understand if that rage was for the fact that Mazing had been forsaken by a false adored or if it was because that act took us both away…then again, it could have been for the fact that Mazing had basically told me that more than likely Vade had been with others in my absence.

Mazing had every right to assume the worst of all men. I could bear witness to that.

“Rise.”

Rasp did so within the blink of an eye.

“Why now?” I asked, peering up at him.

“It is not my place to speak of such things.”

“Well, you better get permission. You can take me to the mansion if you will, but I do not wish to speak to the likes of Vade.”

I saw his jaw ripple as obvious emotion coursed through him.

“Speak freely, Rasp. I cannot harm you, obviously.”

His eyes bore into mine. “Sovereign, I have missed you dearly. I humbly ask that you not forsake my sire for the acts of less worthy kings.”

“I fault him not for my death. I fault him for his silence.”

He bowed graciously. “Then there is no fault to be had.”

That made no sense to me. None at all. What the hell had they been doing on the other side?

He extended his arm, telling me to lead the way.

I reached my hand for Mazing to ensure she was with me, and then we both vanished and reappeared at the edge of the forest, the beginning of the rest of the Veil.

The Veil always had a mass of souls within its field, but souls were temporal. That was not what I saw before me now. The majority of the souls around us now were aged. Chained. They were souls that I knew I had not seen in the procession, recently or ever before. This was torture. Something that should never be done. When a soul was trapped within this place, the life it was meant to live in its future went unlived. That set the course for destruction. The divine plan was forsaken.

I’d heard of other sovereigns threatening to do such a thing before my death, trap souls in order to have a constant source of energy. All but two of us agreed with their plot. Something told me they had gotten their way. They had created a feeding ground. Fools. This act would end all energy within time.

I wanted to turn back and tell the Reaper that the souls under his watch were imprisoned, that his Veil was in unrest, but something told me he might very well already know of such things. That it very well could be the reason, at least in part, that I was freed.

The barrier between the living and the dead was so thin that I could see countless realities set in various time before me. I could see the energy seeping into the Veil. Death seeping into reality. Two worlds that were not meant to cross for any length of time.

Each of the souls stopped their haunts, their conversations, and let their stares rain down on Mazing and me. A moment later, they all bowed.

The girl that I still was deep inside wanted to turn and ask Rasp who had forsaken them, but the sovereign I was bred to be held her head high as I passed them by.

Not long after that point, the gates to The Realm were before me. Their pure gold entrance opened wide, inviting me home.

The Realm on its purest level is a shared dream world. A dream that can be as wicked or as blissful as any soul would wish. In the beginning, it was the place that my kind delivered their sacred charge. In this place, souls of the universe would dream, and in their dreams their subconscious would release the emotions they could not bear in reality. It was a balanced meeting ground. Human souls would never even know we existed or had brought them much-needed relief, and our charge would be fulfilled, in turn nourishing our beings.

Once the war began, that all changed. This place became the breeding and grooming ground for each line of Escorts. Those that chose to fan the flames of emotions in reality and bring back such emotions to the rest of us were the ones that had faced every past deed in their existence. They were the bravest in my sight. I’d lived in the real world, and it was no easy feat.