Reaper(Cradle #10)(127)

Reigan Shen had no skill at reading Fate. He had devices that did as much for him, and now they were screaming all around him. He could barely hear himself think over the sirens, alarms, and blaring screams of his divination tools.

When he tried to figure out why, he couldn’t get them to do anything but display the same message: A destroyer has come.

Among his subordinates, Calling Storms was supposed to be the best at divining the future, but now that Reigan Shen needed him, the man was useless.

The Sage could only scream.





Lindon was frozen in terror.

“Lindon, what happened?” Yerin demanded. “Who’s doing this?”

Her eyes trembled, and she looked to him for explanation, but what he was feeling from the Void Icon was too overwhelming.

There was only one phrase that fit what he was seeing now. “It’s the end of the world.”

“What do you mean?” Tears leaked into her eyes and her voice, and she grabbed the front of his robes. “Is it an attack? Is this…is this the Dreadgods, or…or a Monarch?”

Her voice shook, and rather than shaking him, she sagged powerlessly against his robes.

Lindon ran his hand down her hair. “The stars,” he said. When she looked to him for explanation, he pointed up.

One by one, the stars were winking out.

In Lindon’s spirit, Little Blue and Orthos were rapidly-approaching spots of pure horror. Orthos galloped up with Blue on his back, running with the speed of the Burning Cloak.

“What are you doing sitting there?” Orthos shouted. “Do you want to be outrun by a turtle?”

When Orthos battered into Lindon’s leg, Lindon reached down and scooped up Little Blue. Her trembling sounded like the jingling of glass shards, and he gathered her to his chest.

She should have been even more frightened than he was, but her trembling slowed. Little Blue gave one long flute sigh and embraced him.

Lindon sat down next to Orthos. The turtle was headbutting him over and over, but each one was weaker.

“Run,” Orthos mumbled. “We have to…”

“There’s nowhere to run,” Lindon said. He looked up to the sky and watched points of light wink out, one at a time.

Orthos lifted his head, and Lindon could see the despair in his eyes when he saw for himself.

A moment later, a bar of Blackflame shot up into the sky.

“You never know,” Orthos rumbled. “Maybe this enemy can be burned.”

Yerin looked at him for a moment before snorting a laugh. She wiped her tears and sat down on Lindon’s left side. “Always thought I’d go down fighting.”

Lindon took her hand. “I never thought it would end here.”

But it was the end. When he saw the stars vanish, he knew the truth without doubt. An ant had a better chance of resisting a boot.

He had to admit, he was somewhat bitter about that. He had set his sights far beyond this world, thinking it was too small for him. He’d fulfilled everything Suriel had promised him, so that even she had descended and met him again.

Now, after all that, he was going to die here after all.

Yerin snapped off a long stalk of dry grass and popped one end into her mouth. “Can’t say I’m smiling about ending it like this, but weighing all our options, we didn’t have it so bad.” She glanced around at their surroundings. “Just think: you could have died in Sacred Valley.”

Lindon laughed and looked over at a small sound.

Ziel was weakly kicking a mound of dirt, over and over. He wasn’t using nearly the strength he was capable of, but from the expression on his face, he was still taking out some long-held anger.

“Now?” Ziel demanded. “It had to be now? I pull myself back together, and the world ends!”

Yerin jerked her head. “Come on, drop yourself down with us.”

“Why? Is that the hill that will survive the end of all things?”

“You rather die alone?”

Ziel grumbled, but he trudged over and plopped down, still seething with visible frustration.

Yerin craned behind him. “Anybody clap eyes on Mercy?”

That got Lindon thinking about who they were missing. There were precious few stars left now, and even the wind had stopped blowing. Grass hung still in the night air, waiting, as the buzzing pressure behind the air increased.

He didn’t need the Void Icon to tell him that the end was almost here.

You’ve been quiet, he said to Dross.

[I am ready to face this despair!] Dross cried. He spun out into reality, smile crazed. [If the darkness is to snuff out the stars, I say, let us see what waits on the other side of oblivion!]

Lindon rested his sealed right arm on Dross’ head. “Looks like we’ll find out together.”

The spirit’s large eye swiveled to Lindon. [You did not abandon me, so I have nothing left to fear!]

Lindon’s heart tightened. Now, more than ever, he wished he had been able to meet the old Dross one more time.

Lindon glanced left and right. He tried extending his spiritual perception, but found that all he could sense was endless death.

“I thought you’d have popped in by now,” Lindon said to the air.

No one responded.

“Eithan?”

For some reason, even in the face of the imminent apocalypse, Eithan’s absence alarmed him. He untangled himself from Yerin, Blue, and Orthos, and he drifted a short distance away to where he’d last sensed the Archlord.