Destined to the Reaper (The Shadow Realms #2)

Chapter 9

Kali

N othing could have prepared me for the insane surge of energy that rushed into me when Pharos gave himself over. My entire body overflowed with Death Magic. I could see and feel things I never even imagined existed. Like walking at the very edge between the mortal and esoteric world, right on the thin line of the Veil.

Beyond the fleshy membranes, the luminous outlines of the abominations that lurked behind them now stood out clearly to me. I could even see the slight pulse of their heartbeats, and the purplish thread of varying length around them. For a reason I couldn’t explain, I instinctively knew it to be their life thread. Otherworldly whispers filled my ears, the voices of dark forces calling out to each other, warning them of the presence of the intruder that I was… of prey to be devoured. Even in the pool of blood, twisted blobs of energy indicated more creatures ready to surge forth.

I also realized I could drain all their life force with a mere flick of my hand. Despite the powerful temptation it stirred within me, I instinctively knew that I would never be able to contain all that energy. I would burst, destroyed by that excess of greed. So many sorcerers met their ultimate demise in comparable situations, too hungry to harness and exert power that was never meant to be theirs.

It took me barely seconds after Pharos gave himself over to me for all these thoughts to fire off in my mind. However, two forceful external tugs snapped me back to the dreadful reality of the moment. Although I had never touched minds with Cornelius, I instantly recognized his presence. Shock and anger emanated from him, like a slimy hand clinging to Pharos and trying to pull him back. And Pharos’s own body was also savagely clamoring for his return.

The instinctive jealous rage that swelled through me in response to those two tugs left me reeling. I didn’t want to give him up. Every cell of my being was screaming that he was mine to keep. For the first time in my life, I felt whole. The divine light of the Gods themselves filled every fiber of my being. Granted, the insane power holding him gave me would be addictive to any sorcerer in their right mind. But it was the beauty and purity of his soul that enthralled me. We were one, vibrating in perfect harmony.

We were meant to be together.

But even as those thoughts swirled inside me, I shut them down and began to remove the claws in Pharos’s body. I nearly wet myself when the Keres began to detach from the wall she was partially embedded in. Even with his powers boosting mine, I didn’t know that I could go head-to-head against a demon such as Grizelle. When Pharos asked me to use his necrosis on her claws leeching him, I wondered if he’d lost his mind. This would be a direct attack against her, overriding her offensive restrictions. And what if I burned the entire place down by invoking abilities I had no experience with?

But I intrinsically trusted Pharos.

Swallowing down the bile of fear trying to choke me, I expanded those foreign powers as weakly as possible to test the potency of their output. The ease and oddly instinctive way it came to me boggled my mind.

That my trust in him served us right was all that mattered.

No sooner did I use his necrosis than Grizelle screeched and retracted her claws. I didn’t get a chance to marvel at the fact that Pharos’s body immediately began to regenerate, as the Keres went on the offensive.

“You will regret this, human!” Grizelle shouted.

I felt faint as the eyes inside Grizelle’s skull hair exited their orbits to race along the walls towards the alcoves. I stood transfixed as the walking eyes settled inside the cyclops-like empty orbs of the Skarachs. Once more, I barely repressed the urge to use the Reaper’s powers, which bubbled inside me like a barely contained Tempest. It was too great for me to handle, especially in my current state of terror.

A second later, my wards went off, launching some of my blood darts at the first Skarach surging forward.

“Focus, Kali!”

If not for Pharos’s voice shouting inside my head, I might have remained frozen in a complete panic. I clamped down on the possessive rage that reared its head again. A horrible voice at the back of my mind was whispering for me to keep him, to run out of this wretched place, and blast his Death Magic at anything that would come at me. Even if I brought down this entire tomb, I believed his regeneration powers would keep me alive. But I would never do such a thing to anyone, least of all him.

Casting out such dreadful temptation, I leaned down and pressed my lips to his.

Although I knew it was only Pharos leaving me to reenter his own vessel, it felt as if my very soul was being torn right out of my body. His own voraciously dragged him out of me. To my shock, even as I felt torn asunder, I perceived the brief but powerful maelstrom of emotions coursing through Pharos before our link was severed. Pain at being torn out, bliss at finally reconnecting with his body, but also a tremendous sense of loss at parting from me.

It turned me upside down to realize he had felt as keenly as I did how perfectly aligned our souls were.

Simultaneously, Cornelius’s outrage and disbelief stabbed through our connection before it snapped, permanently severed.

I straightened at the blood curdling screeches emanating from the Skarachs swarming out of the alcoves. They flattened themselves against the invisible wall created by my wards. A few of them were thrown back by its repulsion. Opening their mouths impossibly wide, they spit some stringy phlegm that I recognize as the fleshy substance that created the web-like membranes sealing their lairs. That too crashed against the invisible walls, making it sparkle as it quickly damaged the wards. With so severe an onslaught, my protections wouldn’t last long before they were overwhelmed.

Invoking my Blood Magic, I reached out to the blood darts my wards had automatically launched at the creatures. I could feel them dissolve inside their bloodstream, giving me an anchor to seize control of their organs. There were too many creatures to manage them all at once, but I could tackle at least half a dozen simultaneously. I could only pray that my wards would hold long enough for me to significantly dwindle their numbers.

But before I could cast the first spell, Pharos inhaled sharply, and his eyes shot open. I gasped when a blast of Death Magic emanated from him, spreading over a wide radius to the edges of the outer platforms. It passed through me like an icy wind. While it left me unscathed, every Skarach clawing at my wards disintegrated into piles of ashes.

“You cheat!” Grizelle screeched angrily.

Now fully detached from the wall, she flapped her bat wings to fly over us like a vulture circling its prey.

I stared in disbelief as Pharos’s body exponentially regenerated, undoubtedly from having completely siphoned the life force of all the creatures that had come out. His desiccated limbs and flattened chest filled up as the muscles beneath swelled. His withered skin stretched, losing its leathery and wrinkled appearance to take on a smooth texture with a healthy grayish-brown tone.

“I do not cheat,” Pharos replied.

He slurred his words a bit, likely from the disuse of his vocal cords and of him still being in the process of regenerating. Still, his voice was beautifully haunting, although it sounded a little strange to my ears now that it no longer had that disembodied echo.

“I’m weakened by centuries of you draining me. I’m allowed to feed off lower forms of life to heal. It’s only fair that your minions should replenish what you’ve stolen from me for so long,” he continued.

Grizelle angrily hissed. That she didn’t challenge his words confirmed the validity of his arguments. My heart soared that Pharos had found a clever approach to protect me. Now that I no longer hosted any part of him, I understood the extent of the power enhancement he had procured for me. Without his magic, I felt as weak as a novice.

However, my relief at having the threat so swiftly wiped out gave way to another wave of worry as the eyes inside the skulls dangling from her hair grew back. The malicious grin that stretched her lips, despite her anger still visible, sent a chill down my spine.

“It is a long way out of the crypt, Reaper. That excuse will only last so long before your reserves are fully replenished. And I have plenty of friends wanting to play with your pet!” Grizelle said in an evil sing-song voice.

My insides twisted upon hearing her speak the exact fear gnawing at me.

“Don’t you have a battlefield to scavenge?” Pharos replied in a glacial tone.

His voice was already a lot clearer and his body a lot more defined, but still resembling that of someone a little emaciated.

“Of course,” she retorted in an indulgent tone. “And I will… once I’ve eaten your pet for stealing my endless feast.”

I half tuned them out and glanced around the room and out the wide hallway beyond the still open doors of the chamber. During the brief time I held all of Pharos, I’d been able to locate the potential threats and tools at my disposal. My mind raced as I strategized on the battle that awaited me.

Thanks to Pharos feeding off the Skarachs that came out of the alcoves, most of my blood darts remained intact by the wards. I knew far more Skarachs remained inside their lairs, ready to come after me as soon as their mistress gave them the signal. I wanted to believe my companion would devour them as well to finish healing himself. Although he was still regenerating, the pace had significantly reduced now that he had nothing else in range to feed from. Therefore, I summoned my blood darts back to me and returned them to the pouch hanging on my belt.

Even as she continued to provoke Pharos, Grizelle gave me a triumphant smile. The foul demon probably assumed I’d grown overconfident. Her face took on a taunting expression as the freshly regrown eyes in her skull hair also scurried out towards the dark depths of the alcoves on both sides of the room.

I dismissed her again. My wards would help hold off the creatures long enough for me to make a dash towards the exit. But as they were extremely fast and could spit that wretched phlegm with a poisonous and acidic coating, I needed something to further stall and ideally destroy them. Had there been fewer of them, I could have used my Bone or Blood Magic to take control of their skeleton or organs to achieve that goal.

Extending my senses down the hallway, I assessed the countless bones and partial skeletons beyond. Most were inert and with extremely low magic remaining. I discreetly cast a series of spells, reshaping some of the loose bones into spikes, and assembling the partial skeletons into walking constructs so that they could run interference to cover my retreat.

Unfortunately, there was no way for me to hide from the Keres what I was up to. Surprisingly, she didn’t attempt to sabotage it. I could only presume it was part of the restrictions she fell under. With dark magic, you could almost always find a workaround by playing on technicalities. Although she was the one summoning the abominations that would hunt me down, there was no law preventing a sorcerer from awakening their pets. Even though Grizelle knew they would attack me, so long as she wasn’t giving them the order to do so, she didn’t break her covenant. It wasn’t her fault that fiendish creatures naturally displayed predatory behavior.

However, a powerful blast of energy rippled through the room to propagate outwards and throughout the crypt. My stomach dropped as another wave of fear rose within me. Grizelle had sent out a call, like a silent horn blast, for all to hear. In seconds, malevolent energy surged all around us. The bloody pool bubbled, and fleshy mutants started crawling out of it, their twisted hands clawing at the edges of the island to hoist themselves onto it. Simultaneously, even more Skarachs crawled out of the countless openings in the walls.

Like the first time, Death Magic radiated out of Pharos, wiping out all the visible creatures. His entire body almost appeared to glow as his regeneration once more went into overdrive.

By the Gods, he was breathtaking!

Pharos looked nothing like the bone knight I had feared. Yes, he possessed some exposed bones around his eyes, and a few ribs on his upper chest and sides. But they didn’t look like the result of a decaying corpse. They blended harmoniously with the flawless skin around it, giving him a fierce yet elegant look. His lips were plump and sensuous, made to be kissed and devoured. His Roman nose gave him an air of nobility. And the three bone spikes jutting out of his chin, their rounded tips making them smooth, added to his otherworldly beauty. The hood attached to his pauldrons lay flat against his back, leaving his luscious, shoulder-length, wavy black hair streaked with silver to softly frame his fascinating features.

He suddenly sat up from his lying position. With a single flap of his majestic black, feathery wings, he hopped off the altar, hovering for a couple of seconds above the floor before landing next to me. He towered over me by a good head. But his mere presence, seeing Pharos whole with insane magic radiating from him, made me feel both fragile and protected.

He waved his hand towards the head of the altar, and the summoning circle I had created vanished. I flinched inwardly realizing I would have completely forgotten about it. Who knew how someone else might have used it against him in the future?

“Let’s go!” Pharos ordered before running off the island.

The sensuous rumbling of his voice sent a delicious shiver down my spine. Without a word, I followed in his wake. Unfazed, Grizelle summoned more of her mutants and Skarachs. My initial excitement at seeing my companion effortlessly devour them even as they came out of their respective lairs vanished moments later when only a third of the latest wave of abominations turned into ashes.

The others kept coming at us… Or rather, at me. While my wards held off the Skarachs as I had hoped, the mutants were crawling onto the island and crossing the bridge to give chase. My only blessing in their case was that they were shambling, deformed things not really meant to walk, but more to swim or crawl. None of them looked alike. They seemed to be the result of random fleshy parts fusing together with the occasional misplaced bone here and there. I suspected they had formed out of the remains of sacrificed creatures and people discarded in the pool.

“Time to play!” Grizelle shouted before bursting into a diabolical—if not maniacal—laugh.

She flew overhead past us and blasted her silent summons again. She disappeared into the next room, and a long, rumbling groan resonated loudly in my ears. It seemed to come from everywhere at once, inside the large hallway we were now running through, from the sacrificial chamber we’d just left, and even ahead towards the lowest level of the stairs maze. It was as if the entire crypt had stirred to life and was expressing its discontent to have thus been disturbed.

My blood turned to ice as the dark silhouettes of dozens of Skarach appeared in the distance, rushing from the stairs maze towards the hallway we were crossing. Without slowing down, I grabbed a handful of blood darts from my pouch, brought them to my lips to whisper an incantation, then threw them at the incoming swarm with all my strength. As if drawn by a magnet, each dart headed straight for its individual mark and buried itself deep into their flesh. I repeated the gesture twice before having to summon a blood shield to block the stream of phlegm the closest Skarach spat at me.

With some of them crawling on the wall, others on the ceiling, and even more rushing straight at me, I couldn’t face them all at once. Pharos dashed forward, deliberately placing himself in the path of the swarm to force them into a deliberate or accidental attack against him.

I felt the congealed darts spreading inside my targets, granting me the hold I needed. I fisted my hands and violently spread my arms as if to fling something sideways while uttering a word of power. Nine Skarachs screeched as they were sent crashing against the side walls. With another spell, I snapped the bones of their articulations, forcing them into a crawl. I repeated the process with another group of creatures infused with my blood darts.

But as too many of them now invaded the room, not to mention the abominations closing in on us from behind, I summoned a blood shield around me and then launched the bone spikes I had set up around the room. They shot out in every direction, some flying wide, but most impaling themselves into the monsters’ flesh. Their deafening screeches filled the room. Many of them fell or lost their footing. The most unfortunate ones knocked into Pharos, who happily dispatched them. The others scrambled to get back on their feet, giving me a small amount of breathing room to raise the bone constructs I had briefly assembled. They stumbled about mindlessly, clawing, stabbing, and biting the Skarachs.

In the mayhem that ensued, Pharos and I burst out of the hallway into the wide-open space of the stairs maze. My heart sank as I watched Grizelle flying around, the thick tentacles of her hair flowing around her nightmarish face. But gone were the skulls at their tips. To my horror, I spotted a few of them running at dizzying speed on crab-like legs that had protruded from the side of the skulls. They were racing towards what I had mistakenly assumed to be random bone piles. But they were the bodies of Bone Fiends.

I felt petrified as a first head jumped onto the jutting part protruding at the end of a Bone Fiend’s spine. It immediately came to life, its skeletal body filling up with an odd layer of thin skin while vicious bone spikes grew on its back. They would be able to fire those like arrows over an insane distance.

They were located on some of the lower and upper platforms of the maze, making sure there would be no way for me to avoid them. But more Skarachs continued to pour out of the alcoves along the walls of the maze. Seeing some of them straightening on two legs instead felt even more terrifying than when they crawled like spiders. They were a frightening sight to behold, with their impossibly long and spindly limbs raised menacingly like so many demonic swords ready to stab and impale.

In that instant, I realized how foolish it had been of me to ever think I could make it out of here alive. There was a reason people said the journey into Hemdell Crypt was a one-way ticket. Tears pricked my eyes as I braced myself for the inevitable. But I wouldn’t go down passively. I would take as many of these abominations with me as possible.

I threw all the blood darts I still had and raised what inert skeletons I could to impede the advance of the monsters. Between a flurry of Blood Magic spells to repel their attacks or shield myself from theirs, and Bone Magic to dislocate joints and break limbs and spines, I frantically tried to keep up with Pharos who was desperately trying to open a path for me. But climbing out of the depths of hell was far more trying than descending into it.

My legs were burning from running up the stairs while dodging the vicious assaults of my would-be assassins. My lungs were on fire as I tried to catch my breath between incantations.

And we were only halfway up the second platform.

A scream of pain escaped me as a boned dart pierced through the fleshy part of my upper arm and flew right through. I instinctively slapped my hand over it and whispered a healing spell. From the way it burned, the thrice damned thing had been poisoned. I could only cast a blood spell to keep it from spreading until I hopefully had a chance to properly cure myself.

Pharos looked at me over his shoulder. The fear on his face wrecked me. It wasn’t fear for himself, but for me. He knew I wasn’t going to make it. He spread his wings wide so that another volley of bone spikes from the Fiends would strike him instead of me, allowing him to slay the creatures that had launched them.

But he couldn’t cover me from every angle.

On the upper levels, the Bone Fiends were lining the edges of the platforms, pressing their foreheads to the floor so their spiked backs would face towards me before launching their deadly weapons at me. Between the Skarachs, mutants, and Bone Fiends, it felt like a swarm of locusts closing in on all sides, blotting out the light, and choking the very air out of the room.

With my blood shield too weak to withstand the brute force of the bone spikes, I summoned the Shield of Azriel instead. It was powerful against both physical and magical attacks, but it was meant to be used while stationary. Walking around with the shield active weakened it. But it would still be more powerful than the other one. And it proved useful until we reached the next landing.

However, a Skarach crawling on the wall suddenly launched itself at me, striking me violently on the right side. Too busy trying to shield me from the darts of the Bone Fiends on the other levels, Pharos didn’t notice until I screamed from the force of the impact. It sent me flying across the narrow platform. In slow motion, I felt myself lose my footing and fall over the edge.

“KALI!” Pharos yelled.

Time froze as I prepared to plummet to my death and for my body to shatter on the dark stones of the staircase below. The surface of the somber pool of murky water rippled as the massive silhouette of the creature that lurked in its depths stirred. If I survived the fall, it would undoubtedly devour me.

But Pharos dove down, caught my wrist, and all but threw me back onto the platform. I landed so hard, it knocked the wind out of me. In the distance, I heard Pharos cry out. I wanted to glance his way to see what had caused him pain, but the Skarach that had nearly sent me to my death rose on to its two feet. Towering over me at an impossible height, he raised his remaining six limbs to stab me. I barely had time to restore my Shield of Azriel before he repeatedly pummeled it with the dagger-like tips of his limbs.

I scrambled back onto my feet as the shield flickered under the brutal assault from both the Skarach and the other darts being fired at me. Using my Bone Magic, I shattered both his legs, but as he collapsed, he viciously swiped two of his upper limbs at me, sending me crashing against the wall. I crumbled to the floor, dazed. My teeth rattled in my head, and the room spun.

Pharos once more yelling my name was buried by my own strident scream of agony as a heavy weight settled on my right leg, followed by a sizzling sound as the acid of a Skarach’s phlegm began eating through the leather of my pants and then my flesh. I cast a repulsion spell to throw it off me. It felt as if it was tearing half of my skin off as it flew away.

As too many shadows closed in on me, I cast the bone bomb spell in one last desperate effort. It caused every bone in range to shatter and detonate like an explosive device, sending fragments flying in every direction, shredding everything in its path. The room blurred in a shower of bones and semi-mummified flesh. Feeling drained, I attempted to cast another repulsion spell on the massive silhouette that appeared before me only to realize it was Pharos.

Guilt fleetingly coursed through me as I realized my spell could have seriously damaged him. However, he looked unscathed but for a huge gash across his palm and disappearing under the bracer on his forearm to reappear at the other end and taper off below his elbow. I didn’t have time to dwell on it as he grabbed my upper arm and dragged me after him to one of the semi-hidden passages along the platform. He didn’t continue straight ahead but slapped his hand against what I had assumed to be a textured section of the wall. To my shock, a red light glowed around the edges of a massive set of doors, which parted open before us.

I blindly cast another repulsion spell behind me as Pharos pulled me inside a huge, empty room. My spell had been too weak, and three Skarachs managed to lunge inside. One of them crawled up the ceiling before leaping at me. I screamed, knowing I’d never have time to dodge. It vanished in a rain of ashes, as did the other two that had squeezed inside before Pharos slammed the doors shut.

He roared in pain and fell to his knees. Resting his palms on the dust covered floor, his wings hanging limply on the sides of his broad shoulders, Pharos was shaking, head bowed, as if on the verge of going into shock.

Despite the excruciating pain radiating from my wounded leg, I limped to his side, ignoring the pounding sounds of the monsters trying to break into the room.

“Pharos! Are you okay?!” I shouted, falling to my knees next to him.

Teeth clenched, he lifted his face to look at me. I covered my mouth with my palm, horrified to see deep cuts, similar to the one I’d previously noticed on his hand and wrist. This time, they sliced his face from the forehead, across his right eye, and through the base of his jaw. Other similar gaping wounds lacerated his chest and arms. Although wet with blood, his accelerated generation kept them from dripping. But they were closing at a snail’s pace.

And then it dawned on me.

Those wounds were his punishment for breaking the covenant… for killing without being attacked.

For protecting me…

Without a word, he painfully got back on his feet. I imitated him, grinding my teeth through the pain ravaging my leg, ignoring the throbbing bruising in my side, and the burning in my upper arm.

The look on Pharos’s face tore me apart. It was a devastating mix of sorrow, anger, resignation, and defeat. He straightened and cupped my face between his hands.

“You will not survive this, my Kali. I cannot protect you. Please, give me your soul. I don’t want to lose you,” he pleaded, his voice raw from the pain he visibly still felt.

My lips quivered, and my throat constricted as a wave of despair crashed over me. There was no arguing against the truth of his words. By rights, I should already be dead. The minute the doors opened, it would be all over for me.

I don’t want to die. But am I willing to give away my soul?

The visceral terror that prospect systematically awakened in me twisted my insides as images of Jasper flashed in my mind. I’d seen firsthand what happened when the person who owned your soul decided to turn on you. Pharos’s intentions towards me might be good now , but what if I angered him in the future? I barely knew him. What if centuries of Cornelius’s foul influence lay dormant in him and triggered at some point when I least expected it? Pictures of me rotting on my feet, my mind fading as my soul wasted away, replaced those of my brother. If the Reaper cursed me, no one would come to my rescue.

Accepting death now guarantees such a horrible fate can never befall me.

Such a monumental decision couldn’t be rushed. I would have needed much more time to get to know him better before committing to something so extreme and irreversible. But the clock was ticking against me.

Pharos was free. He would see to it that Cornélius got his comeuppance. I had lived a decent life. If I died now, a pleasant afterlife would await me.

An afterlife without Pharos and without having saved Jasper.

Tears of rage pricked my eyes at the unfairness of it all.

“Your stupid rules don’t make sense,” I said angrily in a teary voice. “Why can’t you protect me? I get that you can’t interfere with Fate, but every living being is allowed to look after those they love. It’s illogical that you should be expected to stand by idly while your mate or children are getting slaughtered!”

He stiffened, and a strange expression fleeted over his features. The gaping wound still slowly closing made reading him a bit more difficult.

“I would be allowed to protect my mate or offspring,” he corrected in a soft voice.

“Then why the fuck can’t you protect me? Am I not your bride?” I challenged.

“No, Kali. You are not,” he said in a factual tone.

That cut me deep. I recoiled and pulled away from him, making no effort to hide my shock and disbelief.

“So you’ve been lying all along?” I whispered, my voice filled with pain. “You were playing me all those times you called me your bride?”

“I was not. I want you to be mine, Kali,” he said with a conviction that left me confused. “I meant it every time I called you my bride, but you rejected me.”

“What? I did not!” I argued, even more baffled. “Did I not welcome you every night?”

“You yielded to me for the sake of this mission. But every time I called you my bride, you rejected my claim,” he insisted.

In that instant, the memory of all the times he gave me that title came back to the fore. And I indeed had systematically told him that I wasn’t his bride.

“Right… But… I didn’t really mean it. Like… You know…”

A savage roar and the right door whining on its hinges reminded me that we were running out of time.

“I accept your claim,” I blurted out. “I am your bride… willingly.”

My heart sank when he gave me a sad look.

“It’s not that simple, my Kali. For it to work, the bond has to be genuine. You cannot simply consent to earn my protection. This is not a commercial transaction or a trade. You must want us. You must truly want me .”

“But I do want you!” I countered. “Over those three days while you were away, I didn’t stop thinking how broken hearted I was at the prospect of potentially never seeing you again. I was wondering if you would want to pursue a relationship with me after this or if our coupling had merely been a means to an end for you.”

“It wasn’t!” Pharos said forcefully. “I want you, Kali. I want all of you, including your heart and your soul. But if your heart is all you can give me for now, I will take it to save you, if you truly want me.”

“I do, Pharos. I sincerely care about you and want us to be together.”

His eyes flicked between mine with great intensity. I held his gaze unwaveringly, confident in the sincerity of my feelings. Although he still seemed uncertain, Pharos leaned forward and captured my lips in a tender kiss laced with a hint of despair. I instantly melted against him, the warmth of his body and of his soul wrapping around me like a blanket. The entire world faded, including the feral screams and savage banging on the doors.

The softness of his lips and the hardness of his muscular body messed with my brain. He was the same lover I had been giving myself to over the past few days and yet, in the flesh, it felt different, in its own wonderful way. A tingling sensation spread from my mouth, down my throat, and throughout my chest. Before I could analyze it, a soft swishing sound followed by a wave of malice put an end to the kiss.

We both jerked our heads to look at the left side of the room. The nightmarish silhouette of Grizelle appeared to glide through the wall as she entered our temporary refuge.

“Come out, come out, wherever you are. It is quite rude of you to leave in the middle of the game,” she said in a tauntingly chastising tone. “More of my little friends have come out to play. The door is about to break. Time to say your farewells. Tic-toc, tic-toc, little human.”

“Fuck you,” I hissed.

“Wow! So mean,” Grizelle said in an overly dramatic fashion. “Clearly, you were not taught proper manners. But that matters not. However impolite you may be, I’ll still enjoy feasting slowly on you.”

“You will not,” Pharos said harshly, his voice dripping with contempt. “We’re done playing your little game. I’m taking my bride home.”

Grizelle recoiled, shock and a sliver of fear sparking in her eyes. “She’s not your bride! You still bear the scars of breaking the covenant!” she added, pointing an angry finger at the open wounds that still hadn’t fully closed.

“She wasn’t then, but she is now,” he replied smugly.

“You lie!!” she shouted.

“What?!” I whispered, my head jerking back towards him. “It worked?”

The most wondrous smile softened his features, and his eyes glowed with a possessiveness that made my stomach flutter. “Yes, my Kali. I told you you’d be my bride. We are linked.”

He kissed me, and the burning pain in both my upper arm and leg immediately dampened as the tingling sensation further spread.

His regeneration! He’s using his powers to heal me!

Healing was too strong a term. I didn’t know that he could use his powers to truly remove poison, mend injuries, or cure illnesses in someone else. But I welcomed this notable reduction of the increasingly debilitating pain from my wounds.

Grizelle’s enraged scream broke the magic. With a wave of her hand, she flung the doors wide open. The nightmarish horde that had been attempting to break in tumbled inside as if the floodgates of a dam had broken. They barely even got a couple of steps inside before Pharos blasted his death aura on a ten-meter radius. Every single creature that made it into the room and a short distance outside just crumbled into ashes.

But that didn’t stop the swarm behind them from trying to rush in. Pushing me behind him, Pharos turned to face the incoming threat, and flung his hands out sideways, as if trying to throw something sticky. Instead, a luminous pair of ghostly scythes appeared in each of his hands. A chain made of bones connected the two shorter weapons.

“No! You can’t use that!” Grizelle shouted, true terror descending over her nightmarish features.

Ignoring her, Pharos surged forward, swiping and slashing with both hands at the creatures. Every single one touched by the ghostly blades shattered into pieces, their bones piling up haphazardly where their owner previously stood.

By the ear-splitting, shrill sound the Keres emitted, I first assumed she’d also been wounded somehow, even though she was nowhere near where Pharos was battling. But then I saw the tentacles of her hair bleeding at the tips where the skulls previously dangled. I realized then that the scythe was inflicting permanent death to whatever it touched. I’d seen her regrow the eyes and skulls in her hair after the Skarach and Bone Fiends they’d previously animated had been destroyed.

But this was truly harming her. Except, thanks to yet another loophole of the covenant, Pharos was not attacking Grizelle, but merely defending his mate—me—from the monsters threatening me. It wasn’t his fault that doing so also maimed her.

She pleaded and begged him to stop, her voice drowned in the cacophony of dying screams of her minions. To my shock, Pharos stretched both his scythes apart, pulling taut the bone chain connecting them. Its glow intensified for half a beat before turning into a staff with a bladed scythe at each end. He flung it like a boomerang through the open space of the stair maze outside, and the blade just flew around slicing through countless creatures.

Grizelle fell to her knees, gaping wounds appearing all over her shriveled body. Only then did I notice multiple creatures outside crumbling on their own. The Bone Fiend’s heads ran away, abandoning the bodies to which they were previously attached. A couple of them raced directly to their mistress to reattach to her hair. Similarly, the spider eyeballs scurried out of the cyclops orbit in the forehead of the Skarachs. Half stumbling, half running, Grizelle stormed out of the room before taking flight. From where I stood, she appeared to be rushing back to her sacrificial chamber, where the spider eyeballs and walking skulls were also headed, undoubtedly to seek refuge from the Reaper’s wrath.

With their mistress fleeing, the remaining horde also scattered, most of them taking cover inside the many alcoves pockmarking the walls of the vast chamber.

I stood transfixed as Pharos turned back to face me. The deep wound he’d sustained for breaking the covenant to protect me earlier had completely vanished. He glowed with an almost divine aura and insane power that made my skin tingle. He smiled and extended a hand towards me. Without hesitation, I rushed out of the room and took it. He drew me against his body. For a brief instant, I thought he would kiss me. Instead, he took flight.

I gasped and threw my arms around his neck to hang on—not that I needed to, considering his phenomenal strength. As we flew towards the next platform, a savage roar resonated below us accompanied by the loud splash of water. I turned my head to look down at what it could be, but Pharos’s massive black wings blocked my view. A single flick of his wrist sufficed to draw a loud shriek out of whatever had meant to mess with us. Another big splash seemed to indicate the beast had realized the error of its ways and backed off.

While it had taken me approximately forty minutes to reach the sacrificial chamber on my way in, Pharos completed the journey back in less than five. He didn’t even slow down when we reached that narrow passage with the bone shelves on each side. He merely dashed forward and flattened his wings against his body at the entrance, shooting right through like an arrow, only deploying his wings again on the other side.

Undoubtedly lured by the previous ruckus, a few fiendish creatures poked their heads out from wherever they’d been lurking. But a glimpse at the Reaper sufficed for them to cower and return from whence they came.

Despite how quickly Pharos got us out, it was still far too long for me. Although his regeneration powers had initially dampened my pain, it was returning with savage intensity. My stomach roiled, and my head swam.

When we exited the mausoleum that served as entrance to the crypt, I was shocked to be greeted by the mid-afternoon sun. It had been so dark and somber below, I had lost all sense of time. In my mind, we were in the dead of night.

But the daylight lit a fire under the poison spreading through me. My skin burned and seemed on the verge of combusting. The dull throbbing in my leg was now feeling like a thousand needles stabbing repeatedly at the muscles all the way down to the bones. Even the wind blowing past us as he flew at great speed failed to cool the heat engulfing me. It took me a moment to realize the pained moans filling my ears were actually mine. Through the fever setting me ablaze, I felt the tingling of Pharos’s regeneration, but it did little this time. I needed more than just an antidote. Only magic could heal me at this stage.

“Hang on, my mate. I will take you home and tend to your injuries. Your thread does not end today,” Pharos said in a reassuring tone.

A neighing sound startled me. Through my growing confusion, I realized he had taken me to my horse. I wanted to feel ashamed for having forgotten all about the poor animal. Pharos settled me on top before sitting behind me. That confused me. Flying would be much faster. I doubted I could last through the long ride back home.

My head spinning, I attempted to cast a healing spell on myself but failed miserably.

“Rest, my Kali. We will be home in a second,” Pharos said softly.

The wind blew around us as if we’d been caught in a vortex. My entire body tingled, and a queasy falling sensation swept through me before settling. I blinked through my blurred vision to make sense of what resembled tall columns framing the entrance of an imposing mansion in an environment I’d never seen before.

“W-what…?”

“We’re home, my Kali. My home. Yours is not safe for now. Rest, my bride. I will take care of your wounds.”

I opened my mouth to ask another question… not even sure what. But my eyelids felt too heavy and my mind too foggy. A veil of darkness fell before my eyes, taking away my pain and confusion.