Page 18 of Wild Ivy
“Mazzarat?” I prompt when he has no snide comment. “Is he right?”
A resounding silence fills the forest where not even we dare to breathe while we wait.
And then Mazzarat speaks.
9
IVY
“The warlock is correct,”Mazzarat says, his voice somehow now echoing all around us. “Up to a point. If you can draw the escaped souls to a central location, it could create enough of a disturbance in the fabric of reality to allow you to reset the timeline.”
“Resetthe timeline?” I ask warily. “What exactly does that mean?”
“It means undoing the damage you fools caused when you reversed time,” he snaps. “But it’s not without risks.”
“Of course it’s not,” Bram mutters. “What kind of risks are we talking about?”
Mazzarat’s response is grim. “Best case scenario, reality snaps back into place, and only you four remember what happened. Worst case... well, let’s just say universal annihilation is a possibility.”
“Fuck,” Torin mutters.
“So how do we do this without the annihilation part?” Tate asks, his face set with determination.
“We need to call them back to you,” Mazzarat states.
I nod slowly. “Okay, and then what?”
“Then you use your collective power to reset the timeline. All of you together have enough energy to generate enough force to have reality snap back into place. Think of it like a saggy elastic band that hasn’t quite fit around the circumference of the realms. You need to put it back into place.”
Bram looks sceptical. “And how exactly do we do that without tearing reality apart in the process?”
“Very carefully,” Mazzarat replies dryly. “It will require precise control and timing from all of you.”
I take a deep breath, trying to wrap my head around what we need to do. “Okay, so first, we need to draw all the escaped souls to us. How do we do that?”
“You’re Death now,” Mazzarat says. “Call to them. They’ll come.”
“Right,” I mutter. “Easy peasey.”
Closing my eyes, I reach deep within myself, tapping into the wellspring of Death’s power. I focus on the escaped souls, sending out a silent call across realities.Come to me. It’s time to return.
I chew the inside of my lip as my desperate call to the souls does absolutely fuck all.
“Again,” David whispers. “You can do this, Ivy.”
I nod and put my back into it.Come to me, you fucking cunts. Playtime is over, and it’s time to get your fucking arses back inside the void.
“That’s the spirit!” David cheers.
“Get ready,” I warn the others as I open my eyes. “This could get intense. They arepissed.”
The air around us ripples and distorts. Ghostly figures materialise, more and more appearing by the second. Warriors, criminals, monsters - the worst of the worst that Death has claimed over millennia.
I stand my ground as the horde of angry souls drifts around us, their ethereal forms flickering and pulsing with malevolent energy. There are hundreds, maybe thousands of them, filling the forest as far as I can see.
“So, is this the army that will fight Life?” Bram mutters, his eyes wide as he takes in the spectral army surrounding us.
Life. Lila. I’d almost forgotten about that bitch with this little sidetrack we went on.
