Page 141 of Between Soul and Vessel
“In exactly three weeks’ time, someone close to you will slit your throat with a poisoned blade,” I replied, eyeing the scars I could see forming on her flesh. Invisible to the others, but not to me.
“Who does it?” she asked, her hands wrangling in her lap.
“Just like the riddle you gave us, that’s up to you to figure out,” I answered.
“Light,” Sage said, grabbing everyone’s attention. “Light is there in the beginning of life and at the end. You can see it in water, but it doesn’t get wet. It has no voice, but it’s faster than sound. Light is a symbol of hope, especially in the darkness.”
“That’s it!” Artemesia exclaimed.
I grinned.My clever, clever wife.
Shadow
I’d been pierced by adrenaline’s arrow—I could feel it flowing through my veins, increasing my strength, sharpening my fight-or-flight responses. It had nothing to do with the bloodstained ground I stood upon right now. No, it had everything to do with the future, which was coming fast.
In a few hours’ time, Avriel and I would hopefully be very far from here, and that was what had my system on high alert. Today was the day we’d leave it all behind and find a new chance at life.
Together.
For the briefest of seconds, I glanced toward the balcony, looking right past the empress, toward the female standing behind her—Avriel.
Her worried eyes met mine.
I knew she felt it too. The anxiety. The worry. The fear.
. . . The hope.
That was the key to this whole thing.
Pulling my gaze from hers, I set my sights on my opponent, handing myself over to the duty I was here to perform—crushing souls. With each life I stole, the crowd only seemed to become even more wild. They chanted my title, over and over again—
Soul Slayer.
It was a title I had grown to hate.
A title I couldn’t wait to leave behind.
When the event was over and the crowd had had their fill of blood and guts, I returned with the other soul crushers to the underbelly of the arena to a washing chamber. Sweat, ichor, and death permeated the air, hanging over us all. The sounds of shifting stools, trickling water, and light conversation flowed throughout the room. I sat on a bench beside a few other immortals, directly across from Aryx.
His large body looked much too big for the stool he sat on.
“You seem distracted today,” he said, wringing out a cloth over a bowl of steaming water. He handed it to me.
“I’ve got a lot on my mind,” I answered him honestly, hoping he’d leave it at that. Steam curled around my hand as I took the ragged cloth. I pressed it to my skin, wiping the sand and blood from my arm. The heat felt good against my overworked muscles.
Aryx dropped a bulky forearm against his leg, resting it there as he peered up at me, his eyes like a hawk’s talons trying to pierce through me.
A small part of me wanted to tell him the truth—I wasleaving with Avriel. But if I did, I knew the danger it would put him in, so I kept my expression as hard as the steel of my blade and turned my attention to washing my skin.
When I felt his reluctant eyes pull away from me, I felt the smallest bit of relief.
“Oy! Water boy, I’m out,” Jacob, an immortal who I was certain was the descendant of a god who had fucked an ostrich, said, as he tossed his bucket at the newest member of our group, seated a few spots down from me.
The reason why I had developed my theory about Jacob was simple—ostrich brains were smaller than their eyeballs, which meant their eyes took up more space in their empty skulls than their brain did. The same could be said about Jacob, whose intellectual shortcomings were vast. If it weren’t for the eighth Wonder of the World swinging between his legs, I was certain the empress would have had his soul crushed centuries ago.
“I’ll get it,” I said, dropping my cloth on the bench before I stood up.
Aryx eyed me, suspicion growing. Water duties were reserved for those who were new here. It was rare for someone such as me to go get more water for another soul crusher, but it wasn’t completely unheard of.
