Reaper (Cradle Book 10) Read online

  Most of the time.

  Malice scanned these suggestions of the future, trying to piece them together, and realized she couldn’t. Some events seemed even to contradict one another.

  Something strange was going on. She had immersed herself into this world several times over the last few months, spending every ounce of her attention to try to unravel the future. She couldn’t allow herself to be caught unawares again.

  Moments after thinking that, she was caught unaware.

  Four shadows suddenly loomed up in her World of Night, surrounding her, like black statues that had sprouted from the ground. A bird, a shelled warrior, a tiger with a halo, and a dragon accompanied by clouds.

  She didn’t need her spiritual sense to recognize the Dreadgods.

  They lurked in the distance forever, threats that always existed somewhere in the world, but now they were here. Right now. Looking down on her.

  And with every passing second, they grew larger.

  Malice tore the technique apart and stepped back into the real world.

  “Dreadgods!” she called, and while terror coursed through her soul, her voice was that of a majestic queen.

  Carried by her will, those words echoed throughout Moongrave. Everyone heard as though she stood before them.

  And the entire city rushed into action.

  They did not panic. They had prepared for this. Shelters were opened, powerful sacred artists were awakened, emergency constructs were wheeled out of treasuries, and messages flew all throughout her territory.

  Malice herself reached out to Charity, who had contacted her at almost the same time.

  Her granddaughter’s voice rang in her mind. “It’s the northwest, Grandmother. Mercy’s still there.”

  “Then bring her back,” Malice ordered. “And move our people into position.”

  Lindon sat up with his head and spirit screaming.

  He had been brought to the second floor of his house on Windfall and lain on the couch. He had never entirely lost consciousness, but he didn’t remember much. Just the blinding sight of so much hunger, washing over the land in a wave.

  If he hadn’t been open to the Void Icon at the time, it wouldn’t have been so bad, but he had his aura sight and his perception and his Sage senses open wide.

  Even now, he was finding it hard to focus his vision. He kept sliding between seeing double, seeing blurs, and seeing only the colored wash of aura.

  A fuzzy mass of red that Lindon was sure was Yerin broke off from talking, appearing at his side in a blink. “Whoa, steady there. Don’t rock the boat. Can you drink?”

  A cup was lifted to his lips, and Lindon took a sip of water. Something waved in front of his face.

  “Still got your eyes? How many arms do I have?”

  Lindon peered at her. “Eight.”

  She chuckled, and so did Eithan, who was apparently still in the room. They must have thought he was making a joke about her sword-arms, but he really saw four of her, each with a pair of hazy human arms.

  “You’ll be fine after some rest,” Eithan assured him. “You were looking right at the field when it dropped.”

  That spiked Lindon’s alarm. “The suppression field! The Dreadgods…”

  He started to move, but Yerin had him by the shoulders.

  Eithan made a sound of reassurance. “Don’t worry, they aren’t coming. This wave of power is contained to the valley…so far.”

  “Is the labyrinth still locked?”

  “It is not,” Eithan said, grinning.

  “Then we have to move,” Lindon said. “This is our chance!”

  The door swung open, and two blobs of color came in that Lindon eventually identified as Mercy and Ziel.

  “My mother’s—oh, Lindon’s awake! How are you feeling?”

  “How did you get here?” Lindon asked.

  “The whole clan’s being mobilized,” Mercy said. “They set up a network of emergency gatekeys to take people west, to cordon off Sacred Valley. I snuck in, but Aunt Charity will figure out I’m here very soon.”

  Lindon slipped away from Yerin and stood. At least his feet were steady, even if his vision wasn’t. “We have to go in. Now’s our chance.”

  “Go in?” Mercy repeated.

  There was clear hesitation in Yerin’s voice too. “That’s a shaky bridge to walk. We’re not ready to go into the labyrinth yet, but you want to head in now that a Monarch’s getting ready to slam the lid on the whole thing?”

  “The suppression field is gone,” Lindon said. “What do our preparations matter now? We’ll have our full powers inside.”

  “Not our full powers,” Eithan corrected. “It is the domain of hunger madra, after all. It will slowly chip away at us as we remain inside, so we should keep this to a quick operation.”

  The blob of white and black that Lindon had determined was Mercy spun toward Eithan. “You’re for this?”

  “I’ll put it to you this way: if none of you come with me, I’ll head in by myself. Well, Lindon and I will. This is a unique opportunity that we won’t miss.”

  Yerin pondered silently, and Lindon could practically hear her thoughts. She was skeptical about risking their lives for no reason, but then again, the labyrinth was a hiding place for all sorts of treasure. And if Eithan and Lindon were going…

  Mercy turned behind her, looking for support.

  “There’s a way to kill the Dreadgods in there?” Ziel asked.

  Lindon nodded.

  Ziel sighed. “And I’m part of the team?”

  Lindon nodded again.

  Ziel sighed again, more heavily. “And I still have some time left in my contract. Ah, well.” He walked out the door, leaving the other four of them behind.

  “I don’t…” Mercy’s voice shook. “I can’t…Lindon, my mother…if she shows up and we’re still inside, she could…I don’t even know. She could seal us inside, but it might be worse if she didn’t. She’ll have our heads for this.”

  There was something worse, something that no one had brought up yet, but Lindon remained silent.

  Eithan slid up to his side and elbowed him. Lindon shifted away but remained quiet.

  Yerin looked at the two of them, leaning close enough that Lindon could make out her face, and then she sighed as though she’d seen something in Lindon’s eyes.

  “What?” Mercy asked.

  “Somebody turned off the field,” Yerin said, speaking for all of them.

  Lindon was certain that was the case, but he still protested. “It could have been natural decay after the damage from the Titan.”

  “But it wasn’t,” Eithan followed up. “Someone modified the function of the labyrinth with intention. Now, they may not have intended to deactivate the suppression field, but they certainly intended to change something.”

  “How do you know?” Mercy asked.

  Lindon answered that. “The power shifted beneath the valley. Samara’s ring is now fueled by different aspects of madra than it was before. You could automate that, but there wouldn’t be any reason for it. If it was just damage from the Titan breaking the field, then we would have expected to see the suppression weakening before that. And Eithan…”

  Eithan picked it up. “If I was indeed sensing a disruption in Fate, as now seems likely, then it must have been caused by someone. By every popular theory, natural cause and effect should not change Fate.”

  Mercy let out a heavy breath. “How many people could get down there and make changes in the script formation?”

  “I can’t see anyone below Sage or Herald having the ability to both survive and alter its workings,” Eithan said.

  “So we’ve got a real fight coming,” Yerin said.

  “Only if we go in,” Lindon said, fixing his gaze on Mercy. He tried to make his eyes clear. “I’ve gone through an abandoned laboratory before, and I was alone. Orthos was too injured to help. We have a limited window here, and I want the whole team with us.”

  Mercy straightened
, and even with Lindon’s compromised vision, he could see her brighten up. “We’re a team?”

  “Of course we are,” Yerin said immediately.

  “Eithan said he and I would go in alone,” Lindon continued, “but I don’t want to do that. We’ve only got one shot at this, so let’s make it our best one.”

  Mercy paced anxiously, tapping her staff on the floor with every other step. “I don’t want to go up against an unknown enemy and the Dreadgods and whatever’s in the labyrinth and probably my mother.”

  “That sounds like an adventure!” Eithan said.

  Mercy’s voice was grim. “There’s no way this ends well. No way. Even if we get what we’re after and make it out, the Monarchs will punish us. Do we all know that?”

  “You’ll have to walk me through how that’s different than now,” Yerin said.

  “That was a worthy warning, Mercy!” Eithan declared. “Let us count the cost before we dive headfirst into one of the most dangerous places on the planet.”

  Lindon thought longer before he answered. He could easily see the Monarchs taking a closer look at him than he wanted.

  Though that was a normal consequence of gaining more power. The higher you climbed, the more eyes were on you.

  “I understand,” Lindon said at last.

  Mercy clicked her tongue. “Fine, then let’s get going. Maybe if I’m with you, my mother will hesitate before she locks us all inside.”

  Or maybe she won’t, Lindon thought. He remembered Malice’s attitude toward Mercy in the Uncrowned King tournament.

  But he wasn’t callous enough to say that out loud.

  Belatedly, he realized something he’d forgotten. “I should have let Orthos out! He needs to hear this.”

  “Can’t he hear every thought that goes through your head?” Yerin asked.

  “No, he just gets impressions. He’s not Dross.” Lindon realized something even as he spoke. “…and we need Dross.”

  He had waited for the better part of a year. Dross was as stable as he was going to get. Lindon had hoped for Dross to wake on his own—or for Northstrider to contact him—but without those things, there was only one thing he could try.

  Without waiting for anyone else, Lindon opened his void key. He summoned a scripted box of stable, Forged dream madra that he had prepared. With his hunger arm mobile now, he didn’t need his goldsteel tongs.

  And he had prepared for this operation for a long time.

  Eithan’s eyes widened. “Decisive! Best of luck to you.”

  “You’re not going to try and fix him here, are you?” Mercy sounded horrified.

  Yerin gripped his shoulder, lending him strength. He reached into his own soul and found the slowly spinning purple orb at the base of his skull.

  As he had done with his mother months ago, he projected Dross’ internal structure into the air. Purple rings expanded until they spun in midair around them all.

  The largest ring was still thinner in one section than anywhere else. Lindon took a deep breath to steady himself, and another. Then he grabbed a loop of dream madra from the chest and, in one motion, fused it to the ring from Dross’ spirit with a lick of soulfire.

  The change was immediate.

  Purple light flashed through the ring, and then in the smaller rings around that one. It moved through the entirety of Dross’ spirit in a chain reaction, faster and faster. Lindon couldn’t slow down his breath any longer. His heart pounded.

  The enlarged loops of dream madra collapsed as Dross returned to Lindon. Something was changing and squirming inside of him, and Lindon couldn’t fully understand what.

  Finally, the dream-spirit inside Lindon slowed and stopped spinning. Lindon waited to hear something…but after only a few seconds, he could wait no longer.

  “Dross?”

  At the sound of that word, power spun out of Lindon’s spirit. A purple blob appeared in midair next to him…but it wasn’t as dark a purple as before. It was pale and washed-out, almost gray.

  [Ready to comply,] Dross said in their heads.

  Lindon’s heart stopped.

  Everyone stared at Dross in shock.

  Lindon’s joy overwhelmed his surprise, and he grabbed Dross in his Remnant hand. “Dross! Are you okay? Do you…remember me?”

  [Wei Shi Lindon,] Dross recited, [adopted into the Arelius family. You were responsible for my evolution in the Ghostwater facility, and for introducing me to the Monarch Northstrider.]

  It was Dross’ voice, but just a dry and passionless recital of words. In that way, it didn’t sound like Dross at all.

  Lindon’s excitement sank into his stomach. “How are you feeling?”

  [My condition is functional. No significant abnormalities to report.]

  Collective sounds of disappointment went up from the humans in the room. Eithan placed a hand on Lindon’s shoulder.

  “His personality could still recover,” Eithan said sympathetically.

  Lindon agreed, but he wasn’t optimistic. “There are adjustments we can try…but the more we change, the less time we have.”

  “This labyrinth contains tools from some of the greatest Soulsmiths of all time,” Eithan said.

  “Good. We’ll look for anything that might help.”

  Lindon turned to Dross and focused, the blur in his vision retreating for a moment. “I’m going to fix you,” he promised.

  [Unnecessary. I am largely operational.]

  “Don’t you remember what you used to be like?”

  [I recall. My idiosyncrasies were left over from the component spirits used to construct me. They added nothing to my function, and I think you will find my operations significantly improved.]

  Dross’ form was the same as before—one large eye, one mouth filled with sharp-looking teeth, and two boneless pseudopod arms. The only difference was the pale gray cast to his skin.

  But his expression was blank. He spoke like a construct reporting exact words.

  It gripped Lindon’s gut with grief, as though he’d lost Dross all over again. But there was still hope, so he kept his words clipped and straightforward.

  “The idiosyncrasies were important to me,” Lindon said. “If you come up with a way to restore them, tell me immediately.”

  [Acknowledged.] A faint frown appeared on Dross’ face. [I will attempt to reconstruct my persona in accordance with my memories.]

  “You do that.” Lindon looked to the rest of them, and he could almost see them. “In the meantime, let’s get ready to leave.”

  “Not much to get ready,” Yerin said. “Got my sword, got my void key.”

  Mercy dashed for the door. “I do need to get ready! Give me two minutes!”

  “Someone probably ought to catch Ziel,” Eithan noted.

  Lindon was still watching Dross, looking for a shred of the individual he used to be. “I’ll tell Orthos and Little Blue. In the meantime, Dross, what do you know about the labyrinth?”

  [Information requested: history of the western labyrinth,] Dross intoned.

  But nothing happened. Usually, when Dross spoke like that, Lindon’s mind was taken over by a vision.

  [Error: synchronization denied. No access available.] Dross shook himself. [I apologize. That was very strange. I will rely solely on my own memory.]

  That statement piqued Lindon’s curiosity. “Were you not always relying on your own memory?”

  [I…do not believe so. My apologies. My memories are more fragmented than I realized.]

  Lindon renewed his resolve to fix the spirit.

  [What you call the labyrinth is also known as the western labyrinth, the Dreadgod labyrinth, the First Tomb, the forgotten maze, and several other titles that may or may not apply to this location. It extends all over the world, but its largest—and presumably most central—hub is located under the land you call Sacred Valley.

  [Records of its purpose and contents are incomplete and often contradictory. It is called the birthplace of the Dreadgods, but other claims di
spute this, suggesting that it was a place where samples of the Dreadgods were studied. Records seem to agree that it was the birthplace of the lesser copies known as dreadbeasts.

  [Studies refer to an entity sealed in the labyrinth known as Subject One, though this individual’s true identity is unknown. Subject One is referred to alternately as “it” and “he,” implying it to possess intelligence and identity of some kind. He is always referenced in conjunction with hunger madra, and is either its source or its first host.

  [Inside, we should find creations of hunger madra, as well as relics and security measures left by the Soulsmiths of old, many of which will be extraordinarily dangerous. I am reminded of the Ghostwater facility, only I will have no map and no security access. And this location is known as a labyrinth primarily due to its impossibility to navigate.]

  As Lindon absorbed this information, he looked over to Eithan. “How long will it take us to get there?”

  Eithan paused a moment before gesturing to the massive windows. “We’re here. We don’t want to head any further into Sacred Valley in case the field reactivates.”

  Yerin leaned closer to look into Lindon’s eyes, but Lindon didn’t acknowledge his own blindness. He was recovering anyway.

  “All right, then let’s go,” Lindon said. “Without the suppression field, we should be able to move quickly. The sooner we’re in and out, the better.”

  With luck, they could move full speed in the labyrinth. They might even be able to make it to the bottom and back up in less than a day.

  Though Lindon doubted it.

  [Yes, by all means let us rush headfirst into danger,] Dross said. [There is no way that it will result in all of our deaths. Ha ha.]

  The delivery was so dry and toneless that it made Lindon shiver.

  “Dross, you can stop that.”

  [I was emulating my previous persona.]

  “I know. It’s…unnerving.”

  [Acknowledged. Next time, I will attempt a more accurate impression.]

  9

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