Chapter 24. The Realm of Death.

“What do you mean, find them?” Shawn asked. “Veronica, we watched them die.”

“You still don’t understand, do you?” Veronica asked. “People like us don’t stay dead anymore, Shawn. We become Reborn.”

“You’re right, I don’t understand. None of this makes any sense.” Shawn rubbed his wrist, wincing as pain burned across the cut. Did I make the wrong choice? he asked inside.

“I believe this is the most sensical path. And I know one day, you’ll believe it, too.”

“We watched Molly get swallowed whole by a Renjin. And Dylan…” Shawn felt nauseous to think about what happened to Dylan. “They aren’t coming back.”

“It’s just a shell. They can find a new one,” Veronica said.

“They’re dead, Vee,” Shawn said back. “You can’t fix dead.”

“Are you so sure? Because I’ve seen the truth. And the truth disagrees. They can be reborn. And so can everyone else.” Veronica shook her head. “How can you believe I’m really Manie’s sister–but not this? You can’t have one without the other.”

Shawn scratched the back of his head and refused to answer her question.

“Everytime I think about how close we are to making my visions become real, I shiver,” Veronica said, twisting away. “The amount of pain we’ll erase will be unmeasurable. So many destroyed lives and futures can be restored. A world of dreams come back to life.” Her eyes twinkled in the candle and torch light.

Shawn felt lifted by her words. He was a Protector, and the light in his heart was beginning to believe this was the right way to go, even if his mind wasn’t fully convinced. “It sounds like a paradise. Like it’s way too good to be true.”

“It will be true, with your help,” Veronica said, her eyes drifting towards the floor. “Did you know that the first time Molly and Dylan died was seventy years ago?” She asked. “When we were kids, I made a lot of mistakes. I was more stupid than I ever wanted to believe I was. But they looked up to me–like I was their big sister…or…something. Do you remember the key I used to get us into the temple in the forest? Well, Darko sent us to steal that key from a shop back then. We got the key, but I tried to sell it instead of turn it in, and when the buyer I found told me what the key could unlock–that it could open the doorway to a power that could change the world forever…I kept it. And when Darko caught word of that, he sent Tonila to bring me to him for punishment. But she couldn’t catch me–so she went after Molly and Dylan instead.”

“Darko and Tonila?” Shawn asked. “The ones who gave us the supplies in Copper Lanes?”

“Yes,” Veronica said, her voice blunted by sadness. “Tonila went to the top of the clock tower where they knew Molly and Dylan would be waiting. I could hear their screams from halfway across the city. When I got to them, Dylan was already dead... They tied him to his favorite chair and used a wooden club to beat him so badly that I couldn’t even recognize his face. Tonila tried to make me tell her where I’d put Darko’s key, but it was hidden somewhere else. She tried to make me tell her where, but I wouldn’t... So she put a dagger through Molly’s heart.”

Veronica’s expression became numb. “I held Molly in my arms as she died for the first time, knowing that it was because of me that she and Dylan weren’t going to be alive anymore.”

“You shouldn’t blame yourself for what Tonila did,” Shawn said.

“It’s not always that easy… I felt Molly’s blood rush over my hands and knees. I saw the pain burning in her eyes as her soul left her body. And I knew I could have stopped it all if I’d just… told Tonila where the key was… It really was that easy. If we’d just done the job we were paid to do, I wouldn’t be here right now… I could have kept my life simple. But you can’t erase the past. You can only learn to live with the mistakes you’ve made.”

“How did you get away?” Shawn asked.

“I used my powers. I had a Crystal to control the wind, so I jumped...”

“You jumped from the top of the clock tower?”

“The canal was below me,” Veronica said. “I used my powers to slow my fall.”

“So, why did you bring Darko and Tonila back to life after what they did to Molly and Dylan?” Shawn asked.

“Because I needed them.” Veronica said, sounding sickened to admit it. “I still need them. And they need me–even if they don’t want to believe it. But that’s soon going to change. It’s going to change for everyone–once they see what I can give the world.” Veronica stood and went to the doors at the end of the stone halls and red carpets. Candles and torches burning along the walls shimmered orange over her black hair.

“I guess they won’t have any choice but to see things your way if what you say is true,” Shawn said as he followed her. “It might be the only hope anyone has left,” he admitted, truly beginning to doubt the idea of a cure. He wondered where Jarod and Jango were right now. Perhaps they’d already turned the tide and all of this was meaningless. Or perhaps they’d already been killed. Shawn had no way to know. And Manie was here with him, lost somewhere in the mansion.

“That’s how I see things.” Veronica said as she looked at Shawn. “I hope you’re ready for what you’re about to see. Once we go through this door, everything is going to change.”

“Like what?” Shawn asked.

“Who you thought you were.”

“I’ve been questioning that since the day I got to Talmoria,” Shawn said, remembering his home back in Wisconsin at the start of a cul-de-sac.

“No one is ever who you think they are in this place. But I’ve shown you who I am, Shawn. The good–and the bad. I hope you don’t make me regret that.”

“I’ll try not to,” Shawn said, wondering if he really meant that. He was looking into the burning eyes of the girl Manie had murdered and regretted so much for doing so.

Veronica lowered her eyes. “I hope you can.” She turned and pushed into the door, breaking the seal on the next room.

Inside was a massive dark chamber, a half circle of blackened stone that extended away for thousands of feet like a bite out of a mountain. The cracked walls were lit by sparse torches along its bend that shimmered and flickered like eyes in the dark. In the mouth of the chamber, where long dangling chains on cranks and rope enough to raise a ship were coiled, sat a wet, metal platform rusted and rotten like a decayed tooth. The platform hosted an arch, a gateway, reaching high into the darkness of the ceiling beneath the city like a shackled giant, but even in the deep shadows the shapes of black horns stabbing up from the top of the titanic doorway could still be made out. The gateway’s supports were made of black, glistening stone like glass. It was something from another world, an object made by gods whose intentions could not be fathomed. Between the legs of the obsidian door was an open black metal gate, bent and melted like a candle left too near to a flame.

Shawn was in awe as he followed Veronica inside, watching the glassy structure shine and reflect in the red and orange of the burning torches near its base. “This is how you save people from death?”

“No,” Veronica said with a sternness in her voice. “This is how you bring them back to life.”

At the foot of the gateway’s stone structure was a thatched canopy reaching over a row of beds and chairs on thick rugs. There was even a medical station with blood in vials on tubes. Roasted boar on a platter and bowls of fruit and water near servants. It looked like a receiving station for those brought back from the other realm. Across the room were hundreds of candles lining the floor, from the walls of the thatched structure to the edge of the great doors, like a gleaming pathway made of stars to lead the Reborn out of death.

In the middle of the burning road to the gates was a circle in the candles to surround a black podium made of charred oak. In the podium’s center was an indent where a Crystal was meant to fit, and a metal spike extending out of its back. Standing nearby was a squad of guards with spears and shields, and with them, King Dukemot, waiting, watching the flame above the candles bounce and twist in the draft.

“Why is the king here?” Shawn asked, feeling his heart pound in his chest. His biggest fear was that Manie would be somewhere nearby. If she saw him with Veronica, she might think something that wasn’t true. And if Veronica saw Manie, anything could happen. He had no idea if Veronica had forgiven her sister for what happened between them.

“He’s my father,” Veronica said, sounding ashamed to admit it. “Who do you think brought me back in the first place? He couldn’t bear the guilt.”

Shawn could hardly believe his ears. “Dukemot’s the one who started this?”

“No, my sister did,” Veronica said, sounding like she’d swallowed burning coals. “And my father let it waste away–just like everything else he’s ever touched.”

“Why wouldn’t he use it? It’s his people who are dying.” Shawn asked, making Veronica stop. Something in her eyes told him that the answer haunted her thoughts like a shadow of fear.

“Because he’s afraid. They all are. They fear what’s different. They fear what they can’t control. But I’m not afraid. I know what I have to do.”

Shawn looked to Dukemot again and saw the king staring in their direction. He looked saddened by what he saw. And with him stood someone Shawn thought he’d never see so near to the King. It was Silvan. He fought to hide the gasp on his breath so Veronica wouldn’t know.

“I know Silvan’s your friend,” Veronica whispered, breaking the illusion like a shattered mirror. “He told me everything the Protectors have been planning. How you found the Man of the Marsh. How you’re planning to make a vaccine. How close you and my sister have become since she kidnapped you from the Dimension Door outside Ferengul.”

Shawn felt like his clothes had been ripped off his back and a knife plunged into his spine. “He told you all that, huh?” Shawn asked, keeping his teeth apart to stop himself from biting off his own lip in anger.

“I’ve known who you were since before we even met.” Veronica said. “I had to know what I was getting myself into before I brought you onto our side. I’m not stupid.”

“I’m on nobody’s side but the Protectors,” Shawn said.

“I believe you,” Veronica said, putting her hand on Shawn’s chest. “And soon you’ll see that we’re Protectors too, just in a different way.”

Shawn grabbed Veronica’s hand and cradled her wrist, feeling the cold in her veins. “I want to believe that, but...”

“I’ll make it easy,” Veronica whispered. “Trust me. That’s all you have to do.”

Shawn turned to look at Silvan and Dukemot. “I guess I don’t have much of a choice, do I?” She was right, his mind had been forever changed. How many nights had ravens been sent to deliver messages to Veronica, to Dukemot, in the South, to the cradle of the evil they’d been trying to vanquish all along? Every fight they’d won with Silvan, every secret they’d learned and shared, had all been under the watchful gaze of a traitor. A double agent. If Jarod knew, he’d have him put to death. And maybe Silvan would deserve it. Shawn felt drained of all energy knowing that they’d all been such fools to follow him into Denengear in the first place. Maybe Gale was dead. Maybe she was a prisoner.

“Come,” Veronica said, grabbing Shawn’s wrists and pulling him after her. “You’ll learn to forgive him for what he’s done once you realize you’ve been on the same side of this battle.” She turned and led Shawn by one hand. As they came closer to Dukemot, a look of dark disturbance melted across his face.

“Hello Shawn,” Silvan said, his voice like a wind without air.

Shawn shook his head. “This is the first time I’ve seen you since I arrived, and you’re down here with them? How could you do this, Silvan? Behind our backs the whole time? I trusted you. We all did.”

“I didn’t have a choice,” Silvan said, almost whispering. “Once I saw the truth, I knew there was no other way. And I can see that you’re beginning to come to the same conclusion.”

“I’m trying to do what’s right for Talmoria,” Shawn said back in a quiet voice burning with rage. Shawn could barely make himself look at his old ally. It was nearly too treacherous to believe any of this was possible.

“I see you’ve already gotten your claws into one of my guests,” the king said as Veronica and Shawn approached, hand in hand.

“I don’t have claws, Father,” Veronica said, holding out her hand and turning it in front of him. “See? They’re just fingers.”

“I told you to stay away,” King Dukemot told her, his face turning red. “Can you not obey a single thing I ask of you?”

“I’m trying to help everyone–not just myself,” Veronica said back.

“Coming from the lips of a creature risen out of shadow and decay like a maggot birthed in rotten flesh–somehow I doubt that.” A bearded man beside Dukemot stood tall like a pillar of muscle and bone, looking down on Veronica like she was a fleeing cockroach to be smashed under foot.

“I choose to see myself as a caterpillar molting itself into something more magnificent, like a butterfly, or a queen,” Veronica said, sounding drunk on her own description.

The bearded man let a gasp of amusement escape his lips. “A comparison that couldn’t be more distant from reality.”

“And what are you, Lord Kevan? A man who manipulated and lied his way into a seat at a destroyed table? A man whose only goal is to rip things down and keep the world going in the same direction it always has been–on a pathway leading nowhere.”

“I’ve never lied to your father,” he said in defense of himself. “Even when the truth was most uncomfortable. In contrast, you lie to everyone you come into contact with–including yourself.”

“I’ve never lied to myself,” Veronica said, her voice growing tired and dark as she shook her head.

“You lie to yourself every time you draw a breath,” Kevan said with a vicious wind. “Your entire existence is nothing more than an infested bed of lies. The girl you think you are died a long time ago, Veronica, and her like shall never be seen again.”

Veronica stared at Kevan, the fire in her eyes furiously reaching over one edge of her pupils to the other. “Veronica died so that I could be reborn.”

“Enough of this,” Dukemot roared, waving his hand between them. “I did not come all the way to this accursed chamber to listen to petty insults between the two of you. Let us finish this quickly–before I change my mind.”

“It was never a sound plan to begin with, Your Grace, yet here we are again,” Kevin remarked. “You know how I feel about using those devices.”

“I’m not leaving my friends in that nightmare,” Veronica said.

“I’m aware of your feelings, Lord Kevan,” Dukemot said, sounding frustrated. “Yet Veronica is still my daughter, and they are her friends.” He revealed the Black Crystal from a pocket in the lining of his red and yellow coat, a garment that looked like a sheet of fire laid across his back. “Here it is,” he said. “Shall we be done with this dark task before the night is through?” He looked at Kevan first, then Veronica and Shawn. “Come.”

The king approached the charcoal podium and twisted the Black Crystal down into its setting, making the fire inside burst to life. Two metal handles like the hilts of swords came out from the sides of the burnt podium and Dukemot took them into his hands. He squeezed, and a curtain of shadowy, purple light danced across his face as the flame inside the Black Crystal became lit.

A beam of black and purple energy roared out from the metal spike at the podium’s back and struck the empty space between the doors. A web of black energy spread out and touched the black frame like a reaching spider’s legs, electricity bursting and flashing off its mass. The dark energy washed out like a black curtain being unfurled in the space between the doors until the hollow became filled with an inky mass, sparkling and cracking with whips of purple and white lightning. When the black mass came together and formed a solid shape, wind exploded out of the gateway’s mouth and put half the candles in the chamber to darkness.

Shawn stumbled as the wind roared and howled past his shoulders, ripping thatch off the structure behind him. Veronica reached back and grabbed his hand, keeping him just beside her. “We’re going in there?” Shawn yelled to overpower the roaring wind as he watched lightning flash and explode around the foot of the doors.

“Yes!” Veronica shouted back. “Follow me.” She began to move, but stopped when she saw her father’s guards cowering away from the doors in fear.

“My daughter requires your strength,” Dukemot said, pointing into the shadow. “Go with her!” The soldiers shuffled nervously as they decided who would go.

“We don’t need them,” Veronica said. “I have all the strength I need already.” She looked into Shawn’s eyes.

“As you wish,” Dukemot said back.

“You mean to send Manie’s consort into that abyss alone?” Kevan protested. “They’ll never make it out of that shadow alive.”

“Shawn is grown enough to find his own way,” Dukemot said. “If this is the road he has chosen to take, let him find the truth with his own eyes–like I had to.” He looked down at Veronica, then Shawn. “But I will warn you, Master Shawn: do not trust what your heart tells you in that place. It is an illusion wrapped in nightmares and lies. Nothing more.” Dukemot turned back and put his hands against the podium.

“Don’t listen to him. Do I look like an illusion to you?” Veronica asked as she pulled Shawn away and glared at her father.

“No,” Shawn answered. “You’re clearly something else.”

“Thank you?” Veronica said as she raised an eyebrow. “Just… Come on.” She turned and used her arm to fight the wind on her way towards the doors. Lightning exploded and flashed around her feet, driving up geysers of yellow sparks where they struck. As they got close to the inky shadow, Shawn saw shapes and outlines inside the world beyond the doors stretching and swimming towards his eyes, forming into reality with every step he took closer to them.

“Take my arm!” Veronica shouted back. Shawn grabbed her wrist in both hands and squeezed as tight as he could.

They came to the edge of the doors and went inside the shadow, the dark world bending and roaring as the chamber beneath Dukemot’s mansion broke away behind in a fiery flash of purple lightning. The shockwave threw Shawn and Veronica through the portal and out onto the ground on the other side as reality snapped shut and sealed them inside the Death Realm.

Shawn drove his fingers into the course soil and pushed himself up. A gray mist was pooled up to his wrists, hiding his hands. He could feel a strong wind roaring over his shoulders just high enough to leave the mist on the ground like a blanket being dragged across the land. He turned back and saw that there was no gateway to return into, no portal to enter. “What happened? We’re trapped. How are we going to get back now?” Shawn had no intention to stay in this place for longer than he needed to.

“They’re going to open the portal every quarter hour. This isn’t the first time I’ve been to this place.” Veronica lit a torch with a flint. She rose the flame into the black wind, making it roar and dance as it lit a small sphere around them, revealing shapes in the rocks and darkness. “Follow me. We shouldn’t stay long.” She grabbed Shawn under the arm and helped him back to his feet.

Shawn stood, looking out at the world around him. There was a titanic landscape stretching away in all directions, so different from the worlds Shawn was used to he wondered if they’d landed on an entirely different planet. Before him was a grand palette of blackness that reached and rose into hills and rocky mountains, teeth breaking up through the crust and shattering the world below. Everything was black, even the sky, but in certain places of darkness, where the land rose up into mountains and plateaus, were breaks in the lightning storms where the blackness shattered into showers of yellow light and inky smoke, like some giant god had driven up a great spear into the dark breast of the sky and released a flow of golden blood to pour across the land.

There were dozens of golden waterfalls stretching off into the horizon, and at each spout were throats of rock detached and broken away from the plates of which they’d risen, hovering in the air like magnetic shards of black glass to ensnare the golden light like a shattered black collar. The shards reached high but only went halfway into the sky, stuck just on the edge of the darkness, denied entry into the world of light above. The nearest rupture in the clouds seemed just a dozen miles away, pouring gilded light down over a hill with a flat top. The platforms of dark rock stood near the end of a crack in the land where the rock had shattered, where a great canyon had formed and drawn up a pathway towards the rip in the sky, like a road that led to the heavens. And amidst this canyon were dozens of dark shapes wandering in the direction of the golden light, slowly melting up the hill and climbing the cracks in the rocks like a sea of lost shadows. There seemed to be hundreds of thousands of these wanderers. Maybe even millions. The number was unfathomable.

“What is this place?” Shawn asked, barely able to breathe.

“This is the Death Realm… I was trapped in this place for decades, never knowing if it was real or just a dream. It was an endless torture of visions from the past. An eternity of watching Molly and Dylan die, of feeling Manie drop me from the top of her tower…”

“Are those shapes down there… are they people?” Shawn asked, almost not wanting an answer.

“They were people. Now they’re just spirits, trapped in dying minds. They see the moments that cut them deepest. They see pain, fear, loss. They see the moments that broke them of the person they thought they were. They relive those memories again and again until they forget everything except the terror. They live in that world until it consumes them to nothing–until all that’s left is their own suffering.”

Veronica stepped forwards and looked out across the terrible land. “A land of darkness bathed in golden light. A prison of torment that no one can escape.”

“You escaped,” Shawn said.

“Not without someone else to help me. That’s why they need us.”

Shawn looked to the golden waterfall. “It seems like they’re going towards the light,” Shawn said. “Why? What happens when they get there?”

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

“I don’t know,” Veronica said. “I never made it that far when I was trapped here, even after decades of trying to reach it. But I remember this feeling like…if I did make it to the light, that I’d be freed of my pain. Maybe nothing happens. Maybe it’s just the only hope anyone has left in a place like this. An illusion.”

It was difficult to believe this place was real. It went against everything Shawn had learned about death growing up in his own world. “This is where people go when they die,” he asked. “To this place? There isn’t anything else out there? Just…this?”

“I think this is all there is,” Veronica said, her voice dying with the realization, “just captured energy of dying spirits. This prison was made by someone, for some reason. It didn’t come to be on its own. But the ones who created this place are gone, now. All that’s left is them–trapped in a world they’ll never understand.” She slowly looked around at the golden lights across the horizon, each melting through clouds as they rained across black mountains. “Molly and Dylan are out there. We have to find them. I made them a promise, once: that I’d never leave them in this place again. And I’m not going to break it.”

“We’ll never find them,” Shawn said, shocked to hear her say. “There’s too many people out there.”

“This place has a way of showing you what you don’t want to see… I’m sure we’ll see them sooner than we think.” Veronica went down the hill, and Shawn went with her.

“If you say so,” Shawn said, afraid to go one step deeper into this nightmare.

The hill sloped down for miles until it met an edge of the great crack in the black land, its halves rising up like a massive wall. When Shawn and Veronica came to it, they proceeded to the foreground before the entrance of the dark canyon where a crowd of thousands were coming in from every angle to make their way to the break in the wall, where a desert of black sand and ash and dead trees met a shield of solid rock.

In the center of the canyon, sparkling and shimmering in the far off distance like a planet among stars, was the golden waterfall high in the sky, black clouds swirling around its edge and churning like liquid fire. Lightning flashed and thunder boomed, tearing at the black world above and shaking the ground. “It’s like a nightmare… turned into a real place,” Shawn whispered, not wanting to disturb the dead around him. He wondered if anyone from his world had made it here, or if it was only Talmorians trapped in the darkness.

“It’s worse,” Veronica said back. “Keep a lookout for Molly and Dylan. They can’t have made it far into the canyon if this is the way they went.”

“How do we even know they went this way?” Shawn asked. They could be anywhere.

“The Crystal knows where we want to go,” Veronica said.

The crowd was funneling into the end of the canyon and pouring up the rocky road like a river of shadowy smoke. Shawn could hear whispering and muttering coming from everyone around him, driving up the hairs on his neck. “It wasn’t me,” one man said. “If we don’t leave this instant the fires are going to burn us out of here,” said another. “This wasn’t meant to happen,” cried a woman. “I’m not supposed to be here.”

“What are they talking about?” Shawn asked. “What happened to them?”

A man in steel armor grabbed his helmet and bent over his knees, crying out in agonizing pain. “Get it off! The steel is burning me!” He fell to the ground in front of Shawn and Veronica, stopping them in their tracks. The man writhed in the black sand until his cries went to silence and he bursted away into a cloud of shadowy ash on the wind. Shawn felt the ash flow over his face and arms like silk. He waved his hands at the smoke, trying not to breathe. He instantly remembered the battle with Goroth, seeing flashes of death and fire around him.

Shawn’s hands were shaking. He turned to Veronica, noticing that her cheeks had visibly paled. “What the fuck was that?”

“That was how he died. He burned in his armor,” Veronica said. “Try not to think about it.”

“Why did he turn to ash? I thought these people were already dead.”

“They are dead. Everyone here is doomed to relive their deaths again and again. That soldier succumbed to his memories, so he was forced to relive the old pain like it was happening again for the very first time… He’ll be back. That’s what happens to everyone who gets sent to this place.”

“How long have people been coming here after death?”

“Some have been trapped in this cycle for hundreds of years… Others, thousands...”

Shawn was beginning to understand just how huge this was. It was much bigger than a disease like the Gray Death. This was death itself they were trying to vanquish. Veronica continued on, and Shawn followed. They quickly came to the edge of the break in the towering, stone walls where the rest of the dead were going. As they entered the canyon, Shawn could hear more people dying and screaming around him, their figures turning to shadow and ash like black breaths in cold wind. As each passed to dust, the intense gusts curling and roaring between the rocks blew their ashes back down the canyon and across the black desert. Sometimes a speck of golden light from the break in the clouds would make it to where Shawn and Veronica were walking, lighting the rocks around them with gilded light as it passed, like a little god. Shawn wondered where it was going, and if it would save someone when it got there.

“Dylan!” Shawn shouted into the dense crowds around him, hoping to see some sign. “Dylan, where are you! We’re here to take you and Molly home!” Tens of thousands of people were marching together up the shadowy canyon to reach the light pouring down from the beyond. Shawn felt lost in the crowd, like a blue speck in a sea of shadows. “Molly!” Veronica screamed. “Tell us where you are!”

“Dylan!” Shawn shouted, while Veronica called, “Molly!” back and forth until their symphony of shouts rang across the land of night like a sorrowful song, echoing off the walls of the canyon barely even audible over the cries and moans of the dead. “We have to find them fast,” Veronica said, sounding pained. “I can feel the darkness taking hold of me.”

“Are you hurt?” Shawn asked.

“No, I’m… Anyone who escapes this place leaves with a scar that never fully heals. You don’t just forget what it was like… Just keep looking for Molly and Dylan. They’re the ones who need help.”

Veronica closed her eyes as she walked. Shawn was worried about her, but tried to focus on her friends instead. He looked across the field of bodies moving through the darkness. He couldn’t see most of their faces, just shadows over skin and bone.

“Dylan, are you in there?” No answer returned, just moans and grunts of pain. Out of the group ahead came a woman running from the golden light, screaming at the top of her lungs. When she arrived near to where Shawn was walking, the rest of the group she’d fled to began to shout and churn as panic set amongst them.

“What’s wrong with them?” Shawn asked. He could hear a roaring, crackling sound on the wind growing fiercer and fiercer with every second that passed. The sound seemed to be coming from the place where the screaming woman had fled from. A mother huddled her children under her body and cried as a whirlwind of pops and snaps descended over the group, turning their moans to screams. The invisible fire shattered the bodies to ash as a fierce roar washed over them. Within seconds there was nothing left of the people that had been beside Shawn–just an empty space in the rocks which quickly filled with more of the wandering souls.

“Fuck,” Shawn said as he looked away. “This is a nightmare,” he whispered.

“It must have happened during the time when Duncan and Goroth were burning down all the forests,” Veronica said.

Shawn cupped his hands around his mouth, shouting, “Dylan! Molly!” as loud as he could.

Shawn and Veronica came to a place where the canyon widened into a space where a few thousand of the dead had gathered. Many were sitting, some lying down, splayed across the rocks. On all sides they were guarded by moaning men and crying children. The bodies were so thin they looked like skeletons wrapped in parchment. Veronica led Shawn through the group, weaving and twisting around living corpses like a maze.

“This must have been the Gray Death,” Shawn said. “They look like the people in Copper Lanes.” It was horrible to see and remember what it had been like in that part of the city. The place they’d gone to hadn’t been all that different to the place they’d come from. The golden light from the break in the clouds was more intense here, so bright Shawn sometimes had to put up his hand and block the light like he was staring into the sun. It even felt warm.

“I think you’re right,” Veronica said, her voice hollow.

“Molly!” Shawn shouted. “Dylan! Where are you!”

Shawn and Veronica’s path led them to the feet of a young boy. The boy was crying over the shadowy corpse of a man, screaming and begging for the gods to give him back. Shawn knew it had to be the boy’s father, there was no pain quite like that kind. Shawn had known the same pain the night his own father had died in a car accident–killed by Shaleah and her power over the wind. The boy looked around the crowd, searching the rocks for someone who could help him. His eyes landed directly on Shawn’s and he seemed to grasp what he was looking at, not like the others who seemed detached from where they were. A look of hope and awe warmed the boy’s face as blue light from the Protector’s flame shined and glowed across his cheeks. The boy opened his mouth to speak. He looked afraid. “You’ll…you’ll help us–won’t you?”

Shawn looked at Veronica. “Can he see us?”

“I think he can,” she said.

The boy looked at Veronica. “Someone whispered about you in my dreams. You’re the girl with the emerald burning eyes. The one who’s going to save us all.”

“What do we do?” Shawn asked, turning to Vee.

“We leave him until the time is right,” Veronica said. “One day we’ll save him. But not today.”

“You aren’t going to help us?” The boy cried out. “Why not? What did I do wrong?”

Veronica leaned down to the boy and whispered. “Don’t lose hope. I’ll come back for you–and your father, too. When you hear me call you to come–follow my voice.”

The boy looked at Shawn, then back to Veronica and smiled. “I will,” he said, his voice rising like a spark from an abyss. “I promise.” The boy leaned down to his dad and hugged him, then they both turned to smoke in the breeze. As they drifted away, Shawn felt like a dune that had been stripped of all its sand, silently wishing he had a way to save his own father. “I know what he feels like,” Shawn said. “My father is dead, too.”

Veronica stared at him for a long time, searching his eyes for an answer to an unasked question. Just when she seemed about to say something, a loud crash and bang from far ahead dragged her eyes away, towards the golden light. Shawn turned and saw children covered in blood and soot crying as they fled a field of flames in the canyon. Women were screaming as people emerged from stone wreckage carrying severed limbs and the shredded corpses of friends. In the distance, a group of hundreds of people were thrown into the air as a second shadowy bomb exploded, driving up a fountain of black stone and charred wood around them. A carriage caught aflame and the horses screamed into panic, tearing off into the crowd.

Shawn ducked and grabbed Veronica’s shoulders, pulling her down as the boom of the explosion subsided. “Was that a bomb?!”

Veronica said nothing, her eyes refusing to answer as sweat beaded upon her brow. She turned back to face the crowd. “Look out!”

The horses ran the rest of the people in the canyon down like dogs, furiously crushing them under bloody hoof and wheel as they made their escape. When the carriage came to Shawn and Veronica, Shawn raised up his arms and blasted the horses with golden light. The entire wagon melted into ash and burst up in he and Veronica’s faces.

“We have to get them out of this place,” Shawn said, finding his voice. “Everyone!” he shouted, pushing up his hair with his hands. “We can’t let this go on for even one more day.” Veronica grabbed Shawn by the shoulders and squeezed him as dying and bloody people fled flames and falling wreckage around them. “Shawn, I know. I know. What do you think I’m trying to do? No one else believes in me. It's just me and you. That’s why we can’t give up.” Tears were in her eyes, but she fought them back. “And Molly and Dylan, too.” She slowly looked away, letting Shawn free of her grip.

Shawn fell over his knees and moaned, “I think I’m going to be sick.”

“My father thinks we should just leave all these people here to suffer. I don’t understand what’s happened to him. The Father I grew up with would never make that kind of sacrifice. He’s… different, now.”

Shawn noticed a girl with sea-green hair crawling at the edge of the rocks nearby, moaning in agony. “Veronica look, it’s Molly.” There she was, in the cracks of the canyon’s wall. Rain began to fall from dark clouds, turning the black and sharp edges of the broken canyon into shimmering razors. Shawn’s clothes became fully soaked as lightning flashed and thunder shook the world under his feet.

“Let’s go,” Veronica said, flashing her eyes at Shawn.

Their boots slapped on the rocks as they ran to reach Molly. Shawn could hear her crying out from far off, screaming and coughing. “It fucking ate me, oh god, please no. Someone get me out of here.”

“Molly!” Veronica shouted. “We’re here! Don’t focus on the dreams!”

“My skin is burning! Please don’t let this be real!” Molly slid her hands all across her clothes, touching her face and rubbing her arms. “Make it stop!” she shrieked.

Veronica went to her knees on the black rocks. “Molly, you’re okay. I’m here!”

“It fucking ate me,” she whimpered. “Fucking please help me!”

Veronica grabbed Molly by the shoulders. “Molly!” she screamed, shaking her. “It's me! It’s Vee! It’s time to wake up!”

Molly’s eyes seemed to come back to reality. She looked around the canyon, seeing the golden light beyond the end of the rocks, then she turned to Veronica as tears filled her eyes. “Vee?” she asked. Molly lunged out and grabbed Veronica, loudly crying over her shoulder. “It was so terrible, Veronica. Oh god, please don’t leave me in this place again… Please… Please let this be real…”

“We are real,” Veronica said as a tear slid down her face. She bit her lip as she fought not to cry. “And we’re not leaving you here.”

Molly burst out crying, squeezing Veronica with all her strength.

“It’ll be okay, Molly,” Shawn said. He was disturbed to see Molly so wounded. How many times had she relived her death already?

Veronica let go of Molly and looked her in the eyes. “Come on. We’re taking you home.”

“Thank you, Vee,” Molly said, her lip shivering in fear. “Thank you.”

“You don’t need to thank me,” Veronica said, helping Molly stand. “I promised you I’d never leave you in this nightmare.” Lightning flashed over Veronica’s shoulder as she stood there with black rain dripping from her hair and golden light shining across her face. “Come on, Shawn.”

Shawn pushed himself back to his feet and stood before Veronica. “Now we have to find Dylan.”

“He’s got to be out here somewhere. They’re usually together.”

Molly pointed. “He’s there,” she said, her arm shaking and shivering in the wind. “I could hear him in my dreams.”

“We have to go get him. Molly, stay here until-”

“No!” Molly cried, choking on her own voice. “Please no! I can’t… I..I..I can’t.”

Veronica let out a grunt of annoyance. “Shawn, go get Dylan. I can’t leave her.”

“Okay,” Shawn said, nodding. “I’ll be right back.”

“Hurry, Shawn, please!” Molly begged as he turned and left.

Dylan was crawling over rocks, splashing into black puddles under the mist. “Help me! Someone help me!” Shawn ran to Dylan’s side and grabbed his arm, but Dylan swatted him away. “Get off me! Get off!”

“It’s me!” Shawn shouted at him. “It’s Shawn! Veronica and I are here to save you!”

“She left me to die!” Dylan cried, pinning himself against the rocks. “She left me in the caves! No, Tonila, I’m sorry, I’ll tell you where the key is-”

Shawn grabbed Dylan and slapped him across the cheek, waking his eyes to the world around him. “Where am I,” Dylan asked.

“We’re in the Death Realm,” Shawn told him. “And we’re getting the fuck out of here.”

“Dylan!” Molly cried from beyond the field of rocks and thin corpses. “Get on your fucking feet! Please!”

“It’s us, Dylan!” Veronica shouted. “Now move!”

Dylan came to his feet, face soaked in rain and black mud. He was breathing heavily, rubbing his chest and checking his legs. He looked up at Shawn and froze. “You made it out of the forest with the Crystal?”

Shawn nodded. “We did. Veronica told me her plan.”

“And you’re still alive,” Dylan said, sounding impressed. “She must trust you. Good, then. Let’s go.” Dylan’s eyes seemed drained of life, like there was just a hollow shell behind his eyes. He stumbled over rocks and dead branches as he struggled to reach Veronica. Shawn went with him, trying to avoid the gaze of the thousands of dead souls marching around him, each wandering endlessly through a vast, dark world, hoping to reach a golden hole in the sky. Whatever god had made this place, he’d abandoned it long ago. Shawn found it hard to believe there was any salvation waiting at the end of this darkness.

Veronica met eyes with Shawn, then looked up at the great waterfall of golden light pouring down from the sky behind them, staring at the falling sparks like they were each a little angel in the night. The rain falling from the black clouds around the edge of the golden waterfall was lit for miles, like a great curtain of fiery tears from the sun. “It’s time to go,” she whispered.

Down the canyon from where they’d come there was a purple flash as lightning erupted across the land. Where it struck the ground, a black gateway appeared, bending the light of the land around it like the shadow was merely a painted sheet hung before the world.

“The portal is open!” Shawn shouted.

Veronica twisted her neck to look. “We have to hurry!” She turned to Molly and raised her chin like she was pushing open a flower. “You ready to run?” Veronica asked.

“I guess we’ll find out,” Molly said back, sounding none too enthused.

“Good, then let's go!” Veronica shouted, pushing her into stride.

Molly took the lead and Dylan desperately caught up with her. Veronica moved into the front as she started to run. Shawn stayed at the back to be sure they didn’t lose Molly or Dylan in the canyon on the way out. There were thousands of people ahead, dying and crying for help as they ran past. Shawn saw soldiers become riddled with shadowy arrows as they fell around him, civilians running and screaming as lightning exploded around their feet, stones the size of buildings crashing amongst them.

Molly screamed and fell as a wave of fire washed towards her, but Shawn caught her from behind and helped her stand. “Keep going,” he shouted. “We’re almost out.” They came to the end of the canyon, where the great wall of rock broke into an open desert of black sands and shattered rock. The gateway back to the real world was just before them, and beyond it, more golden rivers of light pouring down from breaks in the sky.

“Get through the gateway!” Shawn shouted. “Go now!”

Veronica went to the edge of the inky blackness and paused, pushing Molly and Dylan through as they came to her. Molly screamed as she went in, the shadow bending over her and Dylan like a black curtain swallowing their flesh. The shadow deposited them into the mansion’s depths beyond, to a room of chains and burning candles.

“Shawn! Go!” Veronica shouted. “You first!”

“No, you first!” Shawn grabbed her arm and threw her into the portal of blackness as streaks of blue and red lighting flashed around his arms, like a web trying to stick to his skin. As Veronica fell in, he dove inside with her, feeling the Death Realm speed away behind him and the mansion roar towards his eyes. Veronica became a silhouette of shadow, only her emerald green eyes visible; then, with a burst of sparks and wind, Shawn and Veronica were thrown to the iron platform in the mansion’s lowest chamber, landing directly beside Molly and Dylan.

“They’re back,” Kevan shouted. “Get them away from the doors!”

Guards rushed in, eyes wide as they neared the portal to the Death Realm. They grabbed Veronica first, then Shawn, Molly and Dylan after, dragging and carrying everyone away from the black gates.

“Close the gateway!” Kevan turned to the king and waved his hand.

King Dukemot’s lips bent into a frown as he grabbed the Black Crystal and tugged it out from the setting in his black podium. As the Crystal separated from the glass, the gateway before them imploded, then erupted into a whip of yellow sparks and fire that reached across the room, finding the thatch on the roof of the medical building and setting it aflame. Guards stamped on the thatch and slung buckets of water where they could, but it quickly grew out of control. Servants were screaming and ducking as they tried to hide from the burning straw raining down.

“Let it burn,” Kevan told them. “Stone isn’t flammable. We’ll just replace it with more.”

Silvan pushed past the guard nearest to Veronica and went to her side, helping her stand. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Veronica said, rubbing her ear where blood was running down her cheek.

“One day you aren’t going to return from that place,” Silvan said, “and then I’m going to have to go in and find you.”

“Oh, my hero,” Veronica said, her voice sour with sarcasm.

Silvan looked away, disappointment sharpening his eyes.

“You should be eternally grateful that anyone in this manor is willing to put their life on the line for yours after what you did to the princess all those long years ago.”

Veronica pushed Silvan’s hand off her shoulder and took a step towards her father. She shot a look at Lord Kevin that could have cut flesh if her eyes were blades. “What I did to her? I wanted to use that Crystal for good, to save lives, instead of hiding the power away in a tower. Manie killed me. Her own sister–her own flesh and blood. And for what? For nothing...” Veronica’s eyes melted down to the floor as her voice descended into silence.

“And you deserved to die for what you did.” Lord Kevan bit back at her. “Mikhail’s Crystal was meant to stay hidden–meant to stay lost. Not to mention that your actions drove the princess to flee her home, ultimately leading to her death as well.”

“I died,” Veronica said, almost whispering. “And she got to live.”

Kevan guffawed at her. “Well, if we are to believe your own ridiculous explanation–you are that same girl who died, now standing again before me–so it would seem your losses have been recuperated.”

“My losses have not been recuperated,” Veronica said, rolling her fingers into a fist as she tightened her jaw. “Not yet.”

“Let the past go, Veronica. Learn to forget about your pain,” Kevan said as he leaned down towards her. “You have no role in the future to come. These battles you fight will never bring you peace.”

Veronica seemed to wilt into anger as the sparks and flames from burning thatch twisted with the smoke and rolled around her. “There’s nothing else left,” she said. “Everything I remember has been destroyed.”

Kevan shook his head and slowly turned, going back to stand with the king. “Not everything,” he said when he got there.

“It’s time we go,” Dukemot said as he watched his daughter from afar, disappointment burning in his eyes.

The fury in Veronica seemed to burn bright in the gaze of her father, her anger unburying something broken deep inside. “You’ve forgotten me,” she shouted as tears broke from her eyes. “You all have!”

Kevin looked at Dukemot.

“If that were true you wouldn’t be standing here right now,” Dukemot said, his voice boiling with disgust. “I risked every allegiance I’d ever made to bring you back to life. Every friend I’d ever met has questioned my decisions. They all called me a madman. And for what? So you could continue to play your little games?”

“I didn’t ask to be sent to that place,” Veronica said, pointing into the empty gateway to the Death Realm.

“And I didn’t ask for this!” Dukemot shouted. “I can see the Turquoise flame in your eyes from here, Veronica. I know what you’re planning.”

“Learn to be grateful for what you have, and settle for that,” Lord Kevan told her. “That's all you can do, Veronica.”

“I’ll never settle for less than what I’m owed by fate,” Veronica said back, her voice still wounded.

“Fate owes no man a copper,” Lord Kevan said. “Fate is the destination at the end of a very long road, one you are required to travel day by day for many years.”

“You want to know what fate is?” Dukemot mused, looking at both of them, his voice shaking with a distinct mixture of sorrow and anger. “Watching your family, your kingdom, be torn to pieces by squabbles over a magic rock after you raised them up from nothing. That’s fate for you,” he said with a humorless laugh. “Now let’s go. We’re done here.” He turned, making his fiery cape roar as his eyes left Veronica’s. Kevan bowed to Veronica and her friends, then turned and left with the king, Silvan and the rest of the guards slowly going with him.

Veronica said nothing as she watched them leave, her tightened fists loosening the farther away they got. She turned to Shawn and froze, the fire in her eyes a raging inferno beneath the tears. “They all think I’m a monster. They’d all be happier if I just marched back through those doors and never came back...”

“That isn’t true, Veronica. Your father found the Black Crystal and built those doors just to save you. I know he cares about you.” It felt strange to defend the king, but Shawn knew no one could argue with that fact after seeing all this. “And I don’t think you’re a monster,” Shawn said. “You’re trying to do the right thing. I can see that now... That’s not what monsters do. Look at your friends. You saved them today–from a fate worse than death.”

Dylan and Molly were curled up on the floor at Veronica’s feet, shivering and whimpering. Veronica’s courage seemed to return when she saw them. She took a deep breath.

“You can’t listen to them anymore,” Shawn said, looking at the door that Dukemot and his men were funneling into. “They don’t know what to do. They don’t understand what it’s like in the Death Realm. It’s worse than anyone can possibly imagine… But you do know what to do. And I think I trust that now.”

Veronica looked up into Shawn’s eyes, the green flame barely a flicker as her hope cleared away the sadness. She nodded at him. “You’re right,” she said. “You’re right.” She looked to her father’s men, letting out a breath as she watched them leave. “They don’t understand.” She looked back to Shawn, the courage in her eyes melting into fierceness like the edge of a blade. “But together, we’ll make them understand.”

The look in Veronica’s eyes scared Shawn, but he didn’t say a word. She leaned out and hugged him as flames and sparks coiled behind her back. “When we’re together, I feel like I can do anything,” she whispered, pressing her wet body against his.

Shawn wrapped his arms around her back and squeezed as steam hovered off her shoulders. “So do I,” he admitted, almost afraid of that fact. It was a different feeling than the one Manie gave him. With Veronica, he felt like the world should be afraid of them.

“Don’t ever leave me, Shawn,” Veronica said. “I need you. I need you more than my own life.”

Shawn was terrified. He didn’t know how to respond. “I won’t,” he said back. “I promise.”

Veronica hugged him more fiercely and pressed her cheek against his chest. “You’re all I have left,” she said, whimpering.

Shawn wished he could tell Veronica how sorry Manie was, tell her that she wasn’t alone, that she had a sister out there, still. All Manie had ever done was speak about how she wished she could have taken Veronica’s place at the bottom of that tower. But he knew Veronica would never believe that. He didn’t even know if Veronica was capable of forgiving her sister after all she’d been through.

“I’ll help you, Veronica. But you have to promise not to hurt Manie. I couldn’t live with myself if I knew something bad happened to her.”

Veronica looked up at Shawn, confusion and anger twinkling in her eyes like boiling water. “She means that much to you?”

“Yes,” Shawn said. “I gave up everything I’ve ever known for her.”

Veronica looked at Molly and Dylan, pausing on where they were huddled, then turned her eyes back to Shawn’s. “I won’t hurt her. I promise.”

The quickness with which she responded made Shawn pause. Again he wondered if it was smart to get so close with her. “Okay,” he said, closing his eyes. “I won’t leave.”

Veronica grabbed Shawn and squeezed him. “Thank you.” She let him go and wiped her eyes. “Come on. We have to get Molly and Dylan someplace safe where they can heal. It’ll take them a few days to get back to normal.”

“Okay,” Shawn said. “You get Molly, I’ll get Dylan.” He reached down and grabbed Dylan’s arm, helping him stand. “Hopefully this will all be over soon.”

“It will be,” Veronica said and she grabbed Molly’s arms and got her on her feet. “And when it is–history will remember our names.”

“I hope it’s for the right reasons,” Shawn said.