Mortem led Ed to another room, much smaller than the one they had just left. It was lined with bones in ornate patterns, brilliantly white and mesmerizing. The bones formed a myriad of shapes and figures Ed couldn’t recognize. He was fascinated but couldn’t look too closely while keeping up with Mortem.

Ed had felt out of place in the caverns but felt wholly removed from his own world here. This truly felt like an otherworldly, godly realm.

At the end of this ossuary room was an opening. Mortem approached, slowing his pace to a halt. Ed stepped forward to look ahead and laid his eyes on an unmistakable figure. His eyes widened in surprise.

Lady Ren stood a few dozen feet from him, tall as ever, black hair glinting in a torch-light cavern. She held a massive weapon in a defensive stance, some kind of wicked scythe or sickle.

Ren faced a group of skeletons, like the ones he had fought against, all wielding a variety of weaponry and shields. Instead of two versus three like in Ed’s scenario, it was Ren against at least ten.

Ren moved with an elegance that betrayed the rage Ed knew she held underneath. She swiftly defeated two skeletons with a wide sweep of her scythe and then quickly sliced it back, shattering another to pieces.

The remaining skeletons advanced towards her in a relentless tide, but she fended them off masterfully. Ed was equal parts impressed and intimidated. She looked absolutely monstrous from his perspective.

“Why her?” Ed found himself mumbling. On one hand, he could not deny feeling relieved at seeing a familiar human in this place. It cemented the reality of what was happening and made him feel less isolated. But if it couldn’t be Lila in that room, which Ed knew would not be the case, he could not think of anything he wanted to see less.

Well, besides Ser Tristan.

The lumie darted into the room in utter excitement at seeing a familiar face. Ed felt a pang of betrayal as the lumie leaped from his shoulder, but he figured it knew Ren well. The creature had done more than enough for Ed; he had no right to feel anything but gratitude towards it.

Ren had quickly dispatched the remaining skeletons, leaving scattered piles of broken bones around the room. She gasped in surprise as the lumie pounced on her, burrowing its head into her chest. Ren dropped her scythe and hugged it as a smile crossed her face.

The smile was short-lived as she turned to Mortem and his new guest.

“YOU!” she spat with venom as her eyes met Ed’s. Ed hadn’t expected a warm reception, but panic spiked in his gut as Ren charged at him.

Before he could speak, she launched herself at him, fists clenched.

Unprepared and unarmed, Ed braced for the impact, but it never came. Mortem intervened swiftly, waving his robed arm in a sharp pattern. Two massive skeletal hands conjured instantly from the shattered bones in the adjacent room. They caught Ren in midair, inches from Ed.

Ren came to a halt as if she had run into a stone wall. She gasped as the wind was knocked out of her, but her face remained twisted with rage.

Ren jerked one arm free, raising it above her head. Ed watched as white light flooded into it, coalescing into the form of her scythe. He jumped backward as he realized she was still trying to attack him.

Mortem doubled his efforts, increasing the size of the skeletal hands that held Ren.

“YOU DID THIS!” she screamed at Ed, spittle flying from her lips. Her eyes looked crazed, but Ed saw fear in them too. The same fear had been lurking in the bottom of his stomach since the dinner.

“Enough,” Mortem said sternly, using the heavy gravitational weight he had used on Ed earlier. Ren’s weapon fell from her hand, and she stopped thrashing against her constraints.

Ed was shocked at Ren’s unbridled rage. How could one person be so angry?

“I didn’t do any of this,” Ed said to Ren. He tried to keep his tone calm, but his voice wavered a bit, betraying his composure.

“Your bitch wife ruined everything,” Ren cried. “Everyone is gone. He said so himself.” She gestured towards Mortem. “All killed by Somnia.”

Ren spoke Somnia’s name with a mocking tone as if she wasn’t real or this was a hoax. Ed’s face grew hot at the insult to his wife and the downplaying of what had happened.

“Somnia possessed my wife at the dinner after that idiot Tristan brought the hourglass into a crowded room. I had nothing to do with it,” Ed asserted.

“Sure, you stupid sandscalp. I am going to cut you to ribbons as soon as he lets me free.”

“Do you think I willingly ended up here? If I was involved with any of this, why am I here with you and not with Somnia and the rest?” Ed felt determined to clear his name to Ren, though he didn’t know why.

“I don’t care,” was her reply.

Mortem intensified the weight pressing down on them, so much so that Ed collapsed. Ren let out a grunt as she was pressed down into the bony hands holding her.

“Silence, fools.” Mortem’s command echoed, and the room fell silent, save for Ed and Ren panting against the pressure weighing on them. Mortem waved his hand again, causing the skeletal hands holding Ren to disappear. She crashed to the ground with a thud.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

“My power wanes; my ability to host you both in the Nether is perilously close to running out. We have things to discuss before our time together is done.”

He approached Ren and removed his hood, revealing his intricately marked skull. White eyes flared with intensity as he bent over to face her.

“You are my thrall, and you do as I bid. Eddarion will be your partner when you return to your realm, and you will work together.”

He leaned in even closer, inches away from Ren’s face. He spoke in a low, gravelly tone that reverberated through Ed’s head so much it hurt.

“If you dare spill the blood of my own with the gifts I have granted you… you will suffer an oblivion so absolute that the Nether itself will recoil in horror.”

Ed watched Ren’s face as defiance and anger gave way to unadulterated terror.

And then Mortem stood up, releasing the weight restraining them. Ed climbed to his feet, relieved but disturbed after seeing Mortem’s demeanor change so drastically.

Ren didn’t move. A tear flowed down her cheek onto the floor.

Mortem brandished some type of metal instrument, like a dulled-down dagger, and began carving into the stone floor.

“I will send you both back to your realm to an area where I feel Somnia’s influence the most.”

“To Telmaris?” Ed asked.

“No, your city is unsafe right now. I can’t allow you to return to where Somnia breached the Nether until I better understand her movements. For now, you will be going to a small town in the eastern part of your world, near the coast.”

A lump formed in Ed’s throat. Mortem was sending them to the far edges of the world, by the coast? Ed had never been farther east than the Serpentine River, which cut Vaalem’s main landmass into two equal parts. That part of the world was wholly unfamiliar to him.

“Surely it would be better to send us somewhere we’re more familiar?” Ed asked, trying not to sound pleading.

“No. You will go to the town of Silt and uncover Somnia’s influence there. At Silt, I believe this is a latent source of her power, something she isn’t focused on. It will be safer. If she finds you now, you’ll be lost to me.”

Ed didn’t like it, but he had no idea what Telmaris was like now. He couldn’t argue that it would be safer.

“Do you think Lila is in this town, Silt?” Ed asked quietly.

“I can’t say,” Mortem replied. “But every answer is a step closer to your goal.”

Mortem turned to Ren, who winced as he focused on her.

“Rendoet Farrowsteel, your potential is endless, but your temperament disappoints me.” Mortem stopped for a moment, considering his following words carefully.

“Netheryn in thralldom to me are granted the power of Deathwhisper. Any life you take by your hand is yours for a short time until they return to me on their way to the Nether. Deathwhisper allows you to converse with the spirit of the dead. You may ask three questions, to which you will always receive the purest version of their truth.”

Ed’s eyes widened. This power sounded incredible at first… but Ed was not a killer.

Am I expected to kill people? Is that what Netheryn do?

Ed would not turn into a murderer just to gain information. Maybe Ren, but not him.

“I don’t envision myself killing people just so I can ask them questions,” Ed said.

“How shortsighted of you, Eddarion,” Morton retorted. “Don’t be naïve and expect your world to be the same. You are not the only Netheryn. There are many in your world conducting the wills of the gods, and they have been doing so for centuries.”

This was news to Ed, and deep in the dark reaches of his mind, it nagged at that worry that Lila had been hiding something genuinely sinister from him.

“So, you want us to kill the other Netheryn?” Ren asked, slowly rising to her feet.

She glanced at Ed for a second; fear and rage in her eyes subsided into some form of acceptance. She seemed defeated.

“Not necessarily, though it may be necessary. All Netheryn have a unique ability to identify one another instantly. Both of you, focus on the other for a moment, and you will see what I mean.”

Ed and Ren turned towards each other, staring intently. In the first calm interaction the two had, Ed realized a white flame was burning behind Ren’s eyes. He assumed it was the same for him.

“So, our eyes give us away?” Ren asked.

Mortem nodded.

“Alright,” Ren continued. “Why don’t you give us this Deathwhisper power and let us go to work then.”

“Only one of you will be receiving this power.” Mortem pulled a small stone from beneath his robe and handed it to Ed. “Eddarion, you alone will wield the power of the Deathwhisper. This will ensure that you work together when I am absent.”

“What kind of game are you playing?” Ren barked at Mortem. “Just give me the damn power and let us go.”

“It’s imperative that you both work together. My hope is this will force your hand to do so when I am not physically present.”

“This is bullshit,” Ren muttered. “You’re going to force me to work with the commoner trash who killed my king?

Mortem wasn’t bothered by Ren’s tone this time.

“The two of you are eternally bonded. While the other gods have taken thralls and raised Netheryn for millennia, I have rarely done so. My efforts with your kind have been focused on the Nether and the resting place of mortal souls.”

Ed blinked. “So, you’re telling me we are the only Netheryn with your power?”

“Yes.”

Even Ren was surprised by this.

“How many Netheryn do the other gods have?” Ren asked, mouth agape.

“Impossible to say. Likely hundreds. Possibly more.”

“Hundreds?!” Ed remarked.

Ren sighed loudly and paced around the room, hands on hips. She scraped her boots against the floor, which echoed loudly through the room. Clearly, she wanted to say something.

Mortem waited.

“It feels like you are setting us up to fail,” she eventually said.

“Would you prefer the alternative? For your fate to be in Somnia’s hands? Your lives were both plucked from the tapestry of fate. No one else at your king’s castle had a choice. Only the two of you,” Mortem said sternly.

Ren rubbed the back of her head. “You’re not wrong, but I still don’t like any of this. It feels wrong.”

“Because this was never supposed to happen,” Mortem said. “Now, I have truly reached my limit to keep you here. I will communicate with you both as I can, but our time is over.”

Mortem drew on the floor again with his small tool before waving his hand in the air.

Ed and Ren ceased to exist in the Nether as their souls were suddenly ripped back to their world.