Page 78 of An Inheritance of Monsters

“Thank god,” I breathed. I’d had no idea if the monsters would even be able to materialize away from the manor itself.

“Where are you running to in such a rush, little lover?” he asked, pulling me in close. My feet left the floor as the shadows lifted me.

“Why is my Juno wet and cold again?” Rask’s dangerous rumble filled the tunnel with thunder.

I felt his clawed hands at my back, running through my soaked hair.

“I need to go to the Void now. To the idol!”

Voraal tipped his head, horns shimmering… and then he nodded. “I see. You have met her.”

“Please,” I begged, squirming in his grip. What if we were too late…?

But Voraal just chuckled, the shadows surrounding us, blinding me to everything—

And my feet touched warm sand.

I took off at a dead run, sliding all the way down a sand dune.

Rask’s warmth enclosed around me, and next thing I knew, I was wrapped in three arms. He ran using the fourth, covering the distance much faster than I would’ve on my own two feet.

Voraal swirled alongside us, an oddly satisfied look on his face.

As soon as the luminescent sea came into view, I wriggled in Rask’s grip until I could see.

The stone idol, a lonely beacon on the beach, was surrounded by the dead.

Spirits swarmed around it, climbing from the mouth and landing on the sand like I had, their misty figures suffused with relief.

All of them looked up at the swirling sky.

And almost all of them smiled. Some of them laughed, raising their arms… and they began to drift upwards, rising slowly at first, and gaining speed.

I watched the multitude of spirits come through and rise, each of them joining with the myriad stars above us.

“Juno?” Voraal’s voice was soft and questioning.

“Those aren’t stars.” I laughed a little, a hand on my chest. My heart thumped painfully against my ribs. “They’re souls. Every little light is a soul.”

He inclined his head.

I stared up as the ghosts vanished into the vortex, tears pricking the backs of my eyes.

I had seen Lincoln’s ghost after his death many times, but one day… he’d disappeared. I had never seen him again.

Many ghosts had appeared to me since then, but I always wondered if he’d finally found peace.

Maybe he’d come across a doorway that had relieved his mortal burdens, and he’d been able to ascend and leave it all behind.

I wondered if he was one of those stars.

Voraal looked up into the stygian center of the vortex. “It is the Beyond. The next world for those who are ready to move on.”

“Not death?” I’d always wondered if there was an afterlife, or if there was just a hell where your ghost imprinted on the world until it finally faded.

“Nothing ever truly dies.” Voraal’s burning eyes gazed into me. “All energy moves to the Beyond. And what lies beyond that… we are not yet ready to know.”

I smiled. If Lincoln’s soul had vanished, surely he had ascended to that twinkling vortex.

---