Page 33 of Empire of Death
“And you really believe it’s haunted and not just the recipient of unfortunate weather?”
He gave a quiet chuckle as he focused on our path across the sea. “For a necromancer, you’re awfully dismissive of magic. Legends say that the ability to raise the dead only comes from one place—the god of the underworld. You believe in him, in the Realm of Caelum, but you don’t believe there’s a destination for those who don’t belong in either place?”
My eyes remained locked on his as the truth of his words hit me like a cold splash of water that came over the starboard.
“Hmm, what a pity…”
11
LILY
I stood at the front of the ship, the sky still maintaining its blue hue before darkness completely claimed it. The sky was an infinite expanse of bright stars overhead, a map that seafarers could always depend on if they ever lost their way.
Hawk had gone below deck to retire for the night, but I stood there alone, the skeleton crew maintaining the ship so others could rest. The sea was usually calm after the sun had set, and right now the surface felt like glass. It barely rocked at all.
There was a silent ringing in my ear, a substance that filled my entire chest and felt like a heavy stone. I wasn’t sure what I felt, if it was his aura or the presence of his dark magic, but I knew he was there.
In quiet moments like this, it was a lot easier to recognize.
My eyes shifted, and there he was, a king with his cape flowing in the breeze, a behemoth of a man who rivaled the size of a monster, with arms thicker than my head. His eyes matched the sky, dark but still full of light. He stared at me in silence, reading my face the way sailors read the stars.
I’d stayed out there even when most of the men had gone to bed for a chance to talk with him, to stare at his face and appreciate the comfort it brought me. Our souls resided in two different places, but I’d never felt closer to another person. Not to Zehemoth, not to my mother or father.
“Tell me your woes,” he said quietly.
I inhaled a slow breath as I looked upon his handsome face. “Jack said there’s an island called the Abyss, where sailors lost at sea reside. They don’t pass on to Caelum or Xian. They just…float somewhere in between. Is that true?”
He regarded my face for a long time, eyes still like a predator stalking its prey. “Yes.”
The guilt crashed into me like a wave from a tsunami.
“But that isn’t the fate of all. Some can’t rest until their body has been reunited with their loved ones. Others let go because they’ve always been part of the sea. If a member of your crew resides there, it’s because it’s where they want to be.”
“To be a ghost.”
“More a spirit.”
“And all the ships there…?”
“So they can scour the seas in search of a body they’ll never find.”
My eyes dropped as another wave of guilt crashed into me.
“Every member of your crew signed up voluntarily. They were aware of the risks but chose to go anyway. What happened is not your fault whatsoever,Xivin.”
“But it is my fault, because you warned me not to go.”
Another gust of wind moved over the ship and lifted his cape behind him before it came gliding back down. “You would have been mad to trust the god of the underworld after he threatened you. Anyone else would have made the same decision. You carry the weight of the living and the dead, Lily Rothschild. Focus on the living, and let me handle the dead.”
“It just seems unfair that I’m alive while they’re forever lost at sea, because a god took pity on me.”
“It wasn’t pity,” he said quietly. “It was something far greater, far stronger…even then.”
I saw the sincerity in his eyes, the way he surrounded me in love without ever actually saying the words. The way he carried his heart on his sleeve like a shield he proudly wore in battle.
“Something I felt the moment I was within your presence.”
My eyes flicked away, not in rejection, but longing. My heart never sang for anyone the way it sang for him. It had been mute my whole life until his song filled my soul like water in a pitcher.
