“Not yet,” I say. I turn my back on the window and the monstrosity hovering outside. “Just discussing contingencies.”
“I hate that word,” she mutters. “It implies we expect to lose.”
“It implies we prepare for every outcome,” Dreven corrects.
Tabitha sets her mug down on the coffee table with a sharp click. “The Judge will not care for your preparations. It cares only for the balance.”
“Balance,” I mutter. “There is no balance. Nyssa is ruler.”
As if the universe takes that as a personal challenge to that, the air in the room solidifies. It isn’t a drop in temperature or a shift in pressure. It is a sudden, absolute stillness. The rain stops hammering against the roof, though I see it falling through the window. Sound has been cut.
Nyssa stands up, gripping her blade. Her knuckles are white.
The front door swings open. No wind blows in. No rain wets the mat.
We wait, but nothing else happens. At least, nothing they can see.
I narrow my eyes at the figure that floats in, taking a good look around before it fixes its ghostly gaze on me.
“What is it?” Nyssa asks. “Is something there?”
“You could say that,” I reply, not taking my eyes off the spirit of the Aethel. “What do you want?”
She hisses at me. “I want my power back!”
“You can’t have it.”
“Voren,” Dreven asks, coming closer. “Who is it?”
“Aethel,” I state. “She wants her power back.”
Nyssa spins to me, blade up. “She can’t have it.”
“That bitch!” Aethel growls and flies towards Nyssa. I stop her with the power of the Wraith god. Inhaling deeply and relishing the control over this tyrant who made our lives a living hell for hundreds of years.
“Not a chance,” I say quietly.
The words carry the weight of my domain. Aethel screams, a sound that vibrates the window panes but goes unheard by the others. Her spectral form flickers, violently resisting, but she has no choice. She is dead. I am the god of Wraiths. The hierarchy is absolute.
“Where is she?” Nyssa asks, slashing her blade through the space Aethel just occupied. “I want to stab her again.”
“She isn’t close enough to hurt you,” I say, keeping my gaze fixed on the tyrant’s furious spirit. “And stabbing her won’t work. She has no physical form to puncture.”
“Pity,” Dastian mutters, red sparks dancing between his fingers. “I could try blasting her? Does chaotic energy hurt ghosts?”
“It disrupts them,” I reply. “But we need answers before you shred her soul.”
Aethel glares up at me. Her face is a mask of twisted rage, the beauty she prized in life stripped away by the bitterness of her end. “I answer to no one,” she hisses. “Especially you, Voren.”
“You are dead, Aethel,” I remind her coldly. “You only answer to me.”
Tabitha steps forward. She looks at the empty spot where Aethel hovers. “If the former ruler has manifested, the barrierbetween the living and the dead is thinning. The First Law is pulling threads from every direction.”
“Where did she come from?” Nyssa asks, “Where do dead gods go?”
“The void. Somehow, she has clawed her way back.”
“She always was powerful,” Dreven says. “Mother. If you can hear me. We need you to leave. We are kind of in the middle of something.”
