Chapter 86 A Price Paid

  Isaac found himself standing in a strange kaleidoscopic nebula of Black, Indigo, Sunlight Yellow, Indigo again, and Moonlight Silver. Everything around him seemed to just fold in on itself in perpetuity like nothing was real or tangible in the slightest. He blinked and five figures appeared in front of him. He recognized all of them.

  “You are so lame.” The young girl, with golden blonde hair and one brown and one red eye, told him with a look of anything but amusement.

  “We expected more.” Her twin brother, who had matching hair but eyes of green and blue instead of brown and red, added with a frown.

  “How’s Lenna?” Isaac asked as soon as the second deity of reincarnation finished. He hadn’t given any of the other deities enough time to speak their peace. The only reason he had given Rei and Zei enough time was because his mind was still reeling.

  “Alive and out of danger, for the moment.” The gorgeous woman, with skin like wild violets and whose eyes and hair were made of condensed silver moonlight, informed him with a gentle smile that soon faded. The voices of all three deities that had spoken were like wind chimes, dewdrops, starry nights, and flashes of fireflies, despite the less than pleasant tones of the twins.

  “For the moment.” Rei scoffed. “She’s going to have a lot less of those now.”

  “What do you mean?” Isaac all but demanded. He didn’t want to step on Rei’s toes but he needed an answer to that question.

  “You…” The skeleton in a simple black robe began. “died.” His voice rasped out with far more air than necessary, for a person who had lungs to use in the first place, which the skeleton distinctly did not.

  “Your mate lacks any and all self preservation instincts when it comes to you.” Rei told him flatly. “She tried to power a Resurrection with her own soul when she ran out of mana. She should have died too.”

  “Should have?” Isaac latched onto the bit of hope that Rei had left out in the open for him.

  Lua shook her head with a smile that seemed both proud and admonishing, only she was not looking at Isaac but at something off in the distance that he couldn't see. “That girl demanded four deities assist her in bringing you back.” She told him

  “And told me not to steal you away.” The Reaper added. “I waited ten extra seconds… as a favor… that she now owes me.” Isaac felt like his eye was about to twitch with how unreasonably long it took for the Reaper to finish a single sentence. He may have had all of the time in all of existence but Isaac doubted the same was true for himself.

  “She owes you a favor? Is that why she will be having fewer moments?” Isaac questioned.

  The Reaper shook his head but it was the fifth deity who answered: “No.” The older middle aged woman with hair the color of rich soil, skin the color of wheat and sandy beaches, and eyes like fresh water and the ocean in the sunlight began. “Our power is limited on Primatia. There must always be a price paid in order to use it. Usually it is mana. Sometimes it is deeds. Often it is the integrity of one's own soul. We all stepped in to help her, even The Reaper, in a way. The help we rendered must be repaid. Whether we like it or not.” Halya told him with a sad smile. “I would always help those in my care, without charge, if I could.”

  “That’s true for all of us except Lua.” Zei cut in. “She can exercise a degree of her power without the need of a bargain, while under the moonlight. In case you forgot, it is mid morning in your part of the world.”

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  “Can I pay the price?” Isaac asked the five beings that transcended mortality and comprehension that were arrayed before him.

  Halya shook her head with a sad and apologetic look on her face. “N-” She began but was cut off.

  “Not exactly.” Rei told him. “You and that dramatic bastard can probably work something out,” She gestured towards The Reaper. “when it comes to the favor, but the same cannot be said for the help the rest of us gave her.”

  “What is the price?” Isaac wondered. He really hoped that it was not anything too-

  “Sixty years of her life.” Zei stated.

  Isaac clutched at his heart, that may or may not have even been there, as he processed the fact that Lenna had literally just given him years off of her life. In the back of his mind, Isaac realized that Lenna’s plan had always been to give him almost half of her lifespan but this was somehow different. It was one thing knowing that Lenna was planning on it, it was another for it to just abruptly happen. Part of him didn’t think that Lenna was actually going to go through with trying to bind their strands of fate together in order to share their lifespans. This was confirmation that she had absolutely no intention of calling off her wish.

  “Forty five.” Lua corrected Zei. “She is already used to my power. I will use her tolerance to lessen the blow and treat it like any normal Divine Intervention.”

  “That might still kill her.” Halya said with widened eyes.

  “She has been through something almost as bad before. I have faith in her resilience.” Lua countered. The humor of a deity having faith in one of their followers was not lost on Zei who cracked a smirk upon hearing Lua’s words.

  “Can’t I take Zei’s part?” Isaac questioned Lua. “I have his blessing. That’s what you meant about tolerance right?”

  Zei shook his head but it was Rei who answered. “No, you idiot. How can you pay for your own resurrection?” She shot at him. “That’s not how magic, witchcraft, or divine power works.” She ran her hand down her face. “I cannot believe that we actually had to get involved like this.”

  Lua seemed to sense Isaac’s confusion at Rei and Zei’s apparent irritation at getting involved. It was pretty obvious that Halya, and Lua herself, were more upset about Lenna’s loss of years, and The Reaper was just owed his due for having waited longer than he was supposed to to reap Isaac’s soul. “Stepping in like this costs us power on our end too.” Lua told Isaac. “For those of us with worshipers, it is power that we can occasionally spare. For the twins it is a bit different. For them it is power that will never come back. They will continue to grow stronger, as usual, but it will set them back.”

  Isaac nodded in thanks to Lua before he asked her another question: “Why sixty years, or, well, forty five?”

  “You had sixty years left, give or take.” Rei answered for her. “So that is what must be p-” Her voice cut off as the entire environment around them turned blacker than pitch. “What?” She asked aloud.

  Lua, Halya, Rei, Zei, and The Reaper were still clearly visible even though there was no longer any light in their meeting space. Isaac felt a searing and piercing pain all throughout his body like his bones were being put back together piece by piece. The thing was, Isaac thought that he was already back in one piece. At least he had been for their entire conversation, from his perspective.

  Lua smiled. “You are the one who gave him ****’s favor. It is only natural that one of nine would come to his aid.” She told the much younger looking deity.

  “What?” Rei said again but with growing disbelief. “That’s not how power works ****!” She called out to the darkness.

  Lua gave Isaac a warm smile. “Thirty.” She told him. “She is guaranteed to survive the repercussions from using my power and her lifespan will only be reduced by thirty years from the other three. You are truly blessed. Be thankful that the Darkness you claim to lord over cherishes you so.”

  “We will talk… later.” The Reaper told Isaac, who was too busy writhing in pain to reply, but the words and the memory of the entire encounter was burned into his mind and soul in a way that would prevent him from ever forgetting it.

  Isaac’s eyes closed in pain as the agony reached its crescendo, then, all at once, it was over. He gasped as his real lungs started to work again but then was immediately sent into a coughing fit as his body needed to expel all of the blood that ended up where it shouldn’t have. He was alive, again.

  Knowingly or not, like it or not, Lenna had sold thirty years of her life in order to give Isaac sixty more. Her soul’s integrity was also compromised, whatever that meant, and some unknown being was somehow connected to all of the colors of mana. On top of that, Isaac was cherished by Darkness, something that he sort of understood but also definitely didn’t. All of those thoughts rattled around in Isaac’s head, bouncing off of his pounding headache like skipping stones, while he gasped for air on the cold ground of the warehouse.

  Isaac wasn’t sure if he was somehow supremely lucky or had the absolute worst luck. On one hand, he had come back from the dead with the help of deities, again. On the other hand, his mate had just traded thirty years of her life to undo the damage that he could have avoided in the first place. The shortening of her life, the hit to her soul’s integrity, the destroyed teleportation circle, whatever happened to Shamesh, all of it could have been avoided if he had just remembered to shroud her boots in shadows again. One tiny mistake, one small lapse in judgment, had more brutal repercussions than any major mistake Isaac had made to date. Isaac was mad at himself but he was absolutely livid with someone else: The Guard Captain and Store Manager that had escaped. Isaac didn’t care when, but one day, one day, Isaac would make sure those two paid dearly for what had happened, on the morning of the twenty third day, of the tenth month, of the year twelve hundred and seventy seven of the current age.