Chapter 32: Saying Goodbye

  “What about you, Zelle?” Isa asked. “What are you going to do, now?”

  Zelle gave her a sultry grin. “That depends on you, babe. Tell me, where should we go from here?”

  Isa looked over Zelle’s shoulder at me, a look not missed by the other girl.

  “I don’t know,” she sighed. “To be honest, I think this world is in trouble. I want to help Alex and my parents fight to save it.”

  “Uh,” I cleared my throat. “About that. Your parents moved on, and I think it’s best if you go back to Yew with Zelle where you’ll be safe. The goddess still has that town under her protection.”

  It was also my plan to deposit Bori with her mother where she couldn’t run amok until I dealt with the dark ancient gods who wanted to plunge the universe into chaos, darkness, or whatever it was.

  “What do you mean, moved on?” Isa asked in a voice trembling.

  When I turned to her, her eyes were watering. “Uh, they said they wanted to try reincarnation now that we got your friends back.”

  “No, really, what do you mean?” she sobbed, tears welling in her eyes. “They didn’t even say goodbye.”

  “Uh,” I nearly choked as my breath caught in my throat. “Give me a second.”

  I retreated into myself faster than she could blink.

  Please let them still be there!

  Surprisingly, they were right where I left them, casually orbiting my core. I approached slowly, worried I might scare them off.

  “Was there a wait list for reincarnation?”

  Vince laughed. “You’ll find there’s little reason to rush when you’re dead. We were just admiring your soul. It seems different, somehow.”

  “Different?” I asked, following his gaze.

  While my core did look a lot like Saturn with its swirling colors and ring of rocks orbiting it, I’d never thought of it as different. Then again, I didn’t have other cores to compare it to.

  “It’s bigger for starters,” Anna explained.

  “And more defined,” Vince added.

  “How many cores have you two seen?” I asked.

  “Quite a few, if you look closely,” Vince said. “All of the people you took in are basically non-corporeal souls. Look at us, for example. Naked souls, the both of us.”

  He was right. I never paid them much mind as they were as transparent as ghosts but there was a solid sphere in their chest for me to examine if I zoomed in.

  “Don’t you think Vince has a manly aura?” Anna asked, floating so close to her husband’s core she risked merging with it.

  His core looked like a throne from a TV show I once watched that was made all out of blades. Only, rather than being welded together, a maelstrom of blades spun like a storm on a gas-giant planet. Anna’s core was different. It reminded me of a different movie called Waterworld. On closer observation, a raging sea mimicked the blade storm of her husband’s. They were something else to look at. I would have to go soul gazing before I freed all the wraiths’ victims.

  “Oh, right,” I said shaking myself out of my reverie. “Isa wanted to talk to the two of you. You can use my body if you like.”

  “I’ll go first,” Anna said.

  I allowed her to take control, and tried to give her some privacy while continuing the conversation with Vince.

  “So, what are the other choices beside reincarnation?” I asked.

  He chuckled. “I’m not supposed to say and, besides, you may get different ones than we did. Just so you know, not all of our options allowed us to stay together.”

  “But reincarnation did?” I asked.

  He hesitated for a moment. “Well, there are several kinds of reincarnation. In our case, it’s more like relocation. We will be given fresh bodies on an underpopulated world. That way we can be together. Think of it as a repopulation program.”

  “I thought they only did that in books,” I mused.

  Vince’s chuckle was back. “And this life wouldn’t make a wonderful book? We’ve been leveling since we were teens, and we spent our entire lives seeking treasure and fortune. What’s wrong with continuing in another world?”

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  “Won’t you miss Isa?” I asked.

  “Of course we will!” he snapped, his voice deep with emotion. “It isn’t like we have an option to stay here. Doing so would fall outside of life’s design.”

  “Life’s design?” I asked more to myself than to Vince. “I suppose that would make sense. Isa said something felt off when I resurrected her. Maybe it was the universe telling her that wasn’t supposed to happen.”

  “It wasn’t” Vince admitted. “But I’m glad you brought her back. I can never thank you enough for that. Otherwise, we never would have been able to reunite.”

  Anna returned before I could reply. “Okay, Honey. You go next.”

  We waited for a bit as Vince floated off toward wherever my consciousness station was.

  “So, how do you feel about going to a new world?” I asked.

  Anna’s sweet smile put me off guard. “I need you to promise me something, Alex.”

  “Sure,” I replied without thinking. “Anything.”

  She floated closer to me and whispered. “I want you to stay close to my daughter. You make her whole. Please don’t abandon her in Yew.”

  I was taken aback, and not just because she whispered, though I supposed the captive wraiths could have been listening in. There she was, Isa’s mother, asking me to put her daughter in harm’s way.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  She smiled. “It’s simple, Darling. Even though she won’t admit it, I don’t think she wants to live without you. It wasn’t our absence that drove her crazy. It was yours. She hasn’t figured that out yet.”

  “I won’t force her to stay with me,” I sighed.

  She reached out and touched me, a strange feeling that made me shiver. “All you need to do is assure her you love her and want her with you. She will come with you. Have faith in yourself.”

  Vince returned quicker than I expected. He looked haggard. “It’s done. We’ve said our goodbyes. Are you ready, Honey?”

  “As ready as I’ll ever be,” Anna sighed. “Remember what we discussed, Alex.”

  “What are you up to?” Vince asked but I never got to hear her reply because they faded mid conversation.

  When I returned to the real world, I found Isa crying in the arms of Zelle while the others searched the remaining rooms for clues. Nax sat by himself on a couch watching me intently.

  When he noticed I was back to my senses, he approached. “Alex, I know you’re busy and all with trying to save the world, but how soon can you get me home?”

  “Soon,” I said, contemplating my next move as I absentmindedly answered. “Um, Nax, what are you going to do after you get home? I mean, sure, I know you want to see your kid, but what if this Donn finds that artifact? Shouldn’t we stop him?”

  Nax frowned. “Look, man. You’ve always been in a different league from us. If it comes down to a war, sure, I’ll fight to defend my home, but I’m not going to join some special forces to hunt down some monster that can probably kill me by sneezing. That Pi friend of yours is more suited for that task.”

  “At least think about moving your family to Albion,” I said, offering him my hand. “You’ll always be welcome there.”

  “We’ll see,” he replied, letting me help him up. “It’s Maxine that will need convincing. Family is everything in Yew. For the commoners in any case.”

  Isa walked over, rubbing tears from her eyes. “How soon can we go? I don’t want to be here anymore.”

  “We can go,” I said quietly, debating how to ask her to stay with me. Was that really what she wanted?

  I switched to group chat. Hey guys. There’s no one else here. Let’s wrap things up and get out of here. We have things to do.

  How do you want to leave? Carlito asked. Like I said, the front entrance is crowded with shadowmen.

  While I was sorely tempted to step out and collect some more souls, Pi’s warning about not confronting them made me think better of it. Donn could be any one of them. Why he would be hanging out in front of a castle was beyond me, but the reward was not worth the risk.

  Let’s escape through the tunnel. There’s no point taking needless chances.

  Carlito walked past me as he made for the stairs leading to the dungeons. I’ll scout ahead.

  There was still so much castle left to explore, but I realized we didn’t have the time for it. I scanned the rooms for anything worthwhile and scooped up a few ranked A items and tossed them into my bag. I’d have to look at them more closely later.

  Do you think the Puppetmaster has a secret room for all her experiments? I asked.

  Primith laughed through group chat, a sound that made my ears ring. Of course, she does. It’s in the basement, remember.

  Oh, that place. I sighed. It’s too bad. I was hoping to find her secret stash.

  Your buddy took it. Zelle said. We were there in his head. We saw him.

  That raised more questions. Why couldn’t Pi have hung around a bit longer to explain things to me? Was it that vital that he get to Solitair right that second? When had he even learned to teleport?

  It turned out Carlito didn’t need to scout. We found the dungeon just as abandoned as when we entered. The only issue we had was Nax and Zelle freaking out when they found out they had to get in the freezing water to exit the castle.

  “We have to swim through the murk?” Nax asked, ignoring group chat. “Do you at least have a rebreather?”

  “Relax,” Isa soothed him. “It’s not far. I’ll hold your hand.”

  “Okay,” he gulped in a lungful of air, and the two of them took off.

  I waited to go last but just as I was about to, Bori popped out. She grinned up at me and said, “I want to be a dolphin again.”

  Without waiting for permission, she transformed and sped off ahead. Primith, who also waited, chuckled and followed, leaving me to bring up the rear.

  Alariel was waiting for us when we arrived back in the Thief’s Corridor.

  “Whe-where is she?” she asked.

  “She wasn’t home,” I replied. “We checked everywhere. Nobody was there.”

  “That’s impossible,” she said, her voice trembling. “Grandmother never leaves.”

  “She’s after something,” I replied. “Pi…Jericho said she wants to wipe out all human life on Gaia.”

  “Yeah,” she sighed. “Both her and my mom talk about that all the time, but I doubt they will ever do it.”

  “They say she wants to combine Kiki’s bloodline with a special relic to bring about chaos,” Primith added.

  “Oh, that,” Alariel shook her head. “That thing is under lock and key in Solitair. Even mother couldn’t get it and she practically lived there.”

  “But they are evacuating Solitair,” I said. “Doesn’t that mean it will be less guarded?”

  Alariel gasped. “We need to get there right away then. If Grandmother gets her hands on that thing, there’s no telling what she’ll do.”

  “It’s not her we need to worry about apparently,” I explained. “There’s another shadow man named Donn who intends to use it to wipe out the entire universe.”

  “That’s even worse!” Alariel shrieked, showing rare emotion. “Let’s hurry back to the airship.”

  “Jericho is already there,” I said, a plan forming in my head. “He told me to go get backup. We’re taking the airship to Celestea. Don’t worry, though. We do have two more airships back in Albion.”

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