Chapter 18.

  A Bargain Struck.

  Reina blinked as she surfaced from the Cardinal’s influence. Her blades clattered to the ground as her eyes beheld the terrifying visage of the bloodied man above her. She shrank before his rage as tears sprang to her eyes.

  “No.” She whispered Theodren’s grip on her throat released as he watched tears flood her eyes and a deep purple of grief enveloped her soul. She broke free of Theodren, struggling to her feet, she cried out in pain as she hobbled over to the family of corpses that she had left in her wake.

  “No. No. No. No. No!!!” She fell to her knees before the mangled bodies of Pieter and Polly, limbs bent at unnatural angles, she was faced with the horror of what she had done. Her breath came faster and faster as the magnitude of her destruction settled upon her, she scrambled over to Evan and Eleina.

  “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean… this isn’t what… I didn’t want...” She reached out a shaking hand toward Evan’s corpse. In his dying moments he had dragged himself closer to his wife and child. His reaching hand just inches from the tiny lifeless fingers of his newborn daughter.

  The blood on Reina’s hand caught her eye. She looked down to examine herself, trying to see where the blood would end but it did not. She was soaked in it. She screamed the wail of a broken soul as she faced the product of her barbarism. She teared at her clothes with weak and desperate hands trying to distance herself from the blood.

  She fell further to her elbows as she tried to extricate the smallest corpse from the arms of her mother, hoping against hope that there was still life left in the babe.

  “Have you not taken enough?” Growled Theodren from behind her. She turned to see the Priest, holding the limp body of Lester in his arms. Theodren glowered down at her. “Was taking their lives not enough? The last thing Eleina ever did was shield her child from you. And now you steal her from her mother’s arms?

  Tears fell freely down Reina’s face as she shook her head. She sobbed. “I’m sorry! I’m so sorry! Please!” She threw herself at his feet, prostrating herself before him. “That boy said you healed people! You can fix this! Please! I don’t want this! Kill me! Torture me! I don’t care! But please!” She begged. “Bring them back!”

  Theodren stared down at her, rage giving way to a deep consuming sadness. “That door is not mine to open.”

  “He speaks the truth child.” Reina’s head snapped up at the otherworldly whisper that pierced her very soul. The world seemed frozen in place as she searched for the source of the voice.

  Eleina’s body rose from the ground like a puppet on strings. Grotesque in its grace, the corpse came to its feet still holding the child. Eyes wild with fear, Reina’s mouth fell open in a silent scream of horror as she beheld the ghoulish figure. The corpse’ eyes snapped open, revealing two voids of black that sat above a too wide smile. “It is mine.”

  Words failed Reina as her fear silenced her broken sobs. She could only stare at the ghoul who looked around at the carnage with lightless eyes. “You’ve fed me well today, child. Many of your order have offered me feasts, but none have ever delivered such an intriguing morsel. Eleina’s corpse dragged a bloody finger along Theviana’s cold and lifeless face. A curious grin spread across the ghoul’s mouth.

  “What are you?!” Shrieked Reina, finding her voice through the fear. “How rude of me! Of course I know how important names are to you mortals.” The corpse gave a halting bow like a marionette on tangled strings. “I am Nihila. And I hold the Black Door.”

  Reina’s mind reeled as her faith broke for the second time that day. She had believed her entire life, that the church of Holy Order was a bastion of goodness in the world. What little she had been told of her father was that through the Church, he held the Order of the world together for the greater good.

  Her entire life she had built her plans around the accolades she would attain through the Church. The rose gold image of the praise and grandeur she would enjoy in her service, was shattered in a single bloody afternoon.

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  But as she beheld the otherworldly horror of Nihila smiling down at her, another foundational pillar of her worldview crumbled. The Church had lied. The creature standing before her could be nothing less than a god, and it was not Odrain.

  Sobs returned to wrack Reina’s shoulders. “Why!?” She wailed. “Why me!?” Nihila chuckled as she strode past Reina to the frozen form of Theodren, still glowering down at the spot where Reina used to be.

  “Because my sister.” Nihila purred, running a hand down Theodren’s arm. “Finally did something interesting.”

  Reina stared, confused, at the god who’s attention remained fixed on Theodren. “Quite the specimen, isn’t he?” The way Nihila squeezed and caressed at the large man sickened her but she said nothing. “He want’s me, you know.” Nihila shot a coy smile at Reina’s shocked face.

  “After all you took from him, he wants me so badly I can taste it like like the scent of rotten meat on the air.” A frown pulled at the edges of her dead lips. “But his duty won’t let him. He’ll kill and kill until not a single Golden Thread remains on this earth. And then and only then would he give himself to me.”

  Nihila raised a hand to her mouth like a school girl telling a secret. “But I’ll tell you something he doesn’t know.” Reina eyed her warily, waiting for the corpse to continue. “He will never see my door.”

  Reina’s eyes grew wide at that. Immortality was something many of the most powerful lords of the capitol merely pretended at. Often demanding divine mending from the Order in exchange for underhanded undertakings from the highest levels of the Church to the parliament itself.

  Nihila snorted as if reading directly from Reina’s mind. “You mortals are all the same, greedy and careless to the point of destruction, caring naught for the ruin you leave in your wake.”

  The corpse stared up at the Imposing priest . “But Theodren, This man risks himself just so that the ones who would kill him might avoid my door just a little longer.”

  A melancholy sigh escaped the corpse’s purple lips. “But he will never cross my threshold.” An irritated edge infused the god’s words.

  “My darling sister saw to that.” Nihila poked at the Caduceus in Theodren’s chest, exposed by Reina’s blades. “There are more!?” Blurted Reina, surprised at her own outburst.

  Nihila shot a mischievous look at Reina who cringed at the look. Nihila continued. “My sister is not one to take. Giving is all she knows how to do. How curious that she would take the best of her creations away from me.”

  The corpse turned its eyes back to Reina as if an idea had suddenly occurred to her. “And speaking of giving.” Nihila stalked back over to Reina, a slick smile on her borrowed face. “I have a gift for you.”

  Reina cowered before the walking corpse. “A gift?” Was all she could mutter. Nihila looked down to the quiet bundle in her arms. “Theodren pulled this babe from my grasp just weeks ago.” Reina’s eyes welled up at the baby's mention. “Weeks!?” She sobbed.

  Nihila continued. “He almost did it without my sister’s help, but your Weaver.” Tsk’d the corpse. “Would rather break his own priest’s Thread, than allow this child to be born.”

  Nihila held the baby out to Reina who recoiled, unable to bear the sight of the violence she had wrought on her smallest victim. “I want to know why.”

  Reina’s hands shook as she reached for the babe. If she could take the child from this god of death, her sins might just be bearable, but there had to be a catch. She paused as her hands hovered inches from the child. Her mother liked to remind her that “no gift is free.” And she looked at the god with mistrust in her eyes.

  “What do you require of me in return?” Nihila smiled down at the woman. “Clever girl. But fret not, all I require is your service, and your Thread.”

  Reina was shocked. Her Thread was what had elevated her, her entire life. It had gained her the praise of her peers and patrons alike. It had opened doors for her. She looked around at what remained of the village that was a thriving community only an hour ago. It had slaughtered a town full of innocents.

  “Take it.” Spat Reina, reaching further for the baby. Nihila pulled the babe just barely out of reach. “Understand child, that what I give you in it’s place is no paltry power like the Thread you so carelessly bandied about. What I give you is the waters of Acheron, the river of Woe. Death shall follow you all your days. Do you understand?”

  Reina was beyond listening and beyond caring. Whatever consequence she suffered she no longer cared. “I accept.” An amused expression crossed Nihila’s face as she placed the bundle in Reina’s reaching arms

  As the babe touched Reina’s hands she grunted as her lengthy Thread was ripped from her soul. This was a pain far deeper than any she had ever experienced, but there was nothing that could force her to drop the child in her arms.

  She clutched Theviana to her chest as tears once again sprang to her eyes. The cold of the baby’s corpse soaked into her skin. The sensation repulsed the woman, but she held the babe all the more tightly as she felt a different kind of cold, creeping and sickly, flow from the child into her very soul. A river of ice cold Acher grew within her as she drained the death from the tiny form in her arms.

  As time returned to its natural flow, Theodren’s head snapped to where Reina now knelt, feet from where she had been only a second prior. He opened his mouth to speak but was struck dumb by the last sound he had dared to hope for.

  The cry of an infant