Psycho Gods: Part 3 – Chapter 26

Sepulchre (noun): a place of burial; tomb.

DAY 18, HOUR 19

The funeral processed in the war camp’s forest.

An enchanted camera flashed.

A line of witches stood off to the side and hummed a dark melody. Runes glowed on their skin. The ban on silence was temporarily lifted because an expensive timed enchantment had created a sound boundary.

Dick, Lothaire, and the cloaked man stood off to the side and watched with solemn faces.

Lyla performed the ceremony a few feet in front of us.

The rest of the soldiers stood apart.

Up close, the runes on Lyla’s skin shone with a much brighter light than the runes on the other witches. Lyla practically glowed like a star, while the rest were muted. She pulsed with power.

The left side of my face prickled under the weight of Lothaire’s attention. Unlike everyone else, he wasn’t watching Lyla perform the ceremony.

His jagged scar pulled tight as he frowned.

He stared at me.

“Keep up the good work,” he mouthed silently.

I nodded back and tried to appear stronger than I was.

The witches hummed louder, their voices dropping to an eerily deep octave that no other creature could replicate.

Lyla spun a ball of energy between her hands.

The glow emanating off her intensified.

The High Court had returned to help us mourn. At least, that was the excuse they’d given when they RJE’d into the camp after we’d given our progress update on the last battle.

Sharp light blinded my corneas as another camera flashed.

They’d brought journalists with them from across the realms.

The funeral was a PR stunt.

Branches clattered in the frozen wind.

An enchanted broadcasting stone hovered high above our heads. Dick stooped like he was overcome with grief.

My stomach churned at his fake display.

He didn’t care about soldiers.

The High Court only cared about themselves. They cared about their image and how the public perceived them.

The witches hummed. A camera shuttered and dots danced in my vision.

Snow fell softly, and the steaming dirt created the illusion of fog. The setting sun cast the pines in ominous shadows.

Lyla waved her arms and spun. Her green hair defied gravity as it lifted around her head, and the energy of the universe strummed around her in a display meant to inspire the viewers across the realms.

It was disturbing.

A witch hit a high note, and another hummed baritone. The sounds coalesced. Another camera flashed.

Fifty-nine soldiers stood behind me in the forest, as Lyla performed a silent funeral ceremony for the deceased.

Fifty-nine. An iniquitous number, indivisible by anything but itself and one.

It was an abomination.

We’d started the second battle with eighty-three soldiers. The strategy had been the same. To limit casualties, only the strongest had fought within the settlement, and the rest of the soldiers had secured the perimeter.

There’d been no deaths among the academy, shifter, angel, and assassin legions. Twenty of us had entered the infected settlement, and twenty of us had emerged.

We’d been unaware that dozens of ungodly were flooding out of a back entrance and trying to escape into the mountains.

Three leviathans and one devil had perished, which left only one person left from each of their legions. Both men were inconsolable. They weren’t the only ones.

Nineteen other soldiers had died holding the perimeter.

They’d given their lives and successfully stopped the ungodly from disappearing into the mountains. It was a small consolation.

We’d started with one hundred. Forty-one dead after two battles, and we had two more left; it didn’t take a mathematician to recognize that we were doomed.

So.

Many.

Dead.

In front of me, runes glowed across Lyla’s dark skin as she raised her hands above her head, palms together, in the gesticulation of eternal energy flowing through the universe. It was the ancient sign of death, symbolic of how a soul lifted above a body and rose into the valley of the sun god.

The weight of eyes prickled across the back of my neck as soldiers watched me.

I stood apart from the rest.

The High Court had requested that I partake in the ceremony to help raise morale and demonstrate leadership.

Their request had come in the form of an order.

Dick had pulled me aside in the strategy room and said I was a symbol of hope across the realms.

Apparently, it was widely known and accepted that the fae queen had manifested both fae and angel abilities. Her power was the stuff of legends.

The problem was she didn’t exist. It was all a ruse.

The headlines apparently loved that the fae queen was best friends with a powerful shifter from the beast realm.

Dick pulled me aside earlier and told me that I united the realms like no one ever had before.

Now in the snowy forest, Lyla extended her arms forward so her pressed-together palms were pointed directly at my heart and the energy of the dead was directed toward my soul.

The witch stared at me.

I stared down at the steaming dirt.

She pulled her hands apart and turned over her palms.

Something tugged inside my chest and expanded, then sizzled into nothingness like I was leaking from the inside.

Lyla’s eyes widened, and she took a step away from me. She opened her mouth like fate itself was going to ask me a question, but no sound escaped her lips. Instead, she lowered her glowing arms to her sides and stood perfectly still.

She glanced over at Dick, and then back to me, like she wanted to tell me something but couldn’t because he was present.

Her expression was horrified.

Ice dripped off my fingers.

Finally, the ceremony ended. An RJE device swirled as Dick, Lothaire, the cloaked man, Lyla, the other witches, and the journalist all disappeared.

Branches rustled.

It was eerily quiet in the aftermath of the humming.

The snow picked up and the sky darkened.

The realm’s weather was unpredictable, and blizzards arrived with no warning.

My teeth chattered.

The soldiers realized the funeral service was over, and they hurried back to their barracks. No one wanted to linger in a storm.

Suddenly, I felt death’s familiar presence lingering in the shadows of the towering pines. He was still haunting me.

He’d appeared when I was a child. The world had flatlined into shades of gray, and I’d woken up with an unnatural chill and an emptiness in my soul.

Death stalked me.

“You’re catastrophizing. It’s not death that makes you feel empty.” Jinx’s voice was loud and crisp in my head.

I stumbled with surprise and barely kept myself upright. Snow gathered on my eyelashes, and my eyes burned from the icy wind as I looked around the forest. Jax carried Jinx on his back as they walked down the path away from me.

The blizzard intensified.

“Then what makes me feel this way?” I asked back tiredly.

Silence.

“Take a deep breath.” Scorpius stepped forward from the shadows. “It might feel like you’re trapped, but you’re not. I promise.”

“How do you know?” I asked.

He held out his hand. “Because you’re not alone anymore.”

I reached forward and took the lifeline. Calloused fingers grounded me.

The numbness receded.

“Thank you,” I whispered up at the blind king as we walked together down the snowy path.

“Anytime, Aran.”