Chapter 58

  Maira’s patron was… strange. And that was the politest word she could think of. For most outside the Tainted Church – that frayed alliance of preachers, witches, blood priests, and madmen serving the gods of the Lower Realms – Erebos was a nightmare. Not a towering demon with horns. Not a dark seducer in silk. But a walking knot of disease. Itching flesh. Contaminated water. Weeping wounds. Creeping decay. His voice? Like gurgling rotwater. His laughter? Like suffocation. And his gaze… didn’t see – it infected.

  His ideology? Not chaos. Not destruction. Not power. But truth through rot. Anyone who believed good could be separated from evil, purity from corruption, had clearly never listened to Erebos. To him, disease wasn’t a punishment. It was an origin. A test. A mirror.

  So why did Maira believe in that shit? Why serve him – of all beings – with body and soul? Sometimes, she asked herself that. And then something inside her would answer. A voice that wasn’t fully hers anymore. Ever since that moment in the chamber – when Erebos had entered her body to prevent disaster – something had remained. Not Erebos himself. But a fragment. A sliver. No full possession. Just… a shadow in the water.

  She had changed. She could sense every pathogen in the air. See their patterns. Their tiny limbs. Their colors. She could read the stories in a cough, an inflammation, a fever. Every pore whispered to her. Every body was an open book – full of infection. Full of truth.

  But the worst part wasn’t what she could see. It was the desire. Sometimes she didn’t want to banish the germs. Not fight them. Not destroy them. Sometimes she wanted to protect them. To warm them. To nurture them. Sometimes she wanted to breathe them in and keep them. Sometimes she felt empty when a person was healthy. And that frightened her. Not every day. Not every hour. But in the quiet moments. When Luken was asleep. When no one asked what was going on inside her.

  The cold of the Ice Wastes didn’t help. It preserved everything. Every spore from millennia past, every fossil of a plague that once ravaged the world before history. And she? She saw them all. Saw them dance. Could name them. It was fascinating, cruel, and sometimes… beautiful. A gift and a curse. A glimpse into a world hidden from most. The truth beneath the skin. The second layer of every existence.

  And then, suddenly, she was transported to that other realm. She only heard Luken shouting "Maira!"—and then everything went black.

  -

  In the next moment, she stood... on a balcony? It took her a moment to get her bearings. The cold of the Ice Wastes was gone. So was the wind, the snow, the crunch of her steps. Instead, she was enveloped by heavy, stagnant air. Humid. Warm. Putrid.

  Yes. It was a balcony. Or at least something that could be called one. The ground beneath her feet wasn’t stone, but fleshy, rubbery tissue that gave off a wet, muffled sound with each step. Veins twisted across it in snaking patterns, pulsing faintly as if the floor itself were breathing. In front of her stood a palace—or better: a grotesque cathedral of warped flesh, bone-like arches, and nauseating growths. The ceiling curved in organic waves above her, like the inside of a living intestine. Window-hollows twitched in the rhythm of an invisible heartbeat. Mucous membranes glittered in the corners, stretched like sails, streaked with black veins. From the wall seeped a slow, amber-colored fluid, bubbling with soft, whimpering pops.

  But Maira hardly noticed any of that—because her gaze, no, her entire awareness was fixed on the two figures before her. The first was unmistakably Erebos himself. The Seething Father. The figure to whom she had once devoted her life—long before she'd ever heard of Luken or Gravor. And yet... seeing him like this was something else.

  His body was a greenish-transparent slime mass, through which the human anatomy could be seen like through glass: ribs, a beating heart, pale lungs slowly rising and falling, and a skeletal frame twitching with each creaking movement. Veins ran through the mass, shimmering darkly like infected rivers. His head was a bald skull with scraps of flesh clinging to it, and in its sockets glowed two golden orbs—not hot, but radiating a sickly brilliance, as if analyzing every secret of the surroundings with bacterial precision. And then he smiled. Slowly. Gently. A smile meant to soothe. Maybe even to be loving. But all Maira saw was the grotesque grinding of teeth and the splattering as his membrane burst from the motion.

  But the figure next to Erebos… was different. Different from anything she had ever seen. The head was a gold-ornamented skull—perfectly symmetrical, as if sculpted by an artist. Yet the proportions were off. Not inhuman, but… too perfect. The skull seemed not to have aged, but to have been designed.

  The torso was clad in armor fashioned like a skeleton—ribcage, collarbones, spine, all made of black metal streaked with silver lines, as if liquid night flowed through them. And then there was the cloak. A black, tattered piece of fabric that hung from neck to heels. It was thin as smoke, yet let no light through. No shadow touched him. No glint reflected in its folds. It was a void, a black “not,” and it radiated a sense of threat Maira couldn’t quite grasp.

  In his hands rested a scythe. Night-black. Matte. No sheen, no reflection. The shaft looked like petrified wood, yet vibrated with every breath of the surrounding air. The blade was as wide as her shoulders—and longer than she was tall. It didn’t seem forged, but grown. As if someone had plucked a piece of darkness itself and turned it into a weapon.

  Stolen story; please report.

  The presence of this figure was overwhelming. Not loud, not brutal—but absolute.

  Before Maira could even begin to process the situation, her body had already reacted. Instinctively—almost in panic—she dropped to her knees. Her forehead touched the slimy, living floor, which bulged slightly beneath her, as if welcoming her. The stench of bile, blood, and something that reminded her of burnt hair stung her nose. But she didn’t dare move. Not when two gods were speaking. Two gods who radiated more power with each breath than she had ever felt before.

  The air around her vibrated. No sound, no wind—just pure, palpable presence. Then the second figure spoke—the bone god, as she called him in her mind. His voice was deep and suffused with a perfect calm that made Maira shiver instantly. It wasn’t just a dark voice. It was the voice after everything. The silence after a final breath. The emptiness after a stopped heart.

  “Are you sure that’s a good idea?” he asked—not harshly, not accusingly. Just… knowingly. As if he had already seen the end and was merely wondering whether they really had to walk straight into it.

  Erebos didn’t answer right away. He inhaled deeply—or at least mimicked it with the nearest equivalent his slimy body could manage. When he spoke, his voice struck Maira as a grotesque blend of sorrow, kindness… and madness. Like a tormented father trying to explain to his child why the dog had to die.

  “If I can’t go to Tirros… then what other choice do I have?”

  The bone god stepped closer. The ground made no sound. No crunch, no vibration. And yet Maira felt his presence more clearly than ever. The darkness that wrapped around him shimmered like smoke.

  “Let me do my job,” he said with dry sarcasm, “and stop tempting fate.”

  Erebos slowly lifted his gaze, his skeleton gleaming beneath the gelatinous mass of flesh.

  “And fate is supposed to be what? That millions die?” His voice was clearer now. Firmer. Resolute.

  Maira barely dared to breathe. She had heard stories—of gods in conflict. Of wars waged only in thought, yet capable of tearing entire worlds apart. And now… she was here. Between two entities, either of whom could erase her with a passing thought.

  Death—she couldn’t call him anything else—snorted. Like a tired teacher exasperated by a naive student.

  “I’m death,” he replied with a shrug. “So: yes. I’m fine with millions dying.”

  A hint of amusement flickered in his skull-like eyes.

  Maira dared to lift her head slowly, staring at him in disbelief.

  What the hell have I gotten myself into?

  The bone god shook his head, as if he’d just wasted his time.

  “Do whatever you want, slime-head,” he said with a soft laugh that, in Maira’s ears, sounded like the last bell before a massacre. “But if the council gathers because you fucked up… I’ll be in the front row. And I’ll laugh. Loudly.”

  And with those words, he dissolved into black mist. No gust of wind, no flash. He was simply gone. As if he had never been there.

  Erebos remained silent. The atmosphere didn’t calm—it just shifted into a heavier silence. Maira was still kneeling, mouth slightly open, eyes fixed on the spot where Death had disappeared.

  And then, everything began to flow again. There was no sudden jolt, no deafening crack—just a soft, almost imperceptible release, like a deep knot in her chest slowly unraveling. The oppressive silence gave way to a muted pulse running through the very living architecture around her. Erebos raised his head slowly, his slime-covered body seeming to calm, as though he were taking a deep breath—at least, as deep as a creature with visible lungs could manage.

  “I must apologize for Ulthanox,” he said at last—and his voice was so calm it frightened Maira more than any thunderstorm. He didn’t sound like the god of plagues, but like a… man. A man who had just seen off a difficult guest. “He… has a different approach.” As he spoke, he raised his slimy hand and ran it over the translucent mass on his face until his claws scratched against the bare skull beneath. He was truly thinking.

  Maira was still kneeling, completely overwhelmed. It wasn’t physical exhaustion—not even the icy, nauseating pulse beneath her or the poisonous mist still lingering in the room. It was her mind. Her faith. Her worldview. How could a god like Erebos—a repulsive, diseased being worshipped for pain, pestilence, and suffering—apologize? And not for himself, but for someone else? A stronger god? To her—a mortal?

  She slowly lifted her head, her heart pounding. Then Erebos’s voice came—clear and intent: “Please look at me.”

  Maira obeyed. Slowly. Reluctantly. Her eyes met his—golden lights deep within the hollows of a transparent skull. And in that moment, she understood: this wasn’t a test or a trap. Erebos had something important to say.

  “The reason you’re here,” he began with a somber undertone, “is because I must warn you. About Reyn.”

  A brief flash of hesitation cut through her—a mix of anger and confusion. A warning? About Reyn? That much had been obvious. That the enigmatic citylord wasn’t just influencing Luken, but possibly plotting something dark, even world-ending, she had long suspected. So why say it now? Why did it matter to him?

  He answered before she could even ask—as if he had read her thoughts. “You wonder why you haven’t told Luken, don’t you?” He tilted his head slightly. “Because he can’t really hear you anymore. Not truly. The paladin… is likely already lost.”

  Maira swallowed hard. That sentence hurt more than she’d expected. Luken—the stubborn, righteous, sometimes annoying idiot—was more than a comrade. And now he was supposed to be a puppet?

  Erebos’s voice darkened. “Only the elf girl might still bring him back to the truth. Perhaps.”

  She thought of Vin. Her bluntness, her pride. Her closeness to Luken. If anyone could reach him… it was her. But where was she now? Still with the rebels?

  “I will help you,” Erebos said. “I will grant you an inner compass. No map, no vision—just an instinct. A feeling. It will guide you. You must find the camp. Before the paladin sinks too deep.”

  Maira nodded slowly, with bitter resolve. She felt something shift inside her. No physical pain, no spell—just a deep, inner tug, like an invisible needle hooking into her heart and tying it to a direction.

  “I won’t fail you,” she said, her voice quiet but steady. “I won’t fail the Father of Plagues.”

  Erebos stepped closer. His body made no sound as he moved—just a faint, slimy whisper. Then he laid his large, cold hand on her shoulder. She felt no warmth. But also no pain. Only… weight. Significance.

  “Take care of yourself, Maira,” he said. And his final words weren’t a divine decree. Not the roar of a ruler. They were the exhausted sorrow of a father clinging to a final hope: “My last servant in Tirros.”

  Then reality shattered. No wind. No flash of light. No spell like from a mage’s tome. It was as if the flesh of the world itself spat her out.

  And Maira found herself kneeling in the snow.