Page 93 of Between Ghosts and Gods

Kasu glanced at Arun before plucking up the courage to speak. “He has been reborn.”

“I see. So he has been dealt with.” What she thought of the outcome, it was impossible to tell. The Empress sounded as indifferent as she had when some of the gods had started going mad. “You should not have come to the heavens. It was a mistake for General Shusa to try and use you for his own ends.”

He brought us here so that he could blame us for spiking the wine with Lady Camellia’s elixir! Kasu wanted to snap, but she doubted the Empress would care either way.

“Ghosts belong in the under-realm. That is where they must dwell, and that is where they will stay.” The goddess spread her arms wide as if to embrace them, though in her bloodstained dress the gesture was more threatening than welcoming.

“Then return us to the under-realm,” said Kasu.

For the first time since they had met, the Celestial Empress’s expression shifted. Her brow furrowed and her eyes narrowed. The pearls on her dress seemed to jangle like chains.

“You think you can cause chaos in the heavens and go unpunished? Filthy ghosts, know your place.” Her voice was the cold fall of snow.

“Us? Chaos? We’re victims in this situation too!” Arun snapped.

The Empress shook her head.

Kasu levelled her with an unimpressed stare of her own. “You can’t let us go, can you? You need someone to take the blame. Someone that you can conveniently parade about and punish in front of everyone. Can’t let the precious reputation of the heavens get tarnished now, can we?”

The goddess continued shaking her head. Her pearls clacked together. “If the heavens cannot be relied on to be good and noble, think of the chaos it would cause. The heavens represent order. The gods are noble and kind and good because they must be. Because they are gods!”

As the goddess moved forward, Kasu took a step back, closer and closer to the shining mouth of the reincarnation wheel.

“Whether they descend into demon-hood or rise to become gods, people are still the same flawed beings they’ve always been.”

The Pale Lady had said something similar to Kasu. At the time, she had not wanted to listen, had not wanted to believe, but now she was beginning to understand what the Pale Lady meant. Why the Pale Lady had left in favour of the under-realm.

“If you step through that wheel, you will make an enemy of the heavens!” the Celestial Empress snarled. “You think that you can escape punishment, that we won’t be able to find you, but there are only so many souls flowing through the wheel, and we have eternity on our side! We shall—”

Something hard struck the back of the goddess’s head. Kasu jumped as the Celestial Empress suddenly crumpled to the ground in front of her.

“O–Orro?”

Kasu stared in disbelief at the stern-faced servant. His clothes were rumpled and blood-splattered too. In his hand, he held a thick metal tray. The one he had been using to serve wine all evening.

Arun stepped in front of her, ready for another fight.

“Oh, please, don’t be so vulgar,” Orro said. “I didn’t come here to battle you like a barbarian. She’s not dead, by the way. Simply … out of the picture for the time being.”

Kasu stared, mouth agape, from the Celestial Empress’s unconscious form to General Shusa’s servant and back again.

Familiar… There was something about his face that was so familiar…

“Lord Onyx?”

Orro – Onyx – smiled.

“They said you were missing! That you had left the under-realm!” Kasu had heard the rumours. The fighting pits in the northern quarter were abandoned because he was gone.

“I had.” Lord Onyx brought a hand to his face and pulled.

An aura mask came free.

Kasu stepped back as Lord Onyx’s demonic aura washed over her. It was like an oil slick – greasy and sticky and suffocating. The shadow at Orro’s feet flickered. It was no longer that of a man but instead a large, crow-like figure that stretched along the floor and across the wall. Kasu could see that the shadow bore several large, feathery wings.

“But—! What—? How—?”

“What a headache.” Lord Onyx sighed and smoothed back a lock of hair that had fallen from his otherwise impeccable coiffure. “Imagine spending weeks, months, putting a careful plan in place, infiltrating the heavens, and getting close to the Hall of Fates, only for some woman to beat me to it and steal a reincarnation wheel.”