Sequel

To Suryellee and others: Mik's soul does not get shattered. The gods, after finding how Rava's soul adjusted, struck that rule from the record. Being stripped of the ... assets of a key is not entirely pleasant. Like... that odd tingle when everything static cling to you. More annoying than painful.

And Paw did not fake anything. Illuva is a strong believer in real, true emotion and she may have encouraged Paw to carry on a relationship but the moment Paw started faking it to keep Mik for her sake is the moment she struck him dead...

With some ironic, ginormous somethingerrather.

Mik will be fine... his soul will be fine. His body... not so certain about that one.

Yes. He says that being beheaded is invigorating. I dunno, I never tried it, and I do not suggest trying it at home. Una shares a very painful memory of his, but manages to veil his emotion over it quite well.

And it ends with a giggle. So no screaming, okay?

Read, Review and Enjoy.





“How did you think your wife and her lover died?”

Rel sat in a tub full of warm water, knees drawn up to his chin, back against the ceramic side. Not the back of the tub, no, he sat with his toes pressed against one side and his back against another, along the short way of the tub. He had unscrewed a couple of the light bulbs over the mirror, giving the bathroom a dim look. He had filled the tub with hot water and bubbles and a lavender fizzy thing, having heard that lavender was good for calming people.

Perhaps the problem wasn’t that he needed to calm down, it was that everything had all but shut down. He stared at nothing and had hardly a thought in his head.

He had killed two people. Had. Had slaughtered two people, rending them limb from limb, made a bloody mess of them. With his mind. Una had been puzzled as to why Mari went pale, why Rel had asked for some time alone and gone to the bathroom. Locked the door.

When had his door been fixed? He couldn’t even recall.

Did he kill those others then? From the news? The ones who had been connected to Muan and the farm some how, the ones who had simply died. While driving, while eating, while showering. They all just closed their eyes and died. Had he done that as well? How many people had he killed? How many times had he had a fit, had a tantrum, how many times had his emotions run rampant and wild on him and he had killed someone because of it?

He didn’t deserve to live.

Rel set his forehead on his forearms and squeezed his eyes shut.

But the images of the crime scene just popped into his head. The blood had been everywhere. The murder had been a terrible thing, had been a slow thing, but they hadn’t really fought back. There hadn’t been defensive wounds on any of them, hadn’t been material under their nails, had been no physical evidence of the murderer.

And now he knew why.

Hadn’t he been thinking, right at that moment when the police came knocking at his door, how he would have liked to have killed them, and then himself? Hurt them for laughing at him, make them bleed for mocking him. Kill them for hurting him.

He deserved everything he got. Every rape. Every beating. He deserved it all. His father was right. He was a monster. A terrible, horrible monster.

But if he deserved everything he got. Then he deserved Muan.

He deserved another chance.

“Fucking powers,” Rel sobbed out.

What kind of twisted god had made the Whispers? What kind of creature took a person and said to them, you will see everything but nothing at all. On your shoulders will rest the mental well being of an entire race? And what kind of crazy bastard then said that a Whisper would do that… do…

“A Whisper is only as good as his darkness,” Una muttered.

Rel jerked his head upward as Una closed the door very carefully behind him. The immortal showed Rel a hairpin, likely taken from Mari, as explanation for how he had gotten into a locked room.

“Ever since you told me that I’m a Whisper, I’ve been-”

“Using that mind of yours on yourself. Your powers are turning inward, instead of working outward. What you do for Mari or the Sidhe, you are now doing for yourself. They say that no man can have a secret from the Whisper. The original Whisper.”

“Well he’s not here right now,” Rel snapped, snatching the washcloth out of the cooling water to rub the tears from his cheeks, “just me. Just Lel.” might as well accept the name and just get on with it.

“I would know your soul from a mile away. Even blackened as it is, by your father’s actions, you are quite a beacon in the dark.”

“Fine. I’m the original Whisper. Why the hell would anyone make something like me?”

“Make you?” Una sighed out and sat on the toilet seat cover, “did Ayato make the Deaths, or did he show them their own potential and then show them how to reach their potential? Did Rava make Ayato into a powerful, strong soul, capable of standing up for itself, or did he show Ayato what he could become and then teach him how to change? Did you make Muan what he is, or did you open a door and invite him to step through?

“Every change the people have made with their powers, they have wanted to make. Some, like the healers, came easier than others. To bring life was easier to accept than to bring death. To be a prophet is more difficult, by far, than bringing death.”

“Prophet.” Rel muttered, his mind tracking over something from months ago, “is there a prophet alive now?”

“No. Illuva would never send her prophets into the world as it is now. But a prophet has come to be synonymous with one who shows the future, leads the people down the only possible path.”

“Lead them to destruction to lead them to salvation.”

“Catchy, what’s it from?”

“A business class I took. Mergers cause mayhem, but in the end, those who survive the merger are better off for it. Or. Something. I never merged. I just crushed. Like that time the competing CEO,” Rel broke down into tears as he spoke, “leaped off a thirty story building when I told him to go off himself.”

“That might be amusing if you had told him to take a flying leap,” Una muttered, “but you can’t blame yourself for every death that happens around you. Did you want Mik dead?”

“No.”

“But die he did. Several times from what I hear. Did you want the man who shot him to die?”

“Yes. Where is that guy?”

Una considered for a moment, “about four levels below ground in a spare parking garage or something. Paw’s been… playing… with him.”

“So not much left of him.”

“Not much of his mind left, no, but the power of a Whisper is like the power of a healer. You can give and take,” Una paused for a moment, then said, “how did they die?”

Rel sniffed, a wet sounding thing that he had to swallow hard after, “multiple lacerations to all parts of the body, limbs removed while still alive. Blood everywhere. They said that she might have still been… aware. When I stuck her head onto her candelabra and wrote whore on the wall in blood.”

“And what did she do to you?”

“She.” Rel swallowed, wiping his face off with the washcloth once more, “got her tennis instructor, a bisexual, to seduce me, a bisexual. Then we carried on an affair and she took pictures and took me before a judge and took me for half my worth.”

“Thus she betrayed you and broke your trust. Was this woman aware of your past?”

“Yes.” Rel grumbled, “she got me drunk, trying to find out how to get her hands on the money.”

“A betrayal of the heart then, which in my time was punishable by death.”

Rel just stared at Una.

“Oh.” Una muttered, giving a dismissive flip of his hand, “some thousand years ago the practice was abandoned because it wasn’t fair and there weren’t enough Whispers to uphold a true judgement of the one accused of betraying another’s heart. I was once accused of betraying a heart. And let me tell you, when your head comes off your body it is actually quite invigorating.”

Rel’s mouth dropped open.

“Not like getting a blade slammed into the base of your skull though, that’s… like a migraine. An explosion of pain and then this pressure back there that you can’t get rid of. Illuva finally found an Aniege who could control metal and got the last bit out of my head, but I’m still fuzzy on some details. And when it does that snow-slush thing it likes doing up north, my entire skull just vibrates like a tuning fork.”

Una was distracting him, Rel decided. For as the immortal continued to speak, he pulled the plug of the tub, drained off almost half the water then turned on the hot water tap to refill the tub.

“And the first time I died. I was so young. So very young. I was raped by two men for several days and then when it was time for them to move on, because I was too much of a burden to take along and sell as a slave, they strangled me with a belt and dumped my body in a river. I eventually found my way to Vera though, and she recognised me for what I was. Just before my change that one. Likely caused my change.

“Did you know that only half of Mother born are ever put through the fever? Of course I’ve never met a Mother born soul before, so I can’t say I’d want that sort of a life but it’s amazing to think on. Half of us are put through the fever and only about half a percentile survive the fever. That means. Any, or even possibly, every, child found on the side of the road or on the steps of an orphanage could be Mother born. Hundreds of us walking around at any time and only three of us have successfully become … well, immortal. And that we’re not even certain is a success.

“Perhaps Mother’s point is not to have immortals, perhaps we are flaws in the plans of our Mother. But when sister went and died after her mate went mad we had no way of connecting to Mother and that. That was when we really wanted to speak to Mother. That was like our teen years. Wondering where we came from, if she was proud of us. If she was proud of you,” Una shut off the taps, “but that is an unanswerable question.”

“Because for every person who loves you, there are two people, somewhere, who hate you and want you dead because of your religion, beliefs, politics, powers or just because you breath the wrong way,” Rel muttered.

“I think she would be proud of those with power,” Una said calmly, sitting on the toilet seat cover once more, “Those before you have made it very clear that they will not allow one to survive who misuses his powers on purpose. Never. That is the one kind of person all are quick to kill. A lord off in some land thinking about taking over the world. Meh. We’ll see how he does. If he dies. If he pokes the wrong village and stirs a hornet’s nest. But if that lord is using power, his own power, to destroy villages from a-far and then walking through with an army?

“Well. The time that did happen they chose Rava to go up against him. Rava is nearly impervious to power. Like the earth beneath our feet, it was impossible for us to read him or move him or break him. Unsurprisingly, Rava won. The lord was so used to using his power to get what he wants that he didn’t know how to handle a weapon. Poor Rava, though, was looking for a good fight.”

“What’s the point?” Rel asked.

“Of all the people across the lands with power, and there are few besides those gathered here, not a one of them blames you for any destruction you may have caused. And those who are not here are well aware of your powers and your capabilities. We don’t want you dead. We don’t want to control you. You? You are harmless in the bigger scheme of things. We aren’t worried about you, you should stop worrying about you.”

“Why do you do that?”

“Do what?” Una asked, standing and retrieving a towel from the shelf.

“Talk like you have spoken to others?”

“I have,” Una said, holding the towel out pointedly for Rel, “From the northern most point of Valease, all the way down to the southern most part of … some country that has no name at the moment. It is not something I participate in often, but when the world has gone to the people and there are cities built all around, I need to speak to those who matter and quickly. It’s absolutely taxing though.”

“When there are…” Rel stepped into the towel.

“Cities built all around,” Una said, wrapping the towel around Rel, “you didn’t think you were the first civilization that the people have built, did you? Then again, we did wipe the others away quite thoroughly… No, no. This would be … let’s see… the fourth civilization your people have made. And you still haven’t gotten it right. Only took the Sidhe once and then they didn’t seem to think it was worth the effort again.”

“You’re very strange.”

“So I’m told.” Una said with a smile.

“Get your hand off my ass.”

“Sorry.” Una muttered, taking a step back.


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