Chapter 5 WELCOME HOME!

REBELLE 

By the time the lights disappear, I think we are already where we are supposed to be, I don’t even know where that is. 

But no! We are still in the elevator. 

The elevator continues climbing long after the familiar numbers disappear from the panel above the doors. I watch in growing confusion as the glowing digits are replaced by strange symbols that I have never seen before, each one appearing in crimson before fading into the darkness. The elevator itself feels different too. The faint hum of machinery has become a low vibration beneath my feet, and the air inside the small compartment grows colder with every passing second. I glance at Azrael, expecting at least some explanation, but he stands beside me with the same infuriating calm he has carried since the moment I met him.

“Where exactly are we going?” I finally ask. 

I turn toward him, folding my arms across my chest. “You keep saying that as if I am supposed to know where that is. I thought by the time the lights go out, we’ll be in some magical realm.” 

His dark gaze settles on mine, and for a moment, there is something almost familiar in the way he looks at me. It is gone before I can understand it, replaced by that unreadable expression he seems to wear whenever I ask a question he does not intend to answer.

“Patience, Amirykal.”

I sigh, already tired of those two words.

Before I can press him again, the elevator begins to slow. The strange symbols disappear completely from the panel, leaving behind nothing but darkness. There is no chime to announce our arrival, no mechanical voice telling us which floor we have reached. When the doors finally slide apart, I stare at the sight waiting beyond them and immediately realize that we are no longer inside Illusions.

A single enormous black door stands several feet in front of us, completely isolated in a vast darkness. There are no walls around it, no ceiling above it, and no corridor connecting it to anything. It simply stands there as though someone has taken a door from an ancient building and placed it in the middle of nothing.

Azrael steps out of the elevator, and I hesitate before following him, but curiosity wins over common sense. The moment my foot touches the ground, a wave of cold sweeps over my body. It is not the ordinary chill of a cold room. This cold feels ancient, almost alive, slipping beneath my clothes and settling against my skin. I look around, suddenly aware that even the air smells different. There is the faint scent of wet stone, smoke, and something metallic that reminds me of blood.

Azrael walks toward the black door and reaches for the handle. “Stay close to me.”

“I can take care of myself.” I growl, not wanting to be treated like a child.

He pulls the door open, completely ignoring me. I step through after him and instantly forget how to breathe.

A vast landscape stretches before us, so enormous that for several seconds I can only stand there and stare. Jagged black mountains rise in the distance beneath a dark crimson sky, their peaks disappearing into thick silver mist. Twisted forests cover parts of the valley, their branches stretching toward the sky like skeletal fingers, while strange pale lights drift between the trees like distant stars.

But it is the river that captures my attention.

It cuts through the landscape in a massive, endless stretch of black water, wide enough that I cannot see the opposite shore clearly. It flows silently through the valley, darker than anything I have ever seen, swallowing the crimson light of the sky instead of reflecting it. There are no waves, no splashing, no sound of water moving against the shore, yet I can somehow tell that it is flowing.

“What is that?” I ask, unable to take my eyes away from it.

“The River of the Dead.” Azrael’s voice comes from beside me. “It separates the living world from the dead. Once you cross it, you enter the true Underworld. The dead cannot cross back into the living world without permission, and the living cannot cross it without paying a price.”

A strange sensation spreads through my chest as I stare at the river. I should be terrified.

Instead, something inside me aches, like it’s longing for whatever is beyond the river. 

I don’t understand it. I have never seen this place before, yet there is a disturbing familiarity to the landscape, to the cold air, even to the endless black river. It feels as though I have stood on this shore before, though I highly doubt that is impossible.

Then I notice the boat. There is only one of them. It rests at the edge of the river, long and narrow, its black wooden hull looking ancient enough to have existed before the mountains surrounding us. A single lantern hangs from its bow, burning with a pale flame that somehow remains perfectly still despite the cold wind.

And standing beside it is the ferryman.

My stomach tightens the moment I see him. He is not human, not entirely. Half of his body appears to belong to an elderly man, his skin weathered and brown, his face lined with age beneath a dark hood. His left eye is human, dark and watchful, while the other half of his face has been reduced to bare bone. His skeletal cheek exposes the side of his skull, and his ribs are visible beneath the torn black fabric covering his body. One hand is human while the other is nothing but yellowed bone, wrapped firmly around a long wooden oar.

His gaze falls on Azreal and he lowers his head. “My Lord.”

Azrael does not react to the salute. He simply walks toward the boat – as though the sight of a half-skeletal man waiting beside the River of the Dead is completely normal–and gestures towards the river. “We are crossing.”

It is at that moment that the ferryman’s gaze shifts toward me, as if he is only realizing now that the man he was talking to has company. 

For several seconds, he simply stares, like he can’t believe his eyes. Then something changes in his expression, and the longer he looks at me, the more uncomfortable I become. Recognition slowly replaces confusion, followed by something that looks suspiciously like fear.

“Y…You…you found her, my lord? ” He finally whispers. 

Azrael’s expression hardens. “Take us across.”

The ferryman does not move, nor does he show any sign that he heard him. He just keeps staring at me like he’s in a trance. 

“Amalik!” Azrael snaps, startling the man – if you can call him that. 

The ferryman finally lowers his head and steps into the boat. Azrael follows, then turns toward me and extends his hand. I stare at it for a moment before looking at the river again. The black water suddenly ripples , and my breath catches. For the briefest moment, I see something beneath its surface.

A woman.

She has impossibly long dark hair floating around her, and her eyes glow crimson and gold as she stares up at me from beneath the water. Ancient markings cover her skin, disappearing beneath dark fabric that moves with the current.

I blink and just like that, the image is gone. 

“Rebelle.” Azrael’s voice pulls me back. I look at him, and then his extended hand. “Come.”

I don’t know why I trust him enough to take it, but I do. His fingers close around mine, warm and firm, and the moment I step into the boat, the lantern at its bow flares brightly.

“The Dead Sea has souls trapped in it, souls that refuse to cross, but cannot return to the land of the living,” he explains. “You shouldn’t let yourself be too drawn to them.” 

The rest of the ride is silent, if you don’t include the things trying to jump out of the water and into the boat. Each time a creature jumps out of the water, I’d scream and cling to Azrae. By the time we make it to the shore, my heart is pounding in my chest so hard it might as well drop to the ground. 

“Does that happen everytime?” I ask as he leads me out of the boat. 

He shakes his head. “Yes. They’re trying to get you in the water with them. To trap you in their prison so they can be free.” 

“You mean…”

“Yes, Amirykal,” he says, agreeing to my unspoken thoughts. “Everything in the Dead Sea has a price. If they can pay, they are freed.” He wraps his hands around my waist and pulls me into his tight embrace. “Hold on tight!” 

Before I can say anymore, a pair of huge black wings appear on his back and he takes off into the air. As we fly over the landscape, I try my best to get a good look below. Huge tall buildings, black earth and seas of lava covered the place. 

Minutes later we land in front of a beautiful black castle. But it’s not the beauty of the place that has me shocked, no! It’s the fact that a multitude of people are gathered at the gates, or maybe because they instantly drop to their knees the second they see us. 

“Ra tsa’uk, Vareli!”(Welcome, queen). They greet in unison. 

“Aln’a.” (Thank you). I say then gasp instantly. 

I did not just understand that strange language!