✦ ✦ ✦
Hiro could only stare back. Every word struck home. He could refute nothing.
Artheus reached into his pocket and pulled something out. Hiro frowned. In Artheus’s hand was the familiar slip of card that had once sealed away his memories. Originally, it had been white, but it had darkened as he’d regained his power until it had eventually turned black. Alongside it was a slip of white card, pure and unstained.
Hiro couldn’t help his curiosity. “What are those?”
Artheus grinned like a mischievous child, swelling with triumph. “Insurance, one might say, in anticipation of your habit of sacrificing yourself. You ought to be thankful, my brother. Crafting them left my body hardly fit for purpose.”
Hiro’s face filled with surprise as he realized what Artheus was implying. “You foresaw what would happen a thousand years in the future?”
“You give me too much credit. I did not know exactly how this would happen, only that it would if you remained the person I knew.”
Hiro still looked faintly shocked. “So all this time, I was dancing in the palm of your hand.”
Artheus tossed the spirit seals toward him. They lodged in the ground at his feet.
Hiro looked from the seals to Artheus and back again, cocking his head. “I’m guessing there’s more to this than just surprising me.”
“I siphoned off a portion of the fiendish power within you into the black seal.”
“You what?”
“A precautionary measure, my brother. So that when you returned at last, you might live once more as an ordinary man.” Artheus grinned, proud of his handiwork. A thought seemed to strike him. “Come to think of it, it seemed the Spirit King had her own designs. Did she speak of them at all?”
Hiro shook his head. “Nothing.”
“Indeed. I had hoped she might at least lament her defeat, but I suppose she never would have given me the satisfaction.”
At that moment, Hiro remembered—the Spirit King had indeed admitted defeat when she had appeared before him in his cell. He had assumed those words were meant for him, but evidently he had been wrong.
“Well, regardless,” Artheus continued blithely, “I am victorious. That you are here at all is proof of that.”
“Hold on,” Hiro interrupted. “Just...slow down. What are you doing, exactly?”
Artheus’s eyes narrowed, sharp as any blade. “Surely I have given you enough clues already. I will return you to life, my brother. Your time has not yet come.”
“But...how?”
Hiro had been run through with Ipetam, and his body had disintegrated. There was nothing for him to return to.
“You have lost your vessel, that is all. One that was cursed and twisted from the outset.” Artheus stepped closer and picked up the two spirit seals. “Even Mikhael could not have saved it. You would have crumbled to dust the moment Lævateinn’s work was done. So instead, you shall use this.”
He held out the black card, his voice taking on an edge of amusement.
“The power I siphoned from you should suffice to re-create your body.”
The black card shifted, revealing the white beneath it.
“And this, I left within Lævateinn. It shall recall your soul to the world of the living.”
He extended his other hand. There was nothing in it. Hiro looked up at him curiously, and he gave a sheepish smile.
“Unless, of course, you would rather accompany me to Valhalla.”
Once, a thousand years ago, Hiro had taken that hand and raced with Artheus across a world of war and strife. Now, however, he hesitated.
Artheus looked on, smiling fondly, as he made his choice.