My breath shortened. They came in sharp, short gasps. I tried to move. I tried to inflate my lungs. My paralyzed body didn’t listen to me. I tried to move my fingers, my toes, and my head. Nothing worked.

  I was stuck here. Lying on the cold snow while my body numbed inch by painful inch. And all the while, essence, dark and dull, seeped out of my skin, my eyes, and my nose, pooling around my body.

  I needed to stop it. The essence was what made me, me. It was my soul. My being, and it was leaving my body. Nothing I did stopped it from leaving me.

  What could I do? How could I stop this?

  I was lost. I didn’t know or understand what was happening.

  My eyes began to darken. My breaths began to come slower. And slower.

  Soon the only light in the sky was the star. The star that shone the brightest in the morning sky. Grek had called it Starbright’s Star. I looked at it. Hoping for an answer. Praying for something to change. Because nothing else worked.

  “It took you long enough.” The words were not my father's. “Oh, for Gaia's sake, why do people forget that there is more than one star in the sky?”

  I knew that voice. I had heard it before. In my head.

  “It is morning, after all. And in the morning, there is only one bright star in the sky. The morning star,” the warm female voice announced.

  “Mo… Mo… Mother?”

  “Yes, my son. It is me, Savera.”

  “Wha… What is… happening to me?” I asked in halting whispers.

  “Gaia is rejecting you. And you are dying, my child.” Mother Savera’s voice was clear in my mind.

  Gaia? The world was rejecting me? How was that possible?

  “Oh, my child. My young, foolish child.” I could picture my mother shaking her head in disappointment. “Who said the world we live on is not alive? She has a will of her own. And she does not like invaders.”

  “In…vaders?” The world thought I was an invader. I wasn’t an invader. I was a being of mana and blood that belonged in this world.

  “Yes, she believes you are an invader. And she is right. You are a Reaper who belongs in the dark waters.” My mother dashed my hopes. She continued as the star overhead twinkled with a merry light, “You think you are not, but you act like one.”

  “Mother, I…”

  “Quiet, son. I don’t have much time. The world will turn soon, and I will move out of sight. You need to listen and learn if you want to survive this ordeal.”

  I nodded.

  “You have taken Gaia’s mana for your own, but have you given something back to her? All of us that walk on her surface pay a tithe to her. Even your father, Mother Yavana, and I pay a tithe to her. I do it by shining my light to guide her people and creatures to safety in the morning light. Your father illuminates the night sky to ward off dangers to this world. Yavana spreads forests, and her people create and share the knowledge of their spells. And what did you choose to do when you tied yourself to mana?”

  I thought about it. “I chose conviction, representing my unending duty to bring death to anyone who challenges order. And preservation to protect those who need my protection.”

  Mother Savera was silent for a long moment, and then she sighed. “I see. I can see why Gaia has taken an issue with you.”

  “Wh… Agh.” Pain made me lose all sense for a few seconds, and when I came to, I couldn't feel anything from my chest down.

  “Voss, my son, focus on my words and don’t close your eyes. You will die if you do so again. And no, she will not let you slip into the waters if you do.”

  I gulped.

  “There are issues with the vows you have taken,” Mother continued. “You have a solid foundation, but your vows are too broad. You say you will bring death to those who challenge order. Who defines that order? You?”

  “Father.”

  Mother chuckled. “Larden? That man has been overturning order ever since I have met him. No, that will not do. The order of this world is dictated by the world alone. And your vow to preserve is too broad again. Once again, who defines what needs preserving? Only Gaia can do that. Do you understand your mistake?”

  I looked at the star moving towards the horizon and tried to grasp Mother’s words.

  “I see you don’t. Mana follows emotion. When you are in harmony with the world, the world responds in kind. This is why many narrow their vows. To gain the autonomy to act to their will. The problem is that your emotions are unfocused. You wish to do too much. Can your young shoulders carry that burden?”

  “I am not… young, Mother. I have kept order for centuries. Maybe a millennium.”

  Mother Savera snorted. “You are still too young in my eyes and in the eyes of Gaia. But we don’t have the time for a history lesson. Two truths alone stay Gaia’s hand. You are our son, and you have not yet earned her enmity. If you had, she would smite you in a heartbeat. She is giving you a chance. Don’t squander it.”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  Mother's voice started to become distant. The star was moving further into the horizon. “There are two choices in front of you, son. One, keep your vows but tie them to Gaia’s will. You will gain power. Grow in strength, but you will be her Reaper. The other is to break your vows. She will rip out the mana you have cultivated and break your seeds. You will be limited to your essence alone.”

  Those were choices? The second one wasn’t even worth considering.

  I opened my mouth to agree to the first choice.

  “Careful, child. If you choose to be her tool, she will guide you from conflict to conflict. You might not know peace for a very long time,” Mother warned.

  I nodded. “I choose the first option.”

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  Mother sighed. “Your father will not be pleased, but Larden can wait. There is a more pressing matter. Your essence.”

  My jaw locked. What did this world want with my soul?

  Mother Savera was faint now. “Do not scowl, Voss. You took that essence from creatures that belong to this world. You stole it. But Gaia is nothing if not just. She will claim her portion now and from every life you take hereafter. Your ascent will be slow, maybe even grueling. But in exchange, she grants you the right to forge a weapon. One that will not shatter when you unleash your strength.”

  I closed my eyes and nodded. What choice did I have?

  “Good. Focus on the essence all around you. Make something grand with it, son.” Mother’s voice was far away now. “I wish I could see what you make, but time waits for no one. Just know that I am proud of you, my truechild.”

  And then my mother’s presence was gone. A moment later, half the essence pooling around me drifted into the air and vanished in the wind swirls.

  The other half magically stayed where it had spewed out of me. As if the world willed it to do so. Which I suppose it did.

  I lay on the ground with my head resting on the snow for a while after my conversation with Mother Savera. I still couldn’t move. I knew what I had to do, and this time I needed to do it right.

  My ignorance had failed me twice in rapid succession, and this time I could feel the vast presence watching me and waiting for me to make a vow to it.

  Death. In the waters, I hadn’t been truly afraid of death. It was something that happened. Now, as a living creature, the idea sent a spike of dread through me. But it was not just that.

  The world wasn’t just going to punish me. It was going to erase me. The same way I had destroyed the Damned and the Doomed.

  I cleared my throat and started slowly, “My conviction…”

  Gaia’s presence around me spiked. The air around me slowed, and the whirlwind feeding mana down to me was ripped apart.

  I gulped and started again, pushing in between bouts of pain. “My conviction is my undying duty... to bring death to those... who challenge the order of Gaia.”

  I took in a sharp breath and waited for something to happen. Was the world happy with my new vow? The world didn’t smite me down, so maybe it was positively disposed to it.

  No, I needed to finish my vows to mana before I could rest.

  I shook my head and continued. “I will preserve...” My heart stuttered, and I powered through. “Those Gaia deems worthy of protection.”

  I took in a breath and waited. Gaia’s presence watched me for a long moment. It eased, and a floating snowflake drifted down my cheek. I let out a long breath.

  It didn’t look like the world was going to smite me anymore, and that needed to be celebrated. Now only if I could move...

  “Ugh!” I grunted as mana began to rush into me.

  This was nothing like before. Earlier, mana had streamed into me powered by my cores. This time it was being pushed into me by the will of the world. Moreover, this wasn’t neutral mana that I had to change and refine while channeling my thoughts.

  What unnerved me was that the glowing ice-blue mana and dark death mana were already changed and carried a hint of Gaia’s touch in them. The streams bypassed my mouth, nose, and even my skin. One pressed into my spine and the other into my heart.

  Gaia’s presence lifted me up from the ground and held me horizontally while mana shot into my body.

  My seeds began to hum under the pressure and spin faster and faster. They couldn't keep up with the stream. My mouth opened, and I screamed. The mana ignored my pain and kept streaming into me.

  The pain sharpened, and I had no choice but to bear it. I needed to take my mind off the pain. I could not break. I would not break.

  I was Voss Truechild. The Silent Hunter. And now Gaia’s Reaper. I would bear it all.

  I reached my hand out and pulled. My essence that had been left behind on the ground floated to me. Mother wanted me to create something grand? So I would do so.

  I remembered one of my weapons in the dark waters. A blade that I had wielded in a war between Reapers and the Doom Bringers. I had gutted an eldritch horror with it before it had gotten destroyed. It would take most of the essence I had in my pool, but I would recreate it here.

  I started with the essence around me. You could not forge a weapon from essence. It was the purest form of a creature's existence. It had to be stitched. And my essence was complicated.

  I had hunted for too long. Been in too many life-and-death scraps. Fought wars. And lived mindlessly in the waters. And today I lived. That was why my essence could only be stitched by me.

  I took the sturdiest parts of me and, with a mental thought, started stitching it inch by inch. I started from the bottom. Creating a thick, round cylinder. A tang. That would make the foundation of my blade.

  It was what a sword was created around. It was hidden by the hilt, but it was one of the most important parts of a blade, and the most complicated. In a forge, it would be hammered together and then threaded. But with essence, I needed to stitch it with threads already in place.

  It took a dexterity of mind most did not have. But I had created this blade before, and I knew how to do it. It was a painful, slow process, but I wasn't going anywhere.

  Once done, I finally moved upwards to the ricasso. The second most important part of my blade and the thickest part of the sword. The part where the crossguard would sit when the blade was finished.

  Slowly, methodically, I took all the densest pieces of essence left and worked them upwards. I moved upwards, thinning the blade with each inch up. Not too much. My fuller needed to be thick.

  This wasn’t a normal weapon. This was not a tool of slaughter. It wasn’t a dagger of destruction. This was a Reaper's blade. It didn’t butcher. It didn’t slay. It caused havoc when wielded.

  I created the edge and looked at the flakes of essence around me. As expected, there wasn’t enough. I exhaled, pulling out a stream of essence from my dwindling pool. Once the edge was completed, I finally stitched together a sharp point.

  I was nowhere close to being finished. I turned the sword around. This was a Reaper's blade. It didn’t just have a pommel. It had a scythe.

  Another exhalation; my essence pool was now down to thirty percent.

  I started extending a heel from the other end of the tang. And that is why I had kept my tang unusually long. I made the heel as dense as the ricasso, but only at one end. The heel began to take form, and I moved to create a beard. Slowly forming it on one end to have a sharp edge while the other end created a rib. And finally, I moved to the toe. Creating a sharp point at the very edge.

  I looked at the two-sided weapon with a critical eye. I lifted it and balanced it on my palm. Even for someone fourteen feet tall, the scale of it was staggering. The sword was eight feet long, and with the scythe, the whole weapon was nine and a half feet long, with a four-foot-wide horizontal sweep.

  It was still heavy on one side, but that was to be expected. It did not have a crossguard, pommel, or a hilt as of yet. The problem was that I did not have enough essence to create those parts.

  By the stars, I didn’t even have enough essence to create the sheaths for the blades.

  Mana stopped flowing into me, and I blinked. I had been so lost in my work that I hadn’t realized Gaia had put me down on my rear. And now I sat on a wide boulder somewhere closer to the door to the keep.

  The ground around me shook. Cracks formed on the surface, and essence seeped out of the ground. Not black and not mine. Silvery and deadly, it flowed to my Reaper's blade, wrapping around the weapon in thick cords.

  The blade lifted off my palm. With a screeching sound, it carved strange glowing patterns into the faces of my blades and filled them with a glowing liquid. The essence flowed down to the tang and pooled where the scythe met the sword. Creating a large green crystal for a pommel. The crystal glowed with a hint of deeper green inside.

  Wind blew in more essence from elsewhere. Thick and wooden, forming a hilt and wrapping it in a smooth rope-like grip.

  The Reaper's blade lowered back to my palm. And rested back on it. It was balanced perfectly now.

  I exhaled. Gaia’s unspoken message was clear. My blade might be mine, but it had her touch imprinted all over it. As did I.

  I bowed my head. “As you wish. You are order. I will serve you.”

  The leftover essence flowed into me. Once again surprising me by bypassing my soul shield and flowing into my Reaper's mark, etching the same pattern that she had carved on my blade.

  Her actions were so sudden and so swift that I didn’t even have the chance to cry out.

  “Agh.”

  I blinked rapidly. What had she done? I looked at the blade and my seal and saw a connection form between me and the blade. I began to lower it to lift my chest plate. With a flash, the Reaper's blade disappeared.

  I panicked and looked at my empty hand. Where had the blade gone?

  Another green flash, and the blade reappeared in my hand.

  “What?”

  Flash. The blade disappeared again. I dropped my hand to my side. Flash. The blade reappeared, but just the sword.

  Flash. The sword disappeared, and the scythe with the hilt was in my hand.

  I let go of the scythe, and my palm was empty.

  I used my empty hand to scratch my head and muttered, “Life is really strange. I see why people don’t do it so often.”