Free The Golden Age of Death (A CALLIOPE REAPER-JONES NOVEL) by Amber Benson Page B

said to Anjea, his voice full of wonder. “She is the
balance
.”
    “The
balance
?” Jarvis and I both said at the same time.
    “It was divined at your birth that your existence would herald the beginning of the next Golden Age,” Anjea said. “This was why your mother was convinced to give you up, though she was despondent over it. It was for your own protection.”
    I’d only recently learned the woman who’d raised me wasn’t my real mother. It’d explained a lot about my personality, why I didn’t quite fit in with my family, and why my sisters and I were so different. It was kind of a relief to know I wasn’t the black sheep of the family, that there was someone more like meout there. Still, it’d been tough to reconcile all the years I’d spent without my real mother in my life.
    “She really wanted me?” I asked Anjea, unable to help myself.
    Even though Caoimhe, my birth mother, was back in my life now, I still carried some doubts about her feelings for me. I knew I was being childish and insecure, but I found myself needing as much reassurance as I could get that she’d actually wanted me, that giving me up had not been her choice.
    “Of course she wanted you,” Anjea said sharply. “You were, and are, a very loved child.”
    I hadn’t intended to cry, but Anjea’s words cut me to the quick. To have her confirm I was wanted—by both of my parents—felt like washing away the pus from a festering wound. I guess I hadn’t really understood how disconnected I’d felt from the woman who’d
actually
raised me. I knew she cared for me, but she’d always been so much closer to Thalia and Clio—her daughters by blood. I’d spent my life trying to please her, to make her love me as much as she seemed to love them. I didn’t know this was an impossible task. That I was a constant, living reminder of something terrible from her past: her beloved husband’s infidelity.
    “But that is neither here nor there,” Anjea said, yanking me out of my thoughts. “Those who seek to keep the world in decline and humanity trapped in its darkest phase, they want to destroy you, Mistress Death. Because with your destruction comes the blackest time of all.”
    This was a lot to take in.
    I turned to Jarvis, expecting him to know what Anjea was talking about, but from the look on his face I realized this was news to him, too.
    “Did Calliope’s father know about this?” Jarvis asked.
    Anjea nodded.
    “It was why he fought so fiercely to keep Calliope free of her fate for as long as possible.”
    Jarvis nodded, digesting her words.
    “And how does Marcel fit into all of this?” I asked, curious as to what her answer would be.
    “He is the Ender of Death, true,” she said. “But we have made a bargain, one you have just sealed for us.”
    I raised an eyebrow. I didn’t like bargains that concerned me but I had no voice in.
    “If you chose not to spare the creature that murdered the person you loved most in the world—your father—then you would blacken your soul with revenge. The balance would be destroyed and those who sought to keep humanity in the dark would have no further beef with you. Though they would still seek to unseat you as Death, but for personal reasons only.”
    “That doesn’t sound very good,” I said, kind of glad now Anjea had stepped in when she had.
    “It would be a catastrophe, Mistress Death, for us all,” Anjea agreed.
    “But I did spare him, so what does that mean?” I asked.
    “It was why we came here, to this desolate spot, so we would not be observed, or interrupted if we reached this summit. Now we must decide if the deal is to be finalized, or not.”
    I shifted my gaze from Anjea to Jarvis, trying to gauge what he was thinking, but he looked as confused as I felt.
    “And what is this deal you would like struck?” Jarvis asked on my behalf.
    “The Ender of Death will put away his directive for the next thousand years. He will become the Champion of Death, and