She now had two paths forward.
The first: continue pursuing mastery over the death domain.
The second: take the opposite route—walk the road of life before death.
The life path had no shortcuts. The Entity was not her, and while the Life Equation offered tremendous assistance, accessing it meant breaking through the Source Wall—equal parts danger and opportunity.
The death domain, however, could be accelerated through burning votive power. Her recent act of saving the world on her own had earned the gratitude of an entire universe, and the votive power flowing to her was greater than at any point before. She chose the second option.
"Begin."
Thea divided her mind into three streams. One kept watch on her ranking. One fed a continuous blaze of votive power into the process. The third opened itself to absorb whatever insights into death it could hold.
A torrent of thought poured unbidden into her mind—ideas, perspectives, philosophies drawn from across the cosmos. Those that resonated with her, she kept. Those that did not, she released. Her aura shifted with each passing moment: cold at one turn, heavy and dim the next, nothing that could be called warm or bright.
Gradually she stopped paying attention to the ranking and slipped the White Lantern ring onto her finger, letting all intelligent life share the burden of the negative emotions that came flooding in.
The votive power was spent entirely. It took a long while before she managed to clear the darkness from her mind.
"Damn it. Shortcuts are never as easy as they look." Her head throbbed—genuinely throbbed. The mass of votive power had brought her countless insights, but they were tangled together, uneven in quality, and not all of them suited her.
The selection had been overwhelming. One perspective would feel profound and correct, then another would feel equally right—and then another. By the time she opened her eyes, she had no idea how much time had passed.
Rank 60. She looked up at the number, and felt satisfied. A deep intuition told her: the Death divine seat was close. Closer than close—just half a step away.
Attaining the Death divine seat would allow her to call herself the Goddess of Death. A peak divine seat of that caliber would bring explosive growth—matching Highfather and Darkseid would be no problem.
If this had happened before her encounter with the Endless, she'd have been too excited to sleep for a night. Now the feeling was muted. Goddess of Death? That's nothing. The word goddess was the limiting part—removing it was what would make it real.
She let out a long breath. She needed time to settle, to take that final step through her own power alone.
Back on Earth, she hovered alone in the sky for a long while, disturbing no one, before she finally found the courage to go see someone.
Lian Yu.
Since Yao Fei had left the island, it had been entirely uninhabited. The animals scattered when they sensed the waves of divine power emanating from her—every last one.
Thea slipped off her shoes and walked barefoot along the beach, watching the ground behind her. Something hollow moved through her chest. Every patch of sand she stepped on carried a faint trace of death in her wake—collected and worked into shape, it could become a formidable semi-divine artifact.
She shook her head and laughed quietly to herself, then turned and flew toward the island's southern tip.
This had been where Oliver first set foot on Lian Yu. Robert Queen was buried here—had been buried here, until a Black Lantern ring had pulled his bones back to Star City during the Blackest Night, the grave torn open from the inside. After it was over, Oliver had interred his father in the Queen family crypt.
But Thea knew the bones were only bones. Robert Queen's soul had stayed. It was still on this island.
The original grave had been simple to the point of negligence—Oliver had been useless back then, had dug a rough hole and called it done. It was never repaired, and the Blackest Night had torn it apart entirely.
Thea found a stick nearby and pushed the mound of earth back into shape. Then she sat in front of it, arms wrapped around her knees.
"...I can't bring you back. I'm sorry." A long pause had passed before she found even those words.
"I know. I don't blame you." Robert Queen's faint outline stepped out of the air and settled beside her.
Thea wasn't surprised. A spirit goddess—half a step from the Death divine seat—was hardly going to be unnerved by a ghost.
She chose her words carefully. "I... I'm not..." She wanted to tell him about her origins—to confess that she owed him something, even if he already knew in his way. Saying it herself was different. But every time she opened her mouth, the words stopped.
Robert reached out and smoothed her hair. "I know. It's my fault. I was the one who wronged Moira first. You will always be my daughter."
"You, Oliver, Moira—you're all doing well. That's all I need. And I don't blame him either—he was my best friend. I'm glad he has the chance to make up for all his mistakes."
"But I have the power to bring you back," Thea said. "A little backlash would mean nothing to me. You shouldn't have to stay here." She pointed at the ruined island around them.
"My mission is already complete," Robert said softly. "You're all doing so well. That is enough, my daughter."
Thea watched as Robert Queen slowly dissolved back into the air, becoming a shaft of white light that rose without end into the sky. She didn't speak for a long time.
An ordinary person's soul could not persist for ten years. It had been a thread of her own longing that had kept him here. Now, she had finally let go.
She watched the place where he had vanished, and a small smile crossed her face. Heaven couldn't wait to take him back.
By any honest accounting of Robert Queen's life—a capitalist no different from any other—Heaven should have been out of the question. The workers who had died under the fists and brass knuckles of Queen Consolidated's enforcers hadn't been some fabrication. Heaven bending its own rules like this was pure politics. Miss Thea was half a step from becoming a true Goddess of Death, sovereign of the underworld—on equal footing with Heaven, New Genesis, and Apokolips. Better to extend a courtesy now, while negotiations were still pleasant.
She shook her head, set aside the tangled thoughts, and built a small fire nearby. The sea wind swept in steadily. She sat there quietly through the night, until the dawn broke pale and gold.
She examined the path her heart had traveled. Almost there. Almost. There was still one thing left to do.
A small town in Wisconsin. Fewer than twenty thousand permanent residents. To avoid drawing attention, Thea took a car from one of her local subsidiaries.
The doorbell rang for a moment before a moderately pretty woman opened the door.
Thea smiled. "Hi. We should have met once before—about eleven years ago."
The young woman tensed, her hands fidgeting at her sides. She glanced past Thea, confirmed she had come alone, and visibly relaxed.
"Please, come in."
"Thank you."
Thea took in the interior. Much of the furniture was aging, but everything was clean and neatly arranged. A photo hung on the wall—the young woman and a small boy.
"What brings you here?" The woman had noticed her looking at the photo, and her tone sharpened—though her nature seemed to prevent her from holding that edge for long.
"William. I came for William. He's my brother's son. My father's grandson." Thea was direct about it. Had the child not existed, had there been no blood connection at all, Oliver's many past indiscretions were frankly not her problem to track down. But this child was Robert Queen's direct bloodline. She had an obligation.