I watch it unfold all over again, and it’s somehow worse the second time. She had waited so long for this, for the one thing that would finally let her move on. And what did we do? We threw her back into eternal suffering. No justice. No peace. Nothing.
Death does not ask if I regret it. He knows I do.
And still, he continues.
“Then,”he murmurs,“there was the wraith.”
Oh. Oh, fuck.
The memory slams into me like a freight train with no brakes. The freshest wound. The rawest mistake. The creation of a monster. Because of me, a soul had not been reaped. It had lingered. Rotted. Twisted itself into something that should never—never—exist. A wraith. A force of hunger, of ruin. Something that could consume. Something that could spread.
I see her eyes again. The jagged, unstable edges of her form. The way vengeance bled out of her like a disease.
And finally—there it is. Finally.
The last memory crashes into place like a death knell ringing through the abyss. The moment I broke the final rule.
Cassian.
His body, lifeless. His blood, dark and pooling beneath him. His soul, small and flickering, caught in the space between death and life.
And me.
Grabbing it.
Forcing it back.
Undoing what was supposed to be permanent.
Not just failing to reap. Not just delaying the inevitable. No, no—I reversed it.
Death is silent for a moment. Then he exhales something that sounds suspiciously like a laugh.
“I don't know whether to applaud you or obliterate you on the spot, my child,”he muses, the tone both indulgent and deeply unsettling.“That’s truly an extensive list of crimes.”
I should say something. Anything. Beg. Justify. Bargain.
But what the hell do I even say?
Sorry, my bad?
I saved Cassian because I couldn’t let him go. Because the thought of watching his soul flicker out felt wrong in a way I couldn’t accept. I did everything else because I couldn’t stop the three of them. It’s not an excuse.
But itisa reason.
Still, I get it now. Why I’m here.
I stole from Death. And Death does not tolerate thieves.
His voice lowers, slipping into something quieter, more dangerous. A whisper that vibrates through the fabric of me.
“You are not the first to break the rules, Skye,”he murmurs.“You are not the first to steal from me. But you, my child, are the first to do it so many times.”
I flinch as his voice hardens.
“The wraith will feed,”he says.“It will grow stronger. And when it has taken enough—when it has feasted on enough of my Reapers—the system, however flawed you think it, will collapse. And when it does… so will all mortals.”
My stomach drops.
