‘Why doesn’t it affect you?’ she asked, gritting her teethagainst the pull of exhaustion.
‘Because I am Death, Melinoe,’ he replied smoothly. ‘Without me, the kings would have no souls to claim.’
‘How special you must feel,’ she muttered under her breath.
From the way his chest lifted in a silent laugh, she knew he had heard and that it amused him greatly.
They pressed on, but with every step, Mal found her limbs growing heavier, her muscles stiffening as though she were wading through honeyed tar. Thanatos bore most of the burden now, half-dragging them through the thickening haze. The air had grown viscous, almost suffocating, and with it came a mounting urge to simply lie down and let the world fall away.
‘I just want to sleep,’ Makaria murmured, crumpling to her knees. Thanatos caught her swiftly, hauling her upright again with little patience.
‘Keep moving,’ Mal snapped, though the words were as much for herself as for her sister. Her legs had become stone, her body unwilling, as though it no longer obeyed her command.
‘I can’t carry both of you,’ Thanatos said, irritation colouring his voice. ‘I’ll take you first and come back for her.’
‘No,’ Mal said sharply, her gaze flaring with defiance. ‘Take Makaria. Then return for me.’
He didn’t argue. He simply nodded, as if understanding there was no room for debate, and gathered Makaria into his arms. Her eyes had already closed, her limbs limp as threads of silk.
Mal collapsed to her knees, breath shallow, fury and fatigue twining through her like vines. She tried to rise, and saw then the way Thanatos looked at her, worry stretching in those obsidian eyes. It startled her more than any demon might have. She forced herself upright again, spine trembling with the effort, if only to banish that look from his face.
‘Go,’ she whispered, voice tight. And just like that, he vanished into the orange fog, his figure devoured by the mist.
Mal released a long, shuddering breath, relief washing through her briefly, only for despair to settle in its place as the moments dragged on.
Thanatos did not return.
Mal forced her legs to move, each step torn from her with a grunt and a low curse breathed against the weight of the world. Still, she pressed forward, inch by agonising inch, sheer will dragging her across the desolate, dust-choked landscape. Until, without warning, a hand seized her from behind.
She cried out, spinning with a gasp, only to be met by the ghastly sight of three wretched souls. They clung to her like drowning men to driftwood, desperate and voiceless, their mouths gaping in silent screams, their hollow eye sockets staring into nothing. Mal thrashed, struggling to wrench free, but her limbs were leaden, her strength almost spent.
The souls pulled her down, dragging her to the cracked, ochre earth. Dust billowed up around her, filling her lungs, stealing the breath from her lips. Her vision blurred. The air turned thick as smoke.
She collapsed, body trembling, and her mind, fragile and fraying, slipped away.
It took her somewhere gentler.
A memory.
To a castle bathed in firelight, where a prince with golden skin and hair spun from sunlight had once looked at her like she was everything. Ash appeared behind her eyes, smiling in that quiet, beautiful way he always had, as though she were his entire world. She could almost feel the ghost of his hands against her skin, the warmth of his breath at her ear as he whispered,keep going.
And so Mal slipped into her memories, into the soft cradle of dreams, letting the world bleed away as the dead clawed and clung. The pain, the weight, the hands, became distant, dulled beneath the tide of her recollection.
She retreated where they could not follow, into the echo of Ash’s voice, into the warmth of what once was. A refuge not of stone or shield, but of love and longing.
There, in the silence between heartbeats, she was lost.
Not to death.
But to memory.
…
‘Mal, open your eyes.’
She didn’t want to. Not really. But something in the voice, familiar and firm, pulled at her, coaxing her from the dark. Slowly, reluctantly, she obeyed.
And blinked into a world that could not possibly be.
