His voice echoed in her memory, all rough command and danger. She'd spent years learning to read people: merchants, marks, city guards who could smell desperation streets away. But the Reaper was a locked vault. All sharp edges and shadows that moved on their own.
Like those black gloves he never removed, even sitting on his own throne of reaching bone hands. Like how his entire court kept twelve feet of distance as if their lives depended on it. Like how they'd looked ready to faint when she'd walked right up to where they wouldn't dare go.
Like how he'd gone still when she'd gotten close, then practically snarled at her to stay back.
What kind of Death Lord needs that much distance from everyone?
She should investigate more. Map the room properly, test the door, and look for weaknesses. But exhaustion slammed into her hard enough to make her stumble. The journey through the death realm, the terror of the selection, the month in a cell before that. It all crashed down on her at once.
Her legs gave out. She barely made it to the bed before collapsing onto silk sheets that felt too smooth against her skin. The bone-frame headboard arched over her. On the wall beside her, the death tapestry showed a young woman drowning, her expression peaceful as bubbles escaped her lips.
Don't look at it. Don't think about it.
Sleep dragged her under before she could fight it.
Dreams came in fragments.Black eyes watching her like she was a threat. Shadows reaching for her with desperate hunger before snapping back. The Reaper's voice, low and rough. The death scenes on her walls coming alive, figures stepping out of the silk to circle her bed.
Three sharp knocks jolted her awake, heart already racing.
Twilight glow filtered through the curtains. Slightly lighter than before. Morning, she assumed. She'd slept through the entire night.
"Miss Brynn?" A woman's voice called through the door. "I've brought breakfast."
Brynn sat up, trying to shake off the lingering nightmares. The drowning woman on the wall had drifted lower, her peaceful face now turned toward the bed.
"Come in."
The door opened. A woman stepped inside carrying a silver tray, and Brynn had to blink twice to convince herself she was seeing correctly. She looked solid enough. Dark hair pulled back in a practical knot, sharp cheekbones, clothes that seemed real. But something about the way light passed through her was off, like looking at someone standing behind frosted glass.
"You need to eat," she said, setting the tray down on the small table near the window. The clink of metal on wood sounded real enough.
"Thanks." Brynn studied her, the no-nonsense set of her mouth, the way she moved like someone who'd stopped being impressed by much of anything a long time ago. "I'm Brynn."
"Naia." She moved to leave.
"Wait." Brynn gestured to the tray. "Is there anything I should know? About all this?"
Naia paused, one translucent hand still on the door handle. She turned back to study Brynn with new interest. "Most tributes are too busy falling apart to ask questions."
"I'm not most tributes."
Approval flickered across her features. "No, you're not. You're still standing, for one thing."
The way she said it made Brynn's chest tighten. "Should I not be?"
Naia was quiet for a long moment, as if weighing her words. "The girl before you spent her first three days curled up in her bed, crying." A pause. "The one before her tried to climb out a window on the second night." She glanced toward the curtains. "Thirty-foot drop into thorns that bite back."
"What happened to them?"
"What happens to all of you, eventually." Her voice went neutral. "The death realm isn't meant for mortal hearts. It pulls at you, bit by bit."
"How long do I have?"
"Depends on how smart you are. How cautious." She crossed her arms, and Brynn noticed her fingers looked more solid when she was thinking hard. "Some manage weeks. The longest lasted almost two months. Smart girl, kept her head down, learned the court politics."
"What happened to her?"
"The realm got her in the end. It always does." Naia's voice went flat. "Woke up one morning and she was just... done."
