I wait for her to continue but she stops, awaiting my enthusiasm. “Give me more, Seren. What does that mean? What does it have to do with the sarcophagus? With Death?”
She pushes to stand, pacing back and forth.
“I Walked to the plane where Morrathys’ soul is being held—the runes are portals there for people like me. He called it anecho-plane. Almost like a sub-realm of this one, where he’s stuck—enchanted to stay so long as he’s in here,” she taps on the sarcophagus.
Seren just fucking World Walked.
I train my features into neutrality, “How do we get him back here?”
Seren smiles in a way that tells me she knows. “He wants my blood on the runes, and… a sacrifice from you.”
Of course he fucking does.
“Anything,” I say, unflinching.
She nods with understanding of what I really mean:anything for Elyssara.
Seren approaches the sarcophagus again and opens her palm to me in silent request. I unsheathe a small dagger from my belt, and slice her palm just enough to create a droplet of blood. Seren clenches her fist, as a small bead of crimson pools at the cut. The blood thickens, and a single drop lands atop the runes on the sarcophagus.
The golden runes glimmer in acknowledgment, rising off Death’s prison in particles of shimmering magic. They hang on the air like golden motes of dust, until they simply dissolve into nothingness.The runes have been lifted.
I look at Seren, her eyes wide with shock, and she doesn’t have to say it but I know what she’s thinking:I did that.Pride pulses from her. She’s fucking brilliant.
The sarcophagus groans, stone wrestling apart from stone as the top begins to fan open. The flame ripples in the smooth reflection of the polished obsidian, giving everything here an otherworldly glow.
As the sarcophagus opens, we peer inside, and lying still, facing skyward, is Death.
“The blood was to awaken him,” Seren panics. “A drop of the old blood—that’s what he said.”
She rushes around the tomb, searching for clues, hints, anything.
But I wait. I watch. And through the stillness, I see the slight rise and fall of his chest.
“Maybe I needed to give more blood?” she guesses, flustered.
“Look,” I say, and color rises in Death’s face. His mouth twitches. His chest begins to rise and fall more fervently.
“It’s working,” she breathes.
Death lets out a pained groan, beginning to toss and stir.
His eyes shoot open, meeting Seren’s, and with a voice hoarse from disuse, he says, “I am in your debt.”
Seren looks taken aback, as if he’s just told her he’d take her to the Final Gate right now. Or maybe… she’s scared.
“You are the God of Death,” she murmurs, almost to herself.
“Yes,” he confirms, still unmoving. He clears his throat. “And you are of the old blood—you World Walked. I’ve waited a decade in the echo-plane for someone of your lineage to disenchant those runes. I owe you my gratitude,” he says in a low, rich timbre.
“You are the God of Death,” Seren repeats, and Morrathys chuckles heartily.
Seeing her fear, Morrathys says, “I am not the God of Death because I relish death itself. I am Death because going through the Final Gate is sacred, and I am its holy guardian. Death is a rite you must earn, for in death, too, there will be judgement.”
A chill settles over the tomb. Death’s words are heavy and piercing.
“I am not God of Chaos—I do not deal death for sport. In truth, I am God of Order. I make choices that push the realms to be better; deaths that reorient life paths, that serve as reminders of the impermanency and potential of life. Death is not punishment, it is an honor. It is sacrifice, for I only take the best. It is humans that cut down the worst with their own blades—that is not the act of a god.”
The weight of his words hangs heavy in the room. Reverent, holy, unnerving.
