“Yes?” she urged him to elaborate.
“I propose that you should not—” he paused—“kill me.” His gaze bore into her, devouring every bread crumb she left that may hint at her emotions. “And in exchange, I will make it such that you will not be forced to take any lives this march.”
Ilys bit her lip, contemplating the dark god’s seemingly sincere gaze. Grim had instructed her in hand-to-hand combat, in human anatomy, and blood-thick ritual. But never had he explained best practice when negotiating with a god.
“And this deal would remain in perpetuity?” she questioned.
“Only this march,” he corrected.
She huffed. “That is not tempting. I will be a murderer once more come another winter.”
His expression sharpened; a reckoning flickered behind his eyes, like embers under ash. “There will come a time,” he said quietly, “with the new Death, when you will take once more. The Fates will demand it. But with me, in this last climb, you will not kill. You will collect. You will abide with me. You will walk the Veilmarch at my side, and your blade will stay clean until the end.”
“I will only accept it should it extend,” she dictated. “For as long as I do not kill you, I will not be forced to take a life on any march.”
“I cannot make that deal, Veilwalker,” he ground out.
“Why?” she bit back, nails digging into her palms carving half moons in the skin.
“Because this is my last.”
Ilys laughed, a dry and disoriented sound. “Death does not retire.”
He rose with care, brushing invisible dust from his dark trousers, a pointless, human motion. “Ilys,” he said, voice low and unguarded. “I am ending.”
“Ending?” The word scraped out of her throat.
“Dying, Ilys.”
“And if I kill you first?”
“If you strike,” he said, voice stripped of its old theatrics, “you do more than kill a god. You pull on threads the Fates have knotted for centuries. Men will die uncounted because their ends have been misread. Children will choke on breaths that were meant to last. The Veil is not a rope you can cut and re-tie to suit your hurt. It is the pattern of all leaving. Break it now and nothing will leave as it should.” He swallowed. “You would become not avenger but chaos. Not Veilwalker but an aberration the world will not forgive. Let the Fates take me when they are ready.”
Her lips curled, glutted in their disdain. “You’re lying.”
“I am bound,” he said, urgency roughening his voice. “When I saved you—when I killed that boy—” His hands lifted, clumsy, as though grasping for words too large to shape. For the first time, Ilys saw not omnipotence but a god fumbling. “The Fates do not leave us unchecked. Every god is tethered, weighed, balanced. The Veil itself holds those bindings tight. You think I take lives at whim, but each one is numbered, each one permitted. Saving you broke that rhythm.”
Ilys blinked, then barked a laugh, bitter and disbelieving. “And yet you take so many lives you cannot possibly be called totake.” She circled him, blade tracing idle patterns in the air. “You expect me to believe that the Fates keep ledgers, when you sweep the board clean whenever it suits you?”
“I do not suit myself.” His voice rose, low and harsh. “I carry their design. You see slaughter; I see a pattern. That is why my power is thinning. That is why this march is my last.” He paused, his throat working. “I am not lying to you. I have already paid the price of stepping outside my bounds—your breath still in your lungs is proof.”
“Then prove it,” she said, voice low, daring. “Make another bargain. Not words. The old way.”
His gaze climbed to hers, shadows flickering through it—defiance, surrender, an impulse hungrier in between. A crooked smile ghosted his lips. “You want blood.”
“I want binding,” she corrected, stepping closer, close enough to feel the heat radiating from his mortal skin. “Blood is only the cord. Swear you will not call for my blade this march. Swear I will not be ordered to kill in your name.”
He only looked at her, gaze tracing her features with a strange, covetous intensity. Then, with willful grace, he scored his palm with the dagger. Blood welled, rich and luxurient. “And what will you give me in return?” he queried.
“I will not strike you down before your march is ended,” she vowed, as she cut her own flesh, and then pressed her palm hard against his.
The wounds met with a hiss of warmth, their mingled blood slick between their skin. The Veil stirred at the contact, a low thrum that made the stone beneath them feel alive.
“Speak,” she demanded, though her breath hitched with the command.
He leaned in, his lips grazing the shape of her ear as he spoke, “I, Death, in this last Veilmarch, bind myself to you. I shall notcall for death by your hand. You will walk at my side, while I alone collect. Until I am ended, this bond will hold.”
Her grip tightened, refusing to give him space, nails biting into the back of his hand. “And if you break it?”
