Ilys could almost see the quiver of her lower lip beneath the veil. She had meant to tell Hanna the night before, but the melancholy stirred by thoughts of Baron had drawn her mind elsewhere.
Ilys rested a hand on the small Veilwalker’s head. “We spoke about this possibility, remember? I promise it won’t be long.”
“We’ve never been apart!” Hanna cried, clutching at her sleeve. Ilys nearly laughed at the protest. Theyhadbeen apart—Hanna had lived the first five years of her life without her—but the girl clung to her now as though Ilys were the only world she had ever known.
Ilys knelt, her veil brushing against Hanna’s, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial hush. “I have to go, little one, but I’ll be back soon. You’ll wish I had stayed away longer, just so you wouldn’t have to endure my silly exercises.”
Hanna flung her arms around Ilys’s leg, pinning the dark fabric to her calf and thigh. Morrigan had crept close without a sound and now pressed his head against Ilys’s other leg, as though anchoring her in place. For a moment they were a small,fragile family huddled together on the cobblestones beneath a flat, gray sky.
Beyond the gates, Death’s silhouette waited. He wore no godhood today. Only the shape of a man whose mortal eyes fixed on them, quiet and somber. Ilys forced herself to ignore him.
She slipped the sketchbook from her satchel and pressed it into Hanna’s arms. “For when you miss me.” Then, glancing at Elspeth, who lingered a few paces behind, she added, “I’m sure Elspeth has plenty of stories about Grim she’d be happy to share.”
Hanna clutched the book to her chest and squeezed tighter with her free arm, as though sheer will might keep Ilys from leaving. Lost in the moment, Ilys barely registered Mother Inrith’s approach until the woman’s hand closed over Hanna’s arm, prying her free. The Mother’s voice cut through the courtyard, sharp and brittle with age.
“Let us not confuse duty with emotion. Say farewell to the Veilwalker, Hanna.”
Obedient as ever, Hanna allowed herself to be led away. Ilys fought the instinct to intervene, shoving the discomfort down, layer by layer, until it settled like a stone in her chest. Weakness could not be shown, not today. Gabriel’s ascension to his new role proof enough of that. She closed her eyes, inhaled once, and turned toward the gates. Hanna’s muffled whimpers followed her, but she pretended not to hear.
Ilys led Spire from the stables to stand beside Death’s waiting mare, her hand gliding down her pale mane in a calming motion meant as much for herself as for the horse.
“To be so missed,” Death remarked.
Ilys glared at him through the veil. “Do not speak to me of her.” She swung onto Spire’s back and tilted her head, urging him to mount and ride.
The air beyond the Sanctum swelled with the icy morning frost, stinging Ilys’s cheeks. Only when the walls had faded into the mist behind them did she let herself breathe more freely. Death rode at her side, unusually quiet, his mortal frame outlined starkly against the gray horizon. He seemed smaller like this.
“What shall I call you now?”
He shrugged. "I am still Death."
"No,” she challenged, tilting her head. "Death intimidates. Death is eternal. You are a silly, pithy mortal now."
A short laugh escaped him. “How good of you to remind me.” He thought on it, his hands loose around the reins. “I do not know that a name is worthwhile for the time I have left. Names are for natural creatures. I no longer know what I am.”
“I have questions,” she noted. He did not respond, but looked at her from the side of his eyes thoughtful, urging the queries from her mouth.
“When will you die?”
“Endeavor to not sound so eager, Ilys.” His voice petted the s, exaggerating the silkiness of her name.
“When?” she repeated, haughty and bored. Inside she clamored for answers.
“I know not the exact moment, but I will not live to see another Veilmarch. This is all I’ve been told.”
“How will you die?” she badgered, already moving on. It was macabre, the detached way she spoke of his death, and she reveled in it.
Death leaned back, his face half in shadow, and for once he did not wear a smile. “You know of the Veyth, don’t you?”
Ilys frowned, surprised. “The threads? Of course. Every child of the Sanctum learns them. The Fates weave the Veyth and cut them when it is time for a soul to pass.”
“Good,” he said softly, as though she had passed some test. “Then you know there is not one thread for each person, but one thread for all. A single skein, endless, looping back on itself. When a mortal dies, their knot is severed and their portion of the thread feeds the weave again.”
She swallowed, uneasy. “And you?”
He turned his palm up, staring at it as though he expected to see it fray. “Gods are not cut. We are unraveled. Slowly. Strand by strand.” His voice dropped lower, almost conspiratorial. “My Veyth is already loosening. You’ve seen it. I am less than I was. A fiber is taken from me, spinning it toward the one who will replace me. One day there will be nothing left to pull. The world cannot bear two of me. So it thins me out until I am gone, and my successor is whole.”
Her fingers twitched at her side, aching for her dagger, yet finding no one to stab.
