“I’ve caught a couple of your specters wandering close,” I said in lieu of a greeting. “Still hunting for the king who managed to get past your gates?”
Death let out a warning growl. “He will be sent back beyond the veil.”
We had not seen or heard from Unir since his brief visit to Dianna. I knew whatever allowed him to slip into this world could not hide him. Death would hunt him down with specters and ghostly hounds.
“You are interfering when you have sworn not to,” I said.
“We’re losing.” Death made no movement, his hood covering his face. I wondered what skin he was wearing right now. What powerful ancient soul had passed his gates that he now cloaked himself in? “Have your visions changed, kinsman?” he asked.
I allowed my eyes to wander the expanse before us, rolling hills with gray stones sprinkled between the trees. Life among the plains. Life and him. “No, I still hear the screams. I feel the dying winds and see the spiraling sky touch the ground. It is the beginning of an impenetrable darkness. The beginning of the end truly and all roads lead to one.”
“And you’ve told her not?” Death asked, his voice thick and deep.
“I have not,” I said. “It will only distract them because no matter what decision is made or what choice, it does not falter. The last bits of Unir’s kingdom will fall, and I am afraid they will go with it.”
Time stopped in his full presence. No wind blew, no leaves or small animals moved in our vicinity. The universe awaited its master to collect what he’d come for. Death had not come to collect tonight, but his indomitable power still leaked from his very being. He was neither here nor there but somewhere in between.
“Will she forgive you?” Death asked. “Will he?”
“It matters not,” I answered truthfully. “It must be done.”
“I always admired you over your siblings, you know.”
A small chuckle left my lips. “My sisters are quite peculiar, but all we are, we are all the same.”
“Not you.” His cloak bellowed around him, not affected by the wind but with his power. “You, unlike them, saw what was to come and stepped in. Broke the rules you know will cost you and persisted.”
I nodded. “As have you. I assume that is why you have resurrected Kaden from Oblivion.” Death didn’t respond. Not that he needed to. Only he had the power to do such. “Why lead them to her home? The healer is innocent.”
“You use words belonging to those beneath us, kinsman. Innocent? Are they not all in some sense? Still, they pass my gates. All are equal in the kingdom of the dead.”
“She is innocent,” I repeated.
A short, deep chuckle left his throat, yet he still did not turn to me. “Is that judgment I hear? Not the gift you were born with, kinsman.”
I said nothing because I had no words to correct or deny his claim. I … felt. I felt for them all. It had been so since the universe gave me life and would persist after it was taken. It was my duty to uphold balance, as was his, yet witnessing what I had and not acting? I would betray myself for a different outcome, a better one. I would betray my supposed purpose in hope of the world I knew they could provide.
“You mock me, yet how many have arrived at your gates for it? How many still wail for those they have left behind? The empires that have turned to dust for it and will again.” I shrugged. “It is always for love. It has to be, or we are truly doomed.”
A dark laugh left him in my silence. “Has the queen affected you so? It seems she can neuter more than gods.”
The queen. He spoke with the usual bias he held for her. Even before she returned, he never understood why I risked it all, why I allowed myself to be chained by Unir. He never once questioned me or abandoned me in my pursuit, and over time, he had come to realize it was for the benefit of us all, not a selfish pursuit. I had no need of such things.
“I saw a different path, and when Kaden met his demise, I feared the road that split. You corrected that. Even so, I must ask, to what end is your goal?” I asked instead of answering him.
The cold grew, casting frost on all that surrounded him, turning the stones and debris at his feet brittle.
“To what we want. To what is needed. Nismera draws closer to that medallion every day, so I did what I must.”
I nodded solemnly. That much I had gathered. “It will come to pass as it should.”
“You did not tell them about my arrival, nor have you spoken a word about where I would be,” he said, the air stiffening around him.
“Nor will I.”
“So your loyalties still reside with us?”
My lips curled in a scowl. Us. It seemed so formal for an informal alliance. Chaos gifted us what those lower than us deemed as life, but what was life other than this servitude we were bound to? Both of us were in a never-ending cycle, never to live truly, never to die. We were watchers. I watched time, how it ate and corroded, turned bones to dust and empires to ruins, and he collected, always for eternity, until eternity ended. Would we rest then? I assumed not, and I could no longer see far ahead.
