A cold chill began to fill the air.
“Why are you doing this?” I wrung the soaked strands of my hair. “Why bring me here?”
“Because only someone as sick and pitiful as you can summon Death.” His biting words were full of venom.
The cold sharpened. A strange rattle began somewhere far off. Our plan was working.
“How can you say that to me? I love you.” I let a choked sob escape my throat. A small but brief warmth flickered down our heartbond. Just a tender stroke of affection. A reminder of the truth.
“You were supposed to cure me of blight. You failed,” Rorik drawled. “Now I have to take matters into my own hands.” He flexed his fingers for effect.
“You can try.”
I startled in place, craning my neck to find the source of the rattling, dissonant words that hung in the air. They were everywhere and nowhere, a presence that couldn’t be seen but rather felt. They echoed through me with a sense of finality that could only belong to Death himself. Rorik stilled. He narrowed his eyes, but his arrogant smile only stretched wider. I felt his magic bloom to life down our bond and watched as green particles hovered near his fists.
A few feet from us, shadows gathered in a pool of pure night. They snaked and interlocked, writhed and hissed, until a figure birthed from the abyss like a statue rising from the earth. The ink-black tendrils became his clothes, his cloak, the very hood shielding his face from view. I couldn’t see his eyes, but I knew he was staring. And the smell... It was the stale must of an unopened room, the hint of decay from a pile of rotting leaves, the stench of sulfur.
“An Ever in my domain.” The grate of his whisper sent the hairs on the back of my neck skyward. “How unfortunate for you.”
I let out a startled gasp. “Who are you?”
“Poor mender.” His hum was the rattle of leaves against stone. “I know your pain. You’ve been deceived by the one you love.”
“What do you mean?” I stood and took a small step toward Death. He didn’t shy away.
“This Ever”—he practically spat the word—“does not care for you. All he wants is to rid himself of blight.”
I cut a glance between the two of them. Rorik didn’t move.
“You’re responsible for that?” I asked Death, and took another step.
Death nodded. “I could not end them myself with the everjewels buried within their bodies, so I designed an illness, an infection, meant to eat away at them slowly. And once the light was snuffed from their bodies, I would strike.”
“All of them?” I kept him talking. Kept his burning rage focused on Rorik.
“Rebellyn, their wretched ancestor, asked for freedom from my reach for her and her kin. And the cost of that ask will be extracted from them for eternity... or until there are no Evers left to be a pox on this realm.” Death shifted, and the shadows making up his attire came to life like they’d been caught in a breeze. Slowly, I peeled open the purse.
Rorik leered. “I am not responsible for her behavior.”
“And yet you repeat her mistakes with this mender,” Death hissed. He stretched out his hand to gesture toward me, and the hem of his sleeve fell back to expose knobby fingers that were ghostly white. His skin was near translucent, his veins so black they spread like rivers of ink. I slid behind him, his reach shielding me from Rorik. “The realm aches to be free of your existence.”
I slipped my hand into my pouch. Heat throbbed into my palm from the hilt of the blade. Rebellyn’s magic, it seemed, still lingered in the metal. And while I wasn’t an Embergrave, I was bonded to one of her descendants. Fernglove magic roared to life in my core in response. I would fulfill my end of the bargain or die trying. I would protect her kind. I would protect Rorik. Anticipation ratcheted within me as I stared at Death’s cloaked back. My time had come. I would drive the blade through to his heart and force him to comply with my demands. I would barter for all that I wanted. I would end blight. I would make him spare me like he’d spared Rebellyn.
I moved fast. Raising the blade above my head, I drove it downward toward his left shoulder. Time seemed to slow as the blade neared Death. But before it could pierce his flesh, the cloak framing his body began to riot. Wild tendrils of black shadows spired outward in a protective display, and my hand was knocked back. Pain flared in my wrist from the burst of magic, and I let out a cry as I took several steps back.
“What is this?” Death rasped as he turned to face me. His gaze slanted to my shaking hand. “You collude with this Ever?”
Rorik dropped all pretenses. “Don’t touch her.”
“Silence, Ever.” Outrage burned through Death’s voice. He turned back to me. “I wondered when I’d see that blade again. You might have the weapon, but you do not possess the strength.” He snapped his fingers, and something in me broke. A cry wrenched from my lungs as I crashed to the ground, my knees cracking against the surface.
“Edira!” Rorik bolted across the island to kneel beside me. Worry lanced his expression as his hand went to the small of my back. I recoiled from his touch. My skin was alight, every nerve ending on fire. And then I saw it: a thin, moonlit strand drifting away from my body on an invisible current of air. Right into Death’s open palm. He’d stolen a thread. A sliver of my life.
Rorik’s lips peeled back in a snarl as he targeted Death with a murderous glare. There was nothing but fury brimming from his core. Nothing but unencumbered rage bellowing down our bond.
“I said don’t touch her.”
“But why, when she’s the only one I can claim?” Death let out a hollow laugh.
