Page 13

My stomach clenches. I study him a moment longer, study him as I would if I were a sparrow soaring overhead: the Death God lying in the cold, his body held still, his blood spilled, the scars on his neck exposed to the sky. He is telling the truth. For better or worse, he cannot be killed. I shift my weight back slightly and lower the sword. Then, in a moment of impulsivity I cannot myself explain, I dab the open cut I’d created with the hem of my own sleeve.

He freezes beneath me, his eyes widening a fraction. I doubt he would be so caught off guard if I’d sliced his throat.

“I’m sorry about what I said,” I tell him as I finish cleaning the wound. There is no need to specify what I am talking about; my words from earlier hover in the space between us, haunting us both.

“I do not need your pity,” he says, just as quiet.

“I know,” I say. Then I untangle myself from him, pushing off the ground with my hands. Tentatively, I hold out his sword, still wet with his blood. My heartbeat drums in my ears. “The flower works best when it is freshly plucked. We should hurry back to the palace. I can start brewing the medicine this afternoon and have it ready by tomorrow morning.”

A truce. A reprieve. A mere pause in the dangerous game we’re both playing. I do not know what to call it, but when he accepts the sword and makes no move to strike at me, I know that we have reached it, if only for now. For another day.

But every day I live is a day stolen from fate.

Chapter Four

The ghosts are gone that night.

I do not know where, I do not know why. If they have been scared off or kept away; if this is part of their routine or if something has gone amiss. Regardless, I decide to investigate. Perhaps I will be able to find a secret passageway I had previously missed, a gate between the realms, a weakness the Death God has hidden from me.

After everything, the thought of escape remains a constant itch at the back of my mind.

The clay pot is bubbling in my room when I slide open the door, the peculiar, peach-like fragrance of the melted heartfrost flower wafting out into the halls. The Death God had provided me with all the equipment I’d asked for upon our return, then left without another word. I didn’t even have the chance to thank him. Or to yell at him.

I scan the area, my eyes now adjusting easily to the darkness.

Still no ghosts.

My footsteps echo over the stone like a second heartbeat as I make my way through the palace alone. At every turn of the corner, every empty room that I pass, I expect a beast to leap out from the shadows and seize me. Yet when nothing of the sort occurs, the silence only builds into something more unsettling. I am awfully conscious of the noise I make when I swallow, the faint rustle of my robes, the small bumps in the wall beneath my fingers, the ancient cracks that stretch out like split skin. The hair on the back of my neck prickles.

Then I hear it.

A whimper. A thin, broken plea that could belong to a wounded creature.

I freeze, my stomach twisting involuntarily. I am more familiar with the sound of pain than I am with the crashing washes of the ocean, the rhythm of my breathing. Whoever it is—whatever it is—must be in complete agony. My frenzied thoughts branch off and spiral into three different directions. I could go back, slip inside my room, and pretend nothing happened. I could walk ahead and ignore it.

Or I could follow the sound to the room at the very end of the corridor.

Even as I’m sifting through my choices, my feet seem to have already decided for me. I tiptoe until I am positioned right outside the heavy double doors, my heart thrumming with the boldness of my own movements. The whimpering grows louder, more persistent. What could it be? Torture? A soul taken by the Death God? Another god he has captured?

“Don’t go in there.”

The voice comes from behind me, thin as wind but urgent.

I spin around. The ghost who had first shown me to my room hovers in the hall, picking nervously at her tattered tunic. She is almost see-through, the patterns in the tiled walls behind her visible through her face.

“Don’t go in,” she repeats in a furious whisper. “He is at his most unpredictable on nights like these.”

“The Death God?” My mouth feels very dry. The cold prickling sensation in my neck spreads down to my spine.

“He loses his mind,” she continues, her pupilless eyes wide. “Nobody can calm him.”

“What do you mean? How—”

“Just stay away.”

But without warning, the doors heave open on their own. The ghost girl shoots me one last frantic look before vanishing into the air.

I swallow, hard, then turn back toward the chamber.