Days later, I realized one thing about Asena Black. Life has been unkind to her this time around but I couldn't put my finger on what exactly had been so cruel to her. When I first met her, she was fierce, determined, loyal, and a storm of beauty, but observing her the following day, she had withered in this lifetime.
She stared down at her coffee with blurred eyes and parted lips while her hands cupped the mug. Behind her, her aunt Twila rambled uselessly about some coven meeting that would inevitably result in furthering Asena’s despair. I had to hide whenever her cousin and best friend, Rory, entered because her magic allowed her to see me. So, when Rory rushed into the kitchen, a pastry sticking out of her mouth as she fumbled on her jacket, I hid behind the shelves. She paid me no mind, picking up a mug as she whirled through the kitchen like a tornado.
“Rory, slow down,” Twila huffed, sticking some ungodly yellow atrocity into the oven. It looked like mush in a dish, but she claimed it was macaroni and cheese.
“I’m late,” Rory mumbled around her pastry. “I have to–” the rest was lost to the pastry.
Asena lifted her icy eyes with no emotion. “Oh that’s today?”
“Yes!” Rory exclaimed like she couldn’t believe Asena had forgotten. Rory finally pulled the pastry from her mouth and sighed. “I can’t believe it’s finally here.”
“Yes, the city’s art festival is going to be exciting,” Twila smiled.
“I’ve worked so hard for this–” Her eyes flashed over to me–I ducked. “...I…I can’t wait to see if people buy my work!”
Rory was used to seeing things move so she carried on like normal whenever she spotted me. People got used to her pauses and stutters whenever she saw something she didn’t want to. Although, I can only hope I was not the worst thing she had seen as a Seer.
“Hmm,” Asena hummed in agreement as she sipped her coffee.
I slipped away from the scene, unable to bear seeing her that way. Despondent.
Asena Black was a unique soul who had once been my reaper. Her name had been Sív Grimmdottír, daughter of my sworn enemy and ultimate killer.
Back in the time of vikings, she and I once lived as sworn enemies. Her clan, the clan of the Crow, and mine, the clan of the Wolf, were two clans plagued with a curse. The Crows believed that the curse was a blessing to be plagued with ascending to the position of Grim Reaper. They deemed it a blessing because it promised power from the “kind” god who had bestowed it.
But the Wolves, we knew better. The god who had bestowed my clan’s curse was bloodthirsty and jealous, and only did it to start a war which they eventually won. The curses differed only slightly– each meant that the cursed would become the grim reaper, but the clan of the Wolf had the added clause of being forced to obey the creator of the curse–you know them as The Master.
The god who bestowed the curse onto the Crows had a lust for power and dreamed the addition of a grim reaper would grant him more power. This god sorely lost to the Master and obviously did not gain what they desired, but their curse remained. The Crows were free to disobey the Master, and they did often when they were the Grim as they’re called.
Grims are what are generally known as the grim reaper, the carrier of souls to the eternal afterlife. Grims could be in multiple places at once and did not need additional help to get the job done as their powers encompass every conceivable job description of being the grim reaper. However, I did have the ability to convert mortals to what’s known as a Reaper, to do my bidding. These were once mortals and unlike myself, they are not bound to the Master but to me. The Master cannot harm them or command them. They are mine and mine alone.
That was how I found the loophole that saved Asena from the same fate as me. In her first life, she was supposed to be my successor, the next cursed individual to become the grim reaper. Since there could only be one at a time, my retirement would happen upon her death, but things are never smooth.
Why did I save her and make her my reaper? Why wouldn’t I want to retire from this fate, I ask myself during the darkest nights.
At times, I felt like this job was my purpose, my only reason for being created, but then other times I remembered my shackles. The true reason I wore my chains of being the Grim?
Because she and I fell in love in our first lives together and had a child. This would’ve been fine in any other instance but we didn’t know that the other was cursed. By procreating, we effectively mingled the curses together to be, in theory, stronger and unable to deny the Master.
Why does it matter if we can or cannot deny the Master, I used to ask myself before I understood the true bloodlust of the Master. The Master had a love of chaos and the death that followed it. They took pleasure in the suffering proceeding death and usually ensured suffering if they were present during a death. With the ultimate power of two curses, the Master could further their pursuit of suffering.
So, I made Asena my reaper on a hunch that it would stop the ascension line. Without her ascension, the entire curse ended. The Master did not suspect until they found Asena and I talking in the fields. I was immediately ordered to return her to the mortal realm so she could ascend.
I obeyed.
Recalling these things, made my jaw clench as I stormed down the hallway of Grim Home, the mansion in which I resided most of the time. The mansion’s ornate walls felt mockingly beautiful, almost like they were too beautiful to be the prison they were. It was my castle, my throne, but I was a simple puppet.
And Asena…
She’d been broken by her new life. I thought of her smile that final day in the field and felt only rage. She had been happy being my friend, my companion for those thousand or so years. The Master had destroyed her. They had killed her happiness, and I would ensure, they met a worse fate.
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~*~
Too close.
I was fuming for several hours. I am thinking about how she has been broken, and I am trying to figure out how to fix it. As I fume, a plan begins. So much so, the Master finds me in the library, pouring over old grimoires in the Library of Knowledge.
They peer over my shoulder, their unnaturally colored eyes scanning the scrawl I’m reading. “Looking for more loopholes.”
“Like I ever stopped,” I mumble, chewing on my thumb as I read. “Don’t you have children to torture.”
“Don’t you have souls to steal?”
I shot them a look and returned to my book.
They slinked beside me so they were sitting on the desk, their leg touching my arm. “I should warn you,” they purred; “that there is some…chaos brewing in our little friend’s life…She is just a friend, right?”
My eyes flick to theirs. I did not grace their question with a response.
They beam, excited they hit a nerve and carried on. “You see, her little aunt Tilda–”
“--Twila–”
“--has been given a heads up that an old curse has been risen from the grave and if they can cull the one who ascends they get a blessing from yours truly.”
I gaped at them. Had they finally lost their mind? “Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why would you do that?”
They grinned so wide their hideously white teeth shined. “My dear,” they purred, reaching out and stroking my face which I shook off; “What is the fun of watching her grow old? I’ve grown wary of the mundane.”
My teeth clicked together as my jaw clenched. “So you make her death a spectacle?”
“Calm yourself, Finn,” they laughed, their laugh like music. “I would never stop you from having a chance.”
“Bullshit.”
“Prove me wrong. Go to her. Tell her the witches’ plan. See if you can stop what I have planned. I dare you.”
I stared at them in confusion and horror. They had never given me a chance such as this to save her, to stop the Master from one of their schemes. Whatever angle they were playing, it made an uneasy hole in my stomach. “What will you gain from this?” I asked quietly.
“Entertainment,” they responded like it was obvious. “I get to watch you try to stop the inevitable.”
I slammed my fist against the table. “And if I do?” my voice echoing through the shelves like thunder.
The Master smiled. “Then we’ll have to see.” They paused and then looked at me, their eyes glinting with mischief. “The last time we played these games–”
“Enough.”
“--fingernails clawed stone as life was sucked from their lungs.”
I moved to strike The Master. Their hand caught mine before I could make contact.
“The games we play, Finn,” they breathed, “aren’t for the weak. Souls are our tokens and while we played with small prizes back then, now we have the ultimate prize. The soul of Asena Black, the next grim reaper. With her ascension, the new bloodline shall rise–the obedient strength of my sibling. How fitting.”
“No soul is a small prize,” I snapped through my teeth, emphasizing each word as I struggled to release my hand.
They tossed my hand aside. “Tsk, you’ve carried enough across I would’ve thought you’d lose compassion for the creatures.”
“I will remind you,” I growled in a low voice, rubbing my freed fist; “that I carried each of those souls you tortured for fun.Small prizes they were not. No soul is worth more than another–not even Asena Black.”
“But of course she means more to you.”
I pressed my lips together tightly and turned away. “I couldn’t stop you with your old games, but I will stop you this time.”
“Please do,” The Master laughed as I faded from the In Between and entered the mortal realm.
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