I must’ve let go of her astral form on the way back, because when she awoke, she sat straight up and let out an unholy gasp. “Don’t ever fucking do that again,” she snarled, clutching her heaving chest.
“Do you even understand what they were insinuating?” I snarled, raising my voice as my panic began to raise. “Or was it too subtle for your tiny brain?”
She snapped her gaze to me, her face a mask of anger. “No, why don’t you begin explaining it to me,” she mocked.
“They’re going to kill you, Asena. When they find out what you are they’re going to sacrifice you to the Master of Death so you will ascend into the next Grim.”
She snorted coldly. “Sacrifice does not scare me.”
It was my turn to stare at her in horror. At last I see the bravery that once made me love the girl in front of me, but it was paired with an unrivaled stupidity. “They’ll kill you, Asena, and I won’t be able to stop it,” I enunciated. “I am bound by laws much bigger than any ounce of–” I stopped myself before I could say any ounce of love I hold for you.
She didn’t notice. Her mouth turned downward and her eyebrows pinched together. “But you’re Death. You can prevent me from dying.”
I laughed, shaking my head and crossing my arms. “How many times do I have to tell you? I am nothing but a puppet to the true Master of Death. I don’t decide who lives and who dies, I simply take the dead to the Other Side. I have no say, and it’s a miracle I was even allowed to be here and try to stop the inevitable–”
“Inevitable?” she snapped, her cheeks growing red as she reeled. “It doesn’t even matter that you’re here?”
“I’m going to make it matter,” I grumbled, shuffling my feet nervously.
“Why? Why do you care that I am going to ascend?”
I opened my mouth to reply but no words came out. I looked down at my hands and licked my lips, trying to find the right words to explain everything to her. How could I explain to her that I had loved her the moment I saw her, and that the only way I knew to keep her safe from the Master had been to make her my reaper–how could I explain that? It had been centuries since I’d made her my reaper and I had kept secrets from her that I wasn’t ready to share…. How could I explain to her my selfishness?
So, I didn’t. I ran.
In the Between, fury at my own weakness flooded my body. Before I could stop myself, I tore the nearest painting off its easel and flung it across my bedroom. Soon, paintings flew across the room, their frames shattering from the force. The Master appeared at the commotion, amusement on their cat-like features.
The Master was leaning against the doorway, grinning like a cat per usual, and made a purr of happiness. “You never told her you were the soldier, did you?”
I didn’t reply, I simply flung the next painting and the next because The Master was right. I had never told her who I was to her. Stupid, stupid, stupid! To her, I was Death, her friend. I’d told myself for centuries that she wouldn’t care that I was her former lover, lost in the war of our clans, but I had seen it in the way she stared at the Veil each night. I had felt her loss every time she brought another soul across the Veil. She had never given up hope that she would see him again, and I was too afraid to tell her.
My love for Asena was deeper than any physical infatuation because if it meant she would be happy, I would be this devil of a creature for the rest of eternity if she never felt the burden of souls, never felt the burden of endless time, nor felt the weight of prophecy chasing her down. Telling her who I was would mean she would try to do the same for me, and that was something I couldn’t allow.
But it didn’t matter anymore. The Master had caught onto my plan, and had ended it. Asena would ascend. She would become what I had tried to stop for centuries. She would feel the sting of death and the crushing weight of oblivion.
Meanwhile, I had betrayed the Master so my fate would be unknown. There was no hell, but the Master was certainly creative enough to make a hell. The Master would not allow me to cross the Veil, but they wouldn’t allow me a proper limbo in Purgatory.
“You’re going to have to tell her, you know,” The Master chimed. “Lies have no place in love.”
“And what do you know of love?” I snarled, throwing a painting at them. The painting missed, shattering beside their unmoving head.
“I know enough,” they replied seriously. “I have seen enough lovers beg for death to know that it is sickly and intoxicating like the poison they drink each night to soothe their souls… What is that called again? Alcohol? Yes! Alcohol.” They enunciated the word like they were savoring it. “I have watched you love her like the drink that fills so many mortals' hands, and I have watched it kill you the same. Yet, you have nothing to show for it except for a child she doesn’t know is yours.”
I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. “She doesn’t need to know,” I told them. “It means very little when it comes to defeating you.”
“You won’t win,” The Master laughed, gliding into the room as if it was a dance. “I have fate on my side, which you’ve only delayed. You can’t beat fate. I don’t know why you haven’t figured that out yet. Asena was fated to be a Grim long before you and her were even spoken by your parents. Your very souls are cursed by fate to do this job, so why fight it?”
“Because I will not let you destroy her as you have destroyed me! And everyone else before me!”
“Had they obeyed they wouldn’t have broken. It was an accident.”
I glared at them. “You did not ‘accidentally’ break us,” I snarled furiously, “You do it so we have no choice but to obey.”
“And you learned so quickly,” they purred, twirling around the room in bliss. “Obey because it’ll hurt less.”
“Dramatic ass,” I huffed. “Can I have three minutes without your existence interfering with my breathing room?”
“If I give you four minutes of freedom, you’ll use the fourth minute to destroy everything we’ve worked so hard to achieve,” they whined.
The Master, for once, gave me a small nugget of hope. Everything the Master and I had accomplished in our line of work would no doubt be repeatable by Asena, but they didn’t need to know that. If I could manipulate the Master into believing that I was the reason for the success then I could have a chance at getting the Master to agree with me.
Almost giddy, I turned and grinned at them. “Yes! Everything we’ve achieved! You can’t expect that Asena will be able to produce the same results for you, can you? She doesn’t even believe that tonight happened.”
The Master frowned. “Tomorrow is a new day. Maybe tomorrow she will come to her senses.”
I sighed, defeated. “I hope.”
And I did hope she would. I hoped she would remember the days we spent in the In Between, watching the days pass while collecting souls. It probably didn’t seem exciting but with her by my side I was never lonely…but now she was gone and I was always lonely. Worse, she was back. She was in her room where I’d left her, but it wasn’t the same Asena I’d led to the mortal realm. It was a poor imitation at best. She wore the mask of my best friend, my old lover, yet she was a different person.
And I hadn’t changed. I was right where she left me.
But right as I was about to give in and let the Master win our battle of wills, hope found me.
Distantly, I heard Asena’s bedroom door open and heard Rory–gods bless Rory– snap, “Who the fuck was with you tonight?”
I appeared in the room but stayed hidden, happy to be an observer again. Asena’s face was deathly pale as she took Rory in with a mixture of disbelief and queasiness. “No one–I was at the cafe–”
“Bullshit.” Rory stepped closer to Asena, her tone fueled with anger filled with concern. “I saw your astral projection tonight. I saw you with him.”
“Him who?”
“Don’t try to bullshit me, Asena,” Rory growled through her teeth, stomping her foot angrily. “The witches are going to try and sacrifice you if you were with who I think you were.” She swallowed, her eyes shifting from angry to terrified for a fraction of a econ.
Asena plastered a smile on her face, “I don’t know who you’re talking about.”
“Death has chosen you, hasn’t he?” When Asena didn’t reply, Rory sat down on the bed beside her friend, hands covering my mouth. “Shit, this is worse than I expected. The one person in Whitrey who hates magic being the single most wanted person,” she muttered into her hands. Then she looked at Asena, “I have tried as hard as I can to keep you from magic, but going forward I can’t.”
Color rushed to Asena’s cheeks and she bit out, “I was at the cafe–”
“You think I buy that garbage? I saw you, Asena. I know you’re the one everyone is going after to win the favor of Death. They want you, Asena. You even told me tonight that your parents said you were cursed–”
Asena gasped, cutting off Rory. “You were probably tired, but anyway I’m not afraid of sacrifices,” she said with a false breeziness.
Rory stared at Asena in disbelief before crossing the room and backhanding Asena. Her head snapped to the side. “How fucking dare you,” Rory snarled. “They’re talking about sacrificing you, my best fucking friend, and all you have to say is you aren’t scared of them?”
Asena rubbed her face. “They’ve tried to sacrifice me before and failed–”
Rory slapped Asena again. “That was before they thought your death would guarantee them favor with Death. You don’t even understand how valuable the coven views that shit, and you’re over here, powerless and defenseless, acting like this danger isn’t even real. Get your shit together, Asena. War is coming and it’s over your dead body. Literally.”
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