Chapter 22 A Fever’s Awakening #3
My eyes widened as I slowly leaned back from the wall, suddenly nervous about this prisoner in the cell beside me.
“Who are you?” The question slipped out before I could consider its wisdom.
For a long moment, he said nothing. I knew then, he was finished speaking with me. I had finally asked one too many questions.
I turned away, about to move back to my mat when I heard the unmistakable whisper of fabric against stone, the subtle shift of his body changing position.
“You may be tired. More than usual.” His voice was weary, tinged with something that might have been concern, or simple annoyance. “Soul extraction is normally exhausting to the body.”
Shock rippled through me. Was he… inquiring about my well-being? The prisoner who had taken a piece of my soul, who moments ago had snapped at my questions, now asked if I was tired? The sudden shift left me momentarily speechless.
“I...” I hesitated, considering my body’s signals. There was fatigue, yes, but something else too—a restlessness, a need for connection that overwhelmed physical exhaustion. “I feel like I should be. But I can’t bear being alone with my thoughts right now.”
His chains clinked softly. I imagined him on his side of the wall, back against stone, legs stretched before him. The thought was oddly comforting.
“Because of his promises for tomorrow,” Death said. It wasn’t a question.
I moved back to the wall, sliding down until I was sitting, my shoulder pressed against the rough stone. “Yes.”
Another soft shifting of chains, and I imagined him mirroring my position on the other side. “Then talk, if it helps. I have nowhere to be.”
The dry humor in his voice startled a breath from me—a fragile, broken sound, almost a laugh. “How generous of you to offer your time. Was there somewhere you’d rather be? High tea in cell eight, perhaps?”
“Unfortunately, no,” he replied, his voice deepening, rich with dark amusement. “I’ve found the social calendar in dungeons to be disappointingly sparse.”
I smiled, the feeling strange to my own lips after so many weeks of isolation. It felt almost blasphemous with tomorrow’s torments looming, but perhaps that made it all the more necessary.
“What’s your name?” I asked, before I could think better of it. “I can’t keep calling you ‘Death’ or ‘Prisoner’ in my head.”
There was a pause. A soft rattle of metal.
“Why not? Both are fitting enough.”
“Because even Death must have a name.”
A long pause followed, filled only with the steady drip of distant water. I thought perhaps I’d offended him, pushed too far with my familiarity.
“You may continue calling me Death,” he replied finally, voice soft, almost wistful. “It has been... a very long time since anyone has spoken my actual name.”
The admission felt strangely intimate, as if he’d shared a secret rather than withheld one. I traced my fingertip along a crack in the wall between us, wondering what name could possibly encompass a man of such power. I decided not to press.
“Alright then, Death. What shall we talk about?” I asked, drawing my knees to my chest and resting my chin upon them. “The weather? Court gossip? The latest fashions in prisoner attire?”
His chuckle vibrated through the stone between us. “I’m afraid I’m woefully uninformed on all counts. Perhaps you could educate me on the current trends. Are iron manacles still in fashion, or have they been replaced by something more... avant-garde?”
“Oh, iron is positively archaic,” I replied, falling into the absurd game. “All the most fashionable prisoners are wearing enchanted silver these days. Much more flattering against the skin.”
“Ah, how disappointing. It seems I’ve been terribly out of style for the last few decades.”
Decades. The casual mention of time sent a chill through me. How long had he been here, chained in darkness? Longer than I’d been alive, it sounded. The thought was staggering.
“How do you bear it?” I whispered, the playfulness evaporating from my voice. “The time, I mean. The endless days and nights, all the same. How do you not go mad?”
I felt his hesitation, and when he finally spoke, his voice was softer, more intimate, as if sharing something deeply questionable.
“Who says I haven’t?”
I pressed my cheek against the cool stone, oddly comforted by his honesty. “Fair point. Perhaps we’re both mad, having a perfectly rational conversation about our shared insanity.”
His breath was a low rumble. “Madness has its advantages. Reality is... negotiable.”
“I could use some negotiation with reality right now,” I admitted, tracing my finger along a crack in the stone floor. “A different bargain than the one I’m currently bound to.”
“And what bargain would you strike, if you could?” His voice had taken on that strange, intimate quality again, like he was whispering directly into my ear rather than through feet of solid stone.
I closed my eyes, allowing myself the dangerous luxury of imagination. “Freedom,” I said softly. “Not just from this cell, but from him. From Valen. From this... marriage.” The word tasted bitter on my tongue.
“Nothing more ambitious?” he asked, a hint of mockery returning. But it stayed soft, unassuming, without judgement. “No thoughts of revenge? No desire to see your captor suffer as he has made you suffer?”
“Revenge?” I tasted the word, rolling it on my tongue like sour wine.
“What would be the point? He’s a god. Immortal.
Untouchable.” I pressed my fingertips against the hollow space behind my ribs, feeling its emptiness pulse in time with my heartbeat.
“Besides, revenge requires power, and I have none.”
A soft, contemplative sound filtered through the stones. “Power comes in many forms, little fawn. Not all of them obvious.”
I snorted, the sound harsh in the damp air. “Is that supposed to be reassuring? Some cryptic wisdom to ease my descent into whatever hell Valen has prepared?”
“No,” he replied simply. “Merely a statement to consider.”
I let my head fall back against the wall, staring up at the darkness where I knew a ceiling existed, though I couldn’t see it.
“Revenge,” I repeated the word, my voice barely audible as I considered what I wanted.
I did want revenge, and I would get my revenge, but I needed the desire to survive first. “I just want to stop hurting.”
The silence stretched between us, filled only by the steady drip of water and the distant sounds of the palace above. When he spoke again, his voice had changed—deeper, nearly gentle.
“I can heal your body,” he said, each word measured and heavy with meaning. “I can mend torn flesh, purge infection, knit bone. But the other pain—the wounds that live in memory and spirit—those remain beyond my reach.”
The admission hung in the space between us, stark and unyielding.
I traced the outline of a small stone embedded in the floor, following its jagged edges with my fingertip.
The hollow space behind my ribs seemed to expand at his words, as if acknowledging their truth before my mind could fully grasp it.
But he wasn’t finished.
“Only time heals those wounds.” He paused, as if considering his own words. “And sleep, occasionally. Sleep can heal, in its own way.”
“I’m fine,” I insisted, hearing what he wasn’t saying. “I don’t need to sleep.”
“Rest,” he said, even gentler now. “Save your strength for what comes next. Vharok is not known for his mercy, and he has waited a long time for this revenge.”
The reminder of Valen’s promised return with the dawn sent a fresh spike of fear through me. What new torments had he devised during my illness? What suffering awaited me when the night gave way to morning?
“What will he do to me?” I whispered, the question emerging without conscious thought.
A long pause followed, then, “Nothing that will kill you,” Death said finally. “Beyond that... I cannot say.”
I nodded against the stone, though he couldn’t see the gesture. “Thank you,” I said quietly, “for speaking with me.”
“Go, rest now,” he replied, his chains clinking softly as he moved away from the wall. “I have nothing more to offer you tonight.”
The dismissal was clear, and I knew better than to press my luck. Whatever fragile connection had formed between us was still tentative, easily broken by unwelcome persistence. I pushed away from the wall, my limbs suddenly heavy with a fatigue that seemed to seep from my bones outward.
I curled onto the thin mat, pulling the blanket around my shoulders as I contemplated the strange alliance forming in the darkness of these dungeons.
Death might not be my friend—might not even be capable of friendship after so long in these dungeons—but he had spoken to me, had shared conversation that Valen would surely prefer did not occur.
Tomorrow, Valen would return with his promised torments. Tonight, I had gained at least the whisper of an ally, albeit one whose true nature and motivations remained shrouded in mystery.
But that would have to be enough.