27. The Eternal City
The Eternal City
“You’re late,” Xül said without turning. He stood silhouetted against the crimson sky, power coiling around him like a restless serpent.
“By three minutes.” I shrugged, stepping down onto the sand.
Instead of answering, he extended his hand. The air before him shimmered, then tore, creating a jagged wound in reality.
“This is different,” I said, eyeing the unstable edges of the portal.
“Different destination, different tear.” He gestured impatiently.
I hesitated at the threshold. “Why can’t you just tell me?—”
“Starling.” His voice carried that dangerous edge. “Either step through willingly, or I’ll carry you through myself. Your choice.”
With a final glare, I stepped through. Cold engulfed me, a thousand invisible fingers trailing across my skin as darkness consumed my vision.
Then, solid ground materialized beneath my feet, and I staggered forward, gasping for breath that suddenly seemed too thin.
We stood on dark wooden docks. Massive ships with black sails lined the piers, while smaller vessels dotted the harbor. The air smelled of brine and a metallic tang that coated the back of my throat.
Xül emerged behind me, the portal sealing shut.
“The Outer Docks,” he announced, already striding forward. “Five hours by land from the Bone Spire.”
I hurried after him, irritation building with each step. “Why are we here? Why not portal directly into the city?”
“All twelve domains have specific protections in their capitals,” he explained, his tone suggesting I should already know this. “Only Morthus can create portals directly into the Eternal City.”
He gestured toward a sleek obsidian vessel at the farthest pier. “We’ll take my ship the rest of the way.”
“Your ship.” I blinked. “You have a ship.”
“Did you think I walked everywhere?” A hint of amusement colored his voice.
“I thought you just... appeared. Dramatically. With unnecessary flair.”
“Only when the situation calls for it.” The almost-smile that touched his lips disappeared quickly. “The journey takes about an hour. Try not to fall overboard.”
I rolled my eyes, following him down the pier. “You still haven’t told me why we’re going to the city. Or why I had to come with you.”
“I’ve been spending so much time away. From you. From training. I figured it might be a lesson in itself if you joined me this time.” He nodded to a group of Shadowkin servants who materialized from below deck, their shadowy forms solidifying.
“Besides.” He strode up the gangplank, his coat billowing behind him in the salty breeze. “We have business in the city that can’t wait.”
“What business?”
“Starling.” He paused, looking back at me. “Has anyone ever told you that you ask too many questions?”
“Has anyone ever told you that you’re insufferably cryptic?”
His lips twitched at the corner. “Perhaps a few times. ”
Then he stalked off towards the wheel, hurling commands at the Shadowkin crew, leaving me alone with my frustration and the unsettling certainty that something far worse than a simple trip to the city awaited me at our destination.
The ship cut through the waves, its hull barely leaving a wake in the blood-dark waters. I stood at the railing, watching strange phosphorescent creatures drift beneath the surface—beings that resembled jellyfish but moved with disturbing purpose, trailing tendrils that glowed.
“They’re soul fragments,” Xül said from behind me, materializing as silently as the creatures below. “Pieces that break off during difficult transitions.”
I didn’t turn. “That’s horrifying.”
“They reintegrate eventually. Nothing is truly lost in Draknavor.” He moved beside me, his hands gripping the railing.
The ship banked slightly, responding to Xül’s commands.
“You seem surprised,” Xül called over to me, watching me watch his crew.
“I didn’t take you for a sailor.”
“There’s much you don’t know about me, starling.”
“Whose fault is that?”
“Fair point.” He sighed.
We lapsed into silence as he surveyed the horizon, his profile sharp against the crimson sky. He was different here, wearing a confidence that went beyond his usual arrogance. On his ship, surrounded by his element, he seemed almost at peace.
“Where did you learn to sail?” I asked, surprising myself with the question.
He didn’t answer immediately, his gaze fixed on some distant point. “During my mortal years,” he said finally. “Before the Trials. One of the few skills from that time I still value.”
I stared at him, caught off guard by this rare reference to his past. “You never talk about that. ”
“There’s nothing to say.” His tone suggested otherwise. “It was a different life.”
“But you were mortal once. Like me,” I pressed, seizing this rare opening.
“I was never like you.” The words held no malice, just simple conviction. “Even as a child, I knew what I was meant to become.”
“The Warden of the Damned?”
“My father’s son.” He adjusted our course with a slight gesture to the helmsman. “The mortal part was... a complication.”
“What about your mother?” I ventured carefully, remembering Miria’s oblique references to Xül’s past. “Was she a complication too?”
A storm gathered in his gaze, and for a moment I thought I’d pushed too far. But instead of anger, his expression settled into a mixture of pain and respect.
“No,” he said quietly. “She is exceptional.” He turned away, effectively ending that line of conversation. “You worked on ships in your village, didn’t you? Oyster boats?”
The sudden shift caught me off-balance. “Yes. Though nothing like this.”
“The principles are the same.” He gestured toward the bow. “Come. Take the helm.”
“What?”
“Unless you're afraid?”
The challenge in his voice was impossible to ignore. I followed him to the raised platform where a Shadowkin stood at the massive wheel. With a nod from Xül, the creature melted away, leaving the helm unattended.
“Here.” Xül positioned me before the wheel. “Feel the current beneath us.”
I had to force myself not to tense as his hands moved my shoulders, my hips. His touch was impersonal, clinical even, but my body responded anyway, a traitorous warmth spreading through me.
What would Thatcher say if he could see me now? If he could feel the confused tangle of emotions that surged whenever Xül was near? Disgust, probably. Horror that I could feel anything but hatred for one of them.
And yet, I was beginning to wonder if Xül was truly one of them . At times, he seemed to exist in some complicated middle ground.
“You’re distracted,” he observed, breaking into my thoughts. I was. But not in the way he assumed.
For a strange, suspended moment, we stood together, guiding the vessel through waters that lapped too calmly against the ship. I could almost forget who we were—mentor and mentee, death god and mortal, captor and captive. And that was a problem I wasn’t ready to confront.
“There,” he said suddenly, breaking the spell. His arm extended past mine, pointing toward the horizon.
At first, I saw nothing but crimson mist. Then the fog parted.
The Eternal City rose from the sea—towers of onyx and silver spiraling impossibly high, carved directly into cliffs of black stone. Thousands of lights glimmered across its surface, from the harbor at its base to the palace that crowned its peak.
“Welcome to where I grew up,” Xül said quietly. His expression had shifted once more, his features settling into the cold mask of authority he wore like armor. The brief connection we’d shared evaporated as quickly as it had formed. “Remember your place here, starling.”
The reminder stung more than it should have. “As if I could forget.”
His eyes met mine, a weariness flickering in their depths. “Good. Because neither will anyone else.”
As we approached the private dock reserved for Xül’s vessel, I noticed the attention we were already drawing—Shadowkin paused in their duties, other lesser divine beings gathering at the harbor’s edge, all watching our arrival with undisguised interest.
“Ready yourself,” he murmured as the ship glided toward its berth. “The Eternal City remembers everything—and forgives nothing.”
With those comforting words, he stepped away, leaving me alone at the helm as we drifted into the shadow of death’s domain.
The Harbor Tier was chaos—a symphony of sounds, scents, and sensations that made the Bone Spire seem peaceful by comparison. Shadowkin dockworkers moved quickly, securing vessels and unloading cargo.
But it was the gaps that caught my attention. The strange pauses in movement, the way Shadowkin would occasionally stop to interact with... nothing. Empty air.
“Souls,” Xül explained, following my gaze. “They exist in a different state—perceivable by those that walk the thin line between life and death, but invisible to the living.”
A chill ran through me despite the warmth of the day. “They’re here? Right now?”
“Everywhere. All souls who have departed life.” His voice softened. “Draknavor exists as a threshold between states. What you see is merely one layer of reality.”
I stared at the spaces between people. How many souls passed by us even now, caught in that liminal space between life and whatever came after?
The question rose unbidden to my lips. “Could I—if someone I knew had died?—”
“No.” His rejection was gentle but absolute. “Even here, some separations cannot be bridged. The living cannot reach the transitioning, no matter how desperately they might wish to.”
The unexpected kindness in his tone made it worse somehow. I swallowed hard, forcing back the image of Sulien that threatened to overwhelm me. “Right. Of course.”
Xül’s expression suggested he understood more than I wanted him to. Without further comment, he turned and began walking, expecting me to follow.
We’d barely begun our ascent from the Harbor when Xül abruptly changed direction, veering away from the main thoroughfare toward a narrow side street.
“Where are we going?” I asked, lengthening my stride to keep pace with him.