Chapter 28
Rowan
It had been a long time since I had felt Death’s grasp. Not the brush of it during a fight, or the fleeting flirtation of it during a fall, but the true weight of it—the heavy, soundless presence that filled lungs and heart like cold water.
Even when faced with the inevitable, my thoughts turned to her. Memories of the fight flickered through the domain of in-between before me, then met silence. Was she okay? Did they hurt her?
Time passed slowly, or maybe not at all, as I waited in the silent domain of a vast, endless corridor.
I found myself desperately missing her. Her scent, her voice, the way she filled a room with defiant warmth even when she was angry at me.
Memories of her anchored me, flickering faintly like candlelight seen through glass, reflecting off the obsidian walls of my prison.
Memories of Charlie—the man I considered to be the closest thing to a father figure I’d ever had—rushed to the surface.
His laugh, his cleverness, the way his hand would grip my shoulder to offer comfort or counsel.
All of it threaded through me as I drifted, feeling the beat of my heart slow.
. . then falter. . . then slip like sand between fingers.
I am dying, and it feels more. . . final this time.
Behind me stood a Grim. Not the caricatured skull-faced figure from stories, but something far older and more patient.
Taller than any mortal, its form wrapped in smoke and shadow that billowed without wind, edges fraying into nothing before reforming.
The cloak—if it could be called that—seemed woven from the absence of light itself, drinking in what little illumination existed in this place.
Its face remained hidden within the depths of that hood, though I sensed the weight of its attention.
In its skeletal hands, it held a scythe.
The blade gleamed iridescent black, catching colors that had no names, its edge impossibly thin—the kind of sharpness that could sever more than flesh.
The weapon stood upright like a horizon line at my back, patient as stone.
The Grim didn’t move. It didn’t speak. It simply waited, its mission inevitable.
I knew what it was: not my executioner, but my escort.
Was this really the end?
I stood, feeling light and ethereal. The space around me wasn’t a void so much as a corridor: endless, smooth, similar to Oubliette’s polished interior. My fingertips traced the slippery walls, and warmth seeped from them into my touch.
I should move. . . but to where?
Deep down, I knew. To Violet.
I walked because there was nothing else to do, my bare feet slapping softly against a floor that shouldn’t exist. No air, no wind, no scent. Simply endless time and nothing.
More memories of Violet flashed through the darkness, reflecting off obsidian in broken stories of our mingling lives. Her face—angry, then smiling—echoed within the walls like shuttered film.
I miss her. The ache of knowing I might never see her again rose beneath the hollow emptiness of my ribs, where my heart remained quiet. Even without my heightened hearing, I knew I was teetering on Death’s threshold.
Then, from a distance, I saw it. A golden silhouette, faint at first but growing more solid the closer I came. A door, impossibly out of place in the endless black.
Curiosity got the better of me. I turned to the Grim, my voice hoarse and cracked as it carried over the distance. “You will not mind if I go take a look, right?”
Silence answered. Its billowing hood remained unmoving, scythe upright and glinting with those strange, nameless colors.
I laughed softly, the sound thin and strange in this place. “No, you will not mind.”
So I walked.
Each step towards the door felt heavier than the last, like wading through unseen dark water. My footsteps echoed softly against nothing, but as I neared the golden shape, another noise began to sound faintly—a wet, dull rhythm, like flesh striking stone.
The door stood tall and narrow, carved from something that reminded me briefly of the solidified light I’d seen after using Jules’s portal in Oubliette.
It looked solid, indestructible, yet simultaneously ethereal—as if I could pass my hand through it and find resistance and emptiness both.
Intricate etchings covered its surface: spirals, dagger-points, cups spilling liquid, snakes coiled around blades.
The largest and most elaborate carving was in the center—a chalice bearing twin daggers crossed like wings.
And engraved upon that chalice were the words Lavernai Pocolom.
A shiver ran through me, echoing between my bones. The words were ancient and foreign, yet my tongue ached as though it had once spoken them. Familiar and daunting in equal measure. The faint gold outline of the door pulsed slowly, like breath. It was then I realized the door was alive.
As I stared, I heard something. The briefest of whispers.
“Rowan.”
I reached out, fingers trembling, feeling a strange pull. The Grim stayed where it was—seemingly miles away now, unmoving—a shadowy silhouette at the edge of the dark, endless corridor.
The door pulsed again, golden light spilling faintly into my palm. For a heartbeat, it felt warm. Then cold. And beneath the whisper of my name, another voice curled like smoke.
“Will you choose, Rowan?”
I glanced up, suddenly aware I was not alone. An ethereal wisp of shadow and smoke sat above the gilded door. Even from where I stood, I could see the faint outline of Her form—the physical embodiment of transition between Life and Death made manifest in Her features.
Half Her face was breathtaking: raven-black hair framing youthful beauty, skin pale as moonlight, one crimson eye that held the warmth of every sunrise.
The other half was a polished white skull—clean bone gleaming in the golden light, an empty socket where the second eye should have been.
The division ran perfectly down the center, as if someone had drawn a line and declared: here ends life, here begins ending.
I knew Her.
“Death,” I said as I raised my hand. “I greet you. Again, it would seem.”
“Enter or fade?”
Her whisper thickened until it wasn’t just in my head but in my bones, thrumming like a second pulse. The golden door pulsed with the unspoken words, light swelling in slow, deliberate breaths. I looked from Her to the door then back. “Death, I do not understand what you ask of me.”
She merely watched while perched atop the door.
I tried another approach. “What is this door?”
“A choice.”
Simple words for a complex situation. I glanced once more at the etched lines, as if staring would reveal the hidden meaning I sought. “Is this a way back home?”
“A way away from me.”
Her words held no malice, but I heard the underlying message. To walk through this door would be to deny Her path. To refuse the finality of it all. “I cannot leave her,” I whispered.
Death’s form spilled onto the floor before me, startling me as Her inky shadows billowed out and filled the space with Her presence.
Face to face now, I was unable to determine where I should look—torn between the youthful features on one side and the polished skull on the other.
She tilted Her head, soft waves of raven silk spilling across Her crimson eye and empty socket both.
“You escaped my grasp once.”
Her voice was almost curious, soft as the shadows that danced around Her. I pressed my hand to my chest, feeling the silence where my heart should beat. “Da. I did. Once.”
“You seek to escape once more.”
I shook my head. “I would welcome you with open arms, Eternal One.” I hesitated. “But it is not my time. Not yet.”
To think I dare to argue with Death herself.
“What is a shepherd without its flock?”
She asked the question as She began to circle me. I was momentarily reminded of the vampyress before Death’s billowing, glacial shadows curled around me. Is this why Death was often described as frigid? Her very presence may have been cold, but there was warmth in Her words.
“Death is absolute. We are the beginning and the end of all things.”
It was an all too familiar comfort I wish I knew. “I know this to be the truth. But even the Fates have staved off Death when it was meant to be.”
She stopped her circling and stood, scrutinizing me—or so it felt—yet her face remained impassive.
“Even gods, both known and forsaken, yield to Me. Why is it the folly of mortals to flee from the truth of things?”
I didn’t know how to answer that question. I doubted I ever would.
“Enter or fade? Make your choice.”
She turned back to the door and pointed with one pale, skeletal finger.
Life or Death, I mused. But my choice was made.
I stepped forward, icy wisps trailing behind me as I neared the door.
Violet’s name echoed deep within my being, and the faint memory of her kiss, her warmth, her laughter propelled me forward.
My hands hovered inches from the carved gilded chalice, trembling.
Cold bled from it—a void that wasn’t empty, yet could never be filled.
My fingertips tingled as though dipped in ice water.
I faltered. Every instinct screamed at me to pull back, to accept the quiet end, to allow nature to run its course.
The balance that existed in all things—especially between Life and Death—weighed heavily on me.
I had already defied Death once before, and though She stood near, I did not want to incite Her wrath.
I should let the Grim take my soul to where it belonged.
Wherever the hell that is. . . I’m dying to find out.
The terrible joke brought a smile to my face. Violet would have laughed at that. She shared my dark sense of humor.
Once more, images of her face flared in my mind, and I thought of her defiance, her stubbornness, her fury. I remembered her voice—shrill and breaking through chaos as teeth tore into me.
“Rowan!”
The last of my restraint shattered.
“I will not fade,” I whispered to no one but myself, though Death stood as witness. My voice cracked like brittle ice. “I will not fade while she still needs me.”
The chalice seemed to lean towards me, its etched daggers of crimson glinting like a predator’s teeth. The pulsing light quickened. I pressed my palms flat to the chalice sigil, and Death’s words slithered within me, grasping the last of my hesitation with icy fingers.
“Fade you shall not.”
Heat exploded up my arm, searing and freezing simultaneously. Pain reverberated within me, as if I were being unmade and remade all at once. The carvings writhed beneath my hand, shifting like snakes. The weight of thousands of names, thousands of souls, pressed into me, through me, around me.
Behind me, the Grim moved for the first time. Its scythe tipped forward in what might have been acknowledgment, the iridescent blade catching impossible light before the entire figure faded like smoke on the wind.
Death stood passive and calm, Her mismatched face—beautiful and skeletal both—reflecting the gilded light of my choice. Her crimson eye and empty socket both bore into me with equal weight.
“The sun will greet you once more. You will rejoice and dance in her warmth. That is what Life brings.”
She lifted Her hand, palm upward, and a scale appeared between Her fingertips. It looked weightless yet impossibly heavy, tilting slowly to one side.
“But heed this warning: pain will taint your path, filling your soul with remorse. For your choices, you will weep, Rowan. The Forsaken have no place among the living. But know, your suffering will yield to triumph, and what once perished shall rise to hunt.”
“Wait—” I cried out as the door unlatched with a sound like flesh tearing, silencing my words.
So long as she is safe. The thought burned through my resolve. If it means her salvation, I would die and relive an eternity of beginnings and endings for her.
Death nodded, as if She’d heard my unspoken vow.
And then, with a sound like a million mouths inhaling at once, the door swung inward.
Gold light poured through, swallowing my vision. The corridor, the Grim, Death Herself—all dissolved into radiance so bright it had weight, had texture, had sound. I felt my body unraveling, threads of self coming loose and reweaving into patterns I couldn’t comprehend.
Heat flooded through me, but nothing like the searing pain of touching the chalice.
Instead, it was more like the warmth of the summer sun on winter skin.
My lungs expanded, though there was no air to breathe.
My heart—silent for so long—stuttered once, twice, then caught rhythm like a drum remembering its beat.
Sensation returned in a rush: the phantom press of rope around ribs, the ghost of Violet’s lips against mine, the sharp bite of autumn wind, the wet copper taste of blood, the sound of rain, the scent of jasmine and rot and life.
I fell forward, unable to know if I was falling or rising, or both at once. Violet’s name burned on my tongue, a prayer and a promise and a plea all woven together. The golden light swallowed me whole.