Thirty #3
They covered every inch of my skin. My hair.
My clothes. I was buried beneath their glowing bodies—and they willingly settled into me.
A gift. A blessing. With their life force pulsing like the beat of a drum against me, it was easy to access.
What few threads I had left unfurled around me and stitched through their bodies, creating an interconnected thread buzzing with life.
And I drank it all in.
I let their life bolster my muscles, flood my limbs.
My magic—the beautiful blend of Rorik’s earthly power and my threadmending—took over completely.
The insects curled in on themselves and died, withered to nothing more than exoskeletons in a matter of a few breaths.
Slowly, I stood among their carcasses. My veins were filled with gold beneath my pale skin, and the white light flaring about my body was dusted with gilded flecks.
My remaining threads pulsed around me with renewed vigor.
I had saved myself. But it wasn’t enough. It would never be enough.
I glared at the cloaked figure standing before me.
Death comes for us all.
If Death could suffer an untimely end, that had to mean there was something alive within that endless cloak of his.
Something I could steal from. Something I could pry from his body and devour for myself.
And I didn’t need a blade to do it. It was a truth I knew in my bones.
Because it always had to be me. I was the living embodiment of an everjewel, the presence of life that battered against his shadows.
I truly understood what it meant to sacrifice.
And I would be the one to douse the darkness festering within his bones.
“Let Rorik go,” I seethed. Death turned. Stilled.
“Mender, you do not possess the weapon nor the power—”
With the flick of my wrist, I sent my threads spiraling toward him. They pierced his writhing shadows and found purchase in his trembling body. He let out a shriek as he frantically clawed at my ribbons. They merely bent to twine around his fingers and stall his assault. They never broke.
“Tell me again what power I don’t possess.
” The timbre of my voice was heady with magic.
I took a step forward. Another one, stronger this time.
Death froze. His threads, I realized, were the smoky tendrils that had blanketed his body like clothing.
They writhed in fear and began decaying beneath my blistering light.
“I am the jewel you cannot touch,” I growled. Stepped forward again. “And you will call back this blight or be dusted to ash.”
My threads held him in place as he squirmed.
I commanded them to siphon, to swim through his muscles and suck whatever lifeblood coursed through his rotted veins.
Darkness so similar to the blight began to trickle toward my body.
I would eat it all. I would swallow his emptiness and put an end to his tyranny.
A horrific, scraping laugh sounded from Death’s hood. He’d crumpled to his knees, and his threads were sloughing off like brittle strands of hair before disintegrating into nothing.
“Child, I am older than you could possibly fathom.” More strands fell away. The black stain of his life, what little of it I could steal from his veins, had almost reached me. “This form may die, but I will never be gone.”
Death’s power wavered, and the solidified shadows holding Rorik dispersed. He fell to the ground but was on his feet in less than a second.
“Edira!” Rorik shouted, concern and fear coloring his voice.
He started toward us, but I thrust my hand outward, and two of my threads shot toward him.
They lassoed his ankles and chained him in place, far from Death’s reach.
Confusion and despair ripped through him as he howled, but I needed him safe.
Death was mine for the taking.
I came to stand before Death’s withering body.
A few of my life threads snapped off to join his.
Twin strands of light and dark twined together before meeting their demise.
My bones creaked and my power dampened. Still, I didn’t stop.
I let a manic smile claim my lips and tasted blood on my tongue.
I hadn’t even registered that my saliva was tinged a pale red.
That my own skin was sloughing away. That my bones were now protruding at harsh angles as my muscles atrophied.
A flicker of panic crested in my mind. I wasn’t healing him.
So why was I decaying? What was happening?
I slumped to the ground before him. Our knees touched.
His magic finally collided with mine, and the golden veins pumping through my body turned to ink.
He stroked my cheek with a finger that was nothing more than yellowed bone. “Even jewels fade.”
Then his hood fell back, and a shriek died in my throat.
Because Death wasn’t some faceless man, but me.
A weathered version of myself with lackluster hair and papery skin.
With a sallow face and half-moon bags cupping the undersides of my dove-gray eyes.
My lips were chapped. My cheek was scarred right where his finger had just grazed my face.
I was haunted. And then the visage shifted.
This time, a man with a scraggly beard and misshapen teeth.
And another face. Another. The visages shifted faster, making it impossible to parse their features, with one constant in the swirl of faces: the weary expression of their soulless eyes.
“You cannot escape me,” he croaked. Then he placed both hands on my shoulders. “Death becomes you.”
A rush of shadows exploded from his body and drowned out my light. Somewhere, Rorik screamed. My power disappeared. My senses faded. The last thing I felt was my back crashing to the solid earth. And then an absolute, overwhelming sense of nothingness.