Insurance
—SAGE
She left, and she took all the color from the meadow with her. The world has gone gray. It is completely silent, which is somehow worse than the chaos of just a few minutes ago.
I stand in the middle of the yard, my feet buried ankle-deep in the crater I made when I fell from the sky.
The vines at my feet slowly start to retreat, pulling back into the earth. A few leaves caress my ankles before burrowing.
The imprint of Rasen’s knees is still pressed into the grass, dark smoke still curling where he knelt. Three drops of her blood catch the morning light.
I made her cry.
I reach out with every sense I have, trying to catch a trace of her scent. But I find nothing. The meadow has swallowed her whole. I can’t even feel her heartbeat where it usually thrums against my own.
Do not follow me, Sage. I want to be alone.
Her command weighs on me like a shackle wrapped round my throat, glowing brighter every time I try to take a step toward the treeline.
She is ours! Words are not chains, Ashán snarls.
I sink to my knees in the mud, my wings drooping until they sag in the dirt. “Eden,” I whisper, praying that somehow she can feel me. I rub the heel of my hand against my sternum where the bond sits.
Why can’t I feel you?
I dig my fingers into the mud, the cold earth wedging under my claws. Nook’s timbers groan behind me, every window flying open.
I send out my magic through the soil like Therael taught me, but still, I can’t sense her.
A shadow falls over me. It isn’t her, so I don’t bother lifting my head. I know by his worn leather and dark coffee scent exactly who it is.
“Come to finish what you started?”
“No—” The voice is stripped of everything beside the word itself.
I finally look up. War stands at the edge of the crater, his massive war hammer planted on top of the earth beside him. He’s staring at Eden’s blood, and I dare him to make a stupid statement.
“You let my brother go.”
“She asked me to.”
His bell helmet tilts to the side.
“I have waited,” he says finally, each word clipped. “A very long time, for something I thought impossible for my kind.” His gauntleted hand tightens on the hammer. “If someone had put their mouth on her—” his jaw clenches. “There would have been nothing left to let go.”
I know he’s not trying to comfort me; I don’t think he’s capable of sympathy. But it lands anyway.
“She will come back,” he says, already turning to leave.
“How do you know?” I ask.
He pauses with his back to me.
“She’s with your mentor.”
“You can feel her?”
Why can he sense my mate, and I cannot?
“Not anymore. He has a knack for hiding things.” He disappears into the mist like he was never here at all.
Therael.
Something cold moves through my chest.
She asked me not to follow her… but went to him?
My wings beat roughly against the ground, and I’m in the air before I realize it. I stop at the edge of the trees, and the meadow pushes back firmly. I press my hands against the invisible barrier.
“Eden, are you in there?”
She doesn’t answer, not even a ghost of her heartbeat.
Tear through it. Use your vel’thurá. You control the meadow! Ashán urges.
“What will that prove?” I counter.
You are a Solvernah. There is no door in this world or the next that is meant to be closed to you.
I rest my forehead against the barrier.
He is hiding her! Ashán roars.
“He won’t hurt her,” I whisper, claws digging into my thighs until golden blood runs down them like rain.
You are such a vreshing coward! He sneers. You are letting him turn your scythe into a walking stick. When the Horsemen return, and they will, you will have nothing but a handful of lavender and a broken heart to fight them with.
“ I will not scare her by charging through this wall like a mindless beast.”
CAW.
The scent of chocolate and woodsmoke drifts past me.
I look over my shoulder, and there is a man hovering in the air beside me.
Skin as dark as midnight, with an unnatural blue hue underneath.
Long, silky black hair spills over his shoulders, braids threaded with gold charms. He’s wearing a coat that moves like it’s breathing, thousands of dark feathers fluttering at the edges.
I can’t quite tell if it is a coat or wings.
His eyes find mine, and I immediately wish they hadn’t. They’re the color of nothing, deep and endless like a starless sky.
A single raven feather drifts loose and falls, dissolving before it hits the ground.
“You’re not a Horseman.”
“No.”
“You also don’t belong in the meadow.”
“Also no.”
His voice is warm, unnervingly mollifying. He floats easily, like he has nowhere to be and infinite time to get there.
I study him, pressing against his presence with my vel’thurá, trying to place what he is.
Something ancient presses back, and his lips curl slowly.
“What are you?” I ask.
His dark eyes slowly shift into the same shade of gold that lies on top of a dead man’s chest, shimmering with a light that doesn’t quite belong to the living world.
“Someone who knows what it looks like—” His eyes drift to the invisible barrier. “When a male cannot reach his mate because of a blockade.”
He drifts closer, the gold charms in his braids clinking lightly.
“Are you a reaper?” I ask.
He lets out a boisterous laugh. “No, although I do have a hand in Death.”
“Are you being needlessly cryptic on purpose?”
That earns me another laugh. “Too bad you’re not one of mine,” he says, drifting around me in a circle. “I rather like you.”
“Thanks, but I’m taken.” I glance at the barrier.
Damon stops his slow, curious circle, a look of genuine amusement flickering across his obsidian features.
“Taken,” he murmurs. “A bold claim for a man currently locked out of his own meadow by a single cedar needle.” He stops directly in front of me and his feet—if his taloned, elegant boots can be called feet—hover just inches above mine.
“I am not here to steal your heart, Solvernah. I have a realm full of them, and most are far less… leaky… than yours,” he hums thoughtfully, pointing to the gold blood staining my thighs.
“I was just here to check on my brother.”
“Your brother?” My eyebrows scrunch together.
Is he my sibling?
He gestures to the invisible wall with long, elegant fingers. “Not you, young blood. Therael.”
“You look nothing like him.”
His eyes crinkle at the corners. “I wouldn’t,” he chuckles. “Different… makers.”
Did I inhale some mushrooms I shouldn’t have?
“Care to explain? Because I am clearly not following.”
“I see your Mentor has kept you in the dark for some of this.”
“We don’t exactly see eye to eye,” I reply.
“Just wait until he throws the third one in the mix.”
“Come again?”I stare at him, my jaw slack enough for the mist to settle on my tongue. “Third one? Are you telling me there’s another one of you?”
“Actually, there are six of us. All significantly less charming than I am.” He winks. “But I was talking about Therael’s third eye. I’m assuming he hasn’t shown you yet.”
He drifts a little higher, his feathers ruffling in the wind.
“Third… eye?” I repeat. “He grows lavender and lectures me on root systems. He doesn’t have a—”
“Oh, he has it,” Damon purrs, his gold eyes narrowing as he looks toward the barrier. “He’s a watcher, Sage. He sees everything. If only he had—”
He cuts himself off, a flash of grief passing over his face before his relaxed charm slips back into place.
“When what?” I press. “If he sees everything, what did he miss?”
“Not my story to tell, Little Reaper,” he rasps. “And it would be wise not to mention it to Therael.”
“So who are you?”
“I am Damon, God of the Afterlife.”
“You’re not here for her… right?” My heart squeezes, dread shooting down my spine.
He drifts closer, his feathers ruffling like a card deck being shuffled.
“I will not be the one to collect her soul, Sage.” I don’t like the sympathetic tone he’s using all of a sudden.
“Nobody will be collecting her soul.” My wings flare defensively.
His eyes bleed back into darkness, as if he doesn’t want me to gauge his emotions.
“Tell me whatever it is you’re hiding.”
“There are things in motion,” he starts, “that were set before you woke up. And I cannot undo them. None of us can. But I can tell you this—” He comes so close, I can smell sweet wine on his breath. “The outcome depends entirely on what you do.”
He reaches out, and he uses his gold-tipped finger to draw a symbol over my heart.
“This will help you.”
I look down at my chest, but I can’t see whatever he drew. It feels like a coal pressed gently against the place where the bond lives.
“What did you just do to me?”
“Insurance,” he says simply.
“That’s not an answer.”
“No,” he agrees, beginning to drift away. “But it’s what you’re getting.”
“Damon!”
“If I could stop this, I would.” He sighs. “When it gets dark, and it will get very dark, that—” he gestures to my chest, “will remind you what you’re fighting for when the Reaper can no longer remember.”
A single feather drifts loose, dissolving into nothing.
His coat, or wings, explode into a hundred ravens, flying higher until I can no longer see them.