Chapter 42
With Hanna safe, everything that followed came easier.
Ilys felt lighter, bolder with every step.
She slipped back into the Sanctum under the cover of night, her heart beating in time with her resolve.
When she turned the corner toward Hanna’s chamber she froze.
There, slumped against the door, was Morrigan.
His small body curled protectively against the threshold, his fur darkened with dust, his nose pressed to the seam beneath the door as if guarding what lay within. One ear twitched when he heard her, and his tail thumped weakly against the floor.
Ilys’s breath broke in her throat.
She sank to her knees, her hand trembling as it reached for him. “Oh,” she whispered, her voice cracking. “Oh, my love… I forgot you.”
The words burned as soon as they left her mouth. Morrigan licked her wrist, whining softly, the sound sharp enough to splinter her. She gathered him close, burying her face against the rough warmth of his coat.
“I’m so sorry,” she murmured, her voice shaking. “I didn’t mean to leave you here. You shouldn’t be here. You shouldn’t be anywhere near this place.”
He only looked up at her, eyes bright with the kind of loyalty that had always undone her.
“You have to go,” she whispered urgently. “Go find her. Go find Hanna. She’ll keep you safe.”
He tilted his head, but if anything settled deeper into her embrace.
Still, he would not move.
When she stood, he followed, tail low, steps soft beside hers. She walked him down the silent corridor, through the servants’ hall, all the way to the side gate that opened onto the outer court. The wind slipped in through the iron grate, cold and biting.
She knelt again and took his face in her hands. “Please,” she whispered. “Go. Find her. Stay alive.”
He whined softly, the sound small and human in its sorrow.
Ilys forced herself to step back, tears in her eyes. “Dammit, Morrigan. Go.”
He stayed.
She smiled through her tears, reached down, and kissed his muzzle—a trembling, lingering press of lips to fur. “Goodbye, love.”
Before she could change her mind, she stepped back and pulled the gate closed between them. The latch fell with a hollow click.
He barked once, startled, and pawed at the bars, whining low in his throat.
Ilys pressed her forehead to the cold iron. “Go,” she whispered. “Please.”
He didn’t. He stood there watching her, tail still, ears low, until the shadows swallowed him whole. She stayed until she couldn’t bear it, until the ache in her chest turned to steel. Then she turned back toward the Sanctum.
In the laundress’s room, the hidden heart of the castle’s labor, she chose an ornamental dress, just as she had planned the night before.
Every detail she had walked through a million times over in her mind.
And yet, for foolish, sentimental reasons, she halted at her chamber door and peered inside one last time.
Twenty-two years of her life were pressed into this single space, walls lacquered with memory.
When she surveyed the whole of it, she found she was not alone.
Death’s eyes, dark and infinite, met hers.
"Ilys,” he breathed, a plea buried beneath the gentleness of her name. He sat on the edge of her bed, pale and brittle, as though the night itself might shatter him. The difference a single day had made left her throat tight.
“What has happened?” she whispered, sinking to her knees before him, one hand rising instinctively to his cheek finding his skin ice cold.
“Does dying not suit me?” His mouth curved in a thin smile, but it faltered when she did not return it. “Life drains from me every second,” he admitted quietly. “Faster now since we completed the March. My successor will come soon.”
His hand closed around hers, thumb tracing over her knuckles before he pulled their joined hands to his lap. His voice dropped, urgent now.
“Ilys,” he said, almost a prayer. “You should not do this.”
"Don't,” she urged. Her fingers grazed his jaw softly, tracing lines she knew as intimately as her own. "I have to do this."
Death’s jaw tightened, anguish flickering briefly across his carefully composed features. "I cannot protect you from this."
Ilys reached gently toward his face, her fingers grazing his cheek in tender acknowledgment. "I never asked you to."
His eyes opened again, vulnerable and searching hers desperately. "Please. You cannot balance the scales with an eye for an eye,” Death pleaded.
Ilys cupped his face, thumbs gently sweeping over his cheekbones. “I would have to kill him a hundred times over,” she noted, her voice heavy with pain. "But once will have to do.”
“Ilys—”
She hushed him with the flat of her hand. “Listen. I need you to do two things for me, love.”
He watched her, wary and aching. “Name them.”
“First,” she said, eyes urgent, “take Morrigan to Rowenna’s. He’s right outside the gate and someone needs to spoil him. Promise me you’ll see him there.”
A sad smile broke across his face. He reached up and brushed her thumb with his knuckle. “Done,” he said simply. “I’ll get him to Rowenna.”
“And the second,” she noted while reaching for his face, fingers ghosting over the sharp line of his jaw, “dress me one last time.” she requested, picking the dress up from its place on the ground.
“Will you not share your plan first?” he queried. “Not even with an old friend?”
She smiled against his lips. “So you may stop me?” she hummed. “I think not.”
“Yes,” he agreed, “let me dress you.”
Ilys loosened the ties of the blue gown he had given her so many nights ago, letting it slip from her shoulders and puddle at her feet.
She stood in just her chemise, pale and unguarded.
He smiled at the shape of her body, like it was his loveliest, oldest acquaintance. Even now, she flushed under his gaze.
He rose to his feet, taking the new dress from her hands. His movements were leisured as if each gesture were part of a rite. He gathered her hair over one shoulder before sliding the fabric down her arms, careful not to let it drag against the ground.
“Arms,” he directed, and she obeyed, slipping them through the sleeves. He smoothed the bodice into place with long, careful hands, tugging the ties at her back until the garment hugged her frame. He touched her with precision, impersonal in intent, but his knuckles lingered, tracing her spine.
When the final ribbon was tied, he turned her toward him, his hands resting lightly on her shoulders. He simply looked at her, the quiet stretching between them like a thread pulled taut.
“It suits you,” he said at last, his voice low. Oh, the way he looked at her, such sorrow in his eyes. “Anwyl Veth.” He closed them, but still she could feel their quiet pleading.
“Out with it,” Ilys ordered. “Tell me what it means.” It was almost comforting, seeing him slip back into his odious, otherworldly ways, cloaked in secret words.
He laughed quietly at her sharpness, lowering his mouth to the fine blue veins at her wrist, grazing them with his teeth.
“It means—” he began, and she shivered at the brush of his tongue as he followed the curve of her hand.
“Beloved—”
Each syllable was punctuated.
“Do—”
A hedonistic touch.
“Not—”
Languid and cutting all at once.
“Go.”
“You’ve said that to me before,” she noted, wishing she could stay beneath his touch.
He hummed against her skin, a soft note of affirmation. “You’re always trying to go. Always trying to die.”
“I happen to like the man in charge of such things,” she countered.
“This is no joke, Ilys.” His hands came up to grasp her wrists, holding them in place, unwilling to let go just yet. “You will die.”
“I am a Veilwalker.” Her voice did not waver, a smile ghosting across her lips. “I have loved Death well, and I do not fear him.”
She pressed a feather-light kiss to each of his eyelids. Then, to the curve of his cheekbones, to the edge of his earlobes, the fine knuckles of his hands, she traced the places she would not have the chance to again.
Finally, her lips found his gently, in a heartbreaking tenderness, a last precious memory. She drew away, breath shaking.
“Goodbye, husband,” she said softly, her voice full of quiet love and infinite sorrow.
Then she turned, moving swiftly away, leaving him standing helpless.
Only after she was gone, vanished into shadow, did he notice the thin band of linen carefully tied around his finger.
Through death and beyond, I keep you.