CHAPTER TWENTY
THE VOICE OF DEATH
couldn’t remember the last time I’d been warm.I The chill of the dungeon had become a living thing, wrapping around my bones like a lover’s embrace—if that lover happened to be death itself.
My skin felt clammy, damp with sweat that belied the internal fire raging
through me.
Fever, probably.
A gift from stone walls that wept moisture, and floors that hadn’t been clean since before my birth. I curled tighter into myself, my back pressing against the corner where two walls met, watching as the shadows danced across the rough stone, twisting themselves into shapes that seemed almost deliberate. Almost like they were trying to tell me something. Or perhaps that was just the madness setting in.
After all, what else was there to do in this godforsaken hole but lose your mind?
Weeks. It must have been weeks since Valen had ordered me thrown down here, since I’d watched him slaughter my family with the casual ease of a man swatting flies. The ache in my feet from running barefoot through the castle that night still lingered, cuts refusing to heal properly in this filth. My head throbbed where the guard had struck me—a dull, persistent reminder that I was no longer Princess Mireille of Vareth, but simply prisoner Mireille, wife to a monster.
A particularly bold shadow stretched across the wall, elongating itself
into something that resembled a crown. I snorted.
“Oh, look at you,” I whispered, my voice rasping from disuse. “How very subtle. Is that meant to be ironic?” I gestured weakly at the crown-shaped shadow. “I had one of those, you know. For about an hour. Mother’s crown.”
I paused, frowning. “Not that I ever knew her. Convenient, isn’t it? To be the daughter of a ghost.”
The shadow seemed to bow, as if in apology, and I laughed—a dry, brittle sound that hurt my throat.
“No need for that. We can’t choose our relatives, can we? My father made that abundantly clear.” I shifted, wincing as pain shot through my ribs.
“King Aeldrin, master of the cold shoulder and disapproving stare. You would have liked him. He was practically a shadow himself.”
My vision blurred, and I blinked rapidly, trying to clear it. The fever was getting worse. I could feel it burning behind my eyes, making the shadows dance more frenetically. One of them seemed to take the shape of a small girl.
“Lysa,” I breathed, a genuine smile cracking my lips for the first time in days. “Hello, little one. Did you make it to safety? He said you did, but...” I trailed off, remembering Valen’s words from that first day. But could I trust anything he said? The Blood King, the god wearing a man’s skin like an ill- fitting suit. Vharok.
“He’s a god,” I told Lysa conversationally. “Not just any god. The Blood God. Vharok.” I gestured vaguely with one hand. “And now he’s my husband. Forever, he says.” I leaned my head back against the wall. “Eternity with the Blood God. How’s that for a bedtime story, Lysa?”
The Lysa-shadow twirled, and I found myself remembering her second birthday. How she’d danced in circles until she was dizzy, how she’d fallen into my arms laughing. I’d snuck her extra cake when Ira wasn’t looking.
Queen Ira, who was now dead. Princess Cordelia, dead. My half-brothers, all dead. And Father...
The Lysa-shadow faded, replaced by a taller, more angular form. Isolde.
My only friend.
“You should have seen him, Isolde,” I said to the shadow. “Father actually screamed at the end. The great King Aeldrin, reduced to screaming like a child.” I laughed again, but it came out sounding more like a sob. “And do you know what Valen said? That Father had sought him out. That Father had bound him to our realm, trying to gain power.” I shook my head. “Isn’t that rich?”
A stray drop of water fell from the ceiling, landing on my forehead. I didn’t bother to wipe it away. It tracked down my temple like a tear I was too dehydrated to shed.
“I hope you’re taking care of her,” I murmured. “I hope you’re both somewhere warm and dry and safe.”
My voice cracked on the last word. Safety seemed like a concept from another lifetime.
“Do you know what the most absurd part is?” I asked the shadows, which were now swirling in abstract patterns across the wall. “I spent my entire life believing that love was for the weak. That power was all that mattered.” I coughed, a wet, painful sound. “And then, all that I’d ever loved was lost.
Lysa. Isolde.” I closed my eyes briefly. “And now I have nothing. No power, no love. What does that make me?”
The shadows offered no answers, only their silent, shifting presence.
“Nothing, I suppose. I have nothing, I am nothing,” I whispered to the darkness, answering my own question.
The shadows continued their silent dance as the light dimmed further.
Soon it would be full night, and the darkness would swallow even these phantom companions. The thought squeezed my chest with a sudden, childish fear. I had never been afraid of the dark before, but here, in this place of stone and forgotten things, the darkness felt hungry. Like it would consume me as I
slept.
“Don’t go,” I whispered to the shadows.
The fever made my thoughts swim, memories and thoughts bleeding into each other. It was time for a bedtime story, I supposed, and maybe a song.
She sometimes wanted a song before she slept.
Without conscious thought, a melody rose to my lips.
“Sleep, my love, beneath the dusk, the moon will guard your dreams.”
The shadows stilled, as if listening.
“The stars will dance their ancient waltz, while darkness gently gleams.”
My throat ached with the effort, but I continued.
“Rest your head upon the night, let twilight ease your pain.
For when you wake to morning’s light, we’ll meet in dreams again.”
Each note hung in the damp air, resonating against the stone walls.
“Though we may seem far apart, together our souls remain.”
I tried to finish the song, but the words eluded me, leaving only the melody to drift into the darkness like a prayer with no recipient.
The shadows watched, silent witnesses to my unraveling, as the last notes faded into the damp air of my prison cell. I waited for its echo, but the silence that rushed in to fill its place was absolute. A living thing that pressed against my ears and slithered down my throat. As if the darkness itself had been listening and was now considering what it had heard.
I held my breath, suddenly aware that the shadows no longer danced but stood perfectly still, gathered most densely in the far corner where the light from the grate never reached.
Time stretched like cooling glass, thin and fragile. I became aware of my heartbeat, too quick and shallow beneath my ribs. The sound of my own breathing seemed absurdly loud, each exhale a confession of weakness to the watching dark.
Then, from all around me, a voice emerged—low and resonant, ancient in
a way that made my bones ache.
“You are going to die.”
Five simple words, spoken not as a threat but as a statement of fact, as neutral as remarking on the weather. The voice seemed to bypass my ears entirely, reverberating directly against my skull, a physical sensation as much as a sound.
I didn’t scream. I didn’t scramble backward or press myself harder against the wall. For a heartbeat, I only stared, my breath caught halfway to my lungs, suspended in the sudden knowledge that I was not alone. That I
had, perhaps, never been alone.
And then, absurdly, I started to laugh.
It began as a giggle, sharp and unexpected, before expanding into full- throated laughter that echoed off the walls. Pain lanced through my ribs with each convulsion, but I couldn’t stop.
Eventually, the laugh faded into a sigh that emptied my lungs completely.
I sagged against the wall, suddenly boneless with an emotion I couldn’t immediately identify. It took me a moment to recognize it as relief—pure and overwhelming.
“Is that a promise?” I asked, my voice steadier than it had any right to be.
“Or merely an observation?”
The shadows in the corner seemed to shift, condensing into something denser, though no distinct shape emerged. The darkness there was simply... more so. Darker than darkness had any right to be.
“Neither,” the voice replied, the syllables like stone grinding against stone. “Both.”
I nodded as if this were the most reasonable conversation I’d had in weeks. Perhaps it was. The guards never spoke to me, and Valen hadn’t returned since that first day. This voice, emerging from nothing, promising my end—at least it offered certainty.
“Well, it is considerate of you to tell me,” I said, smoothing my filthy dress with an absurd gesture of propriety. “Most of us go through life never knowing when the end will come. It’s a gift, really, to have advance notice.”
My eyes drifted across the cell, catching on the thin shaft of moonlight that cut through the grate overhead. In its pale illumination, I could see the motes of dust dancing, oblivious to the darkness gathering just beyond their brief moment of visibility. How like life itself—a brief dance in the light before returning to the shadows.
“Are you here to collect me now, my harbinger?” I asked, surprising myself with the endearment. “Or have you come merely to announce yourself?”
The shadow pulsed, almost like a heartbeat.
“I have been here,” it said, which was no answer at all.
I shifted, wincing as the movement sent fresh pain through my feet. “That makes two of us, though I confess I’m here against my will. On the bright side, soon I will not be, if your prophecy comes to pass. Silver linings, as they say.”
Was I truly having a conversation with a shadow? Perhaps this was the fever’s final gift—a companion in my last hours, even if it was one my mind had conjured from delirium and darkness. Or perhaps I had already died, and this was some aspect of what came after, this voice in the dark, this promise of an end to an ending.
“You do not fear death,” the voice observed. It wasn’t a question.
I considered it anyway. Did I fear death? I had spent the past weeks surrounded by its promise, in the festering wounds that throbbed with each heartbeat, in the fever that burned through my veins, in the slow weakening of my body as it consumed itself in the absence of proper food. No, death was a welcome companion, far more reliable than any human connection.
“I’ve been expecting you,” I answered truthfully. “Though I imagined you differently.”
“How do you imagine death?” the voice asked, and I thought I detected a note of amusement in its ancient tones.
I closed my eyes, summoning the image I’d carried since childhood. “I thought you would be beautiful,” I admitted. “Terrible, yes, but beautiful— like the last light of sunset before night claims the sky. I thought you would have eyes that reflected all the lives you’ve claimed and hands that could both wound and comfort.”
My hand drifted to my head, remembering the weight of my mother’s crown. “I thought you might wear a crown of stars.”
The shadow rippled, stretching along the wall until it nearly reached me.
“Perhaps I do,” it said. “Perhaps you simply cannot see it.”
This struck me as funny, though I couldn’t say why. Another laugh escaped me, softer this time, almost fond. “Perhaps,” I agreed. “I suppose I’ll see you in the afterlife. I will let you know then if you meet my expectations.”
I wondered if I should be more concerned my mind was lost, instead of this feeling of weary acceptance. I did not dwell on it. What was the point?
Death would take me regardless of sanity.
“Will it hurt?” I asked, the question slipping out before I could reconsider it.
My harbinger was silent for so long I thought he might not answer. When he finally spoke, his voice had softened, losing some of its unearthly resonance.
“Yes,” he said simply. “But not forever.”
For some reason, the honesty of this answer touched me more deeply than any comfort could have. I felt tears prick at my eyes.
“Thank you,” I whispered.
We sat in silence for a time, Death and I, neither encroaching on the other’s space. Outside, clouds must have passed over the moon, for the shaft of light through the grate dimmed and then brightened again. I found myself wondering about the world above, if the stars were visible tonight, if a breeze stirred the trees in the gardens where I used to weave fairy crowns.
“Are you real?” I whispered, breaking the silence, wanting to know if I’ve gone mad. “Or have I finally lost my mind completely?”
Death seemed to consider this. “Does it matter?”
I thought about this for a moment, then laughed again—a genuine sound this time, without the brittle edge of hysteria.
“No,” I admitted. “I suppose it doesn’t. Real or imagined, you’re here, and I am grateful for it.”
“You are not afraid of death,” my harbinger said, “but you fear dying alone.”
The observation struck home with uncomfortable precision. I’d never admitted this fear, not even to myself, but the shadow had named it as easily
as breathing.
“Yes,” I whispered.
“You are not alone,” Death said.
Strange comfort from a stranger presence, yet I found myself believing it.
Whatever this entity was—hallucination, specter, or something else entirely —it had breached the isolation that had been my truest torment.
“Will you stay?” I asked.
The shadow pulsed once more. “I am here,” it repeated, and this time, I understood it as a promise.
I closed my eyes, suddenly exhausted beyond measure. The fever still burned beneath my skin, but it seemed more distant now, as if a cool hand had been laid upon my brow. I wondered if this was how death began, not with fear or pain, but with a gradual easing of burdens, a soft surrender.
“My harbinger,” I murmured, the words slurring slightly as exhaustion began to claim me.
My thoughts grew fuzzy, disconnected, floating away from me like leaves on a stream.
“Rest,” the shadow said, and it might have been my imagination, but I
thought I felt a cool touch against my burning cheek.
I surrendered to the pull of exhaustion, letting my head fall back against the stone wall. The silence returned, but it was different now, not the oppressive weight it had been before, but something more like a blanket, wrapped around me with unexpected tenderness.
As consciousness slipped away, I thought I heard the shadow speaking again, words in a language I couldn’t understand. A benediction. A eulogy.
I closed my eyes against it, letting the darkness press in like that lover’s final kiss. Cold and intimate, the last caress before the long goodbye.
