CHAPTER TWENTYݍEIGHT
THE SIMPLICITY OF TOUCH
alen hadn’t come.V My body knew the hour, a primal awareness that did not consider clocks or sunlight. This was when the guards should appear—when the oldest would nod grimly as they entered, when the middle one would avoid my eyes, when the youngest with his crooked nose would prepare the chains.
This was when my heart should pound against my ribs like a caged thing sensing the approach of fire. But the corridor beyond my cell remained silent, and the silence was somehow worse than the certainty of pain.
I pressed my ear between two bars. Nothing. Not a whisper, not a breath.
The bruises from Valen’s lips and fingers still pulsed with each heartbeat, the darkest ones—those on my inner thighs, the one on my lips—throbbing beneath my skin. I had expected fresh pain tonight, had braced for it, had wrapped my mind around the inevitable. The absence left me unstable.
Where was he?
I didn’t want him. I didn’t. But routine, even the routine of my own breaking, had become a perverse form of safety. At least when Valen stood before me with blade or power or punishing touch, I knew what the night held. I knew the shape of my suffering. I knew its boundaries.
Now that he wasn’t here, I knew nothing.
I curled tighter against the bars, keeping to the corner where I had held my harbinger’s hand. My fingers twitched with the memory of his skin against mine—warm and rough with calluses, yet unexpectedly gentle. I
wondered if he waited now as I did, listening for footsteps that didn’t come, sensing the wrongness in the air.
My muscles refused to uncoil, to accept the gift of this unexpected reprieve. Instead, they wound tighter, anticipation curdling into something darker, more insidious. My heart beat a strained rhythm against my bruised ribs, each pulse sending dull pain radiating outward through the constellation of marks Valen had left on my skin.
The darkness seemed to press closer, the silence taking on weight and substance. I found myself straining to hear anything—the scurry of rats, the drip of water, the breath of my harbinger in the adjacent cell. But even those familiar sounds seemed to have abandoned me, as if the dungeon itself held
its breath, waiting.
“He’s not coming.”
The words emerged uninvited, a whisper that sounded too loud in the oppressive quiet. I wasn’t sure if I spoke to myself or to the prisoner beyond the wall, but saying it aloud made it feel more real, more final. The relief I should have felt didn’t materialize. Instead, dread twisted my stomach into knots. Valen had never broken his pattern. Why now? What did it mean?
Hours passed, marked only by the deepening of shadows as the single torch in the corridor beyond burned lower. My harbinger remained silent, though I felt his presence as surely as the stone beneath me—a watchful, waiting energy that seemed to pulse through the wall at my back.
I couldn’t bring myself to speak to him again. Not after his offered comfort. Not after he’d held my hand and suggested my soul remained unbroken despite all Valen had done. The memory of that unexpected tenderness felt too raw, too dangerous to acknowledge. So I sat in silence, and he did the same, and the quiet between us stretched taut as a bowstring.
When the sound of approaching footsteps finally came, my entire body went rigid. But these weren’t Valen’s measured, deliberate strides. These were quicker, lighter—the familiar cadence of the guards making their evening rounds.
The middle guard appeared at my cell door, a wooden tray in his hands.
No chains. No instruments of torture. Just the meager evening meal they always brought after Valen’s sessions. He seemed surprised to find me hunched by the bars rather than lying broken on my mat.
“Princess,” he said, the word holding a note of uncertainty. “Your meal.”
He slid the tray through the small opening at the bottom of the cell door.
Watery stew, a crust of bread, a cup of water. The same as always, but the timing was wrong. They usually fed me after Valen had finished with me, after they had cleaned my wounds and dressed me in a fresh shift. The disruption of this pattern, small as it was, unsettled me further.
“Where is he?” I asked, the question escaping raw and broken.
The guard’s eyes widened in the fact I had spoken, before flicking away, not meeting mine. “The king has other matters to attend to tonight.”
“What matters?” I pressed, desperate for any information, any certainty.
“It’s not my place to say.” His tone closed the subject, his posture already shifting away from my cell, eager to be gone.
“Will he come tomorrow?” I should have been ashamed of how my voice caught on the question, of how it betrayed my need for the predictability of pain over the torment of uncertainty.
The guard hesitated, his face betraying nothing. “Eat your meal, Princess.” Then he was gone, footsteps retreating down the corridor, leaving me with more questions than answers.
I stared at the tray, my stomach clenching in anxiety despite my hunger.
The sudden deviation from routine had stolen even this simple certainty—the knowledge of when I would eat, when I would sleep, when I would hurt.
With deliberate movements, I crawled from my position by the bars to retrieve the tray. The stew smelled of overcooked vegetables and too little meat, but I forced myself to eat it anyway, knowing I needed what little strength it provided. Each swallow hurt, the bruise on my lip throbbing with the movement.
Valen was right, I could no longer eat, speak, swallow, without thinking of him.
I found myself glancing again toward the wall separating me from my harbinger. Death was there, I knew it. Had he withdrawn his offer of comfort now that daylight had banished the vulnerability of night? Or did he simply have nothing to say to me, his momentary interest in my suffering passed like a brief fever?
I wondered suddenly why no one ever came to torture him. While Valen subjected me to ever more creative forms of suffering, Death sat unbothered in his cell. I remembered his words about touch—how he could cause harm with a single brush of skin against skin. But surely Valen could torture him without touch, as he sometimes did with me, using his power to inflict pain from a distance.
Unless he feared him. Perhaps Valen, for all his god-like power, feared to provoke whatever lay chained in the cell beside mine.
Who was he, truly? No ordinary prisoner, that much was certain. His voice carried the ache of centuries, his hands bore scars that spoke of battles fought in times beyond memory. When he’d spoken of souls it had been with the authority of one who knew their workings intimately.
“Death?”
His name slipped out before I could stop it, fragile in the stillness between our cells. I hadn’t meant to speak first, some sliver of pride had told me to wait, but Valen’s absence left behind a silence I couldn’t bear alone.
I pressed my palm against the cold stone separating us, as if I might feel his presence through solid rock, listening to the rhythmic sound of water dipping in the dark. I counted each drop like a heartbeat.
One. Two. Three. Four.
And then — “You called for me, little fawn?” He replied at last, voice low and rough- edged, threaded with the ghost of a smile. “I must say, it’s been... quite some time since I’ve had a female caller. I’d almost forgotten the proper etiquette.”
The smallest huff of laughter escaped me, part shock, part relief. It wasn’t funny, not really. But there was something in his voice—gruff amusement, quiet and tentative—that eased the knot in my chest.
“I wasn’t aware there was proper etiquette for speaking through dungeon walls,” I replied, my bruised lips stinging with the movement. The pain was welcome, a reminder that I was still here, still myself.
“Oh yes,” he said, chains dragging as he shifted position. “Very formal.
Usually involves wine, candlelight, and considerably fewer rats.”
Another small laugh escaped me, this one sending a sharp pain through my ribs. I pressed my hand against them, wondering if this strange man had any idea how precious these moments of normalcy were. How they felt like finding a favorite hairpin within the pages of a forgotten book.
“He didn’t come,” I said after a moment, returning to what truly troubled me. “He always comes.”
There was a pause, a considering silence. “Yes,” Death finally agreed.
“Your god is absent tonight.”
“He’s not my god.” The denial was swift, instinctive.
“No?” Something in his tone shifted, became flat, as if deliberately removing any emotion. “Yet he marks you as his. Claims you with his
touch.”
I pressed my forehead against my knees, squeezing my eyes shut against the memory of Valen’s fingers, his lips, and the terrible pleasure I’d felt from each. “Ownership is not deserving of worship,” I said finally. “And he does not own any part of me that matters.”
My harbinger was quiet for a long moment, as if considering my words. I wondered if he thought of the piece of me he owned, how he’d told me it was the only part of myself that meant anything.
When he spoke again, his voice had softened. Not quite warm. But not cold, either. The dullness had relaxed to something quieter.
“Tell me, then, about the life you had before this cell. Who were you, when you belonged fully to yourself?”
The question caught me so off guard, I hardly knew what to say. The past seemed to belong to a different person entirely, a ghost who had haunted the palace halls of Vareth wearing my face.
“I was...” I began, then faltered. Who had I been? The illegitimate child of a king who publicly disliked how his blood ran in my veins. The inconvenient reminder of a royal indiscretion. A no one. “I was never what anyone wanted me to be.”
“That’s not an answer,” Death said, but without heat.
I traced a pattern in the dust on the floor beside my mat, considering how much to reveal. “I was a shadow in my father’s house. Neither properly acknowledged nor completely cast out. I had certain... liberties that came with my ambiguous status.” I thought of the men I’d taken to my bed when loneliness became too heavy to bear, the fleeting moments of feeling wanted, even if only for my body. “And certain limitations.”
“Were you happy?” The simplicity of the question was almost cruel in its directness.
A bitter laugh escaped me. “Happy? No. But I was...” I searched for the right word. “I was free, in a way. Free to move through the palace, to breathe air that didn’t taste of mold and blood. Free to feel the sun on my face.” I closed my eyes, remembering the palace gardens where I’d spent so many hours, the one place I’d felt something close to peace. “Life didn’t treat me
well, but at least I wasn’t...”
“A prisoner,” Death finished for me.
“Yes.” The word felt inadequate to contain all I’d lost. My hand drifted to the bruise on my lips, the tender flesh still swollen from Valen’s cruel kiss.
“Though sometimes I think I was always in a cage of sorts. Just a larger, prettier one.”
Silence stretched between us again, but it felt… different. Less strained. I found myself wondering about his life before this cell. Had he known freedom? Joy? Or had his existence always been defined by darkness and confinement?
“What are you?” The question slipped out, my voice barely above a whisper.
Death didn’t answer immediately. Chains shifted softly, as if he’d run a hand through his hair. When he finally spoke, his voice carried that same
careful neutrality.
“What do you think I am?”
I shook my head slowly, though he couldn’t see. “I don’t know.”
“Come now, little fawn. You’ve called me your ‘harbinger,’ ‘Death,’ ‘prisoner,’ yet you haven’t truly asked until now.” That soft amusement returned, but shadowed with something older, deeper. “So I’m asking you, what do you think I am?”
I pressed my palm flat to the stone, fingertips splayed as thought I might
feel the truth pulsing beneath it.
“You told me once you were nothing.”
He made a low sound. Contemplative. Waiting.
“Why can’t you tell me?” I asked, my voice sharper now, slicing through the quiet with my frustration. “If you are implying you are not a prisoner like me, then what?”
“You already know, Mireille,” he said, his voice soft, certain.
I shook my head. “I don’t.”
“You do,” he countered, steady as stone. “You’ve known for some time.
Though have been trying to deny it.”
My mouth went dry, my heartbeat accelerating to a painful rhythm.
“You’re… a sorcerer. A practitioner of forbidden magic.”
He let out a quiet laugh—empty, tired. “Try again.”
My throat tightened. “A demon,” I said, the word barely leaving me.
“Something not of this world.”
“Closer,” he murmured. “But not quite.”
I closed my eyes, pressed my cheek to the wall, and let the truth I’d been burying claw its way free. The truth I had felt since hearing his voice through fever, blood, and madness.
“A god,” I whispered.
The silence that followed was confirmation enough.
I curled my fingers against the stone, nails dragging uselessly over its cold, unyielding surface.
I knew gods. Not one, but two. One who tortured me in the flesh. And the other—my harbinger—listened to me suffer. Who held a piece of my soul.
“No,” I whispered, denial breaking in my tone. “You can’t be. I don’t— I won’t believe it.”
“Belief doesn’t change truth,” he said simply. Almost sadly.
I drew my knees tighter to my chest, as if I could hold myself together by sheer will. Valen’s words returned to me—his casual mention of two remaining cells in the mortal realm designed to hold gods. One had been his.
Now mine. And the other… the other was Death’s.
A god. I was imprisoned beside a god.
I pressed my head against my knees, as if the gesture might shield me from divine attention. If he truly was a god… which one? I searched my memory, but nearly all of my education had been shaped around the Twin Goddesses, the only faith my father had allowed.
Now I knew why.
He had captured two within his dungeons.
“How did my father imprison you?” I finally asked, my voice steadier than I felt.
A dark chuckle emanated from the neighboring cell. “Fascinating,” he said, and I could almost picture his head tilting in consideration. “Most mortals, upon learning they’re speaking with a god, first ask to be blessed. Or saved. Or at the very least, they inquire about the afterlife awaiting them.”
The chains clinked as he shifted position. “But not you. You ask how I was imprisoned.”
Frustration filled me at his blatant amusement with the situation. I pushed myself upright, sarcasm spilling from my lips. “I’m so sorry to disappoint,” I said. “Would you prefer I prostrate myself? Shall I kneel at the bars and beg for your divine mercy? I could weep and rend my garments if that would be more to your liking, though I’m afraid my resources are somewhat limited at the moment.”
His laughter came again, deeper this time, with an edge that seemed to vibrate through the stone between us. “It would be appreciated,” Death replied, my eyes rolling toward the ceiling at the undisguised humor in his
voice. “But unnecessary. I would not be able to grant you blessings even if you… rendered your garments and prostrated yourself before me.”
I leaned my head back against the cold stone, exhaustion and pain making my limbs heavy. “I’ve only met one other god,” I said after a moment. “And he carves patterns into my skin for his amusement. Forgive me if I’m not eager to seek blessings from the divine.”
“A reasonable stance,” Death replied, amusement still coloring his tone.
“Divine blessings are rarely what mortals expect them to be.”
I felt my anger at his divinity ease. There was a flicker of understanding now, our shared suffering hanging heavy in the air. Here was Death—my harbinger, my anchor—conversing with me not as a god demanding reverence, but as a companion confined by chains.
“Tell me how you were captured,” I prodded, curiosity mingling with the bitterness still clinging to my heart. “If you are indeed a god, why are you chained beside me like any other prisoner?”
He let out a huff of laughter, a sound that reverberated in the dimly lit cell, rich and deep, yet it held a trace of sorrow. There was a fleeting moment when I thought I caught him murmuring the word “if,” as if the very notion of his divinity tethered to the chains that bound him was ridiculous.
“Come to the bars,” he said, his voice softening, an echo of his request from the night before. “And I will answer your question.”
I hesitated, my body protesting at the thought of moving again. The bruises Valen had left ached, but curiosity pulled me back toward the corner where I had clutched Death’s hand the night before.
When I reached the place where our cells met, I lowered myself carefully to the floor. Through the bars, I could see the shadowy outline of Death’s hand extending from his cell, palm up in invitation.
“Do you see my hand?” He asked quietly.
I nodded, before recalling he couldn’t see me. “Yes.”
“Flesh and blood,” Death said, flexing his fingers slightly. “Like yours.
This form—this body—is a vessel, also like yours. Before I was chained, I could move between this guise and something... less tangible.” He turned his hand slowly, examining it as if it were a curiosity rather than a part of himself. “In this mortal form, we can… feel the way mortals do. Touch skin without fear of accidentally destroying those less substantial. But we are more vulnerable.”
I studied the ridges of his hand, the intricate patterns of scars that mapped
a history written in blood. Silver lines ran across his palm, some thin as spider silk, others deeper, more pronounced. I wanted to know the story of each, of every blade that marked him.
“You still haven’t answered my question,” I said quietly.
He flexed his fingers, the silver scars catching what little light filtered into our cells. When he spoke, his voice carried a weight that seemed to press against the very air between us.
“I was... distracted. I had something to protect. Something precious beyond measure.” His voice softened on these words, and for a moment, I thought I detected a note of regret. “I needed this form—this physical vessel —to deliver it safely.”
“What were you protecting?” I asked, drawn in despite myself.
His hand stilled, and I felt the brush of his attention through the darkness.
“Something irreplaceable. A light in this world of shadows.”
The vagueness of his answer frustrated me, but I sensed he would not elaborate. “And my father caught you while you were vulnerable.”
“Yes.” The word carried weight beyond its single syllable. “Aeldrin was waiting. As if he knew precisely when and where I would emerge. As if someone had informed him of my purpose in this mortal realm.” Death’s fingers curled slightly, then relaxed again. “Few things surprise me after eons of existence, little fawn. But that... that caught me unprepared.”
I leaned closer to the bars, trying to see more of him in the shadows beyond his extended arm. Was he saying he was betrayed? “My father was many things, but he was never impulsive. He must have planned your capture carefully.”
“Meticulously,” Death agreed, something like grudging respect coloring his tone. “The runes, the chains, the binding words—all prepared in advance.
As if he’d been studying how to trap a god for years.” A soft, humorless laugh drifted through the darkness. “Which, of course, he had.”
His hand turned slightly, the scars catching the light from a different angle. “Aeldrin quickly discovered that even with my power dampened, my touch retained certain... qualities.” The word hung between us, pregnant with meaning. “The first guard who laid hands on me withered where he stood, his life force pouring into me before he could draw another breath. Even after that, dozens lost their lives at my touch, at your father’s orders to restrain me.”
A chill ran down my spine at the casual mention of such devastating
power. “But my father —“ “Cleverly avoided touching my skin directly,” Death finished. “Hence the chains. Many, many chains, wrapped around every inch of me they could manage. It took a dozen men to bind me, and most did not survive the process.” His voice carried no remorse, only a detached recounting of facts.
I stared at the hand extending through the bars—the hand that had held mine last night, that had offered comfort when I needed it most. This same hand had killed with a touch, had drawn life from flesh as easily as drawing water from a well.
“We’ve touched,” I whispered. “More than once.”
“We have.”
“Why didn’t you harm me?” The question trembled on my lips, both
fearful and curious.
Death was silent for a long moment.
“I did not want to.”
I should have stepped away after that. Should have retreated to the far corner of my cell, kept my distance from this being of unfathomable power and unknown intentions. Instead, I found myself leaning closer, drawn by a need I couldn’t articulate.
A god who could kill with a touch had chosen not to harm me. Had chosen, instead, to offer comfort when I was at my lowest. Me, the daughter
of his capturer, his torturer.
And I wanted to touch him still.
Slowly, deliberately, I extended both hands toward his. My movements were cautious, giving him every opportunity to withdraw, but he remained still, watching as my fingers hovered above his palm.
My heart thundered in my chest, a wild rhythm that seemed to echo off the stone walls. Fear mingled with something else—a pull toward this being of power that defied all reason. He was dangerous. Lethal. Divine. And yet...
With a courage born perhaps of foolishness or desperation, I placed my hands on either side of his, cradling it between my own.
Death went utterly still, as if my touch had turned him to stone, before a tremor passed through him, so slight I might have imagined it. But his hand remained warm and solid between mine, neither withering my flesh nor pulling at my life force.
Emboldened by his stillness, I allowed my fingers to explore the terrain of his skin, tracing the raised lines of scars, the calluses that spoke of weapons
wielded and battles fought. His hand dwarfed mine, powerful enough to crush bone, yet it remained gentle within my grasp.
“Most mortals would be terrified to touch me,” Death said, his voice rougher than before. “As are many gods.”
My fingertip traced a particularly deep scar that ran from his wrist to the base of his middle finger. “Should I be?” I asked, looking up as if I could see his face through the darkness and stone between us. “Terrified, that is.”
Silence stretched between us, his hand motionless beneath my exploration. Finally, he spoke, his voice so low I had to strain to hear it.
“No,” he said. “Not you.”
I resumed my careful exploration, fingers moving to his calluses—the hardened skin at the base of each finger, along the edge of his palm, between thumb and forefinger. These weren’t the calluses of a laborer or craftsman, but of a warrior. Someone who had held weapons, wielded them with deadly precision over centuries.
His fingers curled slightly, adjusting to the pressure of my touch. The chains at his wrist clinked softly with the movement.
I wanted to memorize the texture of his skin, the placement of each scar, the slight roughness of his knuckles. This simple touch felt more intimate than anything I had experienced before, even more than the pleasure Valen had forced upon me.
“Do gods have souls?” I whispered, dragging my fingertips along the curve of his thumb.
His hand remained steady in mine, but I sensed a subtle tension ripple through him at my question. For several heartbeats, he said nothing, and I wondered if I had crossed some invisible boundary.
“No,” he said simply. Then, after another pause, “Gods are power, will, and eternity, born of raw creation. There is no soul within us.”
I waited, sensing there was more he wished to say. His palm pressed into my ministrations, a gesture that seemed almost unconscious.
“Mortal emotions are anchored in your souls,” he continued. “They rise and fall like tides, washing through you, changing you, before receding again.
They shape you, leave impressions like footprints in wet sand.” His fingers curled slightly around mine, a gentle pressure that felt almost like emphasis.
“Divinity has no such anchor, without souls.”
I frowned, trying to understand. “Are you saying gods feel less than mortals?”
“Not less,” he corrected. “Not more, either. Just… different.” His thumb brushed against my forefinger, the gesture so gentle it might have been accidental. “Divine emotion is... deeper. More intrinsic. Like currents in the ocean’s deepest trench, where even light never dares to go.”
“That sounds... lonely,” I whispered, surprised by my own assessment.
“It can be,” Death agreed, his voice a low rumble that seemed to vibrate through his hand into mine. “When a god feels rage, it is not the hot flash of anger a mortal experiences. It is an endless, perfect rage that could burn for millennia without diminishing.” His voice dropped lower. “When we love… it is all-consuming. It becomes the foundation of our very existence. Not a feeling that comes and goes, but the bedrock upon which everything else is built.”
The force of his words settled over me, heavy with implication. I traced another scar, this one curved like a crescent moon across his palm, while processing what he’d revealed.
“Have you ever loved?” The question escaped before I could consider its wisdom.
His hand went perfectly still beneath mine. The silence stretched so long I began to wonder if he would answer at all. When he finally spoke, his voice carried a note I’d never heard before—something raw and unguarded.
“No.”
The single word held such profound loss that I felt it like a physical ache in my chest. I wanted to ask more, but something in the quality of his silence warned me away from pressing further.
Instead, I shared a vulnerability of my own.
“I don’t believe I have the capacity to love,” I whispered, the confession emerging from some deep, wounded place within me. “Not the way others do.” My fingers continued their gentle tracing, following another scar that ran from his wrist toward his forearm. “I love my sister, Lysa. And my friend, Isolde. But that’s different.”
Death remained motionless, allowing my touch, my words, without interruption.
“I’ve never felt that soul-deep, tear-down-the-world kind of love that poets write about.” My voice grew softer still, almost lost beneath the distant drip of water. “Even when I took men to my bed, it was just... a way to feel something. To be wanted, if only for a moment.”
“You underestimate the capabilities of your mortal soul,” Death said, his
voice equally soft but carrying a certainty that made my fingers pause in their exploration.
“Maybe,” I whispered back. “Or maybe there is something broken inside me. Something that is not soft enough to love.”
I felt a sudden weariness, a burning behind my eyes as the day’s tension and uncertainty finally took their toll. Not wanting to bother him for longer than welcome, my hands began to withdraw, pulling back toward my own cell, my own isolation.
But before I could retreat fully, his fingers closed around mine—not grasping or restraining, but holding with a gentleness that belied the strength I knew lay within that grip.
Without another word, his fingers adjusted their position, sliding between mine until our hands were properly interlaced. Palm to palm, finger to finger, a perfect joining across the boundary that separated god from mortal, cell from cell.
The intimacy of the gesture struck me with unexpected force. This wasn’t the desperate clutching of the previous night, the seeking of comfort amid violation and pain. This was deliberate, measured—a connection chosen rather than needed.
He didn’t speak again. Didn’t explain himself or justify the continued contact. Didn’t ask me to stay, though his touch did that without words.
Instead, he simply held my hand in his, his thumb occasionally brushing across my knuckles in a gesture that felt almost absentminded, as if it were the most natural thing in the world for Death to stroke the hand of a mortal woman in a dungeon beneath her conquered palace.
