CHAPTER FORTYݍSIX
LEVITY BEHIND BARS
hat did you do?”“W I groaned, consciousness returning slowly. My mind felt raw, exposed—as if someone had peeled back my skull and sifted through my thoughts with cold, deliberate fingers.
Heavy footsteps paced in the cell beside mine. Each deliberate thud reverberated through the stone wall, vibrating against my palm as I pressed it there for balance. Seven steps one way. The clink of chains. Seven steps back. The footfalls were measured but urgent, betraying an agitation I had never heard from Death before.
“Mireille,” Death’s voice was sharp, insistent. “What did you do?” Every syllable was pronounced, his tone angry… furious.
I pushed myself upright, my arms trembling beneath my weight. The cell swam before my eyes, the dim morning light filtering through the high grate too harsh, too intrusive.
“I don’t know what you mean,” I lied, shifting my body so that my back pressed against the stone wall, alleviating some of the ache.
The pacing stopped. The silence that followed was worse than his anger.
“Do not lie to me, yshera.” His voice had dropped to a whisper, but the threat in it made my skin crawl. “You were there. In my mind. In my domain.
No being has ever breached those walls.”
So, I had been correct. It wasn’t a vision like the others. It had been real.
“I didn’t mean to,” I said, the half-truth bitter on my tongue. “I told you, I
wished for comfort and then... I was there.”
“That is not how it works.” The chains rattled as he moved closer to the wall between us. I imagined him pressed against it, his face twisted with suspicion and rage. “I was willing to overlook your lie before you—“ He paused, then a sound like a fist slamming against stone shook the walls. I flinched, surprised at his reaction. “There are boundaries that cannot be crossed without intent. Without power. And what you did would have taken immense power.”
Power. I did not want to acknowledge what he was implying, but the silver threads pulsed at the edges of my vision, not allowing any denial. I blinked them away, frightened by how clearly I could see them now, by how the urge to reach out and touch them again thrummed beneath my skin.
“I don’t have any power,” I lied, the words ashy in my mouth. “I’m just a mortal. A prisoner. Nothing more.”
The sound that escaped him might have been a laugh, if laughter could cut like a knife. “You cannot believe that. You entered my domain uninvited.
You saw my true form. You dissolved one of my chains.” His voice roughened. “You are not nothing, Mireille.”
I squeezed my eyes shut against his anger. I didn’t know what to say. I hardly knew what I did myself. “Why are you so angry with me?” The question fell from my lips on a whisper, and I knew he would hear the hurt in my voice.
A sound came from his cell—not quite a growl, not quite a sigh. “I’m not angry with you,” he said quietly. “I was terrified. Am terrified.” Another pause. “You’re fragile, Mireille. Delicate as you are, in ways you cannot comprehend. Had I been another god… had I not recognized your presence immediately and reacted as most would in my place... Mireille, I wouldn’t have simply sent your soul to the void. I would have erased your existence entirely. No afterlife. No memory. Just... nothing.”
My lips parted at his confession. The fact that he wasn’t angry with me, that he was terrified for me… It drew a strangled noise from my throat.
“You would be so easily snuffed out,” he continued, and now there was almost a trembling in his voice. “Like a candle flame in the wind. And… I cannot always control what happens when my restraints are broken, Mireille.
The power that floods back…” He hesitated. “One wrong move, one ounce of control lost, and you would have been gone. Not dead—gone. Even I cannot restore what has been entirely unmade.”
I swallowed hard, trying to process the enormity of what he was saying.
He was unknowingly confirming everything Valen had told me during my bath, and although I knew Valen had been speaking truth, and I had felt that potential for annihilation in his presence, I hadn’t understood the true extent
of the threat of this god until now.
“I didn’t know,” I admitted quietly.
“No,” he agreed. “And that is precisely why it was so dangerous.”
I leaned back against the wall, stunned. “I’m fine,” I said, my voice soft, hoping to reassure him. “You didn’t hurt me.”
“This time,” he countered. “You were fortunate. Next time, you might not be.”
“There won’t be a next time,” I replied automatically. “I don’t even know how it happened.”
The silence from his cell told me he didn’t believe me. I couldn’t blame him, I wouldn’t have believed me either. But I couldn’t risk telling him about the threads, about the power growing within me that I barely understood myself.
“Keep your secrets,” he said finally, but there was no accusation in his tone. Just weary acceptance. “Whatever you discovered yesterday, whatever power you touched, just... promise me that you will be more careful. With me. With others.”
I nodded, though I felt hollow, the weight of his concern pressing against the walls of my mind like a vice. The threads pulsed faintly in acknowledgment, as if urging me to be cautious, to heed Death’s warning.
Yet the truth lingered unspoken—how could I be careful when everything about this situation was so perilous, so volatile? Each moment teetered on the edge of a precipice, and I was utterly unprepared for the fall.
And I couldn’t stay. I had to escape. I saw my fate, I knew what I would become.
I closed my eyes, immediately seeing her—that husk of my future, that broken, withered creature I would be if I stayed. No. I would not become her.
I would not let Valen reduce me to a ghost while I still drew breath.
I needed to escape. As soon as possible.
I drew my knees to my chest, the edges of the new robe bunching around my thighs as I traced my threads with my eyes—those delicate, shimmering lines unfurling from my body like gossamer spun by some divine spider. My power. My secret.
Her voice echoed in my mind. The memory of her, of me, chained like a forgotten doll, skin a map of scars and blood, eyes hollow. It made my stomach clench. I could still feel the way her flesh had crumbled beneath my
touch, dissolving into silver threads.
I could do this. I had to do this.
I had learned his routines, studied his habits. And I’d noticed, more than once, he never closed my cell door during our sessions. Why would he? I was bound, helpless. The guards secured me before he arrived, and collected me when he finished. The door was irrelevant. Unlocked.
But, what if I wasn’t bound?
I breathed deep, forming the plan. Valen’s obsession had only deepened since I stopped shrinking from him, since I started responding with desire instead of fear. His control slipped when I matched his darkness with my own. If I could seduce him into unhooking the manacles, make him believe I wanted to touch him as much as he wanted to touch me...
The rush of the memory, the way my veins had burned from the inside out as he touched me, made me shiver with a tangled knot of desire and fear, but I pushed it away. His reaction to me was the weapon I would use against him, the weakness for me to exploit.
My plan became clear, though the execution would require every bit of control I possessed. When Valen came—and he would come, he had told me he would visit today—I would not fight him. I would not retreat into silent defiance or try to break him with desire. I would be pliant. Obedient. I would let him think he had gotten through to me, that he was winning.
And when his guard was down, when he unhooked me from those manacles, I would move. If I could get one cuff around his wrist, even for a moment... The thought made my heart race, both with hope and fear.
I understood the risk. If I failed, his retribution would be swift and merciless. My future self had shown me exactly what awaited if I did. But if I succeeded… freedom.
“Yshera,” Death growled, and I jumped, realizing I had completely retreated into my thoughts. “Promise me you will be careful.”
“I’ll be careful,” I replied without hesitation, the lie sliding easily from my tongue. I had no intention of being careful. I intended to be ruthless, determined, unstoppable. Whatever power I had touched in that moment with Death, whatever had allowed me to dissolve his chain and see the threads connecting all things, I would use it unwaveringly if it meant escaping this
hell.
“Why do you call me yshera?” I asked, deliberately changing the subject, needing to speak about anything else.
From the other side of the wall came the soft clink of chains, followed by the faint scrape of movement, like he’d run a hand through his hair or a tired palm across his face.
“Hmm, that.” His voice shifted, lighter now, but I heard the effort behind it, as if he sensed I needed a break from divine warnings. “I’m afraid you won’t like my answer.”
My brows lifted at the abrupt change. Something in his deflection sparked a similar response in me, a welcome ease after so many days of pain and fear.
“Is that so?” I asked, my own tone softening. “Now I’m even more curious.”
“I’m quite certain you wouldn’t like my answer,” Death said, and I caught the flicker of amusement in his voice, dry and teasing, a glimmer of the man I spoke with in our earlier days. “Some things are better left mysterious. Especially those that might bruise your delicate mortal pride.”
My lips quirked up despite everything, my fingers tracing idle patterns on the cold stone between us. “Is it terribly insulting? Some ancient term for ‘mortal nuisance who asks too many questions’?”
A low chuckle rumbled from his cell, rich and warm. Strange, how a single sound could thaw the chill between us.
“Nothing so mundane,” he said, and I could hear the curve of a smile in his voice. “Though that description wouldn’t be wholly inaccurate.”
My smile widened, strange and unfamiliar on my face after so much pain.
“Come now, my lord,” I murmured, my voice dropping to a sultry whisper.
“Don’t you know it’s impolite to call a lady by another name and then refuse to explain why?”
“My lord?” His laugh was surprised, genuine. “You’ve never addressed me so formally before.”
“I’ve never tried to coax secrets from you before,” I countered, pressing my palm flat against the cold stone separating us. “Now that I think of it… Should I call you ‘my god’ instead?”
A choked sound escaped him—half laugh, half breath caught in his throat. “Careful with that tone, yshera. You might find me less immune to your charms than you’d like.”
I laughed, a soft, genuine sound that felt foreign in my throat. For a
moment, I could almost forget where we were. Could almost imagine we were mere acquaintances flirting at some posh noble’s gathering.
For a moment, one moment, I wanted to pretend. To throw myself into the vision of us meeting at a feast, or maybe, we had run into each other at the pub Islode had always wanted to bring me to. To pretend we were two normal people, who maybe locked eyes across an expanse of crowd, and decided they had to speak.
“You assume I’m trying to charm you,” I breathed, letting my voice carry a hint of teasing. “Perhaps I’m simply curious.”
“Curiosity,” Death replied, his voice a low purr, “is what draws mortals to the most perilous of precipices.”
I leaned my head against the wall, a strange warmth blooming in my chest despite the chill of the stone. “My harbinger,” I mock gasped, my voice lilting with playfulness I hadn’t felt in weeks, “are you flirting with me?”
A soft chuckle reverberated through the stone. “I must be sorely out of practice if you’ve only just noticed. I’ve been attempting to flirt with you for quite some time.”
His admission sent warmth spreading through my chest. I traced my fingers along the wall between us, imagining I could feel the heat of his skin through the stone.
“I would have thought you’d be above such mortal pastimes,” I said, keeping my voice light even as my pulse quickened. “Gods and their eternal perspective and all that.”
“Eternity,” he replied, his voice dropping to that dangerous register that made my skin prickle, “can be terribly lonely without the occasional indulgence in a curious mortal’s pleasure.”
I swallowed hard, suddenly aware of how intimate our conversation had become. The threads around me pulsed brighter, responding to my quickened heartbeat, the silver-white cord connecting me to Death glowing with an almost painful intensity.
“Is that what I am to you? A curious mortal?”
“You are many things to me, Mireille,” Death said, his voice suddenly stripped of its teasing quality. “Curious mortal is only the beginning of them.”
Heat bloomed beneath my skin, a warmth that felt absurdly girlish, like some sheltered noble’s daughter swooning over her first secret crush. An inexplicable longing washed over me. I wanted, needed, to bridge the
physical gap between us.
“Mireille.” Just my name, but spoken with such gentleness that it froze me in place. “Come here.”
My heart stuttered in my chest. In the past, he offered his hand when I was broken, when he must have taken pity on me. But now, there was no healing to be done, no real comfort to be given. This offer… it was something else, something that made my breath catch in my throat. A touch just to touch.
My heart hammered against my ribs, its rhythm suddenly erratic. There was meaning in this gesture, significance I couldn’t fully grasp. The thread connecting us seemed to tug, urging me forward.
Slowly, I moved closer to the corner separating us. I could see his hand through my bars, steady and patient, those long fingers slightly curled as if already feeling the shape of mine between them.
“Why?” I whispered, my voice barely carrying.
He didn’t answer immediately, but I sensed a shift in his attention, becoming more... vulnerable. “Because I need to be sure you’re alright.” His words were quiet, almost lost to the stone. “That I didn’t damage you when I pushed you from my mind.”
The ache in my chest sharpened. I looked at his outstretched hand, at the calluses and veins, the scars that mapped a thousand lifetimes. A god’s hand.
A killer’s hand. But when it touched me, it had never once treated me like something meant to break. Only something worth holding.
My fingers moved to hover above his, trembling slightly with the weight of this choice. To accept his touch was to acknowledge something I wasn’t sure I was ready to face. A connection deeper than mere circumstance, a pull I couldn’t explain away as simple survival instinct.
His fingers flexed, once, a gesture of a man restraining himself from succumbing to a deeper need. Forcing himself to wait, just wait, for me to bridge the distance between us.
“Mireille,” he said again, softer this time. My name caught like a prayer on his tongue.
And something inside me broke. Not painfully, but like ice cracking beneath the first warm breath spring, releasing what had been frozen beneath.
I let go of my hesitation. I let myself want.
I slid my fingers into his.
The contact was lightning, a raw, charged sensation that coursed through
my entire body. His grip tightened around mine, firm and desperate, as if afraid I might vanish if he didn’t hold fast. His thumb brushed slowly across my knuckles, reverent and familiar, like he knew me in a way no one else had ever dared.
“You’re whole,” he murmured, his voice rasped with something rougher than relief.
I could feel the slight tremor in his fingers, the way they traced my knuckles with careful precision, cataloging every ridge and valley of bone as if memorizing them. This wasn’t the touch of a mere acquaintance. This was the touch of someone who had feared loss and found salvation in the simplest of contacts.
“Did you think I wouldn’t be?” I asked, my voice smaller than I intended.
His thumb traced a slow circle on the back of my hand. “I only wanted to be sure.”
We sat like that, hand in hand through the stone wall that separated us, for what felt like hours but might have been minutes. Our thread hummed between us, its light casting shadows across my cell.
In that silence, something settled within me. A decision I hadn’t consciously made until that moment.
“I will escape here,” I said quietly, the words barely audible.
His hand remained steady in mine, neither tightening nor withdrawing. “I know.”
I turned my face toward the wall, pressing my forehead against the cool stone as if I could see through it to him. “I will not leave you.”
Now his fingers did tighten, almost painfully, around mine.
“Mireille —“ “No,” I interrupted, surprising myself with the strength in my voice. “I’ve made up my mind. I won’t leave you chained here.”
A breath escaped him. Not quite a laugh. Not quite a sigh. “You don’t understand what you’re promising.”
I tightened my grip, felt the restrained power in his hand, the ancient strength thrumming just beneath his skin. “Maybe not,” I conceded. “But I’m
promising it all the same.”
Silence.
When he finally spoke, the warmth had drained from his voice, leaving something harder in its place—something that rang with the weight of centuries.
“You forget what I am, little fawn,” he said, voice low and deadly quiet.
“I have told you, I am not kind. I am not good. And if you set me free, I will take my revenge on those who have wronged me. Without hesitation.
Without restraint.”
I didn’t flinch, didn’t move. I wasn’t afraid.
“Do not mistake the way I treat you for how I will treat the rest of the
world.”
He paused.
“Do not mistake me for something merciful.”
His thumb brushed over my knuckles again—soft, reverent. A contradiction made flesh.
And I held his hand tighter, knowing I would fight. For myself, for Death, for a future where we both walked free.
