Zachariah

Four Days Earlier.

How did you get here, Zachariah? I thought bitterly, massaging my temple.

“You didn’t wait very long,” Death said dryly, looking at me through red and black eyes.

My head spun as I got used to my surroundings, wondering at the fact that the whole world had changed in a matter of a few days. Just a few minutes really. My mind was made up, but I wasn’t sure I was a clever enough man for all of this.

“Welcome to Purgatory, Zachariah,” Death said, rising from a throne carved at the base of a tree amidst the plants of the night garden. They seemed to reach toward her, flourishing and twisting along the ground. She approached me on long legs as my heart thundered in my chest.

“Now what can I do for one my Marked?” Death asked, reaching me at last. I swallowed, my mind still catching up to what just happened.

One minute I was sparring with Rowena, and the next I was speaking to a Goddess. I may have been in Purgatory, but I was also in Hell.

How did I get here? I asked myself again as I tried to get reoriented, my breathing rushing out all at once as it finally hit me.

Oh, I remember now.

*******

“Don’t!” Rowena bellowed the second I revealed my Mark, her voice cracking in the cold dry air. She rushed at me, and I felt myself dodging on instinct. She managed to flip in the air, kicking at my neck and my arm went numb from the impact. Growling, I twisted and locked my fingers around her ankle, turning in a wide arc and dragging her with me.

I didn’t know if I’d ever been this angry with Rowena, even as I tossed her into the snow. None too gently. But it wasn’t her attacking me or the fight that made me angry.

The Royal family was ordering an army’s worth of Elemancy weapons to be created. Luradia was going to war against my kin. My family, distant as they were. Even though I was an outcast, their blood still flowed in my veins. Elemancers were extremely strong and hard to kill, but not even they could survive an entire army sacking them village by village with weapons that mimicked their abilities.

This war needed to end before it started, which meant we needed to act. Now.

And Rowena wanted me to wait. To ignore the power that laid dormant on my skin. It was wrong. I knew it, and so did she.

Rowena fought like an animal when she let her emotions control her, and now was one of those times. She rolled, snarling at me with her landing. Meanwhile, I stood in front of the door to her home, listening to Myra approach from the inside. Rowena charged at me like a bull, training forgotten, and I side-stepped just in time for Myra to open the door.

The women fell together in an ungraceful heap, Myra yelping like a banshee.

Retreating a few steps, I tried to calm myself down. After a few breaths I held a hand up, warding off Rowena’s next attack. Some reason returned to her eyes then, her breathing as ragged as my own.

Rowena wasn’t going to stop me from using a Mark from the Gods. If Rowena couldn’t use her magic to stop this war, then I would get some of my own. I was certain any of the Gods would want to keep humanity and Elemancers from fighting again. It was what they did when they first created the Deified anyway. None of them wanted this war–

"That Mark is Death's, Zachariah. She has no interest in helping you. Trust me," Rowena murmured, cutting off my thoughts.

My body went still as her words hit me.

Hells. None of the Gods wanted this war. Except that one. Death.

My brows knitted together as Rowena and Myra talked, Myra demanding some sort of explanation and Rowena doing her best to ignore her.

"I'm Death's Chosen, Zachariah. It was...It was a mistake. I'd give anything to take it back," Rowena explained further, and I could see the pain which haunted her boiling near the surface. The pain she masked with razor-sharp wit and flying fists.

Rowena had become like a sister to me. The closest that anyone had ever come to a constant in my life. There was once a time where I wished we could have been more, but the second I saw the way Rowena and Fayra look at one another, I had let that dream wither before taking root.

"There's no winning in a deal with Death, Zachariah. She got Fayra, and she has me. Don't let her get you too."

Rowena looked at me, her face more open than it had been since Fayra died. The Mark on my neck seemed to pulse as we looked at one another, several things settling into place at once.

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Rowena was a different person before Fayra died. She had changed everything about herself, turning from the path of the healer she had fought so hard to be. I had originally thought it was revenge and grief that drove her, but it was something far darker than that.

Death owned her until she paid for her freedom with souls. Whether that took a thousand years, or ten.

I had felt helpless this entire time. It started the moment that Fayra left on the bounty that led to her death, and it got worse when Rowena rode out of Tumblend. Running from her own morality.

Everyone I grew to care about seemed doomed to die too soon. My father. Fayra. And now Rowena was suffering a fate worse than death.

But maybe I could finally do something about this. Something besides hiding myself in my tavern.

The answer came to me, and I acted, praying to the Gods in my mind and feeling the Mark pulse on my neck. Feeling light trail up to my eyes in the way distinctive of the Deified.

And then the world faded.

*******

Death’s Purgatory was beautiful in a way, but something was still very wrong with it. I tried to place what made this place feel unnatural as the silence stretched and stretched.

And then it hit me.

There were no animals here. No birdsong. No rustle of rodents in the leaves. No padding of hooves on soft soil. My Elemancer blood normally loved the forest, but I hated this place the moment my soul gazed upon it.

It was disturbing to be in a place that had so many flowers, trees, and herbs and yet still felt so…so…

Dead.

Pointing at my Mark, I drew in a deep breath before I spoke.

“I will not negotiate for what I want. You must either give it to me, or I want nothing else from you," I said in a strong voice. Death’s lips lifted in a surprisingly charming smile.

“You dare to give me orders in my own realm?” she asked, something swirling in her dark orbs. I kept my face blank, trying to keep my nerve. I didn’t like the way she was looking at me. It was the look a bear gave to a fox when it was trying to steal its meal.

Not daring to answer her question, I took another deep breath.

“I want you to forgive Rowena’s debt to you. I want you to set her free,” I said bluntly, my hands curling into fists.

Death blinked at me before starting to chuckle, the sound like a knife scraping at my bones. I didn’t join her in her mirth, just waiting for her to be done.

“Never in thousands years,” Death said, turning from me and resettling herself on her throne, “Has any being asked me for something I was not willing to part with. You have my compliments”

My heart sank, but I kept my silence. Waiting.

“Come now,” Death said, leaning her head on a hand, “You didn’t honestly think it would be that easy, did you?”

Tightening my jaw, I endured another round of soft chuckles from her until they faded, echoing into the gloom. Finally, she looked expectantly at me.

“Ask for something else,” she said simply when I still said nothing.

Alarm bells went off in my head, warning me to be careful. I didn’t want my emotions to cloud my reasoning.

“I told you,” I began calmly, my voice low, “That I didn’t want anything else.”

The red in Death’s gaze glowed for the smallest moment. She was taller than I expected, and her throne was raised. I was at the foot of a mountain, staring at its peak with Death’s eyes staring back. Never in my life did I feel so small. So insignificant.

“You are mortal. Your mind will change. They always do. Eventually,” Death said evenly, reclining in her seat and raising a hand my way, “But if that is all for now, they I will send you back–”

Taking a step forward, I mounted the small incline to her throne.

“No.”

Death paused, her hand motionless as all humor faded from face.

“No?” she asked, the temperature dropping in the night garden. My breath started to come out in white clouds.

I took another step toward her pointing to my neck where my Mark laid.

“Take it off.”

The air was definitely cold now, Death's eyes dilating to a thin ring of red in a pool of blackness. The plants around me started to die one by one, the garden changing as the Goddess before me aged with it. She became a skeleton with leathery skin stretched tight over her bones, the plants now husks of what they once were.

"You dare to spun my gift," Death said, and it was not a question. A shiver crept up my spine, but I refused to repeat myself. Ruler of the afterlife or no. Goddess or no Goddess, this thing before me was evil. I could feel it radiating off her like the stench off a corpse. There was no denying it now.

"I've seen what your gifts do," I said quietly. Right before I took another step forward. I knew the ways of Olde. I knew the insult I was throwing at her in that moment, but I felt a taste of Rowena's recklessness now. I couldn't bring myself to care.

The plants around me started to grow again suddenly, brown shoots turning green once more. Death changed as well, skin reforming on yellow bone. Long black hair grew over a younger face, but those eyes never changed. Not even once. Shadows curled around her as I felt power pulse from her in waves. The entire realm seemed to shift with her, and a shard of fear pierced through my stubbornness. But it was too late. Death came toward me, taller than me by over a foot despite the childish form she now wore.

She halted, staring down at me with glowing red rings. Several heartbeats passed before she lifted her hand toward my neck.

She's going to destroy me, I thought, squeezing my eyes shut. I had overstepped, and now my very essence was going to be ripped apart for it. I had hoped to outsmart a Goddess, but now I realized how idiotic that was.

Fingers like glacier ice touched my neck. And then I was screaming, the cold scorching where she touched. I was on my knees without realizing it, and distantly I heard lighting crackle across the sky. I thought I heard Death growl a feint curse, but I couldn't be sure. I was writhing in the worst pain possible, screaming and screaming.

And then her hands were gone.

My head lifted just in time to see Death holding a shadowy silhouette of her Mark in her palm. She considered it for another moment before lowering it to the inside of her forearm, where it stood in stark contrast to her pale skin. I watched as the Goddess of Death branded herself with her own Mark, the inky blackness seeping onto it. Then she met my confused gaze again, her face splitting into a predatory grin.

"For safe keeping," she explained before stooping to meet my eyes, a single finger going to my forehead.

"Until next time," she said before touching the space between my eyes.

And as I landed back in the material plane, I couldn't decide if I just won something, or made things a thousand times worse.