Quentin didn’t notice how all encompassing the darkness was until it was gone. When he opened his eyes, the first thing he noticed was the lack of pain. After a lifetime of getting into constant scraps and being injured several times a week, aches and pains added up and became a personal song that followed him around. All of that was gone, and he marveled at just how little of anything he felt. That was his first clue that something wasn’t quite right.
The other was that he was laying in the street, staring straight up into an impossibly big moon, hanging full in the sky. Stars twinkled all around it, but it was the moon that caught his eye. He couldn’t remember it ever being that big or bright or making him feel this calm and content. More often than not he looked at the moon with vague resentment, like it was the cause of all his life’s problems. That was the second clue.
The night was bright enough to see clearly, but all the colors were washed out. As Quentin picked himself up off the ground, the nearby buildings seemed…duller, in a way. Less real. They were there, a quick touch to the clay proved, but maybe only because he believed they should be. He looked down and he was in an ordinary tunic, the kind he wore at home when not trying to impress anyone. His knife was gone, as was his purse and everything else. It was just him, alone, in a strange yet familiar part of town.
“Is anyone there?” he asked, soft voice destroying the delicate silence. No one answered him. No one was around. “Anyone at all?” he raised his voice, marveling at the way it echoed back to him. Nothing. Where was he? How did he get here?
Quentin wracked his brain for the last thing he remembered. It was fuzzy, hard to concentrate. He remembered fists the size of his head crashing down into him again and again, and then a face. Razia, crying over him as he fell into a bottomless pit. Then the darkness. That’s when it really hit Quentin. He was dead.
“Shit,” he groaned, covering his face with his hands. He rubbed at his eyes, mostly for the familiar gesture. He wasn’t hungry, or tired, or thirsty and that was unusual for him. Quentin was practically always hungry but then, he supposed there was nothing left to heal if he was already gone. Then the most horrifying thought of all hit him. If Quentin was dead, why could he still remember his life? He wasn’t supposed to be here, he was supposed to be gone forever.
A purely mental wave of stress and weakness made him clutch at a nearby house for support. Again, none of it was necessary, but it still felt natural. He took a deep breath he didn’t need and straightened himself up. “Is there anyone here?” He called out louder now. “Any shades here to drag me to atonement? I’m ready for hell, or whatever.”
No shades came out to attack him. Shrugging, Quentin did the only thing there was left to do: he explored his surroundings. After a few minutes of looking around for landmarks in a sea of cheap, ramshackle houses, he realized where he was. A crescent moon carved into the door by his mother reminded him of his childhood home, before everything went to shit. Hands trembling, he reached for the doorknob. The door creaked open, and he stepped inside.
Color returned to the world, going from a cold and dark blueish tint to a warm orange glow from the fireplace. The ghosts of aches and pains returned to him, and he smelled something good cooking. He ventured in deeper. If his heart could still beat it would’ve been pounding. There was the sound of someone then, fiddling with something in the kitchen. A second later a head peeked out, eyes widening at the sight of him. “Quentin?”
Quentin swallowed. “Mom?”
Sofia Quintius stood there, looking as he tried to remember her. Not as a skeletal husk, slipping away from life but as a vivacious, passionate woman who looked disturbingly close to him in age. She ran up to him, stopping just shy as she looked him up and down. “Gods,” she whispered. “You got huge!” His mother threw her arms around him and squeezed him. He squeezed her right back, tight enough to hurt if they’d been alive.
Quentin shrugged, backing up a little. Gods, this was weird. He wanted to cry tears of joy but they weren’t there. The joy was though, and it made it a little hard to be sad about his current status. “Pretty sure I’m dead,” he said. “Not sure how I’d be able to see you if I wasn’t. Dad’s…We stopped talking for a while, but he’s doing okay. Or was okay. I don’t know how he’ll react to this. Or Razia, for that matter.”
Sofia cocked her head to the side. “Razia?”
Smiling, Quentin sat down at the table. It was time to tell the story all over again, but he found that he didn’t mind. There were so many things he wanted to ask her and tell her, but it seemed like a good idea to go first. His mother seemed fairly well cut off from the world, and he didn’t know it worked here in the Darkstar’s realm. He talked until he ran out of words and Sofia still looked eager to hear more.
“Wow, Quentin. I can’t believe what kind of life you’ve had. And I’m sorry you’ve had to go through all of that.”
Quentin shrugged, smiling. “I’m beginning to understand what dad always meant when he said bad times make for good stories. Just didn’t think I’d ever be telling them to you. What’s…What’s it like here? Are you alone?”
Sofia smiled back, shaking her head. “Not alone, no. Things are…Different here. Time doesn’t pass the same, I think. I’ll be on my own for a while, just reading or cooking and then suddenly I’ll get a bug up my ass to go for a walk and I’ll visit your grandma, or some of my cousins. I thought they never forgave me for leaving Carolas, but turns out being dead is great for mellowing some people out.”
“You know, I can imagine it,” he said.
“And sometimes they’ll come for me. It’s not…” She looked down, biting her lip thoughtfully. “It’s not one unified experience. It’s like a really intricate dream, always changing and coming and going in swells, like waves crashing against the beach. It’s nice though. I’m happy enough. I wish I didn’t have to leave you two so soon, but I wouldn’t change what I did for anything.”
Quentin paused. “What did you do, mom?”
Sofia’s smile turned a little sad, but it didn’t fade. “What I had to, to make sure you could grow up to be big and strong. Even if it meant missing out on all of it. I’m glad I got to see you here and now, if only for a little bit. She kept her word and then some.”
“She? She who?” Quentin asked, though he dreaded knowing the answer.
Sofia Quintius stood up, motioning for Quentin to go as well. She hugged him again, letting out a sigh. “You’ll see. I made the deal and I don’t regret it. Not for one second. I’m sorry we don’t have more time together, but I thought you should get eased into it.”
“Eased into what?”
She shook her head, chuckling. “I’m probably already saying too much. Why don’t you take a nice walk to clear your head and go home? It’ll all be clear then. And after that, you can either come back here and we’ll spend as much time as you like together…Or I’ll see you in a few decades.”
Quentin didn’t know what to make of it, but he didn’t like it. He allowed himself to be ushered to the door, and bent over so his mom could kiss his cheek. “Go home?”
“Go home,” she confirmed, gently pushing him out the door. He stared at the crescent moon, dreading what awaited him at home, but he got moving.
He had a feeling he knew what waited for him in his home, and he didn’t like it one bit. Of course, not knowing for sure was the worst part, far worse than merely being dead. He wanted to scream and complain about only getting to speak to his mother for…How long had he been in there? The time seemed fuzzy, and was already half faded into nothing more than pleasant thoughts. That worried him worse. What if he was walking into a trap? What reason did he have to believe the afterlife Orchrisus was any safer than the real thing?
His feet carried him across the city, from his childhood home on the south side to the great bridge Quentin had run across to save Razia. Even now the bridge filled him with a sense of foreboding. But as he walked, there was no one else there to greet him or watch him or anything. He was alone in a washed out world, with each bit of the city’s life minimized. He wondered if that was how it always was, or if it was just like that for him.
His anxiety grew worse the closer he got to home and the more alien everything around him seemed. Down south, it was fine for it to be empty. It reminded him of the quiet winter nights he’d be allowed out to roam the streets with his father, when everyone else was asleep. Up north, he was used to a constant bustle as thousands of people were around every single day. Seeing these streets quiet was downright unnerving. His home, on the other, was a welcome sight.
As he went through the empty courtyard and entered his house through the garden like always, the same thing that happened at his mother’s house happened here. Color returned to the house as he crossed the threshold, still dim and muted because that’s how he kept his house, but the blue tint was gone. He felt more alive here, more solid and physical. On the edges of his perception, there was even pain. A lot of it. It was almost comforting.
Looking around, he was still alone. The house was empty and silent. It was a gut feeling that brought him to his bedroom. He stepped inside, and had the curious experience of looking down at his own dead body. “Gods,” he said, wincing. “I look awful.”
“Yes,” a soft, beautiful, harsh voice said. A voice that existed on the edges of his senses, too big to fully perceive as anything other than a whisper. “You took quite the beating, Quentin.”
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Quentin whirled to find another person in the room. She was eight feet tall, and as pale as he was. Her eyes, her lips, and her long, flowing hair were a rich, blood red that seemed to suck in the color around them. Dainty, graceful hands were steepled in front of her stomach. The giant woman looked serene, and even pleased to see him. He couldn’t say the same. “Who the hell are you?” he asked.
The woman chuckled, shaking her head. “You know me, I think,” she said. “Take a guess.”
The only answer coming to him was one he greatly disliked. Quentin swallowed, staring up at her with undisguised fear and even bitterness. “You’re the Darkstar,” he said. “Goddess of death and the afterlife.”
She inclined her head. “You may call me Tsaba.”
His mothers words came back to him then. A deal she struck, one she didn’t regret. Quentin’s stomach dropped as he realized what it meant. “You,” he said. “You really did bring me back as a baby, didn’t you? My mother made a deal with you to give me life.”
“Yes.”
It was like someone punched him in the gut. His knees wobbled and he fell onto the bed, sitting right beside himself. With shaking hands he covered his mouth. Maybe he didn’t have all the same biological needs as when he was alive, but Quentin could still feel anger and a desire to laugh, to cry, to destroy this version of his room and scream in the face of a goddess. He did none of those things. He spoke, saying the only word he could manage to get out. “Why?”
The Darkstar took a seat on the bed next to him. “Because your mother was so upset she was honestly considering taking her own life anyway. Because you were just a baby, born with your umbilical cord wrapped around your throat. You didn’t even have a chance to live. And maybe because you were born on my day. A mother, grieving for her child on the day of my rebirth? How could I resist?” Her voice was cool and pleasant, but not detached. As soft as thunder and as terrible as a parent’s love.
“I thought I was a savant,” said Quentin, fists clenching. “After all those years of thinking I was a freak, I finally had an answer that was okay. An answer I could live with.”
“You are a savant,” the Darkstar said. “That’s the word you use for anyone touched by the gods, at least. Be it through direct intervention or being my children’s children’s children. In your case, it’s both. You are descended from one of the first men and me, and I directly intervened. I gave you life, and plenty of it.”
His skin itched. It shouldn’t have been possible, but it did. Quentin wanted to pick and pull and tear at himself. Despite being dead and beyond his body now, he felt distinctly unclean. “So everything people said about me, it’s true,” he said, voice lifeless. “I was dead and brought back, and in return it killed my mother. I’m moonkissed.”
“You are,” she confirmed. “You are blessed. Your mother willingly gave up her life to give it to you. I am the goddess of death, not of life. I cannot create life, but I can manipulate it. She gave freely, everything she had to make sure you had the life she felt you deserved. And because it was my day and I could feel her love, I gave you everything I could. You might be marked, but you would be the healthiest child in the world for as long as you lived.”
“Well, it was nice while it lasted,” he said, laughing bitterly.
Tsaba wasn’t laughing. Her tone and mood remained tranquil and even fond towards him. That was the weirdest part of all. Quentin got the impression of something so much larger and more powerful than him, but he could also feel her affection, the same way he felt it from his mother when he hugged her. She cleared her throat. “You say that like it’s over.”
Quentin looked at his own battered and broken body. He gestured to it, raising an eyebrow. “I’m pretty sure Christophe killed me. If it wasn’t the beating, then it was the sword through my stomach.” He risked touching himself. His body felt warmer and more real than anything else in this moonlit world. Quentin pulled the blanket down and saw the wound in his stomach, flesh parted but no blood coming out, and no rot either.
“Yes, you’re mostly dead right now,” she confirmed, “but you don’t have to be.”
“I don’t?” Quentin poked himself again. He shuddered and turned away. It was too weird to think about.
“You could always heal back up. You still have quite a bit of life to burn through before you’ve got nothing left.”
That was…What? “Please explain,” said Quentin.
Tsaba inclined her head. “When your mother made the trade, she offered everything she was to give you life. I added my own touch. You are protected from illness and you can heal any wound at an accelerated rate, at the cost of burning some of your remaining time left. As of now, you’ve burned 19 years of your life on healing your wounds in the past. 20 once you wake up this time. If you choose to wake up.”
This was all too much to take in at once. Quentin took a deep breath and tried to wrap his head around it. “Are you saying that I won’t die until I’ve run out of time?”
“Oh no, you can die,” Tsaba laughed, the sound like the tinkling of crystal. “If someone burns you to ashes or cuts your head off or thoroughly dismembers you, there’s no healing a completely destroyed body. But for the kind of antics you and your friends get up to, you should be fine. Even from this. But barring the destruction of your body, you’ll keep coming back, until you don’t.”
The thought was scary, somehow. Here he was, already dead and worrying about running out of time. He was only thirty one, and he burned off 20 years of life? “How much time do I have left?” Quentin asked.
The Darkstar shrugged. “Hard for me to say. It’s based entirely off of your choices and your lifestyle, now isn’t it? I will say this…You will never be an old man, Quentin Quintius.”
The weight of everything he’d learned pressed down on him. His own unnatural life, his strange power, the fact that Razia dragged his corpse back with her and had him in bed. He was glad he was dead, it was possibly the only thing keeping him calm. But even that would end soon, apparently. “How long have I been dead?” he asked. “And how long will it take to come back?”
“You’ve been between life and death for six days now. It will take considerable time and energy to heal away this death. However, I believe your friends are helping speed it along as we speak. It will not be a pleasant experience.”
Quentin snorted. “As if any of my life has been pleasant.”
The Darkstar raised an eyebrow. “Has it really been so bereft of joy? Have you nothing to live for, nothing to make you happy?”
He looked down. “Okay, fine, things have been better, but it was still a rough start. Because of you, even. What…What would’ve happened if I did die as a baby, instead of you breathing life back into me?”
“Your soul was still fresh, so you would’ve been reborn before too long. But then you wouldn’t be the same you, and your mother would’ve died of heartbreak. I believe you were worth the chance of saving.”
“Why though?” Quentin looked back at his body again. “There must be hundreds or even thousands of babies who die every day. Why me?”
The Darkstar was silent for a second before she stood up. “What do you know of my sister, the Whisperer?”
The Whisperer, goddess of the deep dark places, of secrets and magic and prophecy. “Not much,” he said. “Just what we learn in the temple.”
She nodded. “My sister has foreseen great unrest coming soon. Very soon. For five hundred years my brothers and sisters and I have been limited, held back from intervening in the world.”
“Ever since the Warcaller’s Mirth,” Quentin finished for her. It made sense. Gods, his dad was going to be pissed to find out they were real and did watch out for them.
The Darkstar smiled. “Yes. But even though we weren’t allowed, we…we care for humanity. We wish to be good to you, and it was because of our excesses you suffered. So we allow ourselves a small amount of times to intervene, each year. Yours was one of them, and it was in part due to your mother’s grief and in part due to my sister’s visions. I may have need of you, Quentin Quintius. We all might. And because of that, I’m allowed to offer you a special opportunity.
“In the dark times ahead, I wish for you to be my mortal champion, my right hand on Carlossa. You’ll carry out my wishes and protect your people against the return of an old foe. In exchange, I will bless you further. You’ll heal faster and more cleanly, and you will be granted wisdom beyond compare. If you accept, your little street war against the giant and his shaper friend will be nothing to you.”
Gods, that was tempting. The opportunity to not just come back, but to get revenge for himself and put a stop to the danger. To no longer have to worry about Razia’s past haunting them. He could just deal with it and be done with it in one go. But…Then what? “What about the Garden?” Quentin asked. “If I’m your champion, how much time would I get to spend at home?”
Tsaba’s smile was oddly warm for how cool she looked. “As much as I could spare. I won’t lie and say that you won’t be spending lots of time away from home. You’d be traveling, fighting against a great evil, nigh unstoppable with my power behind you. You could be a great force for good in the world, if you choose.”
“And if I don’t?”
“Then you’ll still heal up. You’ll wake up in a lot of pain and have to heal more slowly and painfully than if you had my power. You’ll probably throw yourself back into the fight and life will go on, with your life burning away every time you injure yourself. You’ll have freedom, but you won’t have as much time.”
Quentin had to think about it. He got up and paced across his room, feeling a bit silly for it but valuing the familiar expressions of anxiety. The worst and best part of it all was the calm he couldn’t seem to shake, no matter how troubled he was. It didn’t take him long to get his answer, but he still feared giving it.
“I’ve spent my entire life dreading what could be true about me,” he said, voice wavering. “Ever since I was a child, everyone told me I was touched and I didn’t want to believe it. I didn’t want it to be true. I still don’t. You and my mother gave me a second chance, but you cursed me to a lifetime of pain, fighting, and for what? So I could be a pawn against some great evil coming? I…I’m not ungrateful for my second chance, but I never wanted anything to do with you. Not ever.”
He expected anger, or resentment, something from the goddess, but she just nodded. “I understand. The offer will remain for the foreseeable future. If your struggle gets to be too much just…” Her lips quirked up in an amused smile. “Well, you can either die again to come see me, or you could go to the temple. That might be easier and less painful.”
Quentin nodded, chuckling a little. He looked back at his body. “Has everyone been okay without me?” he asked.
“They’ll be better with you back. Think on my offer, Quentin Quintius. I’ve given you a great gift, but you still might fail if you’re not careful. With my help, victory will be yours.”
“I’ll think about it,” Quentin lied. “For now? I’m ready to go back.”
The Darkstar nodded. “Ordinarily it might take you as much as another week, but I think it’s just about time. You have amazing companions, do you know that?”
Quentin was about to answer that he did, when warmth filled him. Hotter and hotter until it was a fire that consumed him. He opened his mouth to scream, and then the world turned white.