“I- I’m…

  “Surprised?” asked Death, straightening the blood-red scarf around her neck.

  Keldon took a step back.

  “Why…you shouldn’t be here… why are you here?!” said Keldon.

  Death descended from her throne. She gave Keldon a wistful smile, full of sickening mystery. Something was off, why did she look so expressive?

  “Was she masking herself from me when we met before?” thought Keldon.

  She was a raindrop, falling from the sky with grace. The lantern on the end of her shepherd’s crook creaked as it swayed in the breeze. Each step a ghastly tap.

  She stood level with Keldon, floating mere inches from the earth. But despite standing on the same level from each other, there was no clearer difference in the sheer magnitude of presence that Death exuded. Every bleeding inch of his body quaked in fear, a primordial instinct that screamed to him from the deepest recesses of his brain.

  “Isn’t it obvious? I’m here for you,” said Death. Her voice was sweet like a sickly rose. Keldon’s stomach churned as he took another step back.

  His legs were noodles as he threw up his arms in defense position, mustering up the energy to summon Karyx. But honestly, what could he do in the face of literal Death?

  Death chuckled, covering her mouth with her hand.

  “My apologies old friend. I didn’t mean it like that,”

  “I’m not your friend,” said Keldon.

  But somehow, Keldon saw a twinge of sadness in her starlit eyes. A silky cacophony of-

  “Ow!” yelped Keldon, as a pebble pinged him on the head.

  “Hey, remember what we said before? Not the eyes,” said Death, pointing to her forehead. “Keep your attention between the eyebrows. At least until you can get a better grip on the names.”

  Oh right. Ars had said that when he met the two of them in his vision around the campfire. It had only been a couple of short weeks since then, but with everything that went on, it felt like an eternity.

  “Is this another vision?” asked Keldon, looking around him.

  He crouched down, running his fingers through the soil. It felt like dirt. He lifted the soil to his nose, taking in the scent of rusty iron and earthy minerals. Without taking his eyes away from between her eyebrows, he gave the soil a little lick. It had a strong metallic taste to it, most likely for the mountain of obvious reasons in front of him.

  “Are you done?” asked Death.

  Again, Keldon couldn’t help but let his skin crawl at the implications.

  “What do you mean by done?” asked Keldon, squinting his eyes at Death as he took another step back.

  Death rolled her eyes.

  “This isn’t a vision, I’m really here. Well, as here as I can be,” said Death.

  “There it is again,” thought Keldon.

  Something really was off. The last few times that he’d encountered Death, she’d been all aloof and mysterious. There was this natural mystical stoicism to her demeanor that exuded this aura of sophisticated grace. But now, she was well… for lack of a better term. She felt somewhat human. Frankly, it gave Keldon the creeps.

  “Uh-huh…, okay nope nope, no way. I don’t like this,” said Keldon, backing away.

  “Something the matter old friend?” said Death.

  “Stop calling me that, I don’t know you,” said Keldon.

  Death softened her gaze, looking at Keldon with conflicting emotions.

  “But you do. We share a much stronger bond of destiny than you or I could ever hope. For better, or for worse.”

  Fear gripped his hands. His palms grew clammy as lines of worry crossed his face.

  “Now now, is that any way to look at someone who helped save your life?” said Death.

  She held out her finger and from the corner of Keldon’s eye, the small black butterfly fluttered by his head and landed on Death’s finger.

  “If you didn’t call for me back then, who knows what would have happened to you and Bertram,” said Death.

  “Back at the hissings…” Keldon murmured. “That was you?”

  “Fitting that my name would be the first you call upon,”

  Keldon’s memories flashed to the vivid feeling of utter power that he wielded that fateful day. The quake of hooves, the mass of black fur and terror charging at him, and the raw visceral pain that shook him to his core.

  His mind raced at the surge of implications. But the wave of information crashed into him. He went to speak, but his words knotted in his throat.

  “H-how long…” said Keldon, unable to squeak out even a single sentence.

  “You’ve always been a curious child. Wanting to know even if it kills you inside,” said Death.

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  Keldon gulped.

  “S-since I was a child?” asked Keldon.

  “You’re a special case,” said Death. “I usually don’t get to meet most people until they’ve already arrived in the Great Beyond. Most of the time.”

  “I’m special…? Why?”

  “Now that’s a good question, isn’t it? Why. Why pick me? Why do I have to be the hero? Tell me what makes me so wonderfully perfect.”

  “I didn’t say that!"

  “You didn’t need to,” said Death.

  It was a dagger in Keldon’s chest, he felt his anger rise from the bottom of his chest. Heat coursed through his body and passion filled his mind. Adrenaline. Anger. The sheer indignity of humiliation!

  “Stand down Karyx, I won’t hurt him,” said Death, waving her hand.

  And just as quickly as those feelings came, they vanished. He was no longer able to hear the pounding of blood in his ears. What just happened, he didn't call Karyx but it had risen from inside him. But now, the energy and heat that held him strong was stripped away, leaving a hollow, terrified Keldon.

  “What did you do,” whispered Keldon.

  “Fear not, Karyx hasn’t left you. We just needed some alone time.”

  Keldon tried to draw on the heat and passion of the name of fire. He grasped at the tails of surging power and adrenaline. But it was like grains of sand, slipping through his fingers. His body trembled, fearing the uncertainty that was to come next.

  Death tucked a strand of silvery hair behind her ears.

  “Terrifying, isn’t it? Having to pass through the iron gates that kept you safe without knowing what lies ahead,” said Death.

  She reached into her undulating lantern, pulling from the swirling orange and black void of infinity, a ghostly white needle.

  “…without knowing who you truly are.”

  Death held her hand out to the mountain of broken blades. Sickly green and black energy stretched from the mass of rusted iron, coalescing in Death’s hand.

  Suddenly, a bright light shone from her palm as the energy was purified, turning into a rich deep violet.

  Keldon threw up his arms, shielding his eyes from the violent light. After a few moments of blindness later, the light faded. He rubbed the blur from his eyes, opening them to find Death pulling from the ball of violet like a spool of thread.

  She wove the needle and thread with expertise, creating an ephemeral fabric from pure essence in her hands.

  Death swept her gaze across the field of blades, taking in the night air.

  “I’ve nearly forgotten what it was like to feel with such humanistic emotion, yet I still can’t quite figure you out. How amazingly shameless you are Keldon, to chase redemption yet still receive full credit for becoming a hero.”

  His anger got caught in his throat, unable to speak.

  “Have you never noticed? Not once have you spoken of stopping the Final Calamity for the sake of your fellow brothers and sisters. Only to become a hero.”

  Those words were venom to Keldon’s heart. The painful memories crippled him as his legs gave out and Keldon collapsed to his knees. Chaos flooded his mind. Vivid memories of the Stringston slaughter surfaced violently, shaking his core.

  Running… so much running. Proud Luther, pinned to the ground like a dog. Luther, passing on his legacy. Monstrous Divine. Cold flesh. An arrow piercing through the back of Tianna’s skull, her crimson blood oozing out into the soil and staining the earth a deep red. Bloodied Rags. Leaving his second family behind.

  Begging for his life.

  Fear.

  Fear.

  Pain.

  Fear.

  “Please…no more,” whimpered Keldon.

  Death walked over, pulling Keldon into her embrace.

  “Shhh. It’s okay little one, I’m not here to hurt you,” said Death.

  Keldon wanted to push her away, bury these feelings of guilt and regret back inside where they belonged. There was so much shame. Tendrils of anguish swam up from the depths of his subconscious. They strangled Keldon’s voice.

  “I-I…” he stammered.

  But as much as the hate within him burned at Death for resurfacing his memories. He hated himself more. In the end, she spoke not a word of untruth.

  She was right.

  During his vision in the grand hall, he wanted to abandon Raul to the Devoidling. He knew that there was no consequence for running. Moral or otherwise. Yet when Keldon chose to stay, he didn’t stay for Raul. He stayed for himself. To prove he’d changed.

  What sweet lies.

  He looked down the long blade of his shame. Its sharp blade drew blood at his throat. Keldon stood in front of a titan, at the mercy of his guilt.

  “I know…” said Keldon, his voice coarse and rough.

  “I know you know,” said Death.

  Keldon sat in silence, his mind pushed to its limit and his emotions carved from his naked heart and etched on his sleeve.

  “Then what now…” croaked Keldon.

  He needed those comforting lies. He needed to believe that he needed to be a hero. He needed to believe that there was something left in his Gods forsaken life that he still needed to fight for. Otherwise, what would be left?

  Nothing but a vile traitor who killed the people he loved.

  Death said nothing, merely stroking her fingers through Keldon’s hair instead.

  “what now…” croaked Keldon.

  She tucked a strand of his messy brown hair behind his ears and pulled him tighter, squeezing the tears from his soul.

  Salty tears streamed from his eyes. He was stuck in the rushing river of his emotions, desperately grasping at anything he could to keep his head above the water. But he came up empty. The only thing he held was utter contempt for himself.

  Despicable, disgusting, worthless Keldon.

  For a few tender moments, only Keldon’s quiet sobbing filled the air. The cool summer breeze sent raised goosebumps on his back. Only death shielded him from the gust of a summer’s night wind.

  Finally, she spoke.

  “My capacity for emotion is of a thin sheet of ice over a clawing ocean of injustice,” said Death.

  “However, there is one thing I’ve come to understand about your kind. That your lies are the same as your truths, and that your mind will punish you for believing in either,”

  Keldon waited for Death to continue, but she spoke no more.

  “And then what...”

  “And then nothing old friend,” said Death. “You must find the answer for yourself.”

  “I believe a good friend of yours has already started you down the path,” said Death.

  “A good friend…” murmured Keldon.

  Salem’s voice echoed in the back of his mind.

  “Sometimes guilt is enough to get you started…” he thought.

  He’d already made a promise to Salem. Find the meaning of Emily's notes. Seize destiny by his own hands, even if those hands were covered by the blood of innocents.

  Keldon wiped the tears from his face. Death released him from her comfort with a look of self-satisfaction.

  His emotions were in turmoil. Conflicting ebbs and flows of grief and humiliation. But despite it all. Despite the truth. Despite the purple lies and bitter comfort. There was a touch of peace knowing that he could still go on. That he still had the strength to stand on his shaky legs.

  At least for now.

  Keldon took a deep breath, squeezing his hand into fists and closing his eyes.

  “Sorry,”

  “Apologies are for an inappropriate social convention of your kind’s,” said Death. “You have committed no sin for being human in my eyes.”

  Now that his head had cleared up a bit, Keldon gave Death another look up and down. A bit of color flushed back in his cheeks. He started to fidget with the hem of his cloak, realizing that he’d gotten his new tunic dirty. It didn’t matter to him at the moment, but it was kind of embarrassing to cry into the shoulders of Death itself. Keldon shook the thought from his mind, knowing it’d only make things more complicated if he dwelled on the thought too long.

  He sat for a moment, stewing in his thoughts.

  “So, if what you say is true, if you didn’t appear in the flesh to make me sob like a baby, then why are you here?”

  Death hummed in contemplation.

  “It’s best if I just show you.”

  She grabbed her shepherd’s crook and tapped it on the ground, sending ripples of power through the earth as the atmosphere grew dark and tense. Suddenly, hundreds of thousands of wilted roses appeared under Keldon’s feet and the field of broken blades disappeared.

  Keldon looked around to find himself in a crater hundreds of houses high, buried up to his knees in a cloud of fine white dust. The air was dead and still. No wind. No moisture. His body rejected the very earth he stood on, as Keldon took in the gravity of a bleached world.