“It’s a very long, highly complex—”
“Highlights version, Liam. Let’s start there.”
Liam waited a beat, then finally released my hands. He exhaled deeply and closed his eyes.
“I’ve told you before I’m not exactly as I seem,” he said. “And that is only a modicum of my treachery. But it is where we must begin.” He opened his eyes again, twin blue orbs that burned with new intensity and locked onto my gaze as if that alone could keep us from falling apart. “I was human once, Gray. A shadowborn, like you. In some respects, I’mstillhuman.”
Briefly I wondered if that was the worst of it, but the fierce look in his eyes said otherwise.
I sat down on the bench and nodded for him to continue, unable to look away, to blink, to breathe.
Liam sat across from me and wove his tale. At first, each sentence came at an agonizingly slow pace, then built up, layer upon layer, finally rushing out in a deluge, so many confessions and images and beginnings and endings I could barely grasp a single thread.
“…and that is simply because Death is neither a being nor an entity,” he was saying, “but an immensely honorable appointment—one which I was supposed to offer to you. Upon your acceptance, I would then transfer my responsibilities to you and resume the mortal life I relinquished millennia ago—in a different vessel than my original, of course. Instead, I withheld that choice from you, and as a result, watched you endure untold horrors, much of which could have been avoided if only I’d been straightforward about your destiny from the onset…”
Liam babbled on about the dawn of man and witchcraft and Shadow magic and Death’s great big capital-R Responsibilities on the ever-turning wheel of life, but I was lost, my head spinning as I tried in vain to keep up, my ears ringing from the impossibly loud beat of my heart. Tears gathered in my eyes, but I had no idea why I felt so sad. So lost.
Finally, after the pale sky had turned black and the obsidian sea reformed in a glassy sheet beneath us, reflecting the wrongness of a million red stars, Liam paused to take a breath.
“Say something, Gray. Please.” He reached for my face, his fingers stopping just short of my cheek.
“What… what are you?” I whispered. It was the only question that came to mind. A starting point at the center of a vast labyrinth I wasn’t sure I could escape.
“I am Shadowborn, like you. A human. At least, I was. As I’ve said, that identity becomes murky once a human dons the mantle of Death.”
“But… when?” I asked, wondering if he was as old as Darius and Ronan. Did he have a life before? A family? Did he remember them? Miss them? Had they been made to believe he’d died in an accident, like Darius’s family had? “How long ago were you human?”
“In terms of years, I don’t know. I no longer process time the same way humans do. But I can tell you that it was so long ago, I scarcely recalled the simple joys of evenbeinghuman. When I felt the call of your power across the realms, I knew only that the time had come for me to reclaim my humanity, live out the end of my days, and eventually find my soul’s peace.”
“The call of my power? How—” But my words evaporated as the realization hit. It must’ve been the night I’d inadvertently resurrected Bean in the alley. He’d been there—the dark raven who’d watched me touch her soul. The same one who’d appeared in Sophie’s room the night she’d been murdered. He’d transformed before my eyes into the hooded figure I later learned was Death, and we’d been entangled in each other’s lives ever since.
“Ah. I see you are beginning to understand.” He almost sounded relieved.
He was wrong, though. I didn’t understand at all. If anything, I was more confused than ever. Human? I couldn’t have heard him right. “But you’re… you’re Death. The Great Transformer, older than time, vaster than the seas, more illuminating than a thousand and one suns.”
“Yes. Death is all of those things and more. So much more. Soverymuch more, in fact, that the energy of such a being cannot possibly be contained by a single entity. Boiled down to its very essence, Death is but another role. That is what I’m trying to explain.”
“A role? Like a job? Liam, you’re not making any sense.”
“Sparing you the specifics, it happens thusly: In an ancient rite as old as existence, the mantle of Death is passed down from one Shadowborn to another of their choosing, revealed only when the time is right. It was bestowed upon me many, many centuries ago by the Shadowborn who’d held the position before me. So yes, itisa job. The loneliest, most difficult job one could ever be tasked with, as well as the very highest honor. To wear the cloak of shadows and balance the great scales of life is a responsibility few are ever given the opportunity to consider. None who’ve been called to serve have ever refused.”
“Couldthey refuse?”
“Of course. To wear the mantle of Death is a choice. One that is entered into freely and fully informed, or not at all.”
My head was spinning again. Of all the things Liam had ever shared with me, of all the lessons he’d imparted, this was the most baffling. “So this… this choice? It’s the choice you mentioned earlier? You’re saying I have to decide whether to become you? To become Death?”
A bitter laugh escaped his lips. “If only it were as simple as—”
“No,” I said. I didn’t even have to think about it. My life as an orphaned, Shadowborn, demon-sworn, deranged-hunter-targeted witch was a red-hot mess on the best of days, and at the moment, my prospects for getting off this hell boat were looking pretty grim, too. But my friends on the material plane were counting on me to find a way out. It was way too early to lose hope. “I don’t want that life. Death. Whatever you call it. No. Final answer.”
“You don’t understand, Gray.” Liam shook his head, his every movement weighted with sadness. “That choice is no longer before you. You see, I chose you to be my successor. I began your training. And then I neglected to giveyouthe choice of accepting or declining. Now, you’re here. You do not get to make that choice.”
I nodded somberly. Here in hell, I didn’t get to makeanychoices. That was kind of the point of this place.
“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “I would’ve said no anyway. I still would’ve ended up right here, and you’d have to go with your second choice either way.”
“It doesn’t work that way. The moment I chose you, I un-chose all others.” Liam pulled his foot up onto the bench, absently picking at the laces of his boot, and I almost laughed. Dressed in a flannel shirt and dark jeans, rocking that messy blond hair, Liam looked like a regular guy. One I’d had the distinct and fairly recent pleasure of making out with—kisses I still felt tingling on my lips. Yet here we were, floating aimlessly on the black lakes of hell, talking about things that would make most people’s heads explode.
