Page 10 of Where the Light No Longer Follows

He smiled up at the darkening skies, feeling her gloomy presence stare onto his back, possibly contemplating every possible way to his incessant end. “Are you going to stand there all night?” he asked, already drunk in her presence.

Her footsteps were light as she approached him to the ledge of the building where he’d sat. “I was hoping you’d jump and somehow die.”

His smile grew into a grin. “You might get your wish.”

“To my very unfortunate luck you can’t die,” she blankly said, taking a seat just a couple feet from him and pulling the black, delicate flower embroidered hood down with an elegance he’d only ever seen her possess. Her fingers had been made only to hold gently, so thin and fragile. He could only begin to imagine how soft the deaths she gave were, how lucky the souls she had touched must have been to be held by those tender fingers.

“Maybe not in the human ways you’re thinking of. But one can die many other deaths without one's life being taken.” As he had often died when he’d seen those tender hands stained with blood while she’s held onto life as she’d been beaten and bruised just before his eyes when all he could do was watch.

Gabriel had died his first death then. As he’d stood feet away from her house while she’d knelt down in front of the well, washing that blood off easily as if she’d done it a thousand times. The second death he’d died, his corpse had been buried in her eyes. Eyes that had shone so brightly despite the pain in her body and the open wounds still weeping red while she’d bid her younger brother goodbye with a huge smile as he’d gone to work—a smile that had faded with each step he’d taken away from her. He could recall almost every single one of his deaths. Every single one held her as its gravestone.

She turned to stare at him for a long while, hazel eyes bore into his as if slowly unlocking every single one of his thoughts, peeling back every layer of the secrets he had only ever shared with the wind and his brother, the only ones that had witnessed his breakdown at her feet. “I really hope you’ve died them all. Every possible death one can die without one’s life being taken.”

He chuckled despite feeling a sharp spear of ice going straight through his chest. “The stars might hear.” Gabriel was not one to seek pity, not hers out of all, he simply did not deserve it, nor would he ever be able to, but he had the unbearable urge to ask that she pities him, that she handles his deaths with those same tender hands. So selfishly, he wanted his corpse to be beheld by that soft touch despite his many crimes.

“I’m hoping they might have already heard me long ago.”

As he remained there, unable to look away from her and grappled with fear that he might soon die again, he found himself asking, “Were you afraid of dying?”

But Gabriel knew the truth. He’d watched her long enough to know that she had not been afraid. He’d seen her run in his brother’s arms, happy tears clinging to her eyes. But Gabriel had been born with a penchant for pain—he wanted to ache only so he didn’t feel like matter, like something only capable of floating. Worst thing was…Gabriel had gotten a taste of it only some time ago, grown fond of the draining, bitter taste of pain, and he’d become addicted, too.

“No,” she quietly said, turning to look at the darkening skies that were missing the usual stars unlike other realms. “I was more afraid of living. It is such a burden we are given. Life is such a burden.” She sighed as if the weight of a thousand worlds was resting against her chest. “To keep living is a burden when you find no meaning in it, to keep watching years go by as you rot away body and soul with the only thing that could hurt you intact all the way through. If I’d lost my mind, it might have been easier. It would have been a kindness, you know, for you to have granted me that at least.”

“You know I can’t interfere with human lives, Silene. Many rules forbid me to. As they forbid my brother.”

Resting her chin on her shoulder, she looked at him. “I wouldn’t have wasted prayers on an arrogant God like you anyway.”

“Tell me then, Silene, who did you pray to?”

“No one,” she lied to him.

Gabriel’s hands curled into fists, forcing himself not to reach for her when her long hair flew up in the air as the wind picked up and tunnelled into a vortex between them. He wanted to comb his fingers through the silky strands for he had such a weakness for her strange hair—white at the front, like the moon, and black at the back like skies of the darkest night. “I will choose to believe that. Only because you lie so prettily.”

Her lashes fluttered fast, and she gathered her knees to her chest as if she were cold.

Gabriel shed his leather jacket, closing the distance between them to throw it over her shoulders, careful not to touch her. “I should have asked to meet inside.” But he didn’t think she’d want to be in a closed space with him or make her uncomfortable. Or worse—afraid.

“It’s because of you, you know,” she said, looking up at him with such disdain. “That I am cold. I don’t get cold. I can’t get cold anymore. I haven’t been cold in five hundred years.” A sigh escaped her as she looked away from him. “I had not realised that I’d missed it.” Quickly she pressed her lips tightly shut, looking like she’d regretted the words she’d spoken.

“Would you like for me to apologise for it?”

“Do you feel sorry?”

He shrugged. “Only that I brought you up here instead of somewhere warmer.”

“Why would you care?”

How could he tell her? How could he even begin to explain something so vital to him?

Looking away, he said, “I kept wondering why out of all you’ve never come to me once in hopes I would grant you another chance at life or a chance at seeing someone you left behind. At some point, the dead always want a bargain with me. Always in death.” He chuckled a little. “They all love me more in death.” All except her. Though he’d never found himself seeking to be loved, he didn’t want her hate. Not hers. Gabriel had not once kneeled before anything or anyone, king nor queen, God or Goddess, but for whatever he’d done to deserve her hate, he wanted to kneel before her and beg.

“I have never needed a favour.”

Another thing he knew but had not wanted to accept. The very few prayers she’d made had been for his demise. And demise had found him. Right at her feet. It had taken him one curious glance at the woman who had made him laugh with her hate, only to find himself not wanting to be hated. “Everyone needs a favour. Everyone needs a favour from me. And I am good at granting them.”

“Is that what this is? You want me to ask you for a favour?”

“I just need you to ask me something. Anything. Everyone has questions for me.”