Page 56 of Princess of Death

“Well, now you know she wasn’t worth your sacrifice.”

Despite the tremendous pain it caused me, I returned many times.

I watched my sons grow into men. Watched Anya become someone else’s wife. Time passed differently for me in the underworld, so years to them felt like decades to me. To say I healed was too strong of a word to use.

But I accepted it.

I was condemned to an existence of permanent servitude, ushering in new souls who’d made the same mistake I did. They all did it for the wrong reasons, so I felt out of place in the darkness. Every time I visited, Bahamut was there to watch me suffer.

Like it pleased him.

He waited for me to admit that it’d been a mistake, that she hadn’t been worth the price I’d paid.

But I never did.

I stood there and watched Tiberius and Darius call my brother Dad.

And I just…accepted it.

Anya had always wanted a girl, and now she had one with her daughter. The girl wasn’t my child, so I should have no fondness for her, but it was hard not to love someone who was half my wife…and half my brother.

And she still looked like me, in some ways.

Darius left the house first, started a carpentry business in the village. Tiberius married a pretty girl and settled down on the same land. He built their home with his bare hands, and I cried out of pride. I watched him have two sons of his own, watched him become a tall and strong man who could lift a tree trunk. He was within sight of his mother, taking care of her while caring for his own family.

I continued to visit…until Anya died.

My brother went first, and she followed just a year later.

Her life had come and gone—and my servitude was endless. But Bahamut had delivered what he promised. She had lived a long and healthy life. She loved again, had more children, and died surrounded by her grandchildren.

I stood at her headstone and stared at the etching in the stone, the date of her birth and the date of her end. She died peacefully in her sleep. Didn’t succumb to a painful disease that slowly and brutally drained her life-force away.

Tiberius appeared in the cemetery with a bouquet of white flowers in his hand. The twinkle of boyhood in his eyes was far gone, either because life had broken him down…or becausehe believed I’d run out on him. He came closer, his dark hair turning gray, wrinkles and divots in his face. He was almost thrice my age when I’d left the house. His identity was unmistakable, but he wasn’t the little boy who had helped me hunt in the forest.

He stopped at the headstone and stared down at her name in silence.

I stared at him, wishing I could speak and he would hear. I watched the breeze move a tendril of hair away from his face. I remembered teaching him to care for the horses at dawn. I remembered reading to him at bedtime. Now, he was a man in his sixties, ripe with age, fatigued with wisdom.

I’d only known him personally for six years. The rest of the time, I’d been a stranger.

He bent down and placed the flowers at her headstone.

I noticed there wasn’t one for me. They never knew whether I was dead or alive, and then they stopped wondering.

He stood up again and placed his hand on the curve of the stone. “Miss you, Mom.”

My heart cracked like weak stone.

“See you soon.” He stepped back and began his return journey home.

“I’m proud of you, Tiberius,” I said, knowing he couldn’t hear me. “I wish you knew that.”

Bahamut, King of the Dead, emerged from the castle and moved down the steps, his cape draping behind him, his servants cowering in fear and revering him in silence. His boots hit the dark soil, and he approached the stone dais in the center, an ethereal blue mist floating over the void.

He stopped at my side and looked to the dark sky.

It was devoid of texture or details. There were no clouds. No stars. No moonlight. It had been a hard adjustment for me in the beginning, this eternal night, but I’d come to find the quiet beauty in the pockets of despair.

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