Page 226 of Curse of Darkness
“Daughter?” Kato barks, looking between them.
Orlagh shakes her head at him in denial. She didn’t know either.
Kato’s face is absolutely white with shock, but fury forms there. “Absolutely not,” he hisses, shoving Orlagh behind him. “What do you want with my wife? And my child?”
Death gives a faint, bitter smile. “It seems you and I must come to some sort of terms for peace.” His gaze seeks out Orlagh. “Carolain was my wife. And Orlagh, and the child she carries, are of my line. I only wish for what any great-grandfather wishes. To know them. To watch them grow and flourish.” He pauses. “And to help soothe the ache that will come when the child reaches her teenage years and must face the seed of Darkness within her. For there is only one vial of sunlight, is there not? Only enough to allow Orlagh to hide from that kernel of Darkness deep within her. So she must make the choice to give her child the vial and accept her own dark nature, or to allow her daughter to give herself to the Darkness within her.”
Orlagh’s face absolutely blanches. “I am a Lightbringer.”
“And a Child of Death,” Death says, not unkindly.
For the first time since I’ve met him, Kato has absolutely nothing to say.
“Can you learn to love the Darkness within your wife?” Death asks him.
Kato sinks onto the dais. “Of course I love her.”
Death hesitates. “My kind were not all monsters. I can help them… learn to overcome the urge to reap. I can help them control it.”
Kato stares at him.
Just stares.
And so Death takes the first step.
He reaches a hand out for the Lord of the Underworld, drawing him to his feet. “I forgive you for what was done to me. I will endure Darkness, for them. But I must have your promise. I cannot…. I cannot face the Darkness alone without some sense of hope. Allow me this…. The chance to learn to know them.”
Kato finally rallies. “That is not my choice to make.”
They both glance toward Orlagh, who looks like she wants to throw up. But she nods. Closes her eyes and nods, as if she can’t quite bear to face the consequences of her choices.
“Your word upon it,” Death insists.
“I promise once,” she whispers. “I promise twice. I promise thrice. I will visit you once a month with… my child.” Her voice hardens. “But not in the Darkness. I will not take my child into that place.”
Kato frowns.
“Dinner, once a month,” she tells her husband. “Here. At home. You will fetch him for me.”
“I promise thrice,” Kato finally agrees.
And Death looks at me. “Goodbye, Queen of Evernight. I wish you both well. Tell him…. It has been an honor to know him.”
And then he conjures a dark flame between his fingers.
“Quickly,” Kato says, and his guard’s step forward with a soul-trap.
They capture the flame within the trap, and Thiago sucks in a sharp breath, as if he hasn’t drawn one for minutes.
Kato stares at the soul-trap the guard places in his palm for long seconds.
“You promised him,” Orlagh whispers.
Nostrils flaring, he hands it to one of his guards. “Return this to the Darkness. And then… release him.”
Orlagh gives his hand a squeeze. The look they share is intimate, shocked, still processing everything that has just happened, but his palm comes to rest upon her lower abdomen and their eyes meet as if they simply cannot believe this turn of fortune.
I push past them, hurrying to Thiago’s side.
