Page 31 of Ash and Feather

I lifted an aching, trembling hand and tried to summon a small flame. It sputtered to life in my dirt splattered palm, its glow illuminating a landscape of black, rocky soil dotted with a few scraggly white trees. Clearly not the same place I’d just been. Yet my flame continued to burn—so my magical soul was intact as well.

I hadn’t splintered.

My whole self was here, when a breath ago, it had been somewhere else.

I’d done it.

A giddy, nervous laugh escaped me. I couldn’t believe I’d actuallydone it.

My glee was short-lived, however, as I studied my surroundings more closely.

I still expected to see the familiar palace, even if it was far in the distance. Its stained-glass shining, its towers looming, maybe Dravyn standing on one of the many balconies, calling me home…

Instead, black ground stretched in every direction. A fine, shimmering mist rolled along the land, and to my distant right, there were jagged cliffs that plummeted down farther than I could see. The air smelled of rot and dust.

“This isn’t right,” I said—to no one. Zell was gone. The palace was nowhere in sight, and neither were Valas and Mairu.

In fact, this didn’t seem to be Dravyn’s territory, at all.

A chill breeze rose at my back, raising the flesh along my arms. I spun around and saw strange shadows tumbling toward me, rolling as if they were riding that wind…and all at once I realized where I was.

Because I’d been here before.

This was the Death God’s territory, and judging by the glowing eyes that had just appeared in the shadows, I was not as alone as I’d thought.

Chapter 9

Karys

I’d made a mistake.

As I backed away from the shadows full of glowing orbs, an explanation occurred to me.

The cliffs to my right…I’d found myself on them months ago, soon after my mortal self had first started to explore these heavens in earnest. The Death God, Zachar, had cornered me there. His magic had been horrible; I could still imagine the cold claws of his dark power raking against my skin, draining me of all sense of life and hope.

Dravyn had appeared at the last moment, wielded his fire against Zachar and chased him away. It had seemed like an incredible amount of power at the time, but now I understood just how much it had truly been—enough that it had left behind a mark on this spot, a residual pool of magic.

And that pooled magic—and perhaps my memories and feelings of being astonished by his power—had pulled me back to this place.

I stopped backing up as I felt another burst of cold at my back, more intense and concentrated along my spine this time, as though someone had slipped a block of ice down my tunic.

Shadows were closing in on every side. Some of the glowing eyes were coming closer, the beastly creatures they belonged to emerging from the dark, trailing black ribbons behind them as they did.

Then came the Death God himself, a tall figure wrapped in a grey cloak with a pack of shadow cats snarling and spitting at his heels.

He looked more human than I remembered him looking before. His hood was lowered, revealing normal ears where there had once been horned appendages. He wasn’t as pale as I recalled, either, his complexion still fair, but far from the ghastly shade of bone it had once been.

Nevertheless, he was still terrifying. His body was still too long, too jagged and uneven, too…something, and it moved with a strange grace just shy of seeming human.

I fought the urge to keep backing up. Instead, I stood taller, meeting his eyes, which were the color of twilight, their glowing pupils like the only stars that had appeared in the sky thus far.

“So here you are again.” His voice was a serpent slithering in and out of my head. The words were accompanied by a dark cloud, like breath fogging in the cold—except the breath, like so many things in this territory, was made of shadows. “Once again an uninvited guest in my dominion.”

“Uninvited, yes. But also an inadvertent one,” I said flatly.

“You mean you weren’t dying to come see me? Even though we haven’t seen one another since your ascension? I pushed for your divine blessing, you know. If I hadn’t helped you, you wouldn’t be standing here now, invited or not. I thought perhaps you had come to thank me.”

“Thankyou?” I should have held my tongue. No good had ever come from provoking this god. But his slithering tone and smug expression had both slipped under my skin. “You didn’t helpme. And why would I be happy to see you? You betrayed me. You told Dravyn my thoughts, my secrets, my plans—plans that I’d already abandoned, by the way—and you nearly ruined me.”

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