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Spring does not do well with being caged. He paces, tense as a cornered hare, his face drawn and thin. He is pale in the faint shimmering light of the underworld, unnaturally so, the leaf-shaped scar on his cheek standing out white as bone. Death notes, with something between professional pride and vindictive satisfaction, that he stays well away from the black bars of the cage. They are forged from stygian iron, which drinks the life of anything that touches it. Even Spring, the spark in the cold, the flower in the snow, the crackle of the thaw – even Spring does not have life enough to give that he can touch them for long.
Death steps forward, into the light. Spring goes still the moment he sees her. His eyes track her as she moves toward him. She stops a few paces away from his cage and waits, silent.
He doesn’t seem able to meet her gaze. He looks at her folded hands, at her gold-embroidered hem, at the rubies of her crown, but he can barely glance at her face before his eyes skitter away again.
Death watches Spring, and Spring does nothing but fail to watch her in return. It is, she is surprised to find, tiresome.
She waves a hand and a pair of shades bring forth a chair for her. Spring does not spare the shades more than a glance, as if he is accustomed to seeing the greyed-out spirits of the dead. Most likely he is, alone among the gods above. Death suppresses the twinge of irritation at the thought and sits, arranging her skirts with a practiced movement. Spring shifts his weight slightly, planting his feet and drawing himself up straight, and now he is the one waiting. If it weren’t for the thin bars between them, he could be coming before her for an audience. It’s almost an amusing thought – no one has asked Death for an audience in centuries. No one has visited her kingdom at all, in fact, except for the dead – and Spring.
Spring, god of hope and new beginnings, of tender green shoots and softly furled petals. Spring, who should spend all his days in sunlight, and yet he seeks out darkness. There are always cracks in the world above that lead to Death’s kingdom, appearing whether she wishes them to or not, in places where blood and night and sorrow mix in just the right way. Lately it seems as if Spring has found every one. He moves through her kingdom like a ghost himself, leaving no evidence of his passing except, occasionally, a single flower in an empty room.
The flowers always stay fresh, beautiful and terribly alive, despite the chill miasma of the underworld. Death hates them, bitterly, with a passion she had thought was lost to her.
Now he stands before her, and he waits. He still can’t meet her eyes.
Death sighs her impatience and Spring flinches. “Why are you here?” she demands, peeved. She hadn’t thought she’d be the first to break.
He grins, hollow, and spreads his arms to indicate the bars around him. “I can hardly leave.”
Death does not smile in return. Death doesn’t frown, either, nor shake her head, nor react at all, in any visible way. Spring shudders, the grin spasming on his face.
Death reiterates, “Why are you here?”
“Can’t a boy be curious?” he tries. He casts his eyes up, through the bars, at the stalactites that drip emeralds and sapphires above his head. Veins of silver and gold run between them, gleaming like rivers. Their light is reflected by the field of sparkling rubies that surrounds his cage, glittering even in the distant shadows. There is something almost reverent in Spring’s voice as he says, “There is no place like this one, out in the world.”
It’s a tempting thought, that Spring comes down here seeking nothing but beauty. Death is not so foolish as to let herself believe it. What need has the god of new birth for the cold glimmer of dead stones? He can surround himself with every flower that ever blossomed, all the birds of the sky and the beasts of the earth, all of them vibrant and joyful and thrumming with life. All the wealth of the underworld could never compare.
Death had sent messengers to Summer’s court when she first realized Spring was drifting through her kingdom. She imagined that they had caused quite a stir, her monsters of bone and shadow striding through the endless green and gold of Summer’s perpetual harvest. “Keep your vassal out of my realm,” Death had told Summer. “There is no place for new life there.”
Summer had responded with polite confusion, claiming no knowledge of Spring’s escapades. Nonetheless she apologized formally for any mischief he might have caused, and sent Death’s monsters back laden with gifts of silks and furs. Nothing changed. Spring still stole through Death’s kingdom, a shadow among shades, leaving ever more beautiful flowers for her to find, until her patience ran out entirely.
“Why are you here?” she asks, a third and final time.
Spring stares at her, wide-eyed and tongue-tied with fear. Death smirks. “Run out of lies?”
“Your Majesty, I—”
“This is my kingdom,” she interrupts. “You traipse through it uninvited, slip through my shadows as if you could ever be welcome in them, and you dare to think I will sit idly by and allow it? I know why you’re here,” she snarls. “You come at my sister’s behest, to study my realm and find my weaknesses. You come because the gods above are too cowardly to come themselves. You come to steal my throne.” She leans forward, fury sparking in her eyes, her hands bunched in the soft fabric of her skirts. “You can’t have it,” she hisses. “No matter how my siblings regret putting me upon it. This is my kingdom. If your summer queen thinks she can take it from me, then she had best prepare for war.”
Spring is paralyzed, his breathing shallow, a rabbit before a snake. His mouth has fallen slightly open; he doesn’t seem to have noticed. Death holds his gaze, assessing the bloodless terror on his face, the trembling of his limbs, until she is satisfied that he fully understands.
She sits back, smoothing out the crinkles in her skirt from her clenched fists. It takes Spring a few minutes and several tries before he manages to stammer out, “She didn’t send me. She doesn’t know I’m here.”
Death’s lip twitches in what might be a smile and might be a sneer. Her prisoner flinches away. “She’ll know soon enough,” Death says. “So tell me. What do you think my sister will give me for the safe return of her vassal?”
Spring shrugs helplessly. He’s gone back to not meeting her eyes. “I expect,” says Death, “that you’re worth quite a lot to her.”
She stands, and enjoys the way Spring goes taut with renewed tension. Death smiles. “Let’s find out just how much.”