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The tree branch dipped under the weight of the massive bird, black as sin, her claws digging into the bleached white bark. The vulture's head moved on a quick swivel, surveying the bare winter landscape: the scrawny bushes, the burnt brown earth. The air was still and perfectly cold. The man on the ground was already dead.
Sometimes, she arrived early enough to see the death occur. No need, this time. It was quick, like most deaths were: a fall from a great height, a snapped neck. The man’s pain was complete, and his soul sat, blue and shivering, in the center of his chest.
Death dropped into the air. Her wings spread and caught a heavy draft of wind, sending her into a slow downward spiral. By the time she reached the ground, she had swept up the shadows around her, and folded them with a flourish: she stepped, one foot, then another, onto the ground, the darkness wrapped like a shawl around her shoulders, her dark hair spilling out of her dark hood, which partially obscured her pale face. Death reached out a hand, and the soul, sensing its superior, drifted towards her.
There was an enormous sound of feathers, and someone hit the ground right in front of her, blocking her path to the spirit.
“Stop,” a man panted, his face panicked.
Death did not. She swept through the man without worry, picking up the soul in her hands, feeling its shiver. The soul burned cold in her hands, a lick of blizzard. Then, she registered something: the man who landed in front of her had apparently seen her.
She turned to look at him again.
“Please,” he said, still looking at her. “Don’t take – it’s not Elias’s time. It was an accident.”
He was about her height, light-haired, with a pair of brilliant wings outstretched behind his back, which was rather common in those days. What wasn’t common was the sheen. His wings were white, in one respect; but as they dipped in the stark light of the winter day, they seemed to shimmer with a rainbow of other colors. What also wasn’t common was the way the man was speaking directly to Death, in a way no human was ever meant to. No human was meant to see her at all.
“Have we met?” Death said. She was surprised by the clarity of her voice, considering it had been several decades since she had reason to speak.
The man shook his head, flashing a crooked grin. “That I would’ve remembered.”
“But you’re Eternal.”
He hesitated, before dipping his head.
“Then you should know that there’s no stopping this,” Death said briskly, still cupping the soul gently in her hands. “Humans were made to die. It’s what they do.”
The man pushed a conflicted hand through his hair. “It was an accident,” he said again, his gaze shifting between his friend’s body and the spirit in her hands with grief. “He was still so young.”
“That’s what you get for consorting with mortals,” Death grumbled, before she could stop herself.
The man glared. “Make an exception. Can’t you do that? As a favor.”
She nearly laughed at his naïveté. This was a curious man: an Eternal, certainly, yet seemingly so blind to the rules of the universe. “What’s your name?”
He seemed startled, but answered. “Philza.”
“No, your real name.”
“That is my real name.”
“Whatever,” Death said, waving her hand. “Philza. That’s not how any of this works.”
“And why not?”
“Once a soul has left its vessel, I can’t just stuff it back in. A body is not a box.”
Philza crossed his arms.
“If I were to leave this soul here,” she continued, “it would be destined to wander the planet, lost and confused – an empty shell, disconnected from life. You don’t want that for your friend, do you?”
“Of course not.”
“Then please,” Death said with a polite smile. “Let me do my job.”
Conversation over, she turned – and felt, to her shock, a hand on her shoulder, one that gently yet insistently turned her around. Philza was suddenly much closer to her, but she didn’t feel threatened; he was staring at her with interest, not malice, and she could have removed herself from him in an instant. Instead, she paused.
“What is your name?” Philza asked. His eyes were sharp up close. Sharp and blue.
It was only fair for her to answer truthfully. “Death.”
A smile tugged the corner of his mouth. “No,” he said. “Your real name.”
Death narrowed her eyes, melted into shadow, and returned the soul to the infinite ether of the universe.
It would be several centuries until Death met Philza again. The next time, the soul she came to collect was pierced by the edge of his sword. Philza looked shocked by his action, like he hadn’t quite believed he could actually kill anyone.
“Are you a warmonger now?” Death asked from behind him, her tone neutral.
Phil's head whipped around, his eyes flaring in recognition. His chest was heaving with startled breath. He withdrew his sword, and the body of his enemy fell in a heap to the ground, the spirit still hovering mid-air.
“If I am,” he said around a gulp of air, “I guess that means I’d be seeing more of you, eh?”
Death shrugged and swept past him, shadows trailing behind her like a dress. “I suppose so. And all you’d have to do,” she turned and raised a single eyebrow, “is stop caring so much about what happens to mortals.”
As she dropped away, she thought she heard him say: “Worth it.”
Time passed: there were more and more people, more nations, more conflicts for Death to put an end to. She was kept busy doing the job she was born to do: to keep the balance of nature. To carry out every mortal being’s final act. It was a simple job that was immensely satisfying. There was nothing else Death needed to be happy.
Except now, there was something else. No, every few hundred souls, there he was: a man with multi-colored wings. A pair of eyes, staring right at her. A few words exchanged in a private language.
It was, admittedly, intoxicating. Death had no reason to consort with other Eternals, and had no idea how to do so, even if she wanted to. And there was certainly no conversation to be had with mortals. If ever a soul did try to speak, it was out of fear or anger, and it was never so much of a conversation as it was a swift and final stifling of a sputtering candle.
But Philza. Phil. He saw her. He spoke to her. And he killed.
God, he killed. He killed creatively. He struck, slashed, rained down from the sky like terror itself. She started hurrying to the site, when she felt a death coming from him, just to watch him: the thunderbolt from heaven, a flash of wing and steel. No mortal could match him. He was magnificent.
She tried to hide her fascination, but mostly failed. Failed because she did pause, every time, to speak with him. Because she allowed him to draw close – to brush a hand against her shoulder, or push the veil of shadow back, an inch or more, from her face. He knew, as well as she, that she always had to leave. But she knew, as well as he, that he’d always kill again.
Soon, the scenery changed. The world seemed to cool. Death passed several decades alone; she attended, more and more often, to battles between smaller nations and a new Empire that was rising in the South. She found herself amazed by the deadly precision, the brutal efficiency, with which the soldiers of the South operated. And she started recognizing – in some of their motions, in some of their cries – a familiar handiwork.
Death did her job and she waited.
It was a white day when next they met. White sky, white snow, white sun burning pale at the corner fold of the sky. Death felt something coming like a great wave: a tsunami. And when she arrived as a vulture flying high over the battlefield, what she saw was destruction. Miles upon miles of slaughter: blood soaking the snow so deep, she thought the Antarctic might stain red forever.
Standing at the crest, on a glacial outcropping looking over the mayhem, stood a man with white wings that shone with color, a man with eyes like ice.
Death’s wings brought her to him until she stood in her female form, silent in the face of the purest form of disaster she had ever seen.
Philza turned to her and grinned. He spread his arms. “What do you think?”
Death swept closer. Her eyes were glued to the scene behind him, the legion of souls that bobbed over the ice, waiting for collection. She could feel them, their energy, the cries of ten thousand mortals, wiped out in one moment. By one hand.
“It’s beautiful,” she whispered, overwhelmed by it.
“I did it for you.”
Their eyes met. There was something intense and deranged in Phil’s gaze. It was dangerous, but not to her; she was the subject, not the object, of his violence. He was devoted to her. Philza took her hand, and a thrill ran through her unlike one she had ever felt.
“I wanted to prove myself to you,” he said, his wings stretching out behind him. “To make a gesture worthy of my love.”
Love. Was that what this was? This magnetism, this power?
Philza dropped to one knee in front of her, his eyes never leaving hers. No words were needed. He had made his vow, and was awaiting her judgement.
Death drew closer and brought a hand up to touch his face, her shadows curling against his cheek. He shivered and lifted his chin.
“What is your true name?” she whispered.
Philza’s eyes flashed white. He responded, “Chaos.”
Death hummed, soft in her throat. She leaned close, speaking low in his ear, so that he was the only being in the universe who could hear her when she said: “My name is Kristin.”
She slotted her mouth to his, and the oath was made.
What horrors the love affair of Death and Chaos rained on the mortals of that realm for some time. Never had there been so terrifying a pair. Where one went, the other was sure to be. And the trail they left behind was unmistakable: blood in the snow; fire in the forest. Crashed boats. Empty cities. Ruin.
Kristin and Phil met in the spare moments: the seconds of quiet after a kill; the stroll through a field of souls. The gore never bothered them; their victims were humans, born to die. They amounted to nothing compared to the two of them, their centuries and commitment. Even their conception of romantic love was a pale imitation of what they forged together over the millennia. This was devotion. This was fealty. No matter how long they spent apart, as Death completed her work and Chaos ruled his empire, they returned. Always.
The child, then.
The child was a surprise.
Death knew her sister. It was not rare for death and life to occur congruently. Often, Death would appear to collect a mother as Life delivered a child. They would exchange a glance, a few words, but had no time to spare for the other. Death and Life were bonded by the ways in which they were opposite. It was a relationship that required distance.
And yet, one day, Life appeared to her.
Death had just slipped a soul into the pool of the waiting universe when she heard a call behind her and turned to see the shape of a white heron striking out against the blue sky. Death knew that cry, and paused, waiting for her sister to land in front of her and take her form.
Life was blinding, as always, like a solar flare in a pale pink dress, her white hair braided neatly behind her back. As she finished collecting the day around her, the two paused, appraising each other, each cold in their own ways, for their own reasons.
“Why are you here?” Death finally asked.
Life’s head bobbed. “I’m not entirely sure.”
Death looked around them, as though expecting a trap. They were standing in a forest glen, the vines and leaves growing thick where Life stood and curling amber under Death’s feet.
“You don’t have to worry,” Life said, seeing the motion. “I’ve been summoned here. I’m… I’m here to bring you new life.”
“Me?”
Life shrugged, her eyebrows lifting in what might have been amusement. “It seems your love has taken on a life of its own, little sister,” she murmured.
Then she was holding a child.
A baby. Death almost hesitated to touch him, so rare was it for her to be so close to a living human. But the instant she took him from Life’s arm’s, she felt it; a conviction, bone-deep, that the child was hers. That he carried a piece of her. And a piece of his father.
He was so small. So small, and warm in her hands; soft, the opposite of the cold bite of a soul. His eyes were brown.
“How is this possible?” she heard herself ask.
“I suppose anything is. Who are we to know?”
“And – is he Eternal?”
Death knew the answer before she heard it.
“No,” Life said, smiling a sad, wrinkled smile. “He is mortal.”
She was gone, then, and Death was left with a child, her child, her son, in her arms.
Phil, naturally, was shocked, but not in an angry way. And the instant he held the child, she saw the same transformation occur on his face. Instinctual knowledge took over. He loved him instantly.
“I don’t think anything like this has ever happened before,” Death said, standing in the blue light of the throne room of Phil’s Stronghold. “There are so many unknowns –,”
“What will we name him?” Philza asked, holding their son up in the air and staring at him with the type of devotion Kristin had only ever seen directed at her.
Affection warmed her and temporarily doused her worries. “I was thinking –,”
“What?”
“It’s silly. There’s no reason for it.”
“Tell me, Kristin.”
“I was thinking Wilbur.”
Philza’s grin was so immediate and large, it crinkled the edges of his eyes. “Wilbur,” he cooed to the baby in his hands, who giggled happily, reaching with clumsy hands for his shimmering wings. “I think he likes it.”
Death felt a giggle bubble out of her, and she tickled underneath Wilbur’s chin, relishing in his simple laughter. “Wilbur it is.”
But when they made eye contact again, it was Philza’s turn to look worried. “And what about his true name?” he asked, his voice low, like he was asking a secret.
Death felt a sharp pang in her chest. “He’s not an Eternal,” she said firmly, seeing Phil’s wings wilt. “Like all mortals, he’ll have to find out his true name for himself.”
He stayed with Phil. The life Death led was no place for a mortal. In the Empire, he could grow up like a human, experience childhood, safety, and play. And she visited as often as she could. She did. But she was bound by obedience to carry out the task assigned to her. She was gone more than she was with him. And Phil could not reasonably bring a child into a warzone to meet his mother in her own realm; not a child who could die.
He stays safe, she told her love, who she saw less and less of. Unequivocally. I’ll meet him when he’s older.
The more years you have the less a year matters. It all moved so quickly.
Death met her son on his own terms only once.
She knew him instantly, in the same way she knew one of her own limbs. She knew his eyes, and even his hair, which was dark and curly, like her own. He was dressed in the uniform of the Empire, and a man was impaled on the end of his sword, which he withdrew jagged, uncertainly. He looked pale and disgusted, his eyes fixed straight forward.
Death took a step towards him, holding out her hands. “Wilbur,” she whispered.
But Wilbur made no response. And slowly, Death realized that his gaze, while pointed at her, was not focused; his eyes were glassy. He saw through her.
Her heart sank as Wilbur looked one way, then another, searching for something he couldn’t see. “Mum?” he called, which pierced her. His voice was lovely; she imagined him an excellent speaker. “Are you there?”
“I’m here,” Death said, but she knew by now that he couldn’t see or hear her. She should have known, she supposed. She was destined to never be seen by any mortal. Her own son was no exception.
“Dad said you would be here,” Wilbur said, his voice choking. He looked down at the dead body at his feet, horrified, then rushed to its side. “Oh – God – what have I done…”
It was far too late for that. Who the human was didn’t matter; its soul was already collected, and Death pocketed it away without a second thought. But Wilbur was mortal, and Wilbur cared. He cared, as he started to cry over the dead body, in the same way that Phil had cared, once, in another age.
Death fell to her knees in front of her son and raised her hands to his face; delighted in the presence of him, although he couldn’t see her.
“I love you, son,” she said, and hoped the message would carry.
If Wilbur was anything like his father, she thought, it wouldn’t be long before she saw him again.
The sun was high. War was in the air. Death circled high in the sky, her wings steady, her marble-black eye scanning the ground. She was called here for something. Humans were fighting on the ground, smoke rising up from a nation she had never seen before; Philza wasn’t here, so it couldn’t have been anything to do with the Empire. One soul, hovering alone in a neglected corner, was already waiting for her. She cut a straight line down to it, landing deftly and gathering him up in her wings before it could put up too much of a fight.
And then something shifted. The ground, but also the air – or not the air, but reality, the fabric of it, the material. Death lurched forward and felt nausea rise up fast in her chest. Something here was wrong.
She took to the sky again and saw a crater where only moments ago there had been solid land. There were humans scurrying around in panic, but they mattered for nothing. What mattered was the small, exposed cave in the side of a demolished hill. What mattered was Philza, her love, his wings singed and tattered and wrapped around their son, who was bleeding from a wound in his stomach.
She was there in an instant, and stood in front of them silently, her shadows pooling soundlessly around her ankles and dripping from her hands. Phil was crying, an awful, aching keen, like nothing she had ever heard from him.
“Phil,” she said, and his head wrenched up.
“Love,” he gasped, his face wrecked. “Kristin. Please –,”
Wilbur coughed wetly, blood staining his mouth. “Mum’s… here…?”
“You can’t take him,” Phil cried, and she realized he was begging. “He’s too young, he’s too – he’s made a mistake!”
“He is mortal,” Death said. Her voice rose, higher, in pitch and volume, until she was nearly screaming: “He is mortal! You were supposed to protect him!”
Phil flinched, his broken wings drooping around their son – an obvious sacrifice, but not enough. “I tried,” he said, tears streaking his face.
“Dad,” Wilbur said, his voice nothing more than a breath by now. “Tell Mum – I know it, I know my name.” He brought a trembling hand to grab Phil’s shoulder, leaving a bloody handprint behind. “I know what you made me.”
“You’re not dying, Wilbur,” Phil argued back, pulling him up again. “You still have time to –,”
“Ruin,” Wilbur whispered, and died.
His soul burned so bright Kristin could barely look at it. And at first she didn’t. There was a moment where all she could do was sink to the floor, her face to the ground, and wail.
It was the first and only time Death would ever mourn.
And what an opening it was. A rift in the earth. She felt it split open her soul, the very thing that propelled her forward. She knew what it was to love something more than she loved herself. And now she knew what it was to lose it.
She came to her senses because of Phil, who was grabbing her by the shoulders and pleading, like he did once, millennia ago – pleading with her, as though she could control the rhythm of the universe.
“You can’t take him,” Phil begged. “Take me instead, let me go in his place. I shouldn’t have – I shouldn’t –,”
“There is nothing left to do,” Kristin said, her grief ripping the corners of her words. “There is nothing I can do.”
“You can leave him here – I’ll find a way to reverse this, I will! There’s nothing that can’t be – I can fix this, Kristin, you just have to give me time. I swear –,”
“There is nothing to be done,” she cried again, and reached blindly for her son.
In retrospect it must have been that moment. It must have been that clash of mutual grief, two forces so strong as to rend the universe in two. One parent, desperate to right his wrong. The other, desperate to do what had to be done.
Death collapsed into shadow with her piece of Wilbur’s soul in her hands, cloaking herself in darkness, hiding with that tiny burning flame until she could no longer bear to hold it. And then she put it where it would belong, for the rest of time, and be safe.
The piece of Wilbur that Phil couldn’t let go of still walked the Earth. She knows this to be her greatest failure.
The two of them meet only once more.
The moon lights the snow-covered forest. The body falls, a human sacrifice, at Death’s feet. She spares it no second glance, but kept her eyes fixed on her love. On Chaos. His wings are ruined.
It’s been a year or longer. Philza looks at her not with love, but with uncertainty.
“What do you want?” Death asks.
The uncertainty fell into grief. “Have I lost you, too?” Phil says.
Death, bitter and cheated, bares her teeth in a snarl. “You never had me.”
Are they about to fight? Their stances might almost convince you. But they love each other. It’s only because they love each other that this hurts so much.
“I made a mistake,” Phil says.
“So did I,” says Death.
“I can’t get Wilbur’s words out of my head,” Phil whispers, rubbing a hand at his eyes. “I can’t. He said – he called himself –,”
“Ruin,” Death interrupts. She spreads her arms, motions to the violence that lies between them, the violence that has always been required for them. “Isn’t that what we are?”
“He didn’t have to be,” Phil says harshly. “He could have been – he –,”
“I won’t do it again,” Death says. “I can’t.”
She leaves him there. She has a job to do.