River of Shadows

by Karina Halle

  “Death isn’t evil,” she says.

  I raise my palm. “Do not tell me he’s just misunderstood.”

  She gives me a sly grin. “That’s too cliché, as you mortals would say. If he’s misunderstood, I think it’s by mortals themselves. Lovia has told me the stories about the Grim Reaper; they all sound like fantasy to me. No, Death is just a God, like any other God. And they love and they lose and they hate and they cry. I know Death fairly well and there’s no emotion that he’s unable to feel…it’s just that his role has made the emotion more or less obsolete.”

  “You mean love?”

  “Something like that.”

  The way she says it, almost forlornly, makes me wonder if Bell had wanted Death to fall in love with her. I can’t really blame her. It’s a tale as old as time to have a beast fall in love with the beauty, the beast everyone says can’t be redeemed.

  But I have no clue how I would make Death fall in love with me, especially since I have been extremely unlucky in love. Sure, I’ve had my fair share of boyfriends, but nothing ever stuck, nothing ever meant anything other than a few months of fun and then boredom. I prefer the flings and the one-night stands and the occasional low-douche fuckbois, just so I can have an active sex life and work off my stress that way. It takes all the pressure off of futures and relationships and love.

  So, while I appreciate Bell’s belief in me, I know that’s not in the cards. If I can’t make a mortal dudebro fall in love with me, then I certainly can’t make the God of Death fall in love with me.

  That said, she has a bit of a point, one I begrudgingly admit. My first instinct is to kick and scream and fight my way out of here. But maybe that’s not the best approach for this situation. I have to have an end goal and I need a strategy to achieve it. He expects me to hate him, I’m sure, so it would really throw him for a loop if I did the opposite.

  I sigh, rubbing my palm along my forehead. It already seems too much to take on. Hopeless.

  “Just start small,” Bell suggests. “You don’t want to make him suspicious anyway.”

  That’s true. Start small. I could be nicer. I could be more compliant and less rebellious. I could do things with a smile. I have my limits, for sure, but when it comes to an eternity of this—or even worse, being shrunk and put into a cage—I know I could somehow get through it. The only problem is, I was stupid enough to already offer a range of services and he’s already taken me up on those offers and enjoyed it immensely. Treat me like a dog? Humiliate me? For some reason I don’t think cooking and cleaning is going to cut it for him. It’s going to be have your way with me and or let others do the same.

  Or, fuck. Make me your bride.

  Why the hell did I say that?

  “Make me your bride?” Bell repeats.

  I look at her with wide eyes. “You read minds too?”

  “No, you just said it with your mouth.”

  I run my hands over my face and growl. “Urgh. I had told Death earlier that he could take me in exchange for my father, and then I offered various reasons why he should. One was that he could make me his bride.”

  “Hmmmm,” she says.

  “What?” I shoot her a sharp glance.

  She purses her lips together for a moment. “As I said earlier, there’s a prophecy. Perhaps you could find out more about it from Raila and play into it? If you could be Death’s bride…”

  “I don’t want to be Death’s bride!” I yell.

  “Shhhh,” she hisses, motioning with her tiny hands to tone it down. “Take it easy, mortal girl. What I’m saying is if you could be Death’s bride, that would make you the Goddess of Death. The new one. And then you could do anything.” She notes the disgruntled look on my face because she quickly adds, “It doesn’t have to mean anything. Have him marry you, or fall in love with you, or at least like you enough to give you more freedom. Make him happy. Do what you can to make that happen, make him want you and want to be around you. Then when you get it, you escape. You go back home. They can’t get you there. That’s your world, your terrain. You’ll be safe. You’ll be with your father, you’ll get to live your life again, and none of this would have counted. None of it.”

  I stare at her, wishing it could all be as easy as she makes it sounds.

  Then the sound of the key in the lock makes me back away, the rest of my coffee spilling to the floor, and Bell ducks under the water, swimming into the back corner, disguised by an aquatic plant.

  I run over to the bed and sit down on the end of it, coffee in hand, trying not to shake, just as the door opens.

  The tall figure of Death strides in, a sight that makes my entire body tingle, with fear and something else, something ancient and primal.

  “Good morning, fairy girl,” he says in a booming voice that carries across the room. “How are you planning on annoying me today?”

  Go fuck yourself, I almost say but Bell’s suggestion rings in my ears. Nice. I have to play nice. No, I have to play more than nice. I have to act like I want to be here, want to be with him, and I have to do it in a way that doesn’t read fake either.

  No fucking pressure or anything.

  “My, my, my,” he says, folding his arms across his massive chest and staring down at me. “Those wheels are definitely turning. Plotting my demise? Have complaints about your coffee?”

  I watch as he removes his hood so that his face is no longer hidden in shadow, my eyes widening at the sight. He has a different skull on today, a totally new face. A human skull with gilded teeth stretched in a macabre smile and impressive gold ram horns that curl back from the head. The gold matches the accents on his black leather gauntlets that cover his hands. The rest of his clothes underneath his black velvet robe are dark colored with leather accents at the waist and shoulders. Somehow he manages to look both medieval and modern.

  I feel his eyes burn from behind the skull as I continue to gape at him. “I take it you’re impressed by my mask of the day.”

  “I was more impressed by the French press you got from Ikea,” I remark. “What is the story with that?”

  He tilts his head, and I feel him study me closer. It’s most unnerving, to feel someone’s eyes so clearly and yet still not see them. Since this is a mask he’s wearing, I find myself trying to see into the depths of the eye sockets, to see a hint of iris or whites of his eye, like I thought I did the other day. But there’s nothing but a black void.

  The most disturbing thought enters my head: what if he doesn’t even have eyes? What if he’s wearing a mask because the thing underneath is even scarier than the masks he wears?

  “You’re very observant,” he says in his low, silken voice. “And I have to admit, I find it fascinating that in all that you’ve seen so far, it’s my coffee-making device that has you asking questions.”

  “I have more questions,” I say. “You have a mask of the day. Why? You ugly or something?”

  The air in the room goes still and I swear I hear Bell gasping underwater. I’m preparing for a clap of thunder, or perhaps a lashing of rain against the window, but the heavy pause ends when Death bursts out laughing. The sound is hearty and sincere, filling the room, and it makes me wonder how often he laughs like this.

  “Oh, I am going to enjoy having you here,” he says, still chuckling. “It’s unfortunate you probably won’t feel the same,” he adds in a more solemn tone.

  “You don’t know that,” I tell him.

  “You’re right,” he says after a moment. “You might like it in the end. Oh, you’ll fight me on everything, you’ll hate me with all your fury. But you might love to hate me, and that will make all the difference.”

  “I will never love you,” I find myself sneering.

  Good job with the make him fall in love you thing, Hanna.

  Another chuckle. “Good,” he muses. “I wouldn’t want to think any less of you. Now, get up.” He reaches out and takes the coffee cup from me, which is tiny in his giant gloved hand. “Don’t make me ask you a
gain.”

  Or what, you’ll get out the chain? I want to ask, but he probably would and my neck still feels bruised from it. So I get to my feet and stare up at him, trying to find a balance of rebellion and compliance.

  Beneath his mask, his eyes are looking me over, thinking. They feel like fire.

  Finally, he says. “Take off your nightgown.”

  My heart sinks.

  Is he serious?

  “Why?” I ask, trying to sound strong, though my voice trembles.

  “Because I’m telling you to. Take off your nightgown.”

  “I’m naked underneath.”

  “Quite aware of that, fairy girl.” He motions with a nod. “Now take it off or I will take it off for you. Which will it be?”

  I swallow hard, knowing my options. There are three. I could refuse, and he could force me, which would undoubtedly be the worst. He probably gets off on the power trip. In fact, I know he does, considering how fond he was of that iron collar.

  I could do it while crying, wanting to shrivel up into a ball, horrified at the thought of being naked in general, let alone in front of him. I’ve spent a long time, through numerous one-night stands, working on my relationship with my body, trying to find the confidence in its strength and in its flaws, trying to overcome all the years of damage I’d inflicted on it, and while I’ve come far, I’m not sure if I can handle this particular brand of vulnerability and humiliation.

  Or I could raise my chin and own it proudly. Be strong. Refuse to give into the panic. Refuse to give him the fear that he desires from me. Refuse to be humiliated.

  I choose the last one. I look Death right in those fathomless sockets, steady and calm, and I bring up the hem of my nightgown, pulling it over my head and throwing it behind me on the bed. My head is held high with nerves of steel, despite being oh so very naked right in front of him.

  He doesn’t say anything. His unseen eyes burn across every inch of my body, from my neck, to my breasts, to my stomach, to between my thighs, leaving goosebumps in their wake.

  I swallow hard, trying to bury the terror that wants to drown me. I won’t let it. I will be strong. I will not fear.

  “Well?” I ask him boldly, with an expectant raise of my brow.

  A low, guttural sound rumbles from inside his chest, making the hair on my body stand on end, every nerve inside me tightly wound until it feels like they’re going to snap and obliterate me. Jesus. What the hell was that?

  Moments pass, the tension between us growing thicker.

  Then he clears his throat.

  “When I was born, the first person who touched me died,” he says in a rough voice, his eyes still leaving flames on my bare body. The way he stares at me feels like consumption. “It was my mother’s Birthmaiden. Pirkko was her name. Though I don’t remember her, I’ve never forgotten her name, because I killed her. My first casualty. And you never forget your first one, even as a newborn.”

  He turns and walks over to the wardrobe, and the moment his eyes leave my body I feel like I’m deflating, exhaling so forcefully that I almost collapse. “You see, my parents were told that one of their sons would be the God of Death, that I would be called into my role as a deity when the time was ready, when Tuonela was ready,” he says, running his hands over the lacquered surface of the wardrobe. “They didn’t know it was me until Pirkko died, they certainly didn’t know that I would come with a price—the touch of death. My mother wanted to hold me and console me, for I was just a crying baby, new to the world, but my father couldn’t let her. They are Gods, but even they didn’t want to take the chance. Knowing what I know now, it was a wise move.”

  He sighs. “So, my father wrapped me in reindeer pelt, and it was through a lot of trial and error, in other words a lot of dead servants, that they discovered it was only my hands that caused death. After that I had to wear gloves and gauntlets all the time, but the damage was already done. My siblings stayed away from me, people and Gods alike feared me. Even my own parents treated me differently. More like a pet than a son. Always so distant.”

  “Am I supposed to feel sorry for you?” I ask, because one sob story isn’t going to win me over.

  That brings out another chuckle from him as he opens the wardrobe. “No. No one is supposed to feel sorry for Death, and especially not you. You should feel sorry for yourself, standing naked like that, all because I asked you to.”

  I don’t know where this is going, so I decide to keep my mouth shut for now.

  He carefully riffles through a drawer in the wardrobe and then brings out a white lacy thing. “Perhaps it was this that made me a better ruler for Tuonela. Because I was cruel at times, but I had empathy. Ruthless but not heartless.”

  I can’t help but snort. Not heartless? Yeah, you keep telling yourself that, buddy.

  He ignores me. “As you know I eventually got married. I was able to please my wife without touching her with my bare hands, I made it my mission.”

  “I’m not sure I need to know all this,” I mutter.

  “But you do,” he says quickly, grasping the white dress and coming over to me. “You do. I did all I could and then some, but she said it was the fact that I could never touch her with my bare hands that made her leave me and take up with another. Frankly, I knew that was a lie, and yet I remember the prophecy that the giant Vipunen told me when I was just a young man. That one day I would find someone, the one person able to withstand my touch, a person I would then love and marry, and that an alliance would form, an alliance that would cement my position in the kingdom forever. What alliance and with whom, I don’t know, and the one I am to marry? I don’t know that either.”

  “How do you know it wasn’t your ex-wife?”

  He lets out a sharp, sour laugh. “Louhi? No alliance came of our supposed love or our marriage. If anything our marriage was a strategy on behalf of her father, to further fragment this world when we finally broke apart. No, it wasn’t Louhi.”

  I feel his gaze deepening, tension thickening.

  “You think it’s me,” I say quietly.

  “It could be,” he says. “I think there is only one way to find out.”

  He places the dress in my hands and then unsnaps one of his gloves.

  I suck in my breath as terror shoots through me.

  “What are you doing?” I cry out softly.

  He pulls his hand out of the glove and I stare at it in horror and fascination. It’s the large, lightly tanned hand of a big man. The only thing unhuman about it are the strange markings that keep pulsing with light, like someone has drawn lines all over his hand and wrist with a metallic gray sharpie, lines that keep glowing for a moment in different spots, as if lit from within. I caught a glimpse of the lines earlier in the desert, and even close up they don’t make much sense.

  While I’m trying to figure it out, he reaches out to my breast with his bare hand, pausing just inches away, and my body floods with adrenaline, ready to flee.

  “If I touched you, I would know,” he murmurs. “If I touched you and you didn’t die, I would know you were meant to be mine.”

  I’m frozen, staring down at his hand, unable to move. “Is that why you’re keeping me?”

  “One of many reasons,” he says, his fingers stretching for me, closer, closer now. I swear I feel the heat burning off them, like an electrical wire on the ground, and I wish my nipples weren’t getting hard at a time like this. “But then, if I did touch you, and you died, I’d lose you to Oblivion, which means I would lose you for good. There’s no coming back from that—you would never be in my kingdom. And I haven’t yet decided if I want to keep you or not, or what use you might be.”

  Slowly he withdraws his hand and my nerves buzz with relief. “So, as you can see, I’m in a minor predicament. How do I know if you’re the one if I can’t touch you?”

  I need to tell him what he needs to hear in order to keep me. If I don’t make a case for myself, at any point he could try the experiment and take off his gl
ove and I would most likely be gone, to suffer for eternity. Because deep down, I know I’m part of no prophecy, no sick and twisted love story. I’m here because I have a loyal heart and a foolish mind, and a bit of rotten luck thrown in there.

  Tell him what he needs to hear.

  “Perhaps the prophecy takes time,” I say slowly, looking down at the clothing in my hands. “Maybe some other things have to happen first before you’re sure enough.” I glance up at him in a vaguely seductive way, trying to get him to pick up on my meaning without being too obvious about it.

  “You think I just need to fuck you in order to find out,” he says, the word jarring me, sending an inappropriate flare of heat through my legs. “That’s funny, that was my idea too.”

  Holy shit, he doesn’t mess around!

  I refuse to let this throw me off-balance, though. I straighten my shoulders slightly, maintaining eye contact. “I had a feeling. Since you made me get undressed.”

  Somehow I can tell he’s smiling under that gruesome mask. “All in due time,” he says, slipping his glove back on. “I was just taking stock of my new possession, that’s all. Seeing all you have to offer.” He looks me over once more. “You’re more exquisite than I could have imagined, little bird.”

  He was right in that I always suck up compliments, but I refuse to acknowledge this one.

  He nods at the white dress. “Put that on.” He reaches out with his gloved hand and brushes my hair off my shoulder in a strangely tender way that makes me flinch. “With your dark hair and haunting eyes, the black nightgown was far too gloomy for a fairy girl. You should be a bright spot in Shadow’s End…while you’re still here, anyway.”

  Then he flips his hood up and over his skull head and turns and walks away, his boots echoing across the room. “We’re having dinner tonight,” he booms without turning around. “I’ll send Raila to help you. I expect you to be washed properly, your hair done, and in a dress from the wardrobe. This is not a request.”

  And then he’s gone.

  The key turns in the lock.

  Chapter 13