Page 2 of At The End There Was You

The moment stale air and dimmed walls filled every sense in Winter’s body, a rare smile stretched on her face. Stories, true or not, she loved them. There was no story of her own, not one memory she thought could be good enough to graze a page, let alone belong in a book. All the lives she had lived were those others had written for her to read. And it was good enough for her. It truly was.

She gently trailed a finger over the lines of dusty and mouldy books as she travelled the length of the shelved corridors to meet the Mage who had requested her aid. The notes of a distant piano filled her ears, and she closed her eyes briefly, enjoying the soft melody. Many feared the spook who had resided in the library and played the instrument for non-ending centuries, but not her. Often, she’d pass by the library only to hear him play.

“I presume you do know that is not how reading works. Staring, touching, and smiling at them is no help to me,” a deep and cold voice spoke from her side, and Winter flinched, staggering a few steps away from the shelves only to crash on the one behind her. Surely, there would be a bruise where she’d hit her elbow against the hard oak shelf, it was all she could think about. That little pain was all she could think about even though her attention was solely on the man standing there and watching her as if she was the sole cause for the end of the world they lived in. Winter hated pain more than she hated hate itself.

Night. He reminded her of night. Black hair that fell a bit longer than how men normally wore it. Dark eyes, not brown, not anything black either, just dark—the look, the colour, the paleness of it all. Even the light stubble on his jaw reminded her of night. He was tall, at the least a foot over her, and she was not short by any means.

The dark haired man shut the book he held with a thud that reverberated all over the massive library hollow of any other living soul other than them. Who would want to read about living and not live themselves when there was so little time left to do so? He lowered his thin black specs and folded them in the breast pocket of his black jacket threaded with the most intricate designs she’s ever seen. Nothing of his resembled anything of the life she’d chosen to live four years ago. Everyone in the Sanctum was blissful, modestly dressed, carrying a humble attitude that was no near a match to his cold one. “I presume you are Miss Winslow.”

“Just Winter. That name does not belong to me anymore.”

His face was so clean of any emotion that when he slightly raised a brow, it changed his whole face. It made him almost look…coy. Winter knew that the man before her could be none of that. Mages could never be coy. Only cruel. “Then follow me, just Winter.”

“Will you stop Death?” she asked before she could help it as she followed after the man.

He halted his steps before they reached the only lit table at the centre of the library. Not even bothering to address her face to face like she was always taught to address someone, he said, “Do I look like a God?”

Yes, she wanted to say, a terrifying one, but instead she went with, “Does one need to be a God to stop Death? We stop sickness and disease, rain and snow and hail, we even stop happiness. How can we not stop something so simple?”

He turned then. For a second, Winter thought his eyes shone a different colour, one not drowned by the abyss of whatever haunting thing had buried its memories there. “Simple. Since when is death simple?”

“It is but the simplest. Effortless. Certainly, something we think of often, but we do not indulge it unless the nights are long or suddenly our skies feel grey or our heart feels empty. The thought of death is passing. Happiness is passing, too, but we chase it. Persistently. Constantly. We dream of it. Though we dream of death, too, but not because we want it.” She chewed on her lip. “Unless it is one of the above again. It does that—death does that, it chases us instead, even if it is in our dreams. And when we wake up, we decide to not think of it. But if it was happiness we dreamed of, we recall it, share it with others, laugh at it or daydream it over and over until that dream remains like a sock with a hole that we often see at the bottom of our drawer but are reluctant to throw even though socks with holes can’t be used much.”

Now two lifted brows faced Winter, and she swallowed thickly. Had she angered him? Normally when she blabbered her mind off, people only sighed, ignored or yawned at her, they rarely ever got angry at her. She hopped from foot to foot and his eyes dropped there, at her feet. “Where do I come in all of this? The High Priestess said you’ve requested my help.”

The man’s dark eyes snapped to hers again. “Sit,” he said simply and almost calmly, but his voice came like a sharp whip in Winter’s ears, and she all but ran to take a seat.

A few dozen books were scattered over the round table, all open on random pages filled with languages, numbers, and illustrations she couldn’t even begin to understand. How would she be his shadow if she needed his help to understand them? A haunting ghost, perhaps. Always tapping at his shoulders and draining him out of answers. Surely, she would be let go from this duty in a matter of a few seconds. Her parents had been well off and she’d received some of the best education, but it didn’t mean she’d paid attention to it or been good at anything at that.

“I will not ask you to translate anything, don’t brood,” he said as he took a seat next to her, and she winced a little.

“What good am I for then?”

“Talking, it seems.” He reached towards a book and placed it before her. “Highlight any sentence with the word morta in it wherever you see it.”

Winter sealed her lips shut and glared at him. She wanted to know his name so she could curse him properly in her head.

“Azriel,” he said, placing his specks back on and reaching for a few scriptures. “My name.”

She let out a little gasp. Could he read minds?

“No,” he gruffly added.

“W-what?”

“I do not read minds.”

“How would you know if I was thinking that if you don’t?”

“You’re like an open book, Winter. Though I’d very much like to return to reading something else, so would you at least make an effort to not be one? Your mistress said you’d be a shadow, not the whole damn sun.”

Heat rose to her face. “Apologies.”

“I do not care for them.”

“Then I take it back,” she muttered under her breath, and Azriel’s hand stopped in the middle of flipping a page.

From the corner of her eye, she watched his fingers adorned with silver rings remain still, her heart limping from beat to beat, worried she’d offended him. She did not care for the wounded pride of a Mage, but she was worried about her spleen.