Page 8 of At The End There Was You

He stopped for a moment and searched his memory for the name. Had it been such a simple name? “Perhaps. I’d know that for certain if you completed your task rather than presented unsolicited opinions on the matter.”

She pressed her lips together again and Azriel noted that was perhaps the only way Winter would stop herself from speaking, she had little to no control on her mind.

An hour or so later, the young priestess zig zagged through the library shelves like a bee, holding a few heavy books on her hands and a very bright look on her face that was enough to make Azriel sigh and drop his specs down and his head back on the chair rest. His temples thumped and massaging them did not help in any way, only added to that numb pressure his body was yet to be accustomed to even after living for so long. The cheery piano tune in the background was not helping either.

Slowly, he turned a hard glare on the piano spook, and the notes faltered, stopping all together.

Soft steps sounded close by and then something landed in front of him, forcing him to peel his eyes open and gaze up at the woman with oddest eyes—a strange mix of amber and light green. “Found it. I’m one hundred percent certain that the flower you were looking for is indeed a daisy.” She blinked a little faster when he said nothing after a long while. “Have you changed your mind? Is it not needed to stop Death anymore?” Then her brows pulled together, and she chewed on her lip more viciously. Azriel felt the sudden urge to pull it from between her teeth and dig his own on it. “I don’t understand why it was needed in the first place.”

“Neither do I.”

He could swear her eye twitched. “Aren’t you on limited time to lose on such useless tasks?” There she went, Azriel thought, arguing with him again.

“Aren’t we all?”

She swallowed again and Azriel felt another urge tugging on his restraint. He wanted his mouth there next. Instead of answering, she gave him a shrug. A single shrug which no matter how long and hard he thought about the next hour, he could not understand what it meant.

“You think fighting it is useless,” he finally said, unable to bear the heavy insinuations, and she looked up at him from her book half covered from her hair pooling over it like scorching lava.

“Fighting to live is not useless.”

“The thought of not fighting this does not bother you.”

“Not really.”

“Why?”

“Does it matter?”

“Why?” he pushed again, seeming to forget to soften his voice around her like he usually did. It frightened her, it made her wince and flinch, and he did not like that either.

“It is simply not my fight.”

He didn’t understand, and she didn’t seem to understand his deep frown or unsated curiosity that she was not wanting to quench. “So, you’d surrender.”

“We all surrender to death the day we are born. We just hope he is kind and forgetful.”

“He is neither of those.”

She shrugged again and Azriel did not like that gesture not one bit. “He is angry though.”

“And how have you come to know that?”

“Why would such a tolerating deity be so cruel if not because he is angry? It is likely he is susceptible to emotion regardless of his title and power.”

He ignored the later comment. “A tolerating deity?”

She nodded and he liked that one gesture better. “We fall sick and he allows us to find a cure. We become sad and he allows us to be happy again. He is kind despite his nature.”

“Do you always speak such nonsense?”

“Occasionally.” Her eyes rolled up again and stared directly into his, and Azriel liked that the most. He was feared and good at what he did, not many looked anywhere above his chin, let alone directly into his eyes. “You should, too. It is liberating.”

“To speak your mind is foolish.”

“To not speak it is a shame. With how little we live and how little we have to live, it would be the utmost pity.”

He tilted his head to the side, regarding her, and her shoulders stiffened under his perusal. “Are you calling me pitiful, Winter?”