Page 5 of Where the Light No Longer Follows

Silene’s mind was like the ocean. There was never an ending where she’d go into the ocean and the ocean wouldn’t drown her. But Silene had always managed to find a way to stay afloat, even when she’d been alive and the ocean had not been an ocean, but a deep abyss where many real monsters lived. Monsters she’d never been able to slay, who’s filthy, soot-covered hands she still felt on her unfeeling corpse of a body she now lived in.

She’d found a way to float into the ocean, sometimes by baking food that she could no longer eat, mostly by sowing and knitting the pretty clothes she wore, often even planting pretty flowers in the garden of the home Azriel had gifted her long ago, a small cottage sitting on a lone hill surrounded by an empty horizon of fields planted with daisies and overlooking Lethe.

Silene often allowed herself to wonder, she wondered if the ocean would let her float like this for long, if it would cease to be merciful to her one day despite the branches she’d been hanging on. The only comfort to the thought was that soon, Silene would no longer wonder. After she would collect four more deaths, she’d be set free. A freedom she didn’t really know if she wanted, but one gifted by Death, nonetheless. It would be her price for her service to him. A price that many spent on a new life, a new beginning clean of memories of any past life, a fresh start.

But Silene wanted to vanish. She wanted her being to be erased from existence. She longed to feel herself disappear, to suspend into nothingness, to be so light from memories and existence itself that time would carry her so easily afloat into someplace where she was between nowhere and nothing. A wish she was not sure he’d grant her as the balance of souls would tip against her favour. A wish with a cost she was sure she would not be able to pay for she had nothing to give but riches made of wretched memories.

The small garden metal gate creaked open, but she did not stop ploughing the spot where she would plant her white lilies, the only flowers that did not die from her cold touch that was now a mark of death, the same hands she had used to mark her own death. There was only one who’d ever visited her, only one who had ever stepped inside the place she called home.

Every spirit and entity allowed into Asphodel knew nothing of Silene but of this one thing:

She could not stand to be touched or looked at or spoken to because none of those had ever been a choice for her before death. Her body nor her mind had never quite been her own, not once her father had figured a way to use both to bring him money to spend on liquor he’d later use to wallow for the misfortune that had befallen him for having to resort to selling his own child. Somehow, he’d always been the one who’d needed comforting after the coin he’d received from the men who had violated her body in ways she had never known a body could ever be violated until she’d been in their hands. And Silene, having all the love one could bear, had let him take that comfort. Sometimes almost letting him beat her to death, sometimes by letting whoever would pay him to beat her almost to death. But dying meant leaving her brother behind, so against every single desire of hers, she’d resisted death. For him, for her brother Luke. Because if she had died, it meant her fate would be passed to him. It was the only inheritance and legacy Silene could leave behind. That rotten fate. For his sake, she’d held on. Until one long night of pain when she’d been barely able to crawl with a pair of broken limbs, bloodied eyes and an entirely shattered soul.

A shadow fell over her and she tipped her head back, pulling her garden hat off to look at Death much less welcomingly than when she’d looked at him the night she had died. She frowned up at her oldest friend who never once had frowned back at her despite the fact that he frowned at almost everything else. “You’re stealing light from my flowers.”

He thrust his hands in his pockets, regarding her with somewhat of a strange look—the look he’d started giving her once she’d reminded him how near she was to fulfilling her duty. “The light in question belongs to me. How is that stealing?”

She rolled her eyes. “What do you want?”

“I have another death for you to collect.”

Panic embraced her in a suffocating hug. “It’s my day off.” She’d never quite imagined time would pass so fast. Silene had so much to do before she’d leave. Her garden was not finished, and she’d only re-done half the window curtains for the upstairs floor and her kitchen needed a second coat of paint since a few dozen years had passed since she’d done it last.

Azriel chuckled. “You don’t have days off.”

“I request one.”

“Request denied.”

“These are unfair working hours.”

“Complaining is welcome.”

“I want to complain.”

“Complaint received,” he said. “Get your timekeeper and head to Asador.”

“There again?” Her eyes were already sore from last time. Cement and glass were the last thing she wanted to see at the moment.

“People die every day, Silene,” he said with a flare of dramatics so unlike him.

“So not funny,” she muttered between her teeth, sneering at him. “Why me? You have about a thousand other Reapers. Why torture me?”

“Because this death is being held hostage, and you seem to be the only one my brother can’t get through to.”

Silene had no pulse, but something raced against her veins. She swallowed. “Well, if you didn’t want him to get through things, you could send a wall.”

“He can go through walls.”

Her eyes narrowed on him. “Why is he interfering?”

Death stared at her with such a pale regard, never quite allowing himself to make his pity seen because he knew Silene was too proud to accept it kindly. Just like Gabriel had told her, Azriel had strangely not known of her existence either, not until he’d been there to welcome her into his world, where she’d found him watching her life over the reflection of Lethe, the clear waters that bore memories of the dead it carried. “I think you already know. I think you’ve known for a while.”

Because of her, he had meant to say. He’s interfering because of you.

When Silene had taken what was not hers to take, she’d fallen into debt with another unforgiving God. In a way entirely different from the way she was indebted to Azriel. She’d robbed Gabriel. While she could pay back Death, there was no way for her to pay back Life. Nor did she want to. In her account, he was indebted to her in ways he also could not pay her back.

In her worst moments, life had just kept going. And Silene never quite forgave him for that. A grievance he seemed to know about, too. One she did not want him exploring.