Page 5 of Where Light Cannot Follow

Something sharp flickers across his features, annoyance that his lure hasn’t taken. There was a time he could bait me, draw me into arguments that would spiral into precisely the kind of passion he craves. But that was centuries ago by any mortal measure of time.

"Why do these souls compel you?" His eyes narrow to slits. "You could feed on that energy instead and feel again. You’re trapped here for eternity. Don't you long to taste summer fruit once more? To feel rain against your skin?"

The words find their mark. He has no idea how deeply I hunger for such things, how the desire sometimes creeps up on me like the call of sirens perched upon distant cliffs, their song so sweet it would be easy to leap from the ship and let the rocks claim me. It's only knowing that my destruction wouldn't be mine alone to bear that keeps my hands steady on the wheel.

"I haven't hungered in many years," I say.

He scoffs. "You're a terrible liar." Then his gaze slides to our newest arrival, to the tall man in the expensive coat. "He carries such exquisite suffering. Shall I show you my work?"

His tongue darts out, serpentine and eager. I'm grateful that my heart cannot race, that my cheeks won't flush or pupils dilate to betray me. It's perhaps the only mercy of this half-existence I inhabit, if such a thing can be called existence at all.

I offer the barest shrug. Show even a flicker of interest, and he'll torment the man before me until his screams echo through these empty streets. Until he begs. Until he bargains away whatever fragments of soul are left to him.

"I'm merely observing the architecture," I say. "Manhattan fascinates me."

Malrec rolls his eyes with theatrical disgust. "In case you've forgotten, poet, you're dead. You'll never walk those streets."

"Not through my own eyes, perhaps." The words emerge measured, calm, utterly disinterested.

He takes a step toward the man, hunger sharpening his beautiful features into something wolfish.

"There's a priest three realms down," I mention casually, lazily. "Arrived not long ago. Spent decades preying on altar boys."

Malrec's eyes ignite, and his smile stretches until it's no longer remotely human; instead, it’s all teeth and terrible promise. "Now that sounds delicious. Which way?"

"Follow the swamp until the path forks, then take the left route. You can't miss him, he'll be the one trying to hide."

Malrec is right about one thing. I am indeed a terrible liar. Which is precisely why he knows with absolute certainty that what I'm telling him now is true.

He vanishes in a blur of shadow, leaving behind only the faint energy of his anticipation.

It's only after his presence fully dissipates that I allow myself to turn back to the man who has, for reasons I cannot name, captured my attention so completely. In his imagined Manhattan, he continues walking through the lonely streets of his own making, searching for something that no longer exists and perhaps never did.

Time doesn't exist here, at least not in the way it does for mortals. But I allow what someone might call time to pass, watching as the man traces the same path through his conjured world. He never falters in his stride. Each step is measured, intentional. His chin remains raised, his eyes fixed on some distant point that exists only in memory.

I don't know why he fascinates me so.

He's so thoroughly enraptured by his own imaginings here in limbo that he doesn't realize where he is. Doesn't even comprehend that he's dead. The living cling so desperately to their patterns, their routines, and their masks that death becomes just another room they refuse to acknowledge entering.

I've witnessed souls spend lifetimes doing exactly this—walking the same loops, tracing familiar paths through landscapes of their own creation, never recognizing the journey that awaits them beyond the comfortable prison of repetition.

Sometimes I wonder if ignorance isn't the greater mercy to what I offer.

The millennia—at least by mortal measure—have worn me thin as parchment. There was a time when I believed every soul could be saved, when I threw myself into each rescue with the fervor of the recently converted. Now I know better. Most prefer their cages to the terrifying prospect of flight.

But this one... this one walks his loop with such precise determination, such beautiful, futile purpose. As if sheer will could resurrect the life he's lost. As if discipline could defeat death itself.

It's been so long since I've seen someone fight the inevitable with such elegant stubbornness.

Perhaps that's what draws me, the echo of my own ancient refusal to accept what cannot be changed. Or maybe it's simpler than that. Maybe I'm just tired of watching souls surrender before they've even begun to understand what they're surrendering to.

The man looks at me. Or not at me, his eyes never meet mine, his gaze slides past my form as if I'm made of morning mist. But somehow I sense he feels the same pull I do. The same inexplicable curiosity threading between us like an invisible cord.

That's when I decide to cross into his loop.

It's not a decision I make lightly.

Every time I step into another soul's mindscape, they leave an imprint on me. The ones who fail, whom I fail, cling to me like shadows. Their fear licks at my feet, gnawing like a trapped thing at the edges of me, their sorrow swallows me in dark waves, and their despair haunts me.