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Instead, the shadowy waves rippled and crashed into each other, becoming a sea of writhing bodies.

“Death,” I rasped in a breath, watching how the forms undulated and surged back and forth collectively. Silhouettes rose from the murky current, each one’s pale luminous eyes searching as they reached and grasped for something.

Someone.

Dozens of eyes snapped to me and then the Emperor, their smoky lids stretched taut to anger. They climbed over the shadowy sea of bodies, weaving through the moat until they neared us. A lithe form stood before me, a pair of wings pulling up from its back, shadowy feathers layered atop one another, a long tail wrapping around my own.

As more and more neared, their forms continued to shift and expand until a dozen ghostly splendors encircled us.

“Are these—my kin?” I asked, my voice cracking along with my composure.

Death’s starlit and somber stare was all the answer I needed.

“But how? Why?” I turned to the Emperor and then back to Death. “What are they doing here? Have you come for me?”

“Tell her, ohgenerousEmperor,” Death said, their tone severe and slicing with a tinge of dark amusement beneath.

The Emperor winced, as if struck by some invisible force, but he shook his head. Death waded through the undulatingforms around them, the thick black markings along their brow-line stretching into sharp blades. Gripping the Emperor’s chin, Death twisted his pale green gaze to meet mine. His irises were glassy, like blemished marbles in need of polishing. “Tell her why they come now, coward.”

“T-This was not part of our bargain. I brought the splendor to you as you asked. There is no need for anything more than that. Take her and be gone!”

Take me?

No, no, no.

My feathers shook, a chill rustling between their downy layers. I wrapped my tail tighter around myself, the shadowy tails of my kin curling around me, so many that I couldn’t tell where one of their tails began and the next one ended.

“How many splendors have come to the Divine Palace?” Death’s punishing stare narrowed on the Emperor who quivered, drawing his covers up around his chest, as if it could stop whatever was coming. “Tell her.”

“Twelve.”

I gasped, grabbing my feathers so tightly that a few seared as they ripped from my flesh. “Twelve splendors?”

My hands shook, unclenching my fist. The blush plumes fell beneath the smoky surface surrounding us. “What happened to them?”

“I gave them everything. Everything. But then th-they tried to escape.” The Emperor sputtered into a series of coughs and wheezes.

“How many lost their voice before they became so distraught they began to flee?”

The Emperor trembled. “All of them.”

“I don’t understand.” My eyes were wide, pulling more feathers from my sides. “How long has this been going on?”

“For decades,” Death said, sharply. They came around the side of the bed, placing their hand over the Emperor’s heart. A slow, effortful thud echoed through the bedchamber. His fading pulse. “Immortality is all I’ll offer.”

I watched in horror, clinging to the steady rapping between my ribs and the shadowy splendors embracing me.

The Emperor grinned. “Oh thank you gracious one. Take this final splendor in exchange for my immortality. Do with it what you must, and you’ll never have to deal with being blocked from your task again.”

“I will grant you this final act. I look forward to never looking upon you again,” Death sneered.

“As do I,” the Emperor replied.

I had no words.

I’d come here, fearing my final canthymn, therap, rap, rapof the splendors’ shared beat holding me steady as the world crumbled around me. Only now I knew the truth—this beat was shared with only the dead. My kin were gone.

Maybe they’d abandoned me like I’d thought, but maybe, just maybe, there was another explanation? Smoky tail feathers fluffed and primped my blush ones, slipping through the incorporeal shapes.