Page 1 of Death’s Gentle Hand

The Weight of Breathing

Damian

T he bells of Hourglass Plaza rolled across Varos like a funeral dirge, each bronze note counting down the hours, minutes, seconds the city owed its creditors—a grim replacement for dawn in this cursed place.

Damian Vale lay still in his narrow bed, listening to the familiar toll that had replaced dawn in this cursed place.

The sound vibrated through the building's bones, through his mattress, into his chest where it settled like lead.

His body catalogued yesterday's work with brutal honesty. Joints burned from channeling too much pain, fingertips raw from soul-threading. The hollow ache in his chest—familiar now—told him he’d given too much again.

He pressed his palms against his eyes, feeling the faint raised scars that marked where his sight had died with his mother.

The memory threatened to surface, but he shoved it down.

No time for that particular brand of self-torture, not when half of Veil Row would be knocking on his door before the morning bells finished their grim countdown.

Damian rolled out of bed with practiced quiet, his bare feet finding the worn wooden floor.

Twenty years of blindness had taught him to navigate by touch, sound, and smell.

His apartment was small, cluttered with the detritus of an underground healer's life, but every object had its place. He moved through the space with careful steps, tracing the wall where yesterday’s warmth still lingered in the stone.

The building held heat like a lover, reluctant to let it go.

His clothes hung on pegs driven into the wall, sorted by texture and the lingering scent of herbs that clung to every fiber.

He felt for the rough wool of his work tunic, stiff with old bloodstains and the bitter tang of healing salves.

Next came the threadbare coat that smelled of rosemary and iron, its pockets worn soft from years of carrying his tools.

Damian dressed, wrapping himself in layers that would hide the worst of his thinness.

The morning ritual began with his supplies.

Glass vials of healing oils sat on the shelf; he tested each one for temperature and consistency.

The good stuff stayed warm even in winter, blessed by practitioners who'd died for their craft.

His soul-needles came next, thin crystalline instruments that sang when he drew them across the whetstone.

He listened to their pitch, adjusting the angle until each one hummed true.

He tested their sharpness against his thumb, feeling the familiar bite of perfectly honed crystal. A drop of blood welled up, and he pressed it to his tongue. Copper and salt, the taste of power barely contained. The needles would drink deeper soon enough.

Tea was a luxury he couldn't afford to give up, even when food ran short.

He felt along the shelf for the familiar rough burlap of the rootstock bag, measuring the bitter leaves by touch.

The water had been heating over the small brazier, and he judged its readiness by the sound of the bubbles, the way the steam hit his face.

The resulting brew tasted like dirt and disappointment, but it woke him up and settled his stomach.

He sat at his small table, hands wrapped around the chipped ceramic mug—the one with the handle that wobbled just so—and listened to Varos wake up around him.

The sounds of the city were a symphony of desperation. Vendors in the street below shouted their prices—not in coins, but in the currency of life itself.

“Fresh bread! Five hours for a loaf!”

“Warming stones, two days for six!”

Their voices carried the particular hoarseness of people who'd been shouting since before dawn. Children's laughter echoed between the buildings, bright and sharp and doomed. They didn't know yet what their time was worth, hadn't learned to count their heartbeats like a miser counting coins.

Damian finished his tea and gathered his kit.

The leather satchel was worn soft from years of use, its strap shaped to his shoulder.

He packed by touch and memory: salves and tinctures in their familiar bottles, blessed cloth for bandages that felt like silk against his fingers, the soul-needles wrapped in their silk sheaths to keep them from singing.

And tucked into the bottom, where his fingers found it without looking, was the small vial of bitter draught that would ease his own pain when the day's healing left him shattered.

He didn't like to think about how often he'd been reaching for that vial lately.

The walk to Mrs. Kess's place took him through the heart of Veil Row, where the desperate and the dangerous made their homes in the shadows between legal and condemned.

Damian navigated by sound and scent and the feel of the ground beneath his feet.

The streets were paved with broken obsidian that crunched under his boots, and he could hear the way sound changed as he passed under bridges or through narrow alleys.

The air here tasted of coal smoke and desperation, tinged with the metallic edge of Hourveins extracting time. He could smell the different levels of magic in the atmosphere—the sharp ozone of active spellwork, the musty rot of failed enchantments, the sweet-sick scent of temporal displacement.

Mrs. Kess lived in a converted tomb, because of course she did.

The old cemetery had been carved up and sold for housing when the Time Exchange decided dead people weren't generating enough revenue.

Damian found her door by the familiar pattern of carved stone under his fingertips, symbols that told stories for those who knew how to read them.

He knocked in the careful pattern that told her who was calling. The locks turned, metal on metal, and the door swung open with the particular creak of old hinges.

“Damian, love,” she said, her voice like autumn leaves crackling underfoot. “Right on time.”

Mrs. Kess had sold forty-seven years to keep her son out of debtor's prison. Damian could hear the temporal strain in her voice, the way her breathing rattled like paper in the wind. When she moved, she creaked like old wood, and her skin felt paper-thin when he touched her arm to guide her.

Her tomb was warm, heated by a small brazier that filled the air with the scent of time-coal.

The walls held an echo that spoke of carved stone, and when Damian ran his fingers along them, he could feel the raised reliefs that told her life story.

The magical resonance of the carvings made the air thick with memory.

“How's the pain today?” Damian asked, guiding her to the narrow bed by the sound of her footsteps and the rustle of fabric.

“Like fire in my bones,” she admitted, her weight settling onto the mattress with a soft whoosh of displaced air. “Like glass in my blood. But I've felt worse.”

Damian doubted that, but he didn't argue. He set up his tools by touch, the blessed cloth spread just so, the soul-needles arranged in their familiar pattern. Mrs. Kess watched him work—he could feel her attention like warmth on his skin.

“You know,” she said, settling back against her pillows with a rustle of old fabric, “my grandmother used to tell stories about the old days. Before the Time Exchange, before the Hourveins. When time moved like water, natural and free.”

Damian's hands stilled on his kit. He could hear the change in her voice, the way it softened with memory. “Did she now?”

“She said death came as a friend then, not a creditor. Said the reapers walked among us, gentle as rain, kind as twilight. The Ashen Accord taught that Death was passage, not punishment.”

The words hit Damian like cold water. He'd heard whispers of the Accord, fragments of the old religion that had been outlawed when the Time Exchange rose to power. Dangerous talk, the kind that got people Hollowed.

“Stories,” he said carefully, listening to the way his voice echoed in the small space. “That's all they are.”

Mrs. Kess smiled—he could hear it in her voice. “Maybe. But sometimes stories are all we have to keep us warm.”

Damian placed his hands on her shoulders, feeling the familiar tingle of connection.

Her skin was cool and fragile, like touching moth wings.

Paincraft was intimate magic, requiring trust and surrender from both parties.

He opened himself to her suffering, letting it flow into him like poison through his veins.

The pain hit him like a landslide. Mrs. Kess's agony poured into him, forty-seven years of stolen time condensed into pure hurt.

His bones went brittle, his muscles trembling with the weight of decades.

The darkness behind his eyes somehow deepened, and he tasted copper and ash.

The weight of her lost years settled into his body like lead.

But he held on, drawing her pain into himself until her breathing eased, until the tension left her shoulders. This was what he lived for, these moments when his own suffering had meaning. When the emptiness inside him could be filled with someone else's relief.

“Better?” he asked when it was done, his voice rough with borrowed anguish.

“Much.” Her voice was lighter now, the fever-edge replaced by something like peace. “You're a good boy, Damian. Your mother would be proud.”

He helped her to her bed, packing his tools as she pressed something small and glassy into his palm. His fingers traced etched symbols—patterns that felt familiar, though he'd never admit it.

“For protection,” she whispered. “The Accord teaches us that Death is not the enemy.”

Damian pocketed the charm without comment. He knew the risk of being caught with Accord artifacts.

“Rest now,” he said. “I'll be back tomorrow.”

The walk to the forgotten temple gave him time to think, which was both blessing and curse. His body ached with Mrs. Kess's borrowed pain, but his mind was sharper somehow, focused by the familiar burn of overextended magic.