Page 6 of Death’s Gentle Hand

But scattered throughout the mundane records were stranger accounts that made his skin crawl with recognition.

People who claimed to see a figure waiting for them in their final moments.

Deaths that seemed negotiated rather than inevitable.

Last words that spoke of tall shadows and cold eyes, of someone who came not when called but when needed, whether the dying wanted him or not.

In a withered book bound in what might once have been skin, Damian found a single line that stopped his breath entirely: “He comes when you call him, not with words but with ache, drawn by the weight of souls who refuse to let go.”

The text was attributed to someone called the Last Witness, dated to the collapse of the Ashen Accord. Below it, in different handwriting that felt somehow familiar, was an addendum:

“The greatest mercy is often indistinguishable from the greatest cruelty.”

Damian ran his fingers over the lines repeatedly, tracing each letter with growing obsession.

The words seemed to burn themselves into his mind, echoing with the weight of absolute truth.

As he read and re-read the passage, he became aware of that presence again, not quite a voice but something like held breath, like someone listening from just beyond the edge of perception.

The library grew colder with each reading, frost forming on the ancient texts despite the warm air. Damian's breath became visible, and the silence deepened until it felt like being buried alive in cotton.

“I know you're there,” he whispered to the empty air between the stacks. “I can feel you listening. What do you want from me?”

No answer came, but the cold intensified, and for a moment Damian could have sworn he felt fingers ghosting across his cheek. Gentle, impossibly gentle, but cold as winter morning.

He left the library shaken, telling himself it was only fatigue, nothing more. But deep in his bones, he knew better. The city’s breath felt closer, its presence humming in every stone he touched—as if the streets themselves tracked his passage, attentive and waiting.

The walk back to his clinic took longer than usual, his steps slow and hesitant as he tried to process what he'd learned.

The idea that Death might be a person rather than a process, that someone might actually be listening to the desperate prayers of the dying, was both terrifying and oddly comforting.

That evening, Damian performed his nightly ritual with unusual care. He lit his candles one by one, each flame steady and warm against the growing cold in his clinic.

But tonight, for the first time in years, he felt compelled to speak aloud to the darkness. The words came unbidden, pulled from some deep well of longing he hadn't known existed:

“If you're there, if you're real, if you can hear the ache in people's hearts, don't take me yet. I have too much left to do.”

The moment the words left his lips, everything changed.

A cold wind swept through the clinic, raising goosebumps along Damian’s arms, even though the windows were shut and the doors locked tight.

He felt the sudden chill settle over him, sharp as knives, the air prickling against his skin.

The candle flames must have danced—he could hear the faint, uneasy flicker and smell hot wax drifting in strange currents, all pulled toward the eastern wall as if by invisible breath.

The temperature dropped so fast it left his teeth chattering, and when he exhaled, he could feel the wetness of his breath in the frozen air.

Somewhere nearby, the walls crackled and popped, the sound of ice forming—patterns he could only imagine, but he felt their presence like a whisper just out of reach.

The silence that followed was different from any quiet Damian had experienced. It wasn't empty but full, pregnant with attention, heavy with presence. Something was listening, had heard him, was considering his words with the weight of cosmic significance.

The realization hit him like a revelation: he was not alone, had never been alone. Something vast and patient had been watching him, waiting for him to acknowledge its presence, to speak directly to the darkness instead of pretending it was empty.

His hands shook as he reached for his journal, trying to record what had happened. But words felt inadequate, too small to contain the magnitude of what he'd just experienced. How could he describe the feeling of being heard by something that existed beyond mortal comprehension?

Sleep brought no relief from the growing strangeness.

Damian dreamed of a figure kneeling before a door made of interlaced ribs and shadows, tall and impossibly graceful, with hair like starlight and eyes that held the darkness between stars.

The figure's hands were pressed against the bone door, and tears fell from his void-dark eyes like drops of liquid silver.

In the dream, the weeping figure looked up at the sound of Damian's approach, and their eyes met across the threshold between worlds. The recognition was instantaneous and overwhelming, like meeting someone he'd been waiting for his entire life without knowing it.

The bone door swung open to reveal Damian's clinic, and the figure rose with fluid grace. When he spoke, his voice was like wind through empty spaces, beautiful and terrible and infinitely sad: “You called, and I answered. But are you prepared for what that means?”

Damian tried to respond, to ask who the figure was, to understand the profound sorrow in those star-bright eyes. But the moment he opened his mouth, the dream fractured like glass, reality reasserting itself with violent suddenness.

He woke screaming, his skin covered in frost despite the warm night. His clinic was freezing, his breath visible in the suddenly arctic air.

Corrin burst through his door without knocking, their face pale with worry and fear. “Gods, Damian, what happened? You were screaming loud enough to wake the dead.”

He couldn't remember screaming, couldn't remember making any sound at all.

But his throat felt raw, and his neighbors were probably cursing his name.

Through chattering teeth, he managed to whisper the words that would change everything: “Someone heard me.

Someone answered. And I think... I think I've been calling him my whole life.”

Corrin wrapped him in blankets while he shivered uncontrollably, his body convinced it was freezing despite the warm air. They made tea with hands that shook almost as badly as his, and sat with him until the tremors subsided and his breathing returned to normal.

“Tell me,” they said when he was finally calm enough to speak coherently.

So he did. The dream, the figure with starlight hair, the bone door that opened onto his own clinic. The sense of recognition, of meeting someone he'd been waiting for without knowing it. The terrible, beautiful sadness in those void-dark eyes.

“It felt real,” he said finally. “More real than this conversation, more real than anything I've ever experienced. Like everything else has been shadow, and that was the first time I've seen actual light.”

Corrin was quiet for a long time, their breathing careful and controlled.

When they finally spoke, their voice was small and frightened: “What if it was real?

What if whatever's been happening in the city, all the strangeness and the broken clocks and the impossible things, what if it's connected to you?”

“That's insane.”

“Is it? You've been having dreams about presence and silence. Hollows are carving symbols that match your mother's soulbinding marks. And now you're dreaming about figures who look like they stepped out of Ashen Accord mythology.”

Damian wanted to argue, to dismiss it as coincidence and magical exhaustion. But deep in his bones, he knew Corrin was right. The strangeness wasn't random. It was focused, intentional, drawing ever tighter circles around his small life.

“What does it mean?” he asked.

“I don't know,” Corrin admitted. “But I think we're about to find out.”

The next morning brought impossible changes that made denial futile.

The sigil carved into Damian's wall was now glowing with soft silver light that pulsed in rhythm with his heartbeat.

The symbol had grown more complex overnight, sprouting delicate branches and spirals that weren't there before, as if something was adding to it piece by piece.

When Damian placed his palm against the glowing mark, warmth spread up his arm and settled in his chest like a second heartbeat.

The sensation was deeply intimate, as if someone was touching him from the inside out.

For a moment, he swore he could feel another presence layered beneath his own awareness, vast and patient and achingly lonely.

“It's beautiful,” he whispered, tracing the new patterns with wonder.

“It's terrifying,” Corrin corrected, but their voice held awe as well as fear.

Outside his window, a raven had taken up permanent residence on the sill. It didn't flee when Damian approached, instead studying him with intelligence that seemed distinctly non-animal. Its eyes were black as winter night, but they held depths that spoke of ancient knowledge and endless sorrow.

The raven's presence seemed to calm something in Damian he didn't realize was agitated. As he went about his morning routine, he found himself speaking to the bird as if it might relay messages to whoever was listening in the spaces between silence.

“Tell him I'm not afraid,” he said while preparing his healing supplies. “Tell him I understand what this means. Tell him...” He paused, struggling to find words for the longing that had been growing in his chest like a tumor made of starlight. “Tell him I'm ready to meet him properly.”

The raven tilted its head, considering his words with the gravity of a judge weighing evidence. Then it spoke again, its voice carrying harmonics that seemed to echo from very far away: “He knows.”

Throughout the day, patients noticed changes in Damian's healing.

His touch seemed cooler but more effective, drawing pain with greater intensity and leaving behind a sense of profound peace rather than mere relief.

One woman commented that his hands felt “blessed by the old gods,” and Damian didn't correct her.

Mrs. Kess was among his patients that day, her condition deteriorating rapidly as the temporal strain ate away at her remaining vitality. But when Damian touched her, something extraordinary happened. The pain flowed out of her and into him as usual, but underneath it came something else: peace.

Not his peace, but something foreign and vast and infinitely gentle. As if someone was pouring comfort into her through his hands, using him as a conduit for mercy he'd never been able to provide on his own.

“You're different today,” she said when the healing was done, her voice stronger than it had been in weeks. “There's something in your touch that wasn't there before. Something old and kind.”

Damian's hands were shaking, but not from exhaustion. The borrowed peace sat in his mind like a gift, beautiful and terrible and utterly foreign to his own experience. “How do you feel?”

“Like I've been forgiven,” she said simply. “Like someone very powerful decided I'd suffered enough.”

That night, as Damian prepared for sleep, he realized he no longer felt the crushing weight of solitude that had defined his adult life. The darkness around him was companionable rather than empty, filled with patient presence that watched over him like a guardian made of starlight and shadow.

He spoke to it as he might to a friend, his voice soft in the intimate darkness: “I don't know your name yet, but I know you're listening. Thank you for hearing me. Thank you for the peace you gave Mrs. Kess. Thank you for... whatever this is.”

The shadows seemed to deepen in response, not threateningly, but like a gentle embrace. The air grew warmer, and for a moment Damian could have sworn he felt fingers in his hair, stroking with impossible tenderness.

Sleep came easily for the first time in years, and his dreams were full of silver light and profound peace.