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Another three moon cycles passed.

I only saw the Emperor when he brought guests into the greenhouse, but he no longer came in late at night, not wanting me to give in to my baser urges .

Not that I wanted to.

I hadn’t even understood what magic had come over me, what spell had drawn me to do such things, for my body to react as it had.

The shame of it and how I had disgraced myself in front of the Emperor and the two women he’d brought with him haunted me daily.

Luckily the urges never presented themselves again.

One late night, though, the guards rushed into the greenhouse, hailing me down from my tree.

I sprung to the floor, knowing that look all too well.

The Emperor had fallen ill again.

Had this been why he hadn’t come in weeks?

Acid rose up my throat and I begged the skies above, the ones I missed so dearly from within the palace walls, to grant me mercy.

I had used my canthymn to revive someone six times, leaving me with this last song.

I didn’t want to lose my voice, to be unable to croon or sing or speak, but wasn’t this my purpose?

Hadn’t the Emperor let me stay here for this very reason?

Each step felt too slow and too rushed toward the ruler’s wing.

But when I entered the Emperor’s chamber he wasn’t alone.

A hooded figure stood next to his bedside, cast in shadows.

Their skin had black slashed across their eyelids, only tiny stars of light dancing within their swirling dark irises.

The marking tapered at one side, disappearing into dark blue wavy strands that peeked from their hood, and the lower half of their face was covered in black fabric so I couldn’t make out their nose or mouth.

My throat dried.

Their arms were long and trim with muscle, a slip of skin showing across where their waist tapered in.

Baggy black pants hung from their hips, tucked into their matching boots with thick soles.

“Y-you called for me?” I asked the Emperor, my heart racing while the near silent rap, rap, rap strummed in the background.

My seventh and final canthymn.

Would the Emperor truly expect such a thing from me?

I knew he could be cruel and ruthless for his country’s success, but I’d looked into his pale green gaze and saw the man that had begged for my help when I’d first arrived.

The eyes of someone desperate and weak, looking at his salvation.

“I did summon you, splendor, but not for what you might think.”

I sighed in relief despite the frailty in his tone.

Maybe he wanted to see me before he left, hear one final melody from his great splendor that had brought him renown and riches from all over the world.

I could give him solace in the end.

The stranger scoffed next to the Emperor, sharp brows drawn together.

“And who are you?” I asked.

“I’m disappointed you don’t know, considering the number of times we’ve been together in this very room, under similar circumstances.” Their voice held a rich unearthly lilt, somehow both indulgent and harsh.

My veins chilled, feathers bristling along my body.

A thick black current spread from their feet until it filled the room.

It rose up to their knees, and my tail wrapped around me, not wanting to be touched by it.

As if it would get them wet.

Only there was no water.

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, oh generous Emperor,” 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 undulating forms 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, the rap, rap, rap of 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.

Death tapped their scythe twice against the marble floor before it shrank down and was swallowed into the tattoo on their forearm.

Wrapping their hand around the Emperor’s throat, Death bent low, whispering into the dying ruler’s ear.

His eyes went wide and he sputtered a cough before white light burst in every direction, blinding me from seeing them.

When the flecks of light stopped dancing in my eyes, the Emperor was gone.

Death stood in front of me, walking toward a sky painted the shades of burning flames.

Three straps crossed low on their back, hugging where their waist sloped in, a hood covering their hair.

Their boots thudded through the sea of shadows following in their wake.

So many souls that had fallen victim to the Emperor.

All of my kind among them, just a drop in a sea of thousands.

The frail man that’d held my hands, pleaded with me, waxen and weak, was the same man who had done this.

Given me away so freely.

His great symbol.

Now he’d gotten exactly what he’d wanted.

He’d live on forever.

“These souls will never get to welcome him here.” Death said, cutting into my thoughts.

Their tone conveyed what kind of welcome it would have been, and I had to admit, I envied that I would not get to witness it.

“When lives weigh on someone’s soul, they must confront them in death in order to join its realm.”

And if they don’t.

“Then they go somewhere far worse.”

Worse than death?

“There are fates far worse than death, Songbird.”

I didn’t know which was more unsettling, that Death could hear my thoughts or the way my pulse skittered at their nickname for me.

What would Death do with me?

There was no need for my canthymn here.

No one to save or serenade.

Would I be locked away and caged, eliminated completely from existence, or sent to wherever was worse than the land of the dead?

Death said nothing, though I knew they could hear my thoughts now, and I didn’t care.

I had nothing to hide.

The smoky sea parted, becoming clusters and then individual silhouettes until they were absorbed into Death's back as we passed through the tall looming gates made of carved bone.

“Welcome to Occasus.”