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Inside the large tower was a long bridge with a glowing circular display at its center.

I followed Reaper toward it, noting the others there who all had the same tattoo on their forearm, a scythe that took up the length of it.

They also all had the same star-flecked eyes.

The others watched me curiously, irises glittering in a way that unmoored me.

While they all bore different clothing, some hooded and some not, they all had the bottom half of their faces covered and the slash of black that went from temple to temple, with some streaks thicker than others.

“There are so many. I didn’t realize you weren’t the only one of your kind.”

“Understandable,” Reaper said, pulling me to their side, scanning their fellow beings almost possessively.

“While mortality is a very real thing, the perception of what we scythes do is greatly myth. As if one being could carry out all of Death’s duties.”

“Taking lives?”

“Lyric, contrary to what you’ve been told by the Emperor, the nymphs, or whoever else has given you the information, I do not take lives. In fact, I have never in my entire existence ended someone’s life.” Reaper’s eyes dropped to the scythe pointing toward their wrist.

“Life is finite of its own accord in the mortal realms. We simply guide their souls to their final plane, whether it be here, or in Deorsum.” They pointed levels below that seemed to drop past anything I could see, a vast chasm of darkness.

A crackling sound floated up from there, an unwelcoming one.

“I should have been bringing the Emperor there.”

“You were the one who set the terms, were you not?”

“I was, but you shouldn’t have agreed so simply to this.” Their voice was harsh, the shadowy souls dragging behind them just as unsettled as I was.

“Did I truly have a choice?” I seethed.

They’d given the Emperor the ultimatum.

Not me.

How dare they act as if I’d been the one to decide.

“There is always a choice, Songbird.” Reaper shook their head, wavy strands of navy-tinged locks moving with the motion.

I had the urge to reach up and brush them back behind their ear, to take away the hood and see the rest of my bargainer’s face.

“That you’ve been silenced to believe otherwise only fills me with pity.”

“I don’t want your pity.” I clenched my fingers around fistfuls of feathers at my hips.

“I want to understand why you would grant him immortality if he is so horrible. After all he’s done.”

“You only know a fraction of it, Songbird, but that’s a story for another time and not one that’s mine to tell.” Their eyes darted over their shoulder, the uneasy shadows melting away before absorbing back into them.

Then they turned their attention back to me.

“As for the why, the Emperor may believe he’s won immortality as some great reward but it won’t always be that way. Such things are unnatural in the mortal realms for a reason, as he’ll find out one day.”

I highly doubted that.

“Will I eventually die and belong to this realm as one of those dark souls perched atop the shadows at your back?”

“ Never ,” Reaper hissed.

I retreated a few steps, their tone seeming as much a threat as a promise.

“And now I’m just stuck here with you for eternity?”

I let go of my feathers, a few sifting back and forth as they fell to the floor.

“Stuck?” Their throat bobbed, attention dropping to the discarded plumes.

“Not at all. You are welcome to cross realms at any time, so long as you’re with me.” Snapping their gaze up to my face, they walked over to the central display, waving me over to look at it.

“In fact we will be leaving shortly. There are souls to shepherd and I wish to show you how you can help.”

Below Reaper’s pointer finger was a small village with thatched roofs and bales of hay littering the ground.

Little islands, each with their own unique housing and landscape were scattered, some floating and some flat against the large circular table.

A familiar palace was across the way, sending goosebumps up my arms, all the way to beneath the feathers capping my shoulders.

“I will not harm anyone.” It was partially true.

The only one I wished to harm was the Emperor.

With his newly gained immortality, that would never happen.

Reaper held their hand out, palm skyward, and waited.

“Nor would I ever ask that of you, Songbird.”

“My name is Lyric.” I crossed my arms.

“Or do you wish for me to still call you Death?”

Reaper’s sharp brows furrowed, slightly shifting the shape of the slash of onyx across their gaze.

“Do you dislike Songbird?”

“It’s not that I dislike it. I just…” I bit my lip, copper bursting on my tongue from the force of it.

Reaper ran their thumb across the wound, crimson coating their fingertip, but healing it in one sweep.

I swallowed, dropping my chin so I didn’t have to look them in the eyes.

Something about that was all too raw.

“I spent so many turnings alone, always wishing someone would speak my name as I’d heard it before I’d been left.” The one thing I remembered.

Walking along the rim of the display, my hand trailed along its ledge, passing over tiny towns and vast empires, some with humans and others with beings like myself, others with ones I’d never seen before.

“I thought maybe the Emperor would see me as more than what I could be for him.” I shrugged, trying to brush off how foolish I felt.

How gullible.

“Now I know he never cared at all. I was only his splendor because he needed to use me, after using my mother, my family.”

Even though I couldn’t see their outlines any longer, I could still sense their disquiet, the strong beat between my ribs a key reminder that I was the only one left.

“Forgive me, Lyric.” Reaper said, kneeling so quickly before me that it startled me.

Their hands were splayed on the floor at my feet.

It was a show of respect, a plea, though there was still nothing subservient about it.

Reaper rippled with power and strength, even staring up at me from their knees.

My heart thudded loudly, body warming under the intensity of their stare.

“If you are to be at my side, I do not ever want you to feel anything other than cherished. I hope that in time you will see that you belong here. That you will understand all of it.”

“I hope so too.” Though I had no idea what there was to understand.

Reaper had made a deal with the Emperor and I no longer could stop them with my canthymn.

“Take my hand.” They pressed up onto their knees and reached for me, never actually touching me though.

“I wish to show you what is possible.”

My body was still, unsure if I wanted to know just yet.

I’d only just gotten here and I still hadn’t been able to wrap my head around the deal or what fate was in store for me now that I was tied to this scythe.

“I’ll explain everything in time.”

It was the promise I needed to summon the courage to reach back, and in an inky swirl of shadow we were off.

The room was dark, lit only by a few dripping candles on the bedside table, their black wicks long and curling.

Under the blanket, a man’s eyes were fluttering, hand slack in his wife’s.

Tiny fingers grasped his blue-veined wrist.

“It-it h-hurts.” Echoed in my ears, and I knew it belonged to the man who could no longer speak the words.

“I know.” Reaper said, pressing the scythe on their forearm.

It floated out and then expanded and solidified, their fingers wrapping around the black leather.

“My wife and son.” The man’s shadowy form lifted from his unmoving body, Reaper reaching their blade around to coax it free of the man’s wilted corpse.

They tugged, but the man’s voice wailed its plea, cracking between my ribs.

“I don’t want to leave them.”

My lip quivered, tears brimming my eyes.

“The sign of a beautiful life,” Reaper said, mournfully, but with a soft reverence to the words.

“Be glad that you have loved as you have and know that you will be reunited in the afterlife.”

“You promise?”

The man was still hesitating, soul fighting to stay where it could not.

The urge to croon my final canthymn, if it could only revive him for his crying wife and small son, was too much to bear.

“I do promise, Sevren.” Reaper hooked a bit more under his soul, drawing more of the shadow upright, skimming down past their torso and hips.

The man’s soul was almost completely untethered from his lifeless body.

“You have cared for them all you can. Now let us care for you.”

“I-I’m scared.”

My breaths shook with the man’s uneasy voice.

Why was Reaper so needlessly cruel in bringing me here?

What did they want to show me?

“I know. I’ve brought someone special to help ease your fears.”

Reaper’s starry gaze fell upon me.

I stepped forward, dragging my feet across the floor, though I could not feel it.

The shadow’s silhouetted face turned toward me and I bowed my head.

“M-may I sing for you?”

“Y-yes. I th-think I should r-rather like that,” the shadow said, voice fainter than before.

“Take my hand.”

The shadow obeyed, Reaper sweeping the last of the man’s soul away from his body.

The form floated above the bed and slipped a chilling hand in mine.

My eyes darted to Reaper who gave me one slow nod.

I reached into myself, harnessing the beat rap, rap, rapping in my chest, letting it fill my body.

It warmed, rising up my chest, and throat, until my lips parted and a new song emerged.

It was a melody of sorrow and loss then a ballad of bountiful love.

With each chord the man’s body changed, morphing until he looked as I suspected he had in life, not sickly like the form beneath the covers.

Reaper sheathed their scythe in the tattoo on their arm and held out a hand to the man.

I continued to sing, tears stinging the backs of my eyes.

A smile tugged at Sevren's lips, eyes still tinged with sadness, though when he turned back, I could sense the peace wash over him as he took Reaper’s hand.

Sevren’s wife and child embraced each other tightly, finding shelter within their family’s grief. And though I doubted they could hear my song, the echoes of its message were no less felt.

Reaper had been right.

Life was finite, but some things, like love, transcended it all.