Page 69 of The Witch who Trades with Death

Chapter Sixty-Nine

Everything around them froze and darkened.

The pain vanished. Khana stepped out of her body, grimacing at the blood she could just barely see drench her shadowy chest. Suspended in time, she took a second to look over her friends. Athicha huddled over the still, bloody form of Neta.

Please just be injured, Khana prayed.

“You’ll all be dead in two minutes.”

Khana startled. She and Yamueto had called upon Death at the exact same time, and his spirit stood next to hers, watching over the fight as she did.

But what was more shocking was how his spirit looked. While Khana herself was a swirl of vibrant and muted colors in the spirit world, Yamueto was little more than shades of gray.

“You should have kept that life force to yourself,” he said. “You could have punched right through my ranks.”

“Then all my friends would be dead, and you probably would’ve killed me, anyway,” she countered.

“So?”

She shook her head.

“Uh… where are we?” Haz’s spirit stood in the middle of the darkened spirit world, looking around wide-eyed. He was a blur of color, more so than Khana.

Yamueto gave a tired sigh. “You touched her as she entered the spirit world, so you got pulled along.”

Haz glanced down at their darkened bodies, the shadow of the burning building and battle raging around them, and smirked. “Charming. Do you think we can build a summer home here?”

Movement caught her eye. Death, appearing as the old man Vigerion, raised their lantern high. They looked between the three of them, flickered into Tsermayu, then morphed into wearing their multi-colored robe. “Well. This is awkward.”

“I demand life force,” Yamueto said. “Enough to finish this impudent creature off once and for all.”

“Demand, hm? My, have you gotten arrogant in your old age.” Death turned to Khana and Haz. “And you two. Back so soon?”

She gave a sheepish smile. “I was wondering if you could kill the emperor for me?”

Yamueto raised an eyebrow.

“Unfortunately, no,” they said. “I am death, but I don’t cause death.”

Shoot. Khana scrambled to think of a backup plan, which was made more difficult by the fact that she hadn’t had an original plan in the first place.

“Life force,” Yamueto demanded.

Haz glared at him. “That’s Death . Or Tsermayu, or whatever they prefer to be called. Maybe be a little more polite?”

“When I’m done with my disobedient concubine, I’ll kill you again. Slowly .”

“What could you possibly have left to trade, Yameuto?” Death asked, more curious than anything else.

“I have centuries worth of memories.”

The deity touched Yamueto’s forehead with a pale finger and tsked. “ Weak memories, all blurring together with no emotion and barely any life to them. You gave up the memories of your favorite concubine for that last piece of life force, and that was the best you had to offer.”

Khana’s hand went to her trophy necklace. “How much aji would my memory of glass diving give me?” she asked.

Death moved past Yamueto and touched her forehead. “More than enough to heal the hole in your chest. A little extra to fight some more.”

She squashed down the feeling of guilt and tried not to look at Haz. That was the day the Poison Darts had truly become a unit. The day she’d begun to realize that she could trust these people. It was the start of their friendship. And she was giving up that memory.

Emperor Yamueto sputtered. “You would give her the gift of saviza for something so – so plebeian?”

“Plebeian to you, perhaps,” Death said. “But from her, it’s very significant.”

“Hardly the only one,” Khana agreed. It was a precious memory, despite how terrifying it’d been at the time. She was giving up a prized jewel, of course. But she had a whole chest full of others, with the promise of several more to come.

“No god will be agreeing with you over me ,” Yamueto insisted. “I am an emperor. Immortal. Divine! You’re nothing but desert scum. A minor, insignificant noble . Barely a royal. Blessed with the opportunity to live in my court.”

Khana stared at him. Not because of what he said, but because he had shown more emotion in the last minute than she had ever seen from him or heard of him displaying. Haz gave a low whistle.

Death nudged her. “This happens so many times with rich, powerful mortals. All those years with people kissing their feet, they forget that they’re no more special or important than the next bag of meat and bones. It’s really quite fascinating.”

“Then we have a deal?” Khana asked.

“No!” Yamueto snapped, and shoved Death away.

Death exploded in blinding light and colors, sounds and smells. Khana grabbed Haz, the two of them covering each other as she squeezed her eyes shut against the blood reds and pus yellows and black depths. She still heard everything: the earth shattering, bringing down buildings atop of screaming civilians; soldiers clashing and yelling and killing each other; a sigh of relief from a weathered, old throat accompanying a broken, sickly whisper of, “Finally.” The stench of blood and dirt, smoke and sugar, piss and medicine assaulted her nostrils.

When silence and sterility finally returned, after the three of them had experienced hundreds of deaths in the span of seconds, Khana cracked open an eye.

Death stood in their usual form, arms crossed, giving a visibly shaken Yamueto a disappointed look. The emperor trembled.

Death beamed at Khana. “To answer your question: yes, we have a deal.”

Haz had Khana in a vice grip. He let go with one hand to hold up a finger, squeaking, “Question: is it possible for you to take one of my memories instead, while still giving that rabala to Khana?”

“No,” Yamueto said, voice cracking. He cleared his throat, and managed to look a little smug, “No, that won’t work. I tried it myself.”

“No, you ordered them to trade parts of themselves for your own benefit,” Death corrected. “These deals must be made freely, with informed consent. Haz is quite willing, and Khana will receive the amount of life force that equals the intensity of the memory.”

“You don’t have to do this,” Khana warned him.

“Pretty sure that’s the point,” Haz said with a grin. “You’ve given up enough. Too much, actually. It’s only fair. And you know if any of the other Poison Darts were here, they’d make the same deal. Because we need you to save all of our asses.”

Yamueto scoffed.

Haz ignored him. “Would you be mad at me if I gave up the memory of when you first told off Bhayana?”

“Not at all,” she promised.

“He’s not even a witch,” Yamueto argued. “Deals with Death are performed by witches.”

“Only traditionally,” Death pointed out, shrugging.

“Exactly. Tradition is just pressure from dead people,” Haz added. Then he paused, turning to Death. “Oh. Wait.”

Khana looked around Haz’s shoulder at Yamueto. Really looked. “Why are you even doing this?”

“I am emperor,” he insisted. “I am the first witch in a thousand years to contact Death and bend it to my will–”

Death barked a laugh.

“– and this world will bow to my whim.”

“Right,” Khana said slowly. “But why? You already gave up your best memories. Your compassion, passions, and everything else that makes life worth living. Yes, you’re immortal, but I want you to honestly tell me: what is the point?”

Yamueto opened his mouth. Closed it.

“I knew you were going to kill me that day,” Haz interjected. “And while I wasn’t thrilled about it, I still fought you because I care about my friends and family and town. They’re what make life worth living. So why would I get rid of the part of me that cares about them to put off dealing with this ,” – he waved his hand at Death – “for a little while longer?”

“I have remade history,” Yamueto growled. “I have reshaped the world. I am above such petty, tiny insignificances like yourself and your pathetic life.”

Khana shook her head. “Yamueto, you live the most pathetic life I have ever seen.”

“And it ends today,” Haz said gleefully.

“Better men have tried and failed,” Yamueto promised. “Entire armies have tried and failed.”

“But not poison dart frogs!”

Yamueto blinked. “What?”

“You’ll see.” Haz held out his hand to Death. “We have a deal?”

Smirking, Death took his hand.

Khana blinked, and the world exploded back into color, sound, and pain. The knife was still in her chest, tearing her lung and filling it with blood. Her breaths were wet and ragged. Xopil’s shrill whistle cut through the howls of dying men and cackle of burning buildings. Yxe punched a glowing fist clean through a soldier’s chest. Sava called Khana’s name. Yamueto knelt next to her on her right, Haz’s hand fully hitting her shoulder on her left.

?ji flooded through her veins, more than she’d ever carried at once.

Yamueto still held the knife’s handle. He tried to drive it sideways along her chest, to more vital areas, and breathed in.

But he suddenly hit the ground, tackled sideways by Sava, who rolled off and out of breath’s reach.

“Back off! She has it!” Haz ordered, stepping away.

Khana plucked the knife free from her chest, letting the wound close and the blade drop. Before Yamueto could stand, she bent down, grabbed his throat, and squeezed, cutting off his air and magic.

“You,” she said, tightening her grip on his neck, “are nothing.”

His eyes bulged. He struck at her arms, but it was like getting hit by a fly.

Gripping his neck with one hand, she drove her nails into the flesh just below his chin. Blood rained down her arms as her fingers pierced through skin, sinew, and bone. With a snap , she tore his head from his body and watched the torso slump into the bloody grass

The Immortal Emperor was dead.