Part 3: Dragon-Doe

The man who has my eyes weeps over my body, the coils of his dark locks falling forward to obscure his face.

"N'eshja, n'eshja," he croons, stroking my curls back, his voice shaking. "My daughter."

My dead heart constricts.

Your what now?

Forgetting myself in my frustrated confusion, I flap and shriek. Dirty feathers fly. The man—who's wearing a crown of bones—looks over to me, a heartbreaking expression twisting his familiar features. Gently, he lays my true face back down. His great patchwork cloak drags behind him as he strides over to where I lie thrashing on the stone.

He doesn't flinch or wrinkle his nose as he picks up my broken, decaying body.

"Vel keha'tem," he mutters, shaking his head. "I can't believe she did it." His chortle becomes a bark of laughter. He issues a stream of orders in the other language, then begins to walk with me back to the arched opening at the far end of the courtyard.

There's a flurry of movement behind him, but I can't actually see any of it.

"Don't fear, daughter, we'll fix this. I will teach you. I'll teach you everything."

The sentries to either side of the exit bend at the waist as we pass into the flickering light of the mountain's interior. The man who calls me daughter cradles my eagle's carcass as though it were indeed the body of his firstborn child, frequently glancing over his shoulder to check on his attendants' handling of my human form.

After a long time we come to a stop before a door made of bluish wood. More sentries open it for us, revealing a receiving space for an entire suite of chambers. In the enormous bedroom, servants are at work. Stoking a fragrant fire in the hearth, fluffing pillows, pulling aside bed curtains, collecting traps full of mouse-sized spirit creatures and carrying them out. While the attendants lay my true body out on the mattress beneath a vibrant tapestry of a dragon-doe in a stormy sky, the bone-crowned man places my bird form on the makeshift palette at its side.

A large chair is moved from one of the corners to the side of the bed, and the crowned man takes his seat there. At first he spends the time giving orders to the servants and attendants. Then, when they're all gone save the guards, he begins to talk to me. Exhausted and broken, I lay still as I listen.

"Did she ever tell you about me, I wonder?" He shakes his head, a bitter smile curling one lip. "I doubt it. No, what am I thinking? She'd have acted as though she conceived you herself, with no help whatsoever. Yes, that'd be her way."

He's not wrong. Whoever he is, my mother's never mentioned him or anyone who might have been him. And she's certainly never mentioned any other parent. The first time I broached the subject, the ferocity of her reaction warned me off ever trying it again.

He sighs. "Well, it's better we speak of these things when you can speak, too. Are you listening to me now? Paying attention? Make some small sound if you are."

I issue a feeble squawk, and he grins as those I've just sung him the most beautiful song.

"Good, good. Now, I don't expect you to succeed in the first hour, or even this night. Getting back is so much harder than getting out. But you mustn't take too long either. Your body needs you. It needs food and water and blood, and you to swallow it."

Great. Because I needed that reminder.

"So. You control the dead through threads, right? You got into that body through threads. You cling to them without realizing it."

Do I? Shouldn't I? It's how I keep control.

"But you must let go of the threads. Fall into the void between them. Only then may your body take you back. Sounds simple, doesn't it? This is one of the hardest things you will ever learn as a Reaper. But you are my daughter. I trust in your ability."

He stands then, his eyes lingering on my human face for a few moments before he turns back to the form I currently occupy.

"You must have a thousand questions. I hope they motivate you. I will be quiet now. Meditate on falling into the void. Let yourself go."

And he sits there in silence for hours as I try to do just that. But it's as though the threads of the unseen web are tangled around me. Letting go is impossible, pointless—because it's the threads that have me, and not the other way around.

At some point, just as I'm falling into absolute, abject hopelessness—apparently not the right kind of void—a new person enters. Too finely dressed for an attendant, but too reverential to be a peer.

"My King," he says, bowing at the waist. "They beg of your presence in High Hall."

His face contorts at first in frustration, but then he stands. "Very well," rumbles the man who calls me daughter, looking down at my eagle form.

"I'll return as soon as I can. Don't give up. Don't despair. You will do this."

Then he turns, dark patchwork cloak billowing behind him, and leaves me with only myself for company.

For a long time, I keep trying. But after a while the hopelessness swallows me up completely, and I stop doing anything at all. Sometime later, I fall asleep.

When I wake, it's to the sight of a stranger sitting at the foot of my true body's bed. They watch me with eyes the color of a bloody sunset that seem to glow as they catch the firelight. Their robes are a similar color, save the much darker sash pulled tight around their narrow waist. When their eyes dart to my borrowed ones and their lip curls up to one side, I know they've seen that I'm awake.

"Good morning, cousin," they say. "Sorry it took me so long to get here. Who am I, you wonder? I'm Maljha, the child of your father's sister. What am I doing here? Well, it seems I'm the only Crimson the king will trust with his precious newfound daughter. I'm here to help...ease your way."

Frustration boils my blood as question after question batters my mind, demanding release when all I can do is screech.

One of the Crimson's many long, red-black braids falls forward over their shoulder, and they respond by pulling the entire mass of their hair forward to join it, stroking it with one ring-dazzled hand. Their focus shifts, eyes looking beyond me instead of at me.

A calm like a veil of shimmering stars settles over my being, infuses my spirit. Then another tide of emotion rises around me. Confidence.

"Let go of the thread, cousin. Your father told me to say that. Maybe once you've come to, you can tell me what the spirits it means. That, and your name."

And in that moment, I'm absolutely and entirely sure that not only can I do that, it'll probably be easy. I let the calm and the confidence spread through my veins, imagining they're the veins of my true body. That I'm already back. I gather my strength, and then I just...let go.

It feels like when you're just about to fall asleep, but you suddenly get the sensation of tripping forward and coming to a sudden halt. Joy flares through me—

Until I realize I'm still stuck. The threads still cling to me, but I no longer control the dead bird, either. Nor can access its senses. I'm tethered to it, hanging in nothingness, unable to fall.

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck!

I want to scream, but of course...I can't.

I scrabble to gather Maljha's gifts back into myself before they disperse entirely. But I have nothing with which to hold them, and they dissolve into the nothingness.

Panicked terror overtakes me as I try to fight my way out of the darkness—but there's nothing to fight with. There's nothing to push against. I lose myself to the terror until I feel the very foundation of myself begin to break. Until some small, cold part of myself rises to the fore through the cracks.

I suck in a long imaginary breath. And another. And another. It's hard to let go of the terror, I'm not sure what I am outside of it. But slowly, very slowly, it begins to recede.

Keeping up with my phantom breathing, I imagine again that I'm back in my own body. Everything is dark because my eyes are closed. Everything's quiet because...it's quiet here.

And then, with that assurance, I fall into the only mantra I know.

No thoughts but darkness. No feelings but calm.

Since actively trying to let go of the threads isn't working, I only have one idea left. To let go of everything. Even the determination to let go.

No thoughts but darkness. No feelings but calm.

I don't know how long I repeat this to myself. Until the words are my whole world. Until it makes perfect sense that there's nothing but darkness. Until it makes sense not to feel.

My sense of time melts away. The darkness curls around me, and after a while—I begin to feel something else. I feel at peace. I feel at home.

And just as an ecstasy so profound I never could have imagined its like suffuses my entire existence, I feel it. The world of flesh and stone wrapping itself about my being once more. Snatching me back.

My Reaper's eyes open, and I look up, met once again with the sight of Maljha—only there are dark circles under their eyes now, and their robes have changed. The scent of their blood hits me like a sledgehammer, and suddenly I'm glad I'm so weak.

Their eyebrows fly up and their jaw goes slack as they meet my bleary gaze.

"Spirits," they breathe. "You certainly know when to make an entrance."

Looking up, they shout to the sentries at the other side of the door to send for the king. Then they turn back to me.

"Let's see if we can get you cleaned up a bit and properly dressed before they arrive."

"B-before...w-who arrives?" I manage to croak out, each word like razors against my sandpaper-dry throat.

"Uncle and his guest. Come now, I can help you up. The washroom is right this way. We've been doing the basics, but there's only so much we could manage."

Pulling my arm over their shoulder, they haul me up and out of bed—surprisingly strong. There’s a trench with raised stone edges at one end, with a spigot shaped like the head of a screaming beast. Water pours from its mouth.

I hoarse cry escapes my lips and I drop to my knees beside it, gulping in mouthful after mouthful of cold, fresh water.

“Don’t overdo it,” warns Maljha, pulling me back.

At the mirror I take only a brief glance of myself. I look every bit as shitty as I feel...but at least my hair's clean and oiled. Once I’m clean, I hold my arms out feebly as Maljha wraps me into a fresh robe—dove gray and silky soft against my skin. Lastly they bind a broadsash about my waist, similar to theirs, knotting it in place with a soft rope of brightly colored threads.

Outside of the main chamber of the bedroom, the sentries announce the king's arrival. Maljha calls back acknowledgement and they open the door. Before I even have a chance to see the king and his guest at the other side, a familiar scent hits my awareness like a freight train. A scent that attracts and repels me all at once. That sends me reeling.

No. No way. How—?

The door swings wide, and she follows my supposed father into the room. Dressed in robes both like and unlike those worn by others here—shinier, with more intricate patterns and more embellishments—she uses a wheeled chair now in place of her hovering one.

"Hello, Ashwyn," says Lore, a smile spreading across her face. "It's so good to see you."