“Thank you for waiting,” Shezin said with a smile as he joined us beside the altar. He pointed at his gold and black garments. “This is our attire for the rest of this auspicious night. Every year, after the celebration, we switch to gold and black to await the first sun of the new year. It takes a while to put these on, but it’s a must for the night of the Festival. If I don’t respect all aspects of the traditions I put in place, why would my followers, right?”
I nodded slowly. “Thank you for the honor of your presence and hospitality,” I said. “One of your priestesses said we are invited to stay here?”
“Why, yes. We have a room prepared for you upstairs, with easy access to the stairs and the rooftop gardens. You’ll love the gardens,” he replied, smiling. “How did you like the Festival of Lights?”
“Spectacular,” Unending said. “But we do have questions, of course.”
“I imagine you do,” Shezin chuckled. “Come. Let me take you to your room. We can talk in private there. I’m afraid some things are best kept out of the earshot of my priestesses. They might not understand.”
He led us through a narrow and dimly lit corridor, then up a series of circular stone steps until we reached the top floor. There, the hallway was wider and with plenty of doors on both sides. The far end concluded in a T junction, the halls continuing away in opposite directions. I wondered how many rooms there were in total. The walls were painted dark blue and adorned with gold sconces. Our room was at the end, and just around the corner I could see the marbled stairs leading up to the roof.
“Here we are,” Shezin said as he entered first and welcomed us into our room. It was spacious, and the massive floor to ceiling windows along one wall had been opened wide. The midnight wind brushed through, raising the soft curtains. A massive four-poster bed dominated the western wall, and a large armoire and chest of drawers occupied the eastern one. The candles had been lit for a while in anticipation of our arrival, their wax pooling into bronze plates with delicate handles that could be used to carry them around. “Consider this your home for as long as you’d like. There are clothes in the drawers and fresh linens in the dresser.” Shezin added, “I made sure you won’t be missing anything while you live under my roof.”
“You’re too kind,” Unending said. “But why act as our host, when it is clearly the priestesses who do all the work around here?”
Shezin laughed lightly. “You are honored guests. I took the liberty of handling your arrangements personally. Even though we’ve never met before, we clearly have a shared history through Death. Do we not?”
“It is one of the things I wanted to ask about,” Unending said as she settled at the edge of the bed. Shezin took the armchair in the northwest corner, and I went past the wide open windows and onto the terrace, where the cool and fresh night air awaited me. Above, the lanterns gathered in clusters and began to burst into flames, one after the other. Ashes would rain down on the city soon. The lights slowly dimmed and vanished, since there was nothing for the fires to burn through up there. The blackness of night would eventually return, but as I looked out to the eastern mountains, I was briefly met by a strange sight—a ridge moved, ever so slightly, trees falling off it like broken sticks. It had to be one of the stone giants Anunit had talked about.
“You want to know how Death and I came to be together,” Shezin said, chuckling. “Before I answer, I must ask a question of my own. Who told you about me? I’ve come to your attention, that much is obvious, but how? Other Reapers? Few have come to Dain, and they never stayed long.”
“One of them, yes,” said Unending. “The name is irrelevant. I’m surprised we didn’t hear about you sooner.”
“I wiped their minds and sent them away,” Shezin replied with a grin. “They were rogues and wanderers, for the most part. Like I told you, Death assured me this would be my domain before she left. Dain isn’t supposed to exist in your records. So, I will ask again, who told you about me?”
This felt awkward. As if we were on the wrong side by trying to deceive him. I could certainly see how manipulative he was. It wouldn’t have been hard to ensnare an entire kingdom with his skills. “A Reaper you never saw yourself. She’s an expert in keeping out of sight,” Unending said. “She told us all kinds of things about you, in fact.”
“Oh?”
“Unpleasant things. Things that I had to see for myself in order to believe,” Unending replied. For a moment, the air around me became unbreathable. The tension was high and thick, like smoke filling the room and terrace, where I stood frozen in place. Shezin didn’t move for about a minute, then he laughed.
“You may have been misled, Unending,” he said. “There are only two things about me that matter. First, I am immortal by the hands of Death herself. Rest assured, early Dainians tried to kill me, more than once. Nothing worked. I always come back, and I never feel a thing. Second, I have only helped this world. They wouldn’t be where they are today without me.”
“If that’s true, why are children disappearing? We were told the stone giants are stealing them,” I asked, making my way back into the room. “Why allow that to happen if you claim to help this world?”
Shezin’s humor faded. “That really is none of your business. The synergy here is not without its price. The stone giants have demands, as do the Dainians. Tell me, Tristan, Unending, does it bother you that I am a god in this world?”
“You’re not a god,” I said, crossing my arms. “You just pretend to be one.”
“These people needed a leader, and I was tired of living an eternity in the shadows. None of the magic Death taught me allowed me to leave Dain. It’s incredible how much I can do with this blasted thing,” he replied, taking out his scythe, “except travel beyond this world. She knew that was exactly what I would end up doing, so she made sure I couldn’t.”
“Death?” Unending asked, raising an eyebrow.
Shezin nodded once. “We loved each other deeply. From the moment she walked into my life, I knew things would never be the same again. I was honored to meet Death, let alone have her affections. I mean… who was I, right? A nobody.”
“Yet she fell in love with you,” I said.
“And I fell in love with her. We were happy for a long time. She brought me here when my world began to die. Gave me immortality and fashioned me a scythe to use,” he replied, turning the weapon over as he admired his reflection across its curved blade. “It’s infused with only a sliver of her power. But it is powerful. It has granted me wonderful things. I was by Death’s side as she discovered new words and sub-words in the fabric of the universe. I was there when she figured out ways to use them. When she fashioned spells. Hell, I was still her lover when she started making Reapers. By then, of course, she went away a lot, and I waited here on Dain, invisible to the developing locals.”
He paused to take a deep breath, giving Unending and me a brief glance.
“But Death is eternal. I wasn’t designed for that, so my feelings didn’t last. As time went by, I fell out of love. I couldn’t help it. When Death loves, she loves intensely and ceaselessly. I let her down in that sense, but… we worked it out. We parted ways, and she left me with Dain. As a parting gift, she gave me the privilege of reaping the Dainians. For ages, I did just that. I stayed out of sight and acted as a Reaper. Whenever one of yours came around, I explained everything. They always tried to check things with ‘management,’ and the constant reminder was… an annoyance to Death. So I’d silence them temporarily. No one was supposed to know about me. Death was specific about it, and I agreed. Imagine if all the Reapers knew she’d made a mortal immortal and given him a world to reap on his own, too. Imagine the insult. I only wiped their minds and cast them far away, and they never returned. Eventually, I launched an invisible shroud over the entire planet. Wandering Reapers cannot see it. I assume your friend who told you about me was either here before the shroud or had direct knowledge of Dain—only Death has that, by the way.”