The Reaper's Curse

The Path of Blooming White Clovers

The wind runs through the reaper's hair, curls draped across her shoulders, down her back, raven-black like the sky on a moonless night. Lilith trails behind her, arms wrapped around herself, her body frozen from the cold. She had discarded her heels long ago, and now her feet are scraped and raw and bloody and cold.

She stares at the dark red blood on the back of the reaper's white dress, and the tattered silk at the small of her back from where the dagger had pierced.

"Have you eaten?" the reaper suddenly asks, as if sensing her attention.

Lilith blinks, her legs faltering until she comes to a halt. Her arms drop to her sides. "How can you be so indifferent to all of this?"

The reaper stops in her tracks. Silence save for the crashing of the waves descends over them. "Indifferent?" her voice is soft. So soft.

Lilith tugs at her sleeves. She feels so exposed in the open, without the safety of the walls of her home. 

After a heartbeat, the reaper turns around, her white eyes glowing in the low light.

"Three hours ago I was on my way to see my aunt who lived at the edge of Erimere. Father wouldn't tell me why he was sending me away on the morning of my coming of age. I was angry. I was upset. I made the guards turn around, and when I finally returned, I come to find Father at death's door. In the span of a single hour I lost my father, my home, my freedom, and perhaps even my mind too. And then the woman who held a blade to my throat asks if I have eaten, on the way to God knows where. Don't you find it funny?"

"I don't expect you to understand, neither do I expect you to come to terms with it. But just know one thing: you are to pay off your father's debts until the day you die. That's all."

The reaper's eyes are dead, empty, emotionless. She turns back around and continues down the bridge, the path ahead shrouded with fog. "Don't get left behind. This bridge isn't for the living. You will get trapped."

Lilith hesitates for a heartbeat, but the thought of being trapped there, alone with them, sends chills crawling down her spine. She forces her feet to move, forces herself to catch up with the reaper.

As they travel across the bridge stretching across the raging river beneath them, the fog seems to get denser and denser. The reaper continues onward, unfazed.

"What is this place?" Lilith asks. The reaper doesn't answer immediately. "Where⎯⎯⎯⎯"

"The Bridge of Judgment," she says. "When humans end their lives, their souls cross this bridge. They're drawn here by instinct. It takes them to the Underworld for their judgment. But some souls refuse. Those who hold grudges and foolishly stay in their world even when their lives there have ended."

Lilith hesitates. "What about you then? Where do you stand? Are you alive? Or are you one of the ones hanging around after your door has shut?"

A heartbeat of silence.

"I am death itself. I'm not dead. Neither am I alive. I'm just simply...here. Existing."

"Why are you here then⎯⎯⎯⎯"

"The dead are restless. Your voice delights them. Do not speak."

As if on cue, a whisper of a cold hand brushes against Lilith's bare shoulders. She bites down on her lip to force down the scream that rises in her throat, and she can't help but think the little girl chuckles quietly in her ear.

☾✧

The breath catches in Lilith's throat as a spire, then three, then six more appear from the fog, piercing the dark sky ahead. It's a castle, seemingly made from shadows and darkness, a vertical city of towers and bridges, chambers and turrets, ballrooms and long, endless hallways. A smaller, narrower bridge branches out from the main one, leading towards it.