❝ DEATH IS COMING.
BUT SHE DOESN'T FEAR HIM. ❞
For the people of Khaya's little village living amidst the woods is quiet, and even more, so it became since the creatures lurking in its shadows turned into mere fairytales. Little does Khaya know that...
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WHAT DEATH CANNOT TOUCH xiii. death and the maiden called life
❆ ❆ ❆
The scream that wanted to shatter her lungs got stuck in her body. Karachun.
What looked like a skull the other second turned into a face the next, flesh and snow-white skin never touched by a single sunray growing above it and giving the god the appearance of—what? An old man? A youth? No lines burrowed into his forehead, no marks of the seasons he must have seen. Only the diamond dust hair and those ancient, icy eyes could have resembled one. Khaya could not even tell if his sharp features—edged cheeks, long nose, pale lips—were unnaturally beautiful or repellent.
Beneath an exquisite black kaftan and an equally fine coat trimmed with white fur that seemed as soft as a hare's and hard like a thousand little icicles suggested a slender, upright body. Ageless and lifeless could have described him best. Way beyond time and the burden of being human.
"Speechless, vyed'mochka? What an impolite way to welcome your guest," his voice was this of ice chinking, a howling wind over sharp mountain tops, half-frozen water at the bottom of the river. Old and young, rough and tender, loud and silent, earsplitting and lovely, soothing and scary, all at once. It resonated in her freezing blood, in her aching bones, in her heart—and seemed to slacken its beats.
"Are you...Karachun?" Khaya breathed, lungs burning cold. Though she did not have to ask for his very presence seemed to threaten the life in her body and tug on her soul as if demanding it to follow him. This man—no, creature masked as a man—was Death.
"I bear this name."
"The voices in the woods ..."
"It was me," he answered before she could ask.
Questions haunted her—too many—but not one left her lips. I will die.
"Why did you invite me to let me wander outside and why did you call me to hold your peace now?" he asked. Angry, perhaps. Khaya could not quite tell since his face, though manifested now, was still not quite human in its expression. But the burning ice that ran through her veins felt like his penalty.
You do not fear him, Khaya repeated in her mind and forced herself onto weak feet. Her shawl which looked like a shroud now also felt like one; heavily dragging her down to earth to turn to dust again. "You are mistaken I did not. And wasn't it you who wanted to meet me? Here I am."
"I am not mistaken." Karachun's looked at her, almost confused. "You do not know? It was your voice, your tales which called me."
So, the priest and Kazminov were right to accuse her of being evil? Did she really summon the very being she hated the most? Karachun's servant. The thought sickened her, but she fought the acidic taste of it down.
