xiv. east of dusk, west of dawn

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WHAT DEATH CANNOT TOUCHxiv

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WHAT DEATH CANNOT TOUCH
xiv. east of dusk, west of dawn

❆           ❆          ❆

The end of the world it was not but only endless woods that surrounded them. To Khaya, they were foreign and puled ancient secrets into a wind that she could always hear somewhere behind them but never feel. The sky above had turned into a tremendous nothingness. Maybe they were beyond this world already.

"Shouldn't we go back to Lasow? To that soul? We don't have much time left!" I don't have much time left. Slowly, she started to question her decision.

Karachun's laugh once again nearly made her shiver, but this time she suppressed it because he would have felt it for sure. "Time means nothing here."

"Here? Where are we?"

"East of dusk, west of dawn, beyond the midnight star and at the north wind's back."

"That doesn't make sense."

"Doesn't it?" Karachun asked mockingly.

Or did it? Memories of a hundred tales flashed through her mind: of the island that could appear and disappear. Of a city on a ship. Of the houses of magical creatures and gods in fantastic places like a golden mountain beyond nine kingdoms, nine seas, and nine forests. Of places, humans could never reach, except a legendary bogatyr perhaps.

Despite loving to listen to them on her grandmother's lap and now telling them herself, Khaya had never truly believed in them. She did not take them as made-up, either but simply beyond the truths humans could ever know with certainty. As were the gods.

But now she was sitting on a stallion that was also a wolf pack and belonged to such a god. If this was possible, could there be anything impossible in this world?

"Your kind is strange. Praying to other gods to keep me away. Yet, you luckily take me with you every time you go to war ... or jump on my horse," Karachun said.

He was right and Khaya knew nothing to reply, so instead she asked, "Where are we going?"

"Afraid?" The death god smirked.

"Of death? No." The daughters of the Raskin family fear nothing.

Karachun still did not look at her but Khaya felt him stiffen, even though now—after she had seen what his touch could do—she was careful to hold on to his coat, only. "All of your kind are."

"What happens to them?" Khaya dared to ask a question that had always burned in her heart without an answer because no one knew.

For a split second, his head turned so that their eyes met again. The frosty color, glowing like stars in the dark night once more let Khaya's guts feel cold. "Whom?"

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