The first time Kaelith saw her, she was stretched out upon a bed of linen, her breath shallow, her chest rattling like autumn leaves. A candle guttered in the draft, and the air carried the hushed mourning of a family bracing for loss. He appeared at her side as he always did—silent, unseen—his hand extending to touch her soul and draw it from the trembling cage of flesh.

But when his long, pale fingers brushed her, something resisted. Her spirit did not rise. Instead, her eyes fluttered open, gray as a storm breaking at sea, and she looked directly at him.

“You’re early,” she whispered, her voice cracked but steady.

Kaelith froze. No mortal had ever spoken to him—none could. Her lips tilted into the faintest curve, half-smile, half-ache. Then, with a shuddering breath, life pulled her back, and she slipped from his grasp.

It was the first time Death had been denied.

Now, months—perhaps years—later, the ritual had become familiar. Elara sat upon a bench in her family’s neglected garden, pale hands clasped over her lap, a shawl draped loosely around her shoulders. Kaelith lingered at the edge of the withering roses, shadows wreathing his form, the hood of his cloak pushed back.

“You look worse,” he said softly, his voice like stone breaking.

She laughed—a sound so startlingly alive it struck through his emptiness. “And you look the same as always. I think I prefer my flaws.”

He should have turned away, vanished into the veil, left her to the slow tug-of-war between life and death. But instead, he stayed. He always stayed. Listening to her stories of small joys—a bird’s nest found by her brother, the way her mother’s hands still smelled of lavender soap, the little poems she scribbled between fevers.

Every word she gave him was a defiance against the void he carried, and though he never smiled, his silence softened when she spoke. He had reaped countless souls, but with her, he waited.

Perhaps too long. Perhaps forever.