Snow searched under the pillows, in the storage, all tiny areas across the cabin as if she expected to find Death stuffed into places barely suitable to be a living area for a rat.

  “Stop,” Vera sighed. “He’s not gonna be hiding under the quilts, you’ve already checked a dozen times.”

  “I’ll check a dozen more!” she yelped. “Why aren’t you helping me look for him?”

  “There’s guards everywhere, I’ve gotta keep this door locked or one of them will see my ears and try kill us.”

  “But they’re looking for a black-haired man too, right?” She was desperate to think of any solution to allow Vera to search. “Maybe you can say it’s a different hybrid, that you’re not the fox-woman they’re looking for.”

  “Don’t think so.” She sat on the bed and patted on the sheets. “Those Valan dickheads have their heads so far up their own asses they definitely wouldn’t listen to reason. Sit with me, little Snow, you’ve been searching so much your poor fingers are bleeding.”

  Snow sat on the bed and then broke into tears. She leaned into Vera’s chest and cried more, unable to form words.

  At first Vera fought the urges to throw Snow off her chest. However, she decided to embrace her and accept her as a friend. She hugged her and let her cry for minutes with no words, then when the coughing cries stopped she spoke cautiously like speaking to a grieving mother.

  “Wherever he is, he can handle himself,” said Vera. “He may be a bit of a loner and really mean but there’s no way that man will die to any bandit, thief, or king. I wouldn’t be surprised if word comes from the heart of fuckin’ Vatanil that the Valan family have been slaughter by an assassin.”

  “He lost to a boar when I met him,” she said with a sniffle and a smile, neglecting the fact that he only lost because she commands his legs to be frozen still. “I just… I don’t know why he would leave me like this, I thought I was doing really well.”

  “You were,” Vera assured. “Maybe he just wants to keep you safe, Vatanil is a very dangerous city.”

  “Oh gods,” Snow said, eyes widening in realisation. “You think he’s gone to Vatanil by himself? We have to go and help him!”

  “I can’t go to Vatanil.”

  “Can you stop being so useless!” Snow squealed. She pondered on what she’d blurted and apologised after a moment. “I didn’t mean that, I’m sorry.”

  “If you didn’t mean, why did you say it? I’m kidding—we will find that stinky man. He’s on foot, we have horses, we can ride a few miles range outside the gates and see if we can spot any that are on foot and walking alone… stop those tears, gods, I sound like my mother… c’mon Snow, give me a big ol’ smile.”

  “I can’t,” she squeaked. “I’m trying, but I can’t. I want him back and I will only smile when I have him.”

  Vera wanted to call her pathetic, the word hanging on her tongue and stuck in her throat. “…why do you love him?” she said instead. “He doesn’t show it back to you, not once, I see a man worthy of worshipping but not love like the way you show.”

  “I don’t want to be his worshipper; I want to be his wife—more than his wife—I want to be his everything. Train with him, kill with him, fight his hardest battles by his side.”

  “But why him?”

  She remembered her thoughts and the tears came back. “When I heard the tale of a man who grants wishes stuck endlessly, I knew he must’ve been so lonely. I was so lonely too. Everybody always leaves me, I thought if I devoted myself to him, he would stay with me forever and reward me with love when I proved myself worthy of him. He doesn’t say it back, but I see him changing, I see the way he no longer hates when I put my hands on him—I feel incomplete without him, our souls are linked, I need him back.”

  “You’re obsessed with him?”

  “He’s everything I’ve ever wanted. When his fights are too much, I want him to turn to me, that’s what I truly want. He is an immortal, Vera, he will never die, I won’t have to be alone again, I won’t have to breeze through days and wish for something to change anymore… we must find him.”

  “If I help you find him, will you stop crying?”

  Snow accepted these terms. “What are we gonna do if someone comes? I can barely fight,” Snow continued.

  “We can fight them,” Vera boasted. “I’ll be the strength while mister Death is gone! You can count on me!”

  “But you got your ass beat by Quinn,” Snow joked.

  “Hm? I don’t remember that happening at all… who is Quinn? You’re just making up names.”

  “Golus!” Snow exclaimed. “ The big golem thing… if someone comes, we can summon him!”

  “Or you can use your sword to fight,” Vera suggested.

  “But I’m not strong,” she said. “How am I supposed to get into danger and learn to fight if I’ll die while training?

  “The trick to being strong is convincing yourself that you are, even when you feel that you’re not. Be strong, get him back, then tell him to never leave you again or you’ll command him to shit his pants every time he takes a breath. C’mon, let’s go, you’ll have to take up the front of the horses, there’s a lot of white-haired girls that exist so the guards won’t care, I’ll have to stay back here.”

  The afternoon quickly became dusk, the sun sagging low behind the lush pink trees, hiding behind the Chasm of Death mountains.

  Usually, the nightly Valan skies would be beautiful, strokes of purple and pink against the glow of the sundown. This time it was a dull grey, a dying blue, almost as if the sky itself was upset.

  They searched the roads leading to Vatanil for a long while until the horses were beginning to refuse to move. Snow’s eyes flicked ahead at every small movement, praying, hoping Death would step out from anywhere.

  Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

  When a thin mist gathered at the tree line and the owls began to sing their songs, she knew she wouldn’t find Death, not until the sun rose again.

  “He mustn’t have took the roads,” Snow said. “Are there any vicious monsters in the woods?”

  “None that could kill him,” Vera said. “We should set up a tent deeper into the forest so midnight travellers don’t see our wagon by the side of the road.”

  Snow’s grip on the horse’s reins left her knuckles white. She didn’t wish to cease her efforts, even Esroh was giving peeks back to her mother to say she needed a rest.

  “Fine,” she said in sorrow. “I’ll go a little further, push us to our limits, then I’ll take us into the forest for the night.”

  Little did Snow know, the horses wouldn’t take a step further.

  From the trees, dozens of hooded figures with blades surrounded the wagon, grinning like hungry wolves. The tallest pulled his hood down, a tangled bear, then raised a battered axe to Esroh.

  “Well, well,” he sneered. “Look at this lads, a prize.”

  Vera joined Snow at the front of the wagon and summoned her daggers. “Piss off buddy, get the fuck out the way or I’ll fuck you in the ass.”

  “Aw, the fox yips,” the leader joked. “A pair of stray lambs lost on the path to Vatanil, why don’t we give them a hand?”

  Behind him, a woman unhooded herself—a mage, symbols of magic scarred onto her fingers. “Your food and your gold,” the small woman demanded. “Or we’ll take your life. Do not resist, or I will be forced to use my magic to burn you alive.”

  Snow called upon her sword and held it shakily with two hands.

  “Aw,” the leader said. “Ain’t that cute. The girl thinks she can do a thing with that sword. We could teach her, couldn’t we lads?”

  They jokingly gave a chant of approval, howling like dogs.

  “Summon the golem,” Vera whispered.

  “No,” Snow squeaked. “I need training.”

  “That was just a bunch of nonsense to get you to stop crying.”

  “I’m strong,” Snow whispered. “Be strong even when I think I’m not, it’s about convincing yourself that you are.”

  “Fine, fuck it.” Vera pounced into the battle and went for the leader of the pack. Her hand stuck in the air, seized by magic. Snow watched Vera got knocked unconscious from one powerful strike to the nose. The horses were startled but had no energy to run.

  “Don’t be stupid,” the mage woman said. “Not like your friend, gold and food, we’ll leave you be if you do that—and we want your horses, all of it.”

  Snow tightened her grip on the sword, wanting to jump down and fight—she counted them all, twenty in total. What would Death do if he was me? she thought. He would’ve killed them all already, he would’ve ripped them all in half just for threatening me… that mage stopped Vera’s hand, she could stop mine, I don’t know what to do.

  “Little bunny is speechless,” the leader joked. “I think we make her squeak. Have at the wagon, boys, take whatever you want.”

  “No!” Snow yelled. “I need this wagon!”

  “Not as much as we need it.”

  I don’t even know how to summon the golem… I don’t know how to do it... my feet are stuck, I want to fight but I can’t bring myself to take the leap. I shouldn’t be asking what Death would do if he was me, I should be asking myself what I would do if I Death. If I had his brains for battle but my inexperience, I wouldn’t feel bad about being scared, I’m untrained… there is no shame in what I’m gonna do, Death would do the same, I’m sure of it.

  “Fuck the devils,” Snow whispered. “Fuck the damn devils.”

  “Ay?” The mage woman was confused. “What did she say?”

  Snow dropped her sword and took a deep inhale, preparing to scream at the top of her lungs. Before she could release her words, a hand shot out of a hellish portal, pushing her deeper into the wagon and slamming the door shut.

  Beion stepped out of the portal. He noticed Vera unconscious nearby and sighed.

  “Silly fox,” he said to himself. He flicked his wrist and took the fire from the bandits’ torches, wrapping it around Vera and bringing her to him.

  He opened the wagon door and tossed Vera onto Snow before she could complain about being pushed then sealed all entrances to the wagon shut with magic.

  The leader charged with his axe and Beion opened a portal under his feet, dropping him into the fires of Hell and keeping it open to let the others hear the suffering screams as his flesh melted. He then bowed with a smug smile.

  “I see you are a mage,” he said. “You should know that I am too, my lack of muscle has made me a master of my craft.”

  “He’s only one cambion!” a bandit yelled. “Get him!”

  Beion burned the arrows as they came then decapitated the one who spoke by tightening fire around his neck and squeezing until it popped off.

  “Stop!” the mage yelled. “Stand down!”

  “It is too late for that now,” Beion smirked. “If the past of the nations have taught anything, it’s that when a demon-blooded is called to battle, they fight until their end—I don’t allow surrender, not for any of you.”

  The battle was short. Beion killed them all with fire and sucked their bodies into Hell to hide all evidence he was there. He left the mage alive, only to taunt her.

  “I bet you thought you were so strong, powerful, unable to be killed by any you wanted to rob,” he whispered. “I see your sins, you preyed on this weak to magic with weak magic yourself. Beg for your life, get on your knees.”

  The second the mage got on her knees, Beion grabbed her by the throat and snapped it. “Fool,” he said. “To think I would ever spare a woman like you is a sin by itself.”

  Beion clicked his fingers and unsealed the wagon. Snow burst out with her sword, thinking there was a battle, then calmed when she saw only the body of the mage.

  “Did they run away?” asked Snow.

  “No,” Beion said. “They grew wings and flew into the sun. You summoned me, I saw enemies, I killed them—that is what you called on me for, isn’t it?”

  Vera dragged herself out of the wagon. “Did I die?” she slurred. “I see Beion, Snow, are we in hell?”

  “Not yet,” Beion chuckled. “Where is Death? That fellow had a good resistance to magic, could smell it on him, this should’ve been a fun little activity for him.”

  “He ran away,” Snow said sadly.

  Beion repeated the phrase in a poorly replicated mimic of Snow. He thought she was joking. When the cambion realised she wasn’t, he straightened his posture and cleared his throat, resting his arms behind his back. “Apologies. I thought that was a jest. Where has the man ran off to?”

  “We don’t know,” Vera said. “Do you think you can find him?”

  “This close to Vatanil?” Beion scoffed. “I barely managed to get that letter of Killian Entrail—I only succeeded because I was swift in my work, able to grab it before the Sentinels detected my magic and trapped me there.”

  Vera hopped to him and took his hand. Snow did the same to his other. “Please,” Vera said, eyes begging. “For me?”

  Beion faltered. “Damnit, fox, I did say I would break your heart one day,” he said, “but that day won’t be today. I will find Death in time, you caught me before I wished to sleep. You two get rest, find a camp of friendly people to stay with while I hunt, can you do that? I need to focus on it should he be inside the city, I can’t be called to battle.”

  “We can!” Snow yelled. “Thank you, Beion, thank you!” She hugged his neck. “Thank the gods for you!”

  Vera shrugged and joined the hug.