With Bianca gone, the others took their temporary camp. They had no protection of the cherry blossoms this time, forced to stay close, huddled under a flapping piece of cloth without a fire.

  “How long do we have to stay here?” Snow yelled. “This storm is only getting worse! I’m drowning just from breathing!”

  “Until enough time has gone by and I know those two are far from us,” Death said. “A truce doesn’t mean trust. I don’t have full faith that they didn’t set up an ambush down the road. If they did, the storm will force them out if we wait long enough.”

  “That Billid fella was funny,” Vera snickered. “If he didn’t hit me with a bolt of lightning I’d wish him well. Still hurts.”

  “You are lucky it hit you and not that pond,” said Death. “Had it struck the water behind, Beion and Ser Shimmer would’ve been electrocuted.”

  “Maybe I should return to Hell,” Beion sighed. “I expected lots of adventure. This is… not pleasurable.”

  Vera wrapped an arm tightly around his neck. “Nah, you’re gon’ stay with us for the whole trip!” she yelled in his ear. “You’re one of us now, that means we stick together! Inseparable. Uh-huh.”

  “Is there an ‘us’ now, fox?” Death asked. “I do not recall ever agreeing that there was an ‘us’ in any form.”

  “Of course there is! You’re the king of whatever we are. You’re killing devils, besting bandits, slaying dragons!”

  “I’m the one who killed that dragon,” Snow corrected. “Doesn’t matter if it was him who moved the ballista. I pulled the lever. That makes the victory all mine. Ain’t that right, Death?” She snuggled her head on his shoulder and kissed his neck. “C’mon, say I’m the cutest killer of dragons you’ve ever seen.”

  Death removed himself from the bunch, loosening his pants at the drawstring with an annoyed sigh.

  Snow blushed. “Here?” she squeaked. “But people are watching. I don’t want to do it when people are watching.”

  “What are you on about?” Death pointed into the forest. “I’m going into the woods. I need a piss. Feels like I haven’t had a piss in several days.”

  “Why do you look so uncomfortable, huh?” Vera asked. “Did you never have pisses when you were a conqueror?”

  “No. I did not. The art of shitting and pissing suggests waste. My body as a conqueror did not create waste. I also have a memory of draining the powers of some fat warrior who claimed he had a blackhole in his stomach. Perhaps I stole that.”

  “Blackhole? The things that witches say are in the night sky? How did one of them get into his stomach?” Beion asked. “Sounds like an odd gift.”

  “A figure of speech, I’m sure,” Death said. “The wind is fierce. Unpredictable. Be wary of yellow rain.”

  “Shut up and go piss, piss-boy!” Vera yelled. “Go and be mortal like the rest of us! Have a shit while you’re at it!”

  Sometimes I wish I never knocked on the door of that stupid fox. How could my rage have made me so na?ve and gullible? The scarred man by the lake… of course it wouldn’t have been the man that I seek. What a stupid decision for me to make.

  Death found a large oak abundant with branches and leaves left from autumn. He dropped his pants to his knees, resting his head against the bark as he released enough piss to fill several buckets to the brim.

  As he tightened the drawstring and cleaned his hand on a bush, he felt an ache behind his eyes. Each step worsened the throb, but each throb made him walk faster. He collapsed into a pile of brown leaves, his vision darkening.

  “A great champion must rise from the lowest a man can go,” the winds whispered. “Sleep. Sleep. Now rise.”

  The rain halted. Death’s pain vanished, replaced with a buzz that reminded of him being slightly drunk. He stood, the floor now a carpet of spring leaves rather than autumn. The whistling of birds sang a tune of a beautiful morning, yet there was not a single winged creature in sight. The window howled, yet the trees stood still. Death looked through the branches and say a sky of red clouds, a giant eye staring down and blinking in curiosity.

  A dream, Death thought. I am no stranger to lucid dreams, but this feels more real than most.

  “Follow me,” a voice bid. “Come, warrior, follow me.”

  Imprints of boots slowly appeared in the leaves, leading in a wobbly path back to the camp from which he came. Snow was dead. Beion was dead. Vera was dead. Their bodies laid sprawled across the logs and wagon, organs ripped out, their faces pale and rotting. The horses hung by their thick necks from the thickest branches of the trees above. In the middle of it all, a shadowy figure, white eyes the size of fists, pressing a hand against an invisible barrier as if it were glass.

  “Come closer,” it said. “I can’t see your properly.”

  Death had no fear. He approached it slowly. He put his own hand on the barrier, feeling the warmth from the shadow on the other side. Condensation hit the glass; the monster was breathing without any mouth at all. “You are hurting,” it said. “Why do you hurt?”

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  “You should know,” Death grunted. “I’ve been getting pain in my head ever since being in the Dark Void. That’s you, isn’t it? You latched onto me in there and escaped with me, now you’re in my mind, stuck.”

  “You are very perceptive.” It knocked on the glass. “But I am not here by choice. I would leave if I could. My connection to my home is restricted while in here.”

  “This is my mind?”

  “I’m not entirely sure. This feels more like a prison.” It turned to the sound of a branch cracking from the forest behind. “But there is something else here. It lurks around everywhere you go. It stalks me. Please let me out. Let me out.”

  “How am I supposed to do that?”

  “Break the glass!” it demanded. “Let me free!” It bashed a palm on the barrier, infuriated by Death’s hesitance. “I don’t belong in here! I don’t! It stalks me! Only you can break the glass! Do it!”

  The figure’s form turned to smoke as a scythe separated head from neck. A scream of anguish echoed around him and the ground trembled as if in pain.

  The mimic from the Dark Void stood before him, taking the place of the creature and wiping away the smudges it had left on the barrier. Death didn’t panic.

  “This is an interesting dream,” he said. “I almost thought I was having a vision of sorts.”

  “Believe what you like,” the mimic said in Death’s voice. “That vile thing has been pestering this place for a while. You are free of your pain, now leave me be or join me for a talk.” It sat on the log with Snow’s corpse, pushing it off to make space for Death should he want to cross the barrier. “Make your choice, conqueror, I don’t like being this close to edge of our horrid mind.”

  “Our?”

  The mimic laughed.

  Pushing through the barrier felt like walking through jelly. He sat with the mimic, unsure of what he wished to discuss.

  “This is my mind?” he asked again. “Doesn’t imagine what I thought the inside of my brain would look like.”

  “People see only what they want to see.”

  “Why would I want to see my companions dead around me?”

  “Companions. Friends. Tools. What are they to you? You ask me questions that you yourself don’t know, so why would I know?”

  Death pondered on the answer. He didn’t reveal what he’d decided to the mimic, but it already knew.

  “Friends,” it scoffed. “You boast being a conqueror. Your path is riddled with decisions you refuse to make.” It gestured to each body. “Fate can only take you so far. It’s favouring of us does not guarantee a thing. We must stick to the tracks it lays, but we must decide on our own journey when we meet an unmarked crossroad.”

  “I hate that word.”

  “As do I.”

  Death recognised the mimic as his own subconscious, speaking to him inside of his own dream. It would only know what he knew. He accepted the mimic’s words as his own opinion, one that he was refusing to acknowledge while awake.

  “What is it that I truly want?” he asked it. “You are me. If there is an answer to it that I cannot see, you must know it.”

  “We want freedom,” it said. “A world where everything is ours, where none dare to rival us.”

  “It doesn’t feel like I want that. Travelling with Snow has made me feel distracted from that goal.”

  “Pretty girls tend to do that,” it said drily. “Not even the gods can resist the comfort they offer. We have grown attached to the girl whether we like it or not. It could be the linking of souls; it could be that girl tormenting our lost memories.”

  “Who is she, that girl?”

  “We have no idea. Fate brought her to us for a reason. We must find out what that reason was.”

  “You are wise.”

  “I am you. You are complimenting yourself. Do not do that.”

  Death awoke to a sharp pain in his ribs. Snow had kicked him to wake him, slapping his face to bring him to consciousness.

  “Phew, thought I’d have to start punching you to get you out of that,” Snow giggled. “Wouldn’t have found you if I didn’t hear you snoring in this pile of lives. You must’ve been tired.”

  “Where am I, where is the mimic?”

  Snow slapped him again, believing he wasn’t fully awake. “No idea what you’re talking about. You’ve been gone for an hour, we all just thought you were having the longest piss in history.”

  An hour? That felt like minutes, Death thought. He spat out leaves that were stuck inside his mouth. That was a vision. I feel like it was. I understand now why many false prophets in history were burned for their lying… I can’t figure out if that actually happened.

  She kissed Death on his cheek. “You’re not even flinching at my kisses anymore. I’ve warmed you up to them, haven’t I? Soon you’ll be asking for them. One day you’ll admit you like them.”

  Death looked at Snow in a way he hadn’t before. The mimic said he was attached to the girl. If it was a vision, it meant that Death had a liking for her. These are my friends in this life, he thought. I can deny it all I like, but souls don’t lie. These are my friends.

  “You want me to lay down with you?” She laid down in the leaf-pile before he answered. “Storm’s getting even worse, huh? Look at those branches up there, looks like they’re dancing.”

  This is nice, Death thought. I won’t say it aloud, but this is the calmest I’ve felt since coming out that tomb.

  “Are you gonna say something?” she squeaked. “Did I annoy you?” She stretched an arm across his torso and hugged him. “Was it the kick? I’ll make up for it, I promise.”

  “You have done nothing wrong, Snow,” Death assured. “I just have plenty to think about.”

  “Like what, hm? Share it with me.”

  “Do truly believe in fate?”

  “Of course I do! That sealing spell on you was broken somehow. I have no idea how I did it, so that means fate is on our side.”

  He put an arm around her, grabbing her hip, squeezing with a protective grip. “It doesn’t matter if fate paves our path,” he said. “I must protect you, Snow. Stay close to me at all times.”

  Snow gave a happy smile and shuffled closer. “Of course,” she whispered. “You’re my conqueror.”