In the Veil of Shadows

by Logan Keys

  “My home. In the between. It’s to keep you safe.”

  “Safe?”

  Again, he seems ashamed. For changing me. For holding me. When he should hate me and be glad at my misery and shock. “Gaea, there are those who crave to behold one like you. Your power is unlike an immortal, it is for ending one completely. Do you sense the bow within you?”

  I sense him only. “Are you saying I will never be free?”

  “You can never be free.”

  He will not lie to me. Thanatos and I have struck this deal already. He will be honest, but then, now I can’t withstand the truth. I waver on my feet. He rushes to my side before looking down at me sadly. “I know this is not fair.”

  I ignore the reason of fairness and justice because it would likely drop me to my knees to imagine a world where the gods play with our lives as such. “Because they will seek to steal my powers?” I ask quietly, turning to face the strange woman in the mirror once again. She’s so changed.

  “Use you. You…” his face fills some unfathomable expression above mine in the mirror. “You will have to remain here. To be safe.”

  I choke back the contents of my stomach threatening to come up. I pull from his touch and rush back to the bed before my legs give out. “I never meant to trade places with my brother. I just wanted… I just wanted it all to go back the way it was. I mean, I would have died for him. But this… this…” I turn and cough, gagging on my worst fears.

  “You love him, I know. You did what you had to save him. At such a great sacrifice too.” Thanatos dark gaze blazes with his thoughts and emotions. There are sparks in them, almost. “I can only imagine, Gaea, what you must think. I don’t want to be your warden, honestly, I wouldn’t choose this for anything. Believe me.”

  “I… I…” Words fail me at the sight of his distress because it only feeds my own. I fall onto my side and curl around my middle, wracked by sobs. “I can’t live here, not in this death and despair, I cannot bear it.” Tears rush freely onto my cheeks. Ones that should have been given only for mourning my brother’s life and my own. Now they are tears of an endless future imprisoned in Death’s home.

  I sit up after a time, finally having cried myself out. And Thanatos is there by my side before I can call for him. His kindness is infuriating. I want to get out of here. I want to hate him. To fight with him until I am free. Panic grips me and when he reaches for me, I attack him with everything that I’ve gained from my powers. I shove and slap him. The sound is a crack of noise that echoes through the room. I am on my feet ready to battle my jailer, only, a giant split in his lip makes me gasp.

  Blood trickles from his mouth and he is unmoved. He will let me take out my rage and fear upon him.

  “Oh, Thanatos,” I whisper reaching for him, touching his rigid form, gasping at how foolish a woman I am. “No. I didn’t know I could harm you. I thought it would be a fly landing on you to strike you. I did not mean to actually… Oh, by the gods. What type of demon am I? You must think me a monster. Here you have saved me and I hate you for it. I have struck and harmed you for it. I have bound you with your own chains. Please, say something. Punish me. Do something so I know that I am not completely evil.”

  He doesn’t flinch or even regard me with hatred as he should. He is so used to being despised that he expects me to revile him as my jailer but whose fault was this? “Zeus,” I say, my fury boiling hot under my skin. “Zeus has made me this… creature. I will seek revenge on him, I can’t promise to stay.”

  I move shakily on my feet. Slowly, the wound on Thanatos’ face heals as I shudder from the sight of it closing and disappearing. I reach for it and touch his lip gently. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean it. This is not me. None of this is me. I am a desperate thing now, in the lands of the gods. Please tell me what I should do?”

  His dark brows rise high on a pale forehead. He seems more surprised at my gentleness. He is still not speaking and my voice is the only one filling the darkness. “I have caught you off guard,” I say. “Am I such a brute that you think I’d be cruel to the person who saved me without guilt? Please… I beg of you to speak.”

  When Thanatos’ black eyes search mine but still he waits, and I am not sure how to play this game of silence, but I imagine death will win every challenge. A strange question is on my tongue and I almost cannot stop it from spilling out. “Have you loved, Thanatos? Is there a Mrs. Death?”

  And he smiles, finally opening his mouth. “Not as you’d imagine love to be. Or marriage.”

  “Alone then. There is no fondness resting in your gaze. There is no ruefulness in your answer as you picture them. Are they dead?” I swallow my next thought and speak it, anyway. “Did you have to claim your own lovers?”

  “Some.” And it’s hurting him for me to speak like this. Like a human can hurt, I see it in his black eyes and I find myself reaching for him pulling him closer demanding that he accepts something besides my censure and my anger—my hatred and painful touch. That he accepts my passion as well, a sweet kind that will hopefully torture him as I am tortured now.

  “I am bound to you here,” I say close to his mouth. “Make me forget. Please,” I whisper.

  Gaea

  A brief embrace was all I could draw from Thanatos on my first day in the manor. He’d turned wary of my change of mood, and I felt that he drew further away from me each day afterwards, silently avoiding my questions, and quietly working. Because death was a busy occupation. He was often away claiming souls, and so I was alone to gain my strength most always. Without thought he gave me leave of the entire manor. Kitchens, rooms, library—the largest I had ever seen. The gardens and stables as well, but he asked me to stay inside for now until he knew how big of a threat there was. I agreed, trying to please him at every turn, but that only made him more reluctant. From the window, you can see the in between, and it is misty woods of darkness with little moonlight—always moonlight, for the sun is not invited here.

  Though, the dreary setting bothers me little—for I am a daughter of winter, and the in between suits me quite well—a girl can only walk empty halls so many times before she begins to grow quite lonely. And this is Thanatos’ life: Lonely. Right now, he is dressing to leave in his special clothes that he wears for calling people’s souls outside from the shell of their bodies. He dons this as if he cannot do his work without it, and perhaps the ritual helps him in some way, because I have snuck and watched, and it is quite a specific thing. First there is the cloak with a hood, and his chains go around his waist. He bears a sword, but the last and more important, is his scythe.

  I have rudely invaded his bedroom tonight, hoping to seem as impertinent as possible. At times, I try to shock words from Thanatos, or reactions, same as I had from my brother when he was in a sullen mood. The room is usually locked, and my curiosity has grown past politeness, so I am laying across his bed, eating an apple. I am his prisoner, but I don’t have to be a well behaved one. I prop myself onto my side, hand under my chin, watching him dress, trying not to gaze at the show of flesh as he changes his shirt. Thanatos is as fit as a warrior, and his expansive chest is as powerful as it is sculpted for endurance. Clearing my throat, I ask, “From where will you claim a soul tonight?” When he does not answer, I decide to share with him a thought I’ve been having. Perhaps, my destiny had been fixed after all. “A poet from my village had heralded the fall of my brother. Did you know that? He'd visited us just before Zeus' treachery. The man had given us his warning, now I can see that so clearly. I remember we'd laughed at his words together, Alastor and I.” I say this because he is going to steal a soul tonight. I repeat the prophecy because there is a pain in my heart for those he will rip asunder as he had my own family. "Death, my death---” Thanatos turns with frustration to watch me, his black robe sashed in place. I don’t deny the slight fear pitting in my stomach at his glare, because I might have pushed too far tonight, but, moving to a seated position, I continue, “Death, why have you come swiftly but not swift
ly enough. Your blade, the final blade, that my eyes must watch it fall. Death, my death, why have you fled your empire to the land of mortals and stolen my last breath and taken from those that I love.” My voice shakes. “Can you not forgive me my life just one moment longer?” We lock eyes in a battle beyond words. “Oh death, my death, you have chained me and claimed me evermore."

  The last part he knows as I know it is me I am speaking of. “He had not merely been talking of Alastor,” I say, eyes dampening despite my struggle. “He had meant my imprisonment. He’d seen it.”

  Thanatos arranges his cloak, pulling the hood up, a grand and large velvety veil of black to blot out the life he would visit this night. It nearly covers his face, to hide the despair that tightly pulls at a grim mouth. From deep within the shadows his robe creates, I see glowing eyes.

  I bite back a gasp when he lifts his mighty scythe, this must be a hunted death, for I am learning they differ. A god, he would need his chains, a somber child, nothing more than himself and his robes. But tonight, someone must be fleeing their fate for him to need a weapon that he could cut them down at a longer reach than his arm.

  Yes. Death will hunt this night, and my tears halt his steps onward... not at all.

  I find that I have a visitor when I reach the landing of the stairs. Persephone waits at the bottom, a small smile on her face.

  Would that beauty could somehow be as cold as it is sweet, that is how one would describe Persephone, wife of the King of the Underworld.

  “I thought you could use some company,” she says, frowning at what is no doubt puffy eyes.

  I nod and she motions for us to sit near the fire she builds with her hand tickling the air.

  It is inviting, and I take the chair nearest to it, gazing into the flames, wondering, wishing, hoping that this will not be my life forever more.

  “Gaea,” she says sadly. “I know this must be so difficult for you. I promised myself I’d come sooner but… life down here is hard. Unforgiving. And many times, the tidings of life and death wait for no man or woman. You will learn, it feels a day, when a year has gone by elsewhere.”

  I nod. “That’s exactly it.”

  “But we are not bound by time, my brave one.”

  I realize that for once in my life, a sweet nickname does not offend. It merely endears. And I begin to cry anew. “How do you bear it?” I ask.

  She laughs gently. “It is not so terrible as all of that. I fear that you might have gotten an ill impression because…” her features turn dark and it is not the first time I imagine that there is a lurking power simmering beneath her skin.

  “Zeus,” I finish for her.

  “Yes.”

  “He must be punished. He must be stopped.”

  She smiles a brilliant grin. “I knew I’d like you.”

  I smile back. “Tell me there is a way to have justice against him. Even with Alastor back, it’s not enough. He can do this again, and again. I won’t have it.”

  Persephone’s face turns again. “Neither will I. But we must be patient. You are newly made, and I am not willing to risk you so soon. I have only just made a friend down here, I don’t mean to lose you right away.”

  I laugh heartily for the first time since my imprisonment. “Thank you for coming,” I say. “And the clothes.” I glance down at the beautiful gown she’d given me. “I don’t know how I will repay you.”

  “With lots of time spent together in derision over the men in our lives, I hope.” She snorts, and it catches me off guard making me laugh again.

  “Thank you,” I say. “I have not been this light hearted since…”

  “Since you became a god-weapon? You know I am too, in your shoes. Of a sort. Hades and I were unable to be together unless, well and Zeus had done us a favor, but now, I think he’s gone too far.” She turns distracted. “I have children, you know. I worry for their future with his power untethered.”

  “How do you mean that you are like me?” I ask.

  She smiles. “It’s quite a long story.”

  “Good. A short one wouldn’t be worth my limitless time.”

  Thanatos

  Gaea postures as if she’s tough enough to have become a god-weapon and be imprisoned for eternity without missing a beat. But occasionally she falls apart, a flayed wound that she presses salt and fire to, to cauterize in front of me. And each time I am torn apart by the revelation that yes, Gaea, Warrior princess, now immortal, still holds a human girl inside—one who left her life too swiftly—who longs for the world to right itself so she can live normally once again.

  I have heard her tears through the door. Her anger has run through my halls as she storms around the manor. There is never a moment that her emotions are not painting the room. She will not stuff them down and go quietly into the mists. I applaud her for that, but I wish the process wasn’t making me question every part of my life and duty as King of Death.

  There is a balcony to her room, and I had cringed the first time she stepped outside to see the foggy, bleak between. I had worried that she might hate seeing how dreary it will be here in my manor. How she is truly between life and death, hiding from the immortals so that she will not be used.

  Neither the fires of the underworld brighten this place, nor the sun of the human world penetrates through where we are, this is the land of shadows. It is because of Gaea that I had used what magic I could to make a moon above the manor. A light that is always shining. I know it’s not as good as the human world to her, but it was the best I could do to make it home. And it is Gaea’s home now. I would be lying if I didn’t think the between lands suited Gaea in ways. Despite her being a Warrior Princess when alive, now that she is a weapon, her dark features are inky in their blackness, and her eyes are lit with an unholy light of vengeance. The bow has made itself known through her, a warning that she will take our never-ending lives.

  And she is more beautiful for her skin turned alabaster like my own, and her body softening from lack of fighting. While she despairs at being a kept woman, she’s flourishing under the care, though I know it would burn her ears to hear it. No more long years at war hardening her body, and no more scars and pain making her eyes tired with weariness. No more of Ares’ campaigns to chase. She eats, and she lounges, and she has everything she needs here at her beck and call, but still, despite the fact that she is round and delectable to a man’s taste, let alone an immortal’s, her eyes are too sad with the loss of her life she always knew.

  “I have a gift for you,” I say at her door this evening.

  Her bare feet slap on the stones toward the door. She opens it and I take in her luxurious gown. Gifts from Persephone arrive daily, she knows better than anyone what it is to forsake your life for these lands. Today, Gaea has on a black, sheer gown that moves like water flowing over her healthy mounds. She sees me eyeing her like a very hungry man indeed. Does Persephone know what she is doing? My mouth is dry.

  Her mouth quirks. “Gift?”

  “Ah. Yes. Hades and Persephone send yet another, but I had to retrieve this myself.”

  She looks at my empty hands.

  “It’s in the main room.”

  Gaea follows me. Her feet that would have been freezing before, now they are impervious to the cold of the between lands. She could go outside naked and not feel a thing. And that leads me to thoughts of the new Gaea bathing in the moonlight… without her pretty dresses.

  “What is this?” she asks when we get downstairs.

  There is a mirror waiting there, obviously quite old. Ancient. And it’s framed by all manner of wood carvings. Castles, and battles, and Olympus, the Kings and Queens, and of course sexual conquest. “This is a mirror from Olympus. It is quite special. Ask it what you want to see, and it will show you anything.”

  “Anything?” Gaea asks with hope in her eyes.

  “Yes.”

  She concentrates a moment. “My brother,” she breathes, and the mirror changes to that of the human world.


  Its brightness steals into the room making it lighter. Gaea stands as close as she can while the mirror shows a faraway view of her home, flying high over the trees before growing closer. Then it reveals the halls of her home as she gasps. The main room appears and her brother is there at his table. “Alastor,” she says, as though he can hear her.

  “Marriage?” Alastor says and the words come through the mirror clear as if he’s with them.

  A man with dark skin laughs and slaps Gaea’s brother on his back. “It’s time, brother.”

  “Carn,” Gaea says smiling at his smile.

  I try not to feel a tug of jealousy at the fondness spreading across her face.

  “I have only just lost my sister,” Alastor says, with a grieved expression.

  Carn’s eyes grow sad. “And I too have lost a… sister.”

  Ah. So it was like that then. When I glance at Gaea, she looks away, her cheeks flush.

  “But I have seen the way you look at her, Alastor. She could be brought from the kingdom run by that madman. He won’t offer you her hand twice.”

  Alastor nods his head wisely. “Agreed.” His eyes grow distant. “I only wish Gaea were here to see.”

  “I do,” Gaea says, petting the mirror. “I can see you.”

  “Send word,” Alastor says, decided. “I’ll take her as a wife.”

  Gaea squeaks and she puts her hands to her mouth in joy. The mirror shimmers and leaves her brother’s palace but Gaea is searching it, waiting for it to return. “What a gift,” Gaea says, turning, grabbing my hand. It is the first time she’s touched me since her first day here when she’d tried to kiss me.

  That had been a tactical maneuver to assuage her embarrassment and loss of control. It had been a desperate touch, but this is with kindness and thankfulness.

  “It was Persephone and Hades who gifted this,” I say but she shakes her head.