A sizzle on my cheek, the lasting warmth of a hand against my skin, I remember feeling it before the dark maw swallowed me and placed me here… this is an illusion, a conjuration, one of great proportions, able to isolate my mind from my body.

  “Cambion!” Death yelled. “I am not a fool; do you think I am a fool? You did the same thing to your brother at that table. My mind is not so easily breakable!”

  The rising chill felt real, another minute and he would be frozen just like the girl from the ritual. He looked at the doorknob, growling as he opened the door and found warmth.

  A brothel, walls stained red from firelight reflecting off the soft skin of the cambion men and women. They pleasured each other, the brother servants feeding grapes to both parties as they tried to invite Death to one of several orgies occurring on beds of luxurious feathers around him.

  Of course, there was no battle of temptation in his lustless mind, the prettiest of the servants danced their delicate around him, brushing their bodies against him and others as they wilted like flowers, curving like the arch of a beautiful waterfall, exploring his neck with their fingers and inviting him to something private with only a devious tilt of the head.

  This is not one of my memories, this is not from my desires; that cambion Aleirica either believes I will fall for something as simple as naked devils lusting over me, or she is a whore.

  As he shouted, not a single head acknowledged him. “This game bores me! Reveal yourself, Rica, whatever your goal, I assure that you will not achieve it from this method.”

  He felt a hand taunt the back of his neck, followed by a giggle. He turned to see Rica stretching like a cat, half-naked on a familiar bed from his own home. “All have fantasies that can never be let out into words or the wind,” she purred. “Come and sit, Death, let me explore you.”

  “I do not want pleasure.”

  “Pleasure, hm?” she taunted. “Oh, you think because this is my fantasy, I want it right now, right here? No, Death, I am not a girl who offers myself so openly to strangers.”

  “Yet this is your dream?”

  “Look closely and see all the women hold my face, even the men have my features… symbolic, Death, I wish for my fantasy to be this with people I know so well.”

  “Who was she?”

  “Pardon?”

  “The frozen woman outside the door.”

  “I didn’t conjure any frozen woman.”

  “Stroke Valan’s childhood friend, she was opposite the door you placed in that frozen forest.”

  “How peculiar,” she whispered, her eyebrows arched in pure surprise. “I’ve never had that happen before.”

  She rested her head on her palms and laid on her tummy, her tail beckoning him like a finger. “Entertain me, Death, come and lay on this bed with me.”

  “How about I kill you right now and right here.”

  “There would be no way for me to fight back. Little me, against your powerful muscles, would that make you feel so worthy? I like you more than most I have encountered, Death, you feel special so I will give you an opportunity to be special. In every other instance the staff of this brother have restrained my target, but I will offer you the chance to come and do this gently, I do not want to kill you, I do not want you to kill my brother.”

  “This is a trick. You will turn me into a brainless wanderer just like you did your brother.”

  “If you kill me here, I will not die, I will keep coming back, I cannot die in here, neither can you.”

  It has been much longer than two minutes, the effects of her putting her hand on her brother at the table were instant—we are suspended in a moment in time, playing out whatever this is until it has been completed… but what does ‘complete’ mean in a place like this. If there was a way to subjugate me, she would immediately take the opportunity… a condition for her to win, which means she is able to lose.

  Death sat on the bed. She rolled over to him and sat on his lap, taking one of his hands and putting on the bare skin of her back.

  “You really do feel no pleasure,” she whispered. “Even as I rub my hands over your neck, your arms…” She kissed his neck, leaving small bite marks. “…even as I love your neck and get close to you, there is nothing.”

  “You won’t win my mind,” Death said boldly. “I see your game is to conquer my thoughts, inject yourself into me.”

  She got close to his ear and talked in a whisper. “You are not just a husk, Death, I control your body and can make it fight for me, I can do the same to my brother, stop this fight and then no one has to die… accept my proposal, I do not wish to do to you what I have to do to my brother and others every time… say you accept.”

  There is no circumstance where I would accept this. Even if I did, I am losing too much blood for anyone to heal me, for me to live I need to kill someone, that big brute is the only one who is strong enough to heal my injuries if I drain them… or perhaps Vera would be enough as a last resort. Regardless, this is now a battle I cannot afford to lose.

  “Unfortunate,” she whispered, looking into his eyes. “I know the face of denial when I see it… I’m sorry Death, this will not be a pleasant thing for either of us.”

  She placed a hand on each of his cheeks. She faded into black, and Death found himself on a field of yellow tulips and roses, a cloudless sky with a boiling sun feeling nice against his face.

  Why does this place feel so familiar? This day, this field, I have been here before. He brushed his hand across the petals. A bee flew onto his palm, which he crushed, then opened to see it hadn’t been harmed. A memory, I cannot kill or change memories, but there is nothing here, just flowers that stretch forever… where am I?

  “Such a wonderful sight.” Rica’s voice echoed with no source, all around him, every direction. “The sun feels nice, it doesn’t feel this way anymore…”

  “Cambion!” Death yelled. “What have you done to me?”

  “This is… unusual, your memory is fragmented like a pane of glass, I can see some pieces, but cannot reach them—hm, what do we have here? A family of hundreds, nameless nobodies, ungifted, unimportant in the grand scheme of fate… a tradition, lowly bloods becoming honourable squires, only to die before the age of thirty for a noble knight’s cause. Rewards reaped by other bloodlines, your name was thirsty for a drop of anything… then… you… what is this, who are you? Stop looking for me.”

  The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

  “I will stop looking when you get out of my head, witch.”

  “You can hear me?”

  “Unfortunately.”

  “I have never seen a soul so dark yet so bright… so evil, yet so full of purity… so freezing, yet so filled with fire.”

  “You stay away from my soul!”

  “No name, no reason to exist, floating in the void… your body thinks you are dead, your soul thinks you are dead.”

  “Well clearly they’re wrong,” he scoffed. “I will give you one last chance to release me from this place, cambion, I see your gift and you cannot deceive me—time is stilled, this will continue on and on until you break my mind, I assure you it is not possible, your only choice is to stop.”

  “How do you know so much about my power.”

  “Your gift is not unique in the slightest.”

  A giggle caught his attention. He turned to see a young girl, age of five, in a dark blue dress, wearing a tiara and waving at him.

  “This is a girl,” Rica said. “A child. A real child, I have had their soul trapped in this realm for a decade; offer yourself to me and I will—”

  Death beat the child to death in the field of flowers, not holding back any ounce of power from his punches. “I said you cannot fool me,” he snarled. “A real child, what a pitiful tactic—even if this was a true trapped soul, I would kill billions of children even if my reward was only an apple to shove in your mouth to shut you up.”

  “Fascinating,” she said in awe.

  This place has a feeling of doom, a permanent state where I feel I am being observed—a battle of the minds, her wit against mine, I simply must just resist until she is fatigued.

  “Ah,” she purred. “Why is it when a man has a tragic backstory, there is always a pretty girl at the centre of it.”

  Her words struck a nerve. “I do not have a tragic backstory!” he screamed. “There has never been a girl.”

  “Oh, really?” she teased. “Then… Death... who is this?”

  “Out of my head, cambion, don’t you dare!”

  Death blinked and found himself sat at an iron table, a candle lighting a letter that he had just read and torn. A homely sensation hit him, he recognised the place, the tidiness, the neatness.

  “I’m so sorry.” A girl wept opposite him, clawing for breaths as she held her stomach with one hand and tightly held his finger with the other. “I—hak—hik, please, I… I can’t…”

  “Do you recognise her face?” he heard Rica say. “Look at those pretty blue eyes, her innocence, hair blacker than yours, is she your sister… or…someone more special.”

  Death wanted to scream, but he couldn’t—memories cannot be changed, his actions were already decided.

  “Please… don’t leave,” the girl begged. “Stay… I understand if you can’t look at me anymore… but… please… I’m begging you not to leave.”

  She ripped off her necklace and gave it to Death, a tiny golden chain with a crescent moon of silver at the end. “I need you,” she cried. “Please.”

  Another memory flashed as he stared at the pendant, a fresh one, of the scarred man stealing it from Death’s neck just seconds before sealing him.

  I never remembered that until now… seeing things unlocks my memories?

  “A succubus?” Rica said in amazement. “But… they’ve all been extinct for three thousand years… that doesn’t make sense, there are no immortals in these lands, none documented, are you playing your own tricks on me… I see that view past the golden pillars, the nation you are in, I don’t recognise it.”

  Death turned his head to the window, his attention caught by the ringing of a bell. A young girl in a blue dress and a tiara ran by with joyful laughter, followed by her mother and father.

  “…do you promise?” the girl said.

  Death never heard what she’d asked him to promise, his mouth moved on its own, answering for him. “I promise,” he said sweetly. “Always.”

  “So, you will stay?” she asked through a wet smile. “I need you now more than ever, please.”

  Even with my memories gone… I don’t have a name for whoever this girl is… but I feel strange looking at her, a pain, a mourning, I am not the man to love someone, I know for a fact that I have never had desires to lay with a woman or kiss one… but I feel my heart pounding, my lips wanting to be against hers, this is… is this what love feels like?

  Then that feeling disappeared. He stood and swung open the door, her crying resumed harder as she called out to him, grabbing his arm and clinging to it like a child trying not to let their favourite teddy get snatched away.

  “Strange,” Rica said softly. “This fragment reeked of tragedy and sorrow, but looking at it… I don’t know what I see.”

  Death threw the girl to the floor and took a step out into the white void, taking a deep breath. His memory regretted the actions and returned to the girl, kneeling, and hugging her. “Run away with me,” he asked. “Live with me, far away from here, I will find a place they will never find us.”

  “But… I can’t…”

  “That doesn’t matter,” Death said, rubbing her cheek. “Abandon what we wanted, leave everything before and I will do everything I can to find a way to resolve this.”

  “To make me like you? So that we can spend eternity together?”

  The memory ended her and Death stood, everything else frozen still. “Do you think this bothers?” he yelled to Rica. “I don’t know who this woman is, let alone what I promised to her.”

  “Who are you?” Rica asked. “There is no memories of this girl other than this moment, nothing before, nothing after, not another second of her face…”

  “Do you think you can defeat me with memories that don’t even feel like mine?”

  “I aim to understand you.”

  It would be in my best interest to steal this power by killing this cambion witch and giving it to Snow or Vera, it would be useful to gain information on my enemies… but what are the requirements for it, a strong brain? Could Snow or Vera even handle such a gift if it requires a strong mind… consciousness walking through crafted plains, in theory I should be able to enter alongside my companions if it is done properly.

  “Loss does not deter you,” Rica continued. “Victory brings no praise, what is it that you seek?”

  “Do my memories not answer that for you?”

  “It’s like an unsolvable puzzle,” she said. “I see deep down that you are still the little boy I see in your scattered pieces, would he be happy that you chose a path of bitterness and hatred over… over… kindness and…”

  “Spit it out, demon.”

  “Your memories are changing.”

  I knew it. I can directly influence her with my passing thoughts… I barely remember these snippets she is viewing, convincing myself that something happened when it didn’t proves one thing—we are not in my mind, she is not viewing my memories directly, but instead is filtering my consciousness into her own… a clever trick.

  “Some delusions are deadly,” Death snickered. “Some are oft pleasant, ‘tis the wisdom of the mind that can tell the difference, the ability to resist temptation and resist impossible dreams.

  “What does that mean? What are your riddles?”

  “We are in your mind, but my memory, you must be present to be able to speak to me in such a way… the white void, you couldn’t possibly be out there. I see you, Rica, there is only one door in this memory that is so conveniently closed.”

  He kicked the door down and saw Rica cowering in the corner, she yelped as Death grabbed her and tossed her onto the bed. “Your method is to win the battle of minds by leeching on trauma, but I have no trauma… this is a two-way bridge.”

  “Get away from me!” she yelped.

  He pinned her arms above her head with one hand and brushed his knuckles against her cheek with his other while shushing her.

  “No games of hiding,” he whispered. “Let’s see what you hide in your mind.”

  She screamed as he put his palm to her cheek and entered her memories with her.