Page 14 of Mortal Things

His eyes seem to sear straight through me, as if he knows my reluctance, but if he’d heard me, he makes no mention of it.

“Regent-Elect,” Raven answers.

The deep, velvet echo of his voice resonates in my body, and sparks travel up my spine. I feel an unspeakable tug at his nearness, a calling within to be closer to him. The link between a god and his Harbinger.

He holds the glass out to me. “For you.”

I take it hesitantly.

“You’ve never been inside a god’s estate,” he says at my expression. “Our realm is poisonous to mortals, tainted by immortality. I imagine you don’t feel well right now.” He nods at the glass. “Drink.”

The poison of immortality. As if on cue, dizziness washes over me once more, and for a second, I’m afraid I might puke right in front of my patron god. I nod and sip from the glass.

Immediately, the sparkling liquid clears away the encroaching fog in my mind, lightening the pressure on my chest and easing the nausea in my stomach.

“I wasn’t hiding,” I start to explain, glancing back at the tree. “I was just looking for—that is, I needed a quiet moment…”

I let my awkward words trail off while he gives me a small smile. My patron god isn’t exactly known for being a ray of sunshine, but today his expression looks particularly dark, his mood as somber as my own. I remember that he, too, must be grieving for the sudden death of Terran.

“You wanted to see the Eternal Tree,” he offers.

I swallow, letting out a slow breath. “Yes. I felt like it called to me.” I hesitate. “When I touched the bark, it felt like every soul inside turned toward me, as if they wanted me to bring them back to life.”

Raven studies me curiously, and I pause, wondering if I’ve said something wrong. A thought flashes across his face, as if my reaction to the tree is unusual, like it isn’t supposed to happen. But it’s gone as quickly as it comes.

After a moment, he gives me a single nod. “Perhaps it sensed your reluctance,” he says.

I blush. He’d heard me, after all. My hand tightens around the glass. “I just haven’t been around this many immortals before,” I mutter, suddenly embarrassed to look at him. My gaze darts to the dancing in the atrium, where gods and their Regents glide across the floor.

Raven offers me his arm. I hesitate, shy to take it, but when he just looks calmly at me, I put down my glass on a tree branch and curl my hand around his elbow.

“Steady, my Harbinger,” he says softly, leaning down to me, and I tremble at his nearness. “Remember that they are here for you tonight.”

My patron god leads us toward the center of the atrium. As we go, other Regents and gods notice me, and as he pulls me toward him and smoothly joins the swirling dance, I hear my name on their lips, can feel their lingering gazes. Raven’s hand rests gently against the small of my back, guiding me as we go. My heart feels like a bird fluttering against its cage.

We make a full circle around the atrium before the dance slows. As I fall into a more leisurely step with him, I clear my throat. “I’m sorry to hear about Terran,” I say.

“So am I,” Raven says. Now I can hear the sorrow in his voice. He may be a god, but gods, too, can grieve.

“How,” I ask, swallowing, hesitant to say, “how did he die?”

“In his home, lying in his bed.”

I frown to myself. Had Terran been ill, afflicted with some invisible condition none of us had known about?

“He died in his sleep?” I say.

Raven gives me a grave look, and this is when I know that there is something wrong with the way Terran died. I can sense it before he even says it to me.

“His soul was not claimed by one of my Harbingers,” he answers. “It never returned to the Eternal Tree.”

I stare at him in disbelief, thinking I’ve somehow misunderstood him.

It should be impossible. Raven senses every death in the world, knows when someone is near to their last moments. A dying human always stands before one of Raven’s Harbingers before they go, and if they are not chosen by the gods to serve them, Raven’s Harbinger guides the thread of light in their soul back to the Eternal Tree. It is what I’d done at the train station, what every one of us under Raven does.

My mind whirls, logic trying in vain to land. “But what could do that?”

He turns me again. “There are rumors of Wraiths gathering in clusters around the world. Calling to one another, hungrier than they should be. They are hunting in packs.”