The first Death was born among the stars, then wrapped in a blanket of sky.
Her hair resembled moonlight on snow.
Scholars said in her eyes, you could find all meaning.
Her creator Nyx, the Goddess of Night, was pleased. She’d built them to control man’s destiny, to resolve the constant warring between Gods and man. Like most mothers, she did not understand how what was once beautiful could become ugly, nor did she know how monsters were made. This was her first mistake.
She nestled Death next to a being called Life and another called Time, and then considered her creations. Their futures.
After all this time I have come to believe that Death and I were not so different. In many ways, Death and I shared the same goal.
To be more than who we were.
As the descendant of Atropos, a Fate, your destiny is to kill. Ruthlessly and relentlessly, until you finally can bear it no more. Then your daughters should do the same. Bleak, unending horror… that is your purpose.
Will you willingly wear that black mantle upon your shoulders? Will you be an eternal enforcer, giving your people the blade instead of their freedom? I think not.
In these pages you will read how I, a simple thief, tricked them all. Death could not end me, and Time could not age me, because I’d found the answer. Know that it is possible, my daughter, to reject who others declared you to be. To refuse your future.
It won’t be without cost. Each time I clawed my way out of the grave, I felt a little less like the person I had been. A little less capable of holding the shields that kept you safe, of keeping all these doors locked and our secrets guarded.
But I digress, daughter. Let us start this story at the right place: my beginning.
----
“Is it a boy?” My mother’s eyes were closed.
“No, it’s a heel,” the midwife replied, yanking me from the womb by one ankle.
Much to everyone’s surprise, clutched in my fist was a hand - my sister’s hand. I gave a blood-curdling shriek, unwilling to leave her behind. Thus my first act was to save a life, pulling her along with me.
That might have been my first mistake.
“Twins. In there, head-to-head.” The nurse had a perplexed look as she delivered a second daughter, pale and blue-faced.
Shell-shocked, my father watched as the nurse thumped his youngest babe with a fist directly in the chest, then cleared her airway with a crooked finger. My sister gave a pathetic mewl, and the midwife smiled with relief.
She smeared both our foreheads with the blood of a goat, then held us in each arm while my mother lay exhausted against the pillows.
“Two girls.” The nurse was tired too. It’d been a long labor, thirteen hours. She frowned as she laid us on threadbare linens.
The cottage was drafty and cold, and the roof leaked when it rained. It was hardly a suitable place for pigs, much less a family to live in. There was only one crib, and it was less than sturdy.
My father, plain with lank blond hair and a sparse beard, scowled over her shoulder. “We can’t afford two. We can barely afford one. Besides, aren’t twins bad luck?”
“Nay. Twins are a double blessing from the Gods and the Fates.”
“They look a bit different.” My father peered at us in the firelight.
“With twins, one is always more hearty, another more clever.”
You would think that my parents, hearing her words, would have decided that the stronger, better twin was me. After all, I’d been born first. I’d breathed easily. That would have been a reasonable response. But people, especially parents, are not always rational.
“This one is prettier. What do you think?” My father pointed at my sister.
My mother sighed. “I don’t care. You know I would have rather had a boy to help out in the fields.”
“Firstborns are always more loyal,” the nurse said.
My mother spoke, contradicting her. “Well I’ve heard that children born feet first walk over everyone, and leap into things without looking.”
There was a heavy silence in the cottage, the three of them holding their breath.
“She won’t eat much. Nor take up too much room.” The nurse’s voice was kind; I always imagined that it was.
My father was angry. “Then let some other family have her. Give her to a woman whose child died.”
“Sir.”
“If you leave her here, I will put her in the river.” His face was hard.
“Are you quite sure?” The nurse studied our downy blond hair and button noses.
But my parents were not to be dissuaded.
So when the nurse gently pulled the door closed on that rundown cottage, my sister lay tucked into the crib under a threadbare blanket. I, the unwanted firstborn, was in a basket in her arms.
“I’ll take you to Zeph. He will be thrilled. With those pretty eyes, who knows what is possible.” She jostled me a bit as she dodged the mud puddles in the dark, and made her way into the town of Fidelisgrove.
Fidelisgrove was a crossroads of sorts. Witches and Fae, even the occasional minotaur – you never knew who would be passing through. It had no reason to be particularly popular, other than its location along one of the main roads of the kingdom of Moirai.
We were ruled by Lachesis, the Controller of Time. Our kingdom was called Kinkanali, which meant Kingdom of the Reeds, since there were many canals that stretched into the interior from the sea. Most of them were clogged with reeds and lilies, utterly unusable for trade, but a lovely place to fish and wade.
We had an inn, several drinking halls, three blacksmiths, tailors, four temples, a wishing well, and a marketplace where one could buy any sort of enchantment or potion. There was even a stone table upon which sacrifices to the Gods were made – usually when asking for harvest and the like.
Fidelisgrove lay in a bowl-shaped valley, which was quite perpetually full of smoke from the fires of its people. The breezes from the distant sea seemed to avoid it, and a single brown river ran through the center. There was a lake, quite large, where everyone went to bathe and drink and socialize, and as a result it was both crowded and dirty.
Like any town, it had its sordid underbelly. Thieves and petty tyrants, gossips, tricksters, and quite a few men who were cursed. Dark trade and restricted items could be bargained for or bought, and several merchants made a tidy profit on trafficking rare beasts and blessings from the Gods. And it was right in the midst of that underbelly our nurse traveled, to see a man who most feared, in a house called The Nightingale.
At the end of one of the darker lanes the Nightingale stood tall, with heavy purple velvet curtains covering its windows for privacy. A fancy gilded sign with a singing bird hung by the street - the irony being that this particular house welcomed anyone who wanted to sing.
That was, anyone who wanted to betray their master by telling their secrets.
Superficially, it was elegant. Discreet. If one looked closely, they might notice that the chimney was a bit crooked and roof tiles were missing in several places. The vines and flowers that grew along the side of the house rioted through the stones, and were covered in sharp thorns.
Any decent gardener would have cut them back years before. But then, any decent gardener would have quickly discovered that a charmed rosebush grows back in seconds and draws blood from anyone who hasn’t been invited.
The green paint on the front door was fresh, and the door knocker was shiny gold. This was because anyone who came to the front door was surely a stranger. And strangers were always fooled by first impressions.
The nurse went to the side door, which was well hidden by vines and flowers. Once inside, she hung up her cloak and then made her way up a narrow staircase to the drawing room where the owner of the Nightingale was wide awake and waiting for her.
Zephyros Castan, leader of the most feared criminal gang in the city known as the Jackdaws, leaned back in his chair and stared at her with hooded eyes. “I task you with bringing me gossip and you lay a baby at my feet?”
“Look at that skin. The golden hair and green eyes. She will be a beauty one day. And if you teach her, she can trick every traveler out of his coin.”
“One day! One day sixteen years from now! What am I supposed to do with her tonight and tomorrow? She is as useless as a potato.”
He spit on the floor, barely missing the basket I lay in. He employed thieves, crooks, arsonists, hitmen, and those who did the jobs that most couldn’t stomach.
He had no use for a baby.
The nurse, who had herself sewn up his wounds and spent too many nights in his bed, gave him a quiet look of reproach.
He shook his head. “You. You say you want a child. I say we’ll make one eventually. Is this your way of forcing my hand?”
“Of course not.” She was indignant. “I merely thought you might want a lady in your midst, someone who is not filthy and covered in fleas, for your more delicate jobs.”
“I already have a lady in my midst,” he murmured, and drew her down onto his lap to nuzzle her ear.
“I meant a little lady.” She shied away from his kiss.
Zeph sighed. “She is not a lady; she is a baby.”
“I rather like the look of her.” She gazed down at the basket, putting one arm around his shoulders. “She looks like me, don’t you think so?”
He scratched his head and peered down at the infant in the basket. Mostly the babe resembled a small troll.
“Think it over, spend some time with her. I will run to the market, and when I get back…”
“You cannot leave me here with this thing!”
“She’s not a thing, she’s a child, and you are quite capable. Surely the great Zephyros Castan is not afraid of a girl who weighs less than a loaf of bread.”
He scoffed. “I’m not afraid of anything.”
She touched his scarred face, the shiny skin drawn tightly white across his cheeks where someone had once tried to burn him alive and failed. “We could have a family, darling. She could be the start of it.”
Zeph remained skeptical, begrudgingly accepting her kiss. He knew the streets better than she did; had seen the violence of Gods and man for too long. But he loved the healer, loved her kind heart and soft hands, loved her patience and loyalty. Even if he had not loved her, he still owed her his life many times over for all the ways in which she had saved him. If she wanted a baby - this baby - it suited him to give her whatever she asked.
“I’ll think it over,” he grumbled.
So the nurse left me in a basket at his feet, and Zephyros Castan sat in his chair and stared at me.
“You.” He nudged the basket with a shiny black boot. “If you talk, I cut out your tongue.”
Mute as a log, I remained still but alert.
He crossed his hands over his chest. “You run away, I shoot you in the back with a poisoned arrow.”
I blinked, then yawned.
Zeph laughed. He hadn’t seen someone so unintimidated by him in decades. The leader of the Jackdaws leaned over and scooped me up. He held me so he could see my face.
“I had a sister once. Beautiful. Malheur - unlucky - like you.” He walked me around the room as he talked, speaking more than he had in years. “I might call you Malinda, the terrible beauty. What do you think?”
I, of course, had no opinion. Zeph carried on.
“Here is the fire. Kenaz.” He held me a bit close and I squirmed, but did not cry. “First you will fear it. But someday you’ll walk through it as I did.”
Satisfied, Zeph settled back onto the couch, snatching the bottle from inside the basket. After he’d fed me, he placed me on his chest. “Don’t cry. If you do, I’ll give you away to the madame down the street.”
Happy to oblige him, I fell asleep at once, exhausted by the long day. Zeph, pleased to have a baby asleep on his chest, began to think of the future.
We were both awakened by loud pounding on the door and the sound of men shouting. His men piled into the room, some bloodied, everyone talking at once.
Attack. Those bastards. They said it would send you a message.
Calmly, Zeph handed me off to one of the youngest members, who must have looked shocked to be handed a child.
“Get her out of here.” Then, thinking better of it, he grabbed the thief’s elbow before he could leave the room. “Find a bottle of milk. Feed her. Then put her in my room. Anything happens to her and I will kill you.”
Stuttering, he did as he was told, even though he was a mere lockpick, not a midwife, and he’d never held a baby in his life.
Mavros, one of his most trusted men, came forward. He was holding a body.
“I’m sorry, Sir.”
“I’ll take her.” With gentle hands, Zeph pulled the nurse to his chest, cradling her against himself. Her throat was cut wide open, her organs missing, a note nailed to one of her hands.
You take something from me, I take something from you.
Later that night a fire swept through a section of Fidelisgrove, wiping out several great houses. One of them, a fine brothel that many thieves frequented, was found to have just four victims inside, their hands nailed to the floor to keep them from escaping the blaze. Their bodies could not be identified, and the arsonist was never found.
As the sun came up, Zeph returned to his room to find me crying on the lockpick. Taking me into his smoke-scented arms, I stopped screaming immediately. Zeph dismissed the thief and sat down in the chair in the corner. Holding me up so the sun could shine on my face, his face grew thoughtful. Possessive.
He nodded slowly. “I suppose– I suppose you do look a bit like her.”
