****************************
Clarence's First Life
Dargery Hall in Durengarde
Centuries Ago
Among the sea of velvet-clad lords, Clarence stood silent, his hands clasped behind his back, a goblet untouched in his grip. The new Duke of Lansforth—young, unblooded by court politics but seasoned by steel—had not come to Dargery Hall in search of favour or bride. He was here for Matthew, his comrade, his brother-in-arms from the last war, though neither of them ever used the word. Their bond was forged in fire and frost, where banners burned and kings bled.
But even that bond did little to prepare him for Marion Corin Highcourt.
He had known her before this. The battlefield had introduced them, in all her ruthless, brilliant fury. There she was the storm given flesh, a bannerless ghost that rode behind Matthew and brought hell upon enemy lines. Soldiers called her the Goddess of Victory. For when she appeared at the vanguard—whether to fight or simply be seen—the baron's triumph was all but certain.
But here, now, she was none of those things.
Tonight, she was a lady.
And yet she was not diminished by silk. Nor by embroidery, nor soft slippered feet. No—she wore the gown like armour. Her back was straight, her gaze colder than polished steel, and her poise sharper than any sword.
Clarence held his breath like all the others. So did the dukes, the viscounts, the silver-tongued sons of high houses who had come to glimpse the rumoured barbarian girl from the borderlands. Most expected to see some creature in breeches, a soldier with a limp and maybe even a moustache. A girl who spoke like a man, who swaggered like a cutthroat.
Instead, they saw this.
Her beauty struck like lightning—silent, but irrevocable. Not the delicate sort that poets liked to write about. No, hers was something older, something from the bones of the world. She did not look like a lady trained in laughter and fan-flutters. She looked like the kind of woman who had buried enemies in unmarked graves and dared the heavens to judge her.
And still, she looked like a Highcourt.
She entered on Matthew's arm, and neither of them bowed to the hall. Not to dukes. Not to earls. Not to those who ruled lands larger than theirs. The Highcourts might be small in holdings, but their pride was carved from granite. Stone did not bend. Stone endured.
Whispers surged like wind through barley. Insolent, they said. Proud. Arrogant.
Marion only walked.
Upon the dais, the guest of honour stood—the Crown Prince himself, Francis of House Charterborough. Gilded in the king's colours, crowned with the ease of privilege, yet marked by something else too—something that softened the hard line of nobility in his face. When he saw her, his eyes warmed. He stepped down, leaving the safety of his station, and came to meet her like an equal, or perhaps something less.
Matthew bowed.
Marion did not.
Clarence caught the flash of expressions across noble faces: offense, awe, intrigue. But the prince only smiled.
He took her hand gently, bowed over it, and kissed her knuckles with a whisper. "You look lovely," he said low enough that only she might hear. "Smile a little, my dear. You are scaring my lords."
It was meant as jest, but Clarence saw the truth in it. The men were unnerved. She was not what they expected. She was more.
And then she smiled.
Clarence had only seen her smile once before—after a battle, when the skies had cleared and the wounded were counted. It was a quiet thing then, like a secret blooming in spring. But this smile... this smile was warm as the sun that melts the last frost. It struck something inside him, something that felt too old to be new and too sudden to be familiar.
It ached.
He told himself it was nothing. A passing thought. A trick of the light and wine.
But he had heard the stories. Everyone had. How the prince and the baron's sister were raised together like kin, but not quite. How the king had once said Marion would serve the throne better as a sword than as a wife.
Clarence was no fool. He had seen how Francis looked at her.
That was not the gaze of a friend.
And by the rules of court, the prince had the first dance. She granted it with the grace of a queen, taking his arm and stepping into the circle of waiting lords, as if it had all been rehearsed in another life.
And perhaps, Clarence thought grimly, it had.
—
Matthew claimed the next dance. There was no denying the bond between them. Brother and sister, but more than blood tied them. She was his heir; his legacy wrapped in blue and silver silk. He held her with a reverence rare for men of his rank, his movements graceful, deliberate. Yet behind the calm mask of the Baron Highcourt, his eyes wandered ceaselessly watching, weighing, counting. Each smile from a duke's son. Each glance from an aging lord. He was already measuring the field.
As they turned across the floor, Matthew leaned in, murmuring words meant for her ears alone. Marion nodded, listening. She always did. Others mistook her independence for rebellion, but those who knew her knew the truth—his voice mattered most. She was her own woman, forged by fire, but he had tempered the blade.
Clarence stood not far, a goblet of wine half-lifted to his lips, though he barely drank. Around him, the young lords whispered like boys at a tourney, eager and green. They all wanted their chance. She had been myth, a rumour from the warfront—some said she killed a dozen men in a single night, others claimed she fought in a man's armour under a false name. But there she was, in silk and silver, and she was real. And worse for them, she was beautiful.
The noble ladies, bedecked in lace and sapphires, looked like dolls beside her. Even the prettiest among them wilted in comparison. Marion had the sort of beauty that was never meant for court. It was carved from older things, deep earth and sky fire, born for wild winds and swordplay. Silk only made it more lethal.
When the dance ended, Matthew led her toward the refreshment table, his hand still resting at the small of her back. Young lords watched like hounds denied the hunt, shifting in place, straightening collars, adjusting cuffs. Waiting.
Clarence remained where he was, leaning near one of the pillars, watching it all like a man above the fray. Until she came to him.
"You must not disappoint the ladies, my lord," Marion said, her goblet tilting toward her lips. "Or is it Your Grace now?"
He raised a brow. "When did you get so polite?"
"Clarence, then."
"There she is." His mouth curled into the barest smile.
He tipped his goblet toward the crowd. "Lord Ranly's been itching all night to dance with you. You shouldn't keep him waiting. He likes to touch pretty things."
"Does he now?"
"Mm. But that shouldn't be a problem. If he gets brave, you can always cut off his hand."
She laughed. Heavens, that laugh. It was not the courtly titter the ladies had rehearsed since childhood. It was a sharp, bright thing, like sunlight glinting off a drawn sword. Clarence nearly choked on his wine. It was, he thought grimly, the most magical sound he'd heard all evening.
Marion leaned closer, her voice like smoke and iron. "If he tries, I'm cutting more than a hand."
Clarence laughed, truly this time, and the noise—soft, surprised—was enough to draw eyes. The court noticed. The ladies noticed. The cold Duke Cardall had laughed.
"Why are you not asking me to dance?" she asked, studying him.
He met her gaze evenly. "Do you want me to?"
She stared at him long enough to make it feel like something was unravelling beneath his skin. But her face gave nothing away. Her tone remained calm.
"Keep watching then, Clarence."
She turned and vanished back into the sea of suitors, where noble lords stood in line like squires before a queen. Clarence said nothing. He only tightened his grip on his glass and watched her spin into another man's arms.
Another stupid bastard, he thought. And still another waiting behind him.
—
Matthew sauntered toward him with the ease of a man who had already drained more than three goblets and intended to finish another. His coat was slightly askew, and the edge of his collar had turned in on itself, unnoticed—uncharacteristic of the ever-composed Bright Baron. Clarence caught the faintest twitch in his jaw, the kind that only appeared when Matthew was trying very hard not to let something boil over.
He said nothing of it, of course. He didn't have to. Clarence had known men long enough to read the things they didn't say. And the Baron was fuming. Behind the cool mask, behind the lordly calm and careful gait, there was rage in him. Not just as a brother, but as a man who had raised her, taught her and trained her. To see these powdered, pampered lords lay hands on her, one after the other, with drunken grins and flushed cheeks... It was a wonder no one was bleeding yet.
Clarence leaned back against the stone pillar, lifted his cup lazily, and said in a low voice, "The ladies are watching you. You should grace them with your impeccable court manners."
Matthew gave a grunt and mirrored the pose, leaning against the wall beside him. "I'm quite certain they're watching you, Your Grace," he replied, without turning his gaze from the dancing. "I've already overheard at least three eager mothers planning tea for tomorrow. One even said she had a daughter who plays the harp."
They shared a glance and something like a grin flickered between them. Not quite mirth, but close enough for two men who had seen battle and blood together.
Clarence's gaze drifted across the room, to where the Crown Prince stood speaking to Lady Vale. Or rather, pretending to. His words went to the lady, but his eyes stayed on Marion.
"I didn't expect His Highness to be here," Clarence said, casting the words like a line into deep waters, watching what might bite.
Matthew snorted. "Like I could stop him."
They both looked to the prince then, who lifted his wine to his lips without ever breaking the line of his gaze. Still watching her.
"He's here for her," Matthew said plainly. He drank from his goblet, then added, quieter, "They've been like this since they were children. Think they can make me believe there's naught but—"
He didn't finish the thought. He just drank deeper.
Clarence remained silent. There was no need to answer what wasn't asked. The truth hung thick between them: the prince's interest was not platonic, not idle. And Marion—Marion, who danced with dukes and made half the court forget their own names—she was not unaware of it.
Matthew's hand tightened around the goblet.
"If I had a sister like her," Clarence said at last, "I'd have gutted three of them already."
Matthew chuckled, but the sound didn't reach his eyes. "You say that like I haven't already planned it."
Their eyes returned to the floor. Marion was dancing again. Lord Bryne this time—young, golden, and infatuated.
They kept watching. Two glorified sentries stationed at the edge of some grand arena, where instead of steel and blood, the weapons were silks and sly grins, and the battlefield was polished marble and golden candlelight.
"I thought she'd hate these things," Clarence muttered.
Matthew, leaning like some idle serpent against the carved stone column beside him, let the corner of his mouth curl—not kindly.
"You don't know her," the baron said softly. "She likes silk and dancing well enough. Same as any woman."
He paused, just long enough for the weight of his next words to settle.
"Especially when she can use them like a blade."
It was then that the Lord Byrne a boy, barely out of manhood, let his hand drift just a little too far down the curve of her back. A breath too low. A second too long.
The sound of shattering glass sliced through the music.
Clarence's goblet cracked in his hand, stem and bowl splitting like bone. The wine had painted his palm red, but the blood was his. It slipped past his knuckles, trickled down his wrist, and dripped onto the gleaming floor. One drop. Two. Three.
The dancing ceased. Heads turned. Even the musicians faltered, bows stuttering mid-note. The entire hall held its breath.
Marion noticed at once. She looked from the broken glass to Clarence's bleeding hand, then to the lord still standing beside her, who had not yet realized the magnitude of his mistake.
She smiled. Not sweetly.
Leaning close to her dance partner, she whispered, "Thank the Duke of Lansforth. If it weren't for him, you'd be walking out of here with less than you came in with." The hand that had brandished a hidden dagger at her thigh was withdrawn.
The young lord paled. Whatever arrogance had once shown in his bearing drained from his face, and he retreated with a stiff bow and a mumbled apology that no one cared to hear.
Matthew raised an eyebrow and stared at the broken goblet on the floor. "You're going to replace that," he muttered without looking away.
Clarence, calm like a sea before a storm, pulled a cloth from his pocket and began wrapping his hand with slow precision. "I'll commission for a box of the same thing. Crystal, wasn't it?"
"Berthold's favorite," Matthew said idly, watching his sister like a hawk. "He'll weep."
Clarence said nothing more. He turned on his heel and strode toward the open doors, the air in the hall growing tighter behind him. If he stayed longer, he might break more than glass.
He hadn't taken more than a few paces into the chill evening wind of the terrace before she followed.
"You're going to upset our steward if you keep this up," Marion said behind him. "He loves his crystals."
He turned his head just as she stepped up beside him. She didn't wait for a response and took his injured hand in hers, inspecting the wound as if it were a piece of dull embroidery.
"You'll live," she declared flatly, dropping his hand like it had bored her.
Clarence looked at her. Looked long and hard. "Aren't you going to ask?"
She tilted her head. "Ask what?"
That did it.
He raised a hand to his face, fingers grazing his temple, and laughed—a quiet, bitter sound, like wind through broken glass.
"You're making me mad."
Marion stared at him. She wasn't smiling now.
"You tell me you're mad," she said slowly, "and then you laugh?"
Clarence shook his head, the smile still tugging at his lips despite the pain in his hand and something worse in his chest. "God help me," he murmured, "you don't know what it's like."
"What is?"
Watching other men hold what I can't even touch, he thought.
****************************
"Are you done scolding me?"
It is the voice of a reaper, and not of a goddess that brings him back to the present.
He adjusts his tie and collects his thoughts before following her out.
"Declan owes me a suit," she mumbles, poking a finger through the shredded fabric at her arm irritatingly. "Third time this month my clothes have been ripped and not in a hot way."
Clarence stops mid-stride, turns, and looks at her like she's just said she wants to adopt a hellhound. "Don't ask him for anything."
Clark blinks caught off guard by the ice in his tone. "But—I'm broke."
Before she can say more, he steps closer in that unnerving captain way, where presence alone does most of the talking. With clinical efficiency, he slips something into her hand. Cool. Thin. Metallic.
A reaper credit chip.
She opens her palm slowly, eyes widening. It's sleek, black, and etched with the captain's insignia.
The captain's personal credit.
"I—wait. What?"
"Use that," Clarence tells her, eyes sharp, voice sharper. "Instead of asking Declan."
Her eyes go from the chip to him, then back again. A grin blooms slowly, dangerously.
"This... is like..." She draws out the moment, savouring it. "A Veil-issued black card, isn't it?"
Clarence's veins tightens on his neck. He is going to regret this.
"Oh, this is dangerous," Clark beams, already plotting a spree that might destabilize the afterlife's economy. "Do you know how much damage I can do with this?"
"I'll know if you buy more than one suit," Clarence reminds her with a cold tone that can quell fire.
She taps the card softly to her chin, her voice silkier than necessary. "What if I buy a lingerie set? You know. Something you'll like." She winks, purely for the sport of it. "Maybe with stockings. Thigh-high."
His face remains calm but intimidating.
"One suit."
Clark laughs, not at all affected as she pockets the chip like it's contraband. "Fine, captain. But I'm getting a really nice suit."
His response comes in a form of a stare, unreadable and infuriating. Something that might be judgment, or something closer to resignation. Probably both.
And then he walks away.
Clark, trailing behind him, whispers just loud enough: "Maybe in silk..."
He doesn't look back.
But she swears she sees his shoulders tense. Just a little.
—
He hasn't slept.
Which isn't unusual. Reapers don't technically sleep. But even in his version of rest—a detached state where the world blurred and his mind slowed—he's been... disturbed.
Every few minutes, his wrist comm chimed with a new transaction report.
Purchase confirmed: KNEE-HIGH SOCKS – 12 PAIRS.
Purchase confirmed: AFTERLIFE SWEETS – BULK ORDER, 18 KILOS.
Purchase confirmed: RUBBER DUCKIE – QTY: 2.
Purchase confirmed: TAILORED SUIT – CUSTOM ORDER – FINAL PRICE: [REDACTED].
Clarence watches each alert arrive in silent, increasingly grim resignation. He imagines Death itself auditing his account, shaking its incorporeal head.
By morning, he is contemplating the ethics of confiscating the chip mid-soul extraction.
Then comes the knock.
She doesn't wait for permission.
Clark saunters into his office all smiles, wearing the uniform suit in question. If it can be called that. It is sharp, tailored to her frame, clean lines. Professionally made, no doubt. But the neckline. Unnecessarily distracting. He's certain it's missing a top button or three.
She drops the credit chip on his desk like she's returning a borrowed pen.
"Morning, Captain."
Clarence stares at her. Then at the chip. Then, wearily, at her.
"That's the suit."
She spun once, all too pleased with herself. "Looks good, right?"
Clarence says nothing. Mainly because the answer—yes—is the wrong one.
"And the rubber ducks?" His voice flat already preparing for disappointment.
She stops mid-twirl, then grins like a cat caught mid-theft. "Didn't have one. Thought I should."
"You need two?" Clarence asked.
She beamed brighter. "Didn't want my duckie to get lonely."
He closed his eyes.
"Even made a cute little corner for them. If you don't believe me," she added, utterly unrepentant, "you're welcome to check. My bath. While I'm in it."
Clarence opened his eyes. Slowly. With great suffering.
"Find Anya and go to the briefing room"
"Sure thing, Captain."
She left.
Clarence sat alone for a long moment, staring at the chip, wondering—not for the first time—if death itself had given up on him too.
—
She strolls out and grabs a bag from her desk: filled with blue sweets she'd bought last night on Clarence's credit chip.
She doesn't hoard them.
No, Clark's never been the hoarding type. Not when it comes to sugar, anyway.
As she passes the interns, she casually tosses handfuls their way. Blue lollipops, hard candies, those unnecessarily aesthetic marshmallows shaped like skulls. The younger reapers—fresh from their mortal deaths, still clinging to old-world instincts—catch them with bright-eyed surprise. Half of them don't even know if they're supposed to accept things from her, afraid that they might be laced with poisoned.
But they take them anyway.
And Clark just grins like it's nothing. Like it's normal.
Anya finds her first and falls into step beside her. She's already grabbed and unwrapped a lollipop, blue tongue inevitable.
"You're lucky we're reapers," she chirps cheerfully around the stick of the candy. "If we were human? You'd have said goodbye to those beautiful curves years ago."
Anya tilts her head at her, curious. "Seriously though, Clark. Why do you eat so much sugar? I've seen you chew through more than half a kilo in one night."
The grin fades.
Clark's steps slow, just for a breath.
Then, softly—too softly for anyone else in the corridor to hear—she replies without looking at Anya:
"To forget the taste of blood."
Anya almost drops her candy. She knows she's tortured so many souls. Most days in those deep circles of Hell probably ended with her bathing in blood.
Clark keeps walking, her hand clenches slightly at her side.
The taste of copper, from the damned she bled and punished is still there, in her mouth. It never left her.
Anya doesn't know what to say. The lollipop tastes wrong now.
Clark turns to her and flicks her in the forehead, "Hey, I'm kidding." She grins.
"Oh." Anya says her face lighting up, "Damn, you scared me with your jokes." She giddily goes ahead of her to the room.
Just after them, the captain arrives holding some folders for the case.
"Stop blocking the doorway."
She doesn't step away. He seems to not hear what she and Anya were talking about, but she can't be certain.
"You want some candy?" she offers the bag in her arms, "I mean you practically paid for them."
He dips his hand and takes one, immediately slipping it into his coat pocket and says nothing else.
"Do I get one too?"
Matthew appears, wearing the kind of expression that suggested he'd spent the morning being both over-caffeinated and deeply amused at someone else's expense. With him is Billy, shuffling, a man who knows enough to stay three paces behind a storm.
"Why are you here?" Clark snaps at them.
The Head Reaper snatches the whole bag from her, "Clarence will tell you."