KAIDA POV
I ran.
The temple's corridors blurred around me as I sprinted through darkness, my lungs burning, my skull feeling like someone had shoved hot coals inside it. Behind me, I heard nothing—no footsteps, no breathing, no sound at all. Which somehow made it worse.
Death didn't need to chase me. He was already inside my head.
"Get out, get out, get out," I chanted, fingers clawing at my scalp as I ran. My nails scraped against skin, but I couldn't feel the crown anymore. It had disappeared—melted into my bones like Azrael said. The thought made me want to vomit.
I burst through the temple's main doors and into the Crimson Markets. Rain poured from the night sky, cold and sharp. People scattered as I stumbled past them, probably thinking I was drunk or crazy.
They weren't wrong about the crazy part.
Twenty-nine days, a voice whispered in my mind. Not my voice. His voice. Twenty-nine days until you become me.
"Shut up!" I screamed at nothing. A merchant dropped his basket of glowing fruit. A child started crying.
I didn't care. I just ran.
The crew's hideout was fifteen blocks away—an abandoned warehouse we'd claimed after our last job. My feet pounded against wet cobblestones, splashing through puddles that reflected the floating islands above. The Shattered Realms lived up to their name tonight: everything felt broken, including me.
You can't run from yourself, Azrael's voice murmured. And you are becoming me, little thief. Already, you feel it, don't you? The cold spreading through your veins. The way colors look slightly wrong. The—
"I said SHUT UP!"
I slammed through the hideout's door so hard it bounced off the wall. Inside, three faces turned toward me in shock.
Finn dropped his book. Rook's cards scattered across the table. Lyric's song cut off mid-note.
"Kaida?" Finn stood up, concern flooding his face. He was my oldest friend—twenty-six years old with kind eyes and hands scarred from his old life as a priest. "What happened? You look—"
"I messed up." My voice cracked. "I messed up so bad."
Lyric reached me first. She was beautiful—all sharp angles and silver hair, with a voice that could shatter glass or heal wounds. Right now, she used it to calm me. "Breathe, Kai. Just breathe. Tell us what happened."
"The crown—" I gasped. "It's stuck. It's inside me. And Death—he's real. He was there. He says I'm going to become him and—"
"Slow down," Rook interrupted. His voice was smooth, ageless, impossible to pin down. He could look like anyone, become anyone. Right now he wore his usual face—middle-aged, forgettable, except for eyes that saw too much. "Start from the beginning."
"There is no beginning!" I spun around, frantic. "There's only the end! Twenty-nine days until I stop being me!"
"Twenty-nine days until what?" Finn asked carefully, like I was a spooked horse.
I opened my mouth to answer.
Shadows gathered in the corner of the room.
Everyone froze.
The shadows grew darker, deeper, until they looked like a hole torn in reality. Then Azrael stepped through, as casually as someone walking through a doorway.
Finn grabbed a knife. Lyric's hands glowed with sonic magic. Rook simply stared, his face unreadable.
"Get away from her!" Finn shouted, moving between me and Death.
Azrael didn't even look at him. His star-filled eyes locked onto mine. "Running was pointless. We're bonded now. I can find you anywhere in the Realms."
"I don't care!" I backed up until I hit the wall. "Take it back! Take this thing out of my head!"
"I can't." His voice was almost gentle, which made it more terrifying. "The crown chose you. The bond has begun. Only the ritual can break it now."
Finn lunged at Azrael with his knife.
The blade passed through Death like he was made of smoke. Finn stumbled, off-balance.
"Please don't," Azrael sighed. "Violence is tedious, and I've seen enough of it to last several lifetimes." He waved his hand.
Finn flew backward, slamming into the wall. He didn't hit hard—more like he was gently pushed—but the message was clear. Fighting Death was useless.
Lyric's sonic blast came next, a scream that could shatter stone. It hit Azrael square in the chest and... did nothing. The sound waves just stopped, like hitting a wall that wasn't there.
"Are you finished?" Azrael asked tiredly.
"What do you want?" Rook spoke for the first time, still seated at the table. His voice was calm, but I saw his hands shaking slightly.
"I want what your friend stole from me." Azrael turned to me. "But since we can't remove the crown, we need to break the bond. Which means we work together."
"Why would we help you?" Lyric demanded, moving protectively toward me.
"Because if you don't, Kaida becomes the new Death in twenty-nine days." Azrael's expression was unreadable. "Immortal. Alone. Feeling every death that happens in the Realms for the rest of eternity. Trust me—it's not a fate you'd wish on your worst enemy."
Something in his voice made me pause. Pain. Real pain, buried under centuries of practice at hiding it.
Through the bond, I felt his emotions like a flood: exhaustion so deep it had its own gravity, loneliness that ached like an old wound, and underneath it all, a desperate hope that maybe—just maybe—this bond could be his way out.
"You want to die," I whispered. "That's what this is really about."
The room went silent.
Azrael's jaw tightened. "I want to be free."
"Same thing," I shot back. "You've been planning this. You wanted someone to steal the crown. You wanted—"
"I wanted five hundred years of suffering to END!" His voice cracked like thunder, and suddenly the room felt smaller, darker, colder. "Five hundred years of every death, every grief, every child crying for their mother, every soldier bleeding out alone! Do you have any idea what that does to you?"
I did. Through the bond, I felt it—an ocean of pain so vast it could drown worlds.
"I'm not your escape plan," I said, but my voice wavered.
"No. You're my last hope." Azrael's star-eyes softened slightly. "Help me break the bond, and we both go free. You return to your mortal life. I finally get to rest."
"And if we refuse?" Finn asked, back on his feet.
"Then she becomes me, and I become mortal enough to die within a year." Azrael looked at each of them in turn. "But here's what you should know: the bond works both ways. Through me, Kaida now has access to powers she doesn't understand. She can see death dates. Feel when people die. And soon—very soon—she'll start attracting attention from things that hunt divine power."
"What things?" Lyric asked nervously.
"The kind that eat gods for breakfast."
A cold wind swept through the hideout despite all the windows being closed.
Then I saw them.
Numbers. Floating above Finn's head in glowing red digits: 3 YEARS, 2 MONTHS, 7 DAYS.
Above Lyric: 47 YEARS, 3 MONTHS—but the numbers kept flickering, changing, like something was wrong with them.
Above Rook: ERROR. ERROR. ERROR.
"What..." I stared at my friends. "What are those numbers?"
Azrael followed my gaze. "Death dates. When each person will die. You can see them now because the bond is giving you my abilities." He paused. "Look in a mirror."
With trembling hands, I pulled out my compact. My reflection looked normal—same brown eyes, same dark hair, same scar above my left eyebrow from a job gone wrong.
But above my head, in burning red letters: 29 DAYS, 23 HOURS, 12 MINUTES.
My countdown to becoming Death.
"Make your choice, Kaida Thornwick." Azrael's voice was soft, almost kind. "Help me steal three pieces of my true name, break this bond, and save both our lives. Or refuse, and condemn us both to fates worse than death."
I looked at my friends. At the numbers floating above their heads. At Finn, who would die in three years. At Lyric, whose death date kept glitching like broken code. At Rook, whose death couldn't be calculated.
Then I felt it—a sharp pain in my chest, like someone's heart stopping. An old woman, dying six blocks away. I felt her last breath, her final memory of her daughter's face, the moment her soul left her body.
I gasped, tears streaming down my face. "I felt her die. Oh gods, I felt someone die."
"You'll feel every death I witness now," Azrael said quietly. "Welcome to my world."
The room spun. I was going to be sick.
Finn caught me as I swayed. "We'll help," he said firmly. "Whatever it takes, we'll help break this curse."
"Excellent." Azrael almost smiled. "Then we begin tomorrow. First target: Seraphine, the Fallen Star. She holds the first piece of my name in her prison among the clouds." He turned to leave, then paused. "Oh, and Kaida? Your mysterious client—the one who hired you to steal the crown?"
"What about them?"
His star-eyes glittered with something dangerous. "They knew exactly what would happen when you touched it. This entire thing was a setup." He stepped back into the shadows. "Someone wanted you bonded to me. The question is: why?"
He vanished.
I stood there, feeling another death—a young man drowning in the canals, his lungs filling with water, his last thought of someone named Maria.
Twenty-nine days. Three impossible heists. And someone out there was pulling strings I couldn't even see yet.
Through the bond, I felt Azrael's final thought before he left: I'm sorry, little thief. But you were right. I did want someone to steal the crown. I just didn't expect to care what happened to them after.