KAIDA POV
I couldn't breathe.
The choice sat on my chest like a boulder: Mira or myself. Three days to decide. Three days to pick who lives and who dies.
After the red-haired girl—Maya, she said her name was—told us everything she knew about Vex's plan, exhaustion finally dragged me to my room. But sleep was a joke. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Mira's face.
Three days.
I must have dozed off around dawn because I woke to screaming.
My screaming.
Pain exploded through my chest—not physical, but something worse. Someone was dying. Not nearby. Across the city. But I felt it like it was happening to me.
An old woman. Eighty-three years old. Lying in bed, her daughter holding her hand. Her heart slowing. Memories flooding through her mind—and through mine.
Her first kiss at sixteen. Dancing at her wedding. Holding her newborn daughter. Her husband's funeral. Watching grandchildren grow. The weight of years, the joy of life, the peace of knowing it was time.
Then nothing.
The absence hit me like falling into ice water. One moment, a lifetime of memories. The next, emptiness.
I gasped, tears streaming down my face. "She's gone. She's—"
"Dead. Yes."
I jerked upright. Azrael sat on my windowsill, shadows pooling around him like living things. His star-filled eyes glowed in the pre-dawn darkness.
"Get out!" I threw my pillow at him. It passed through his body like he was made of smoke. "You can't just appear in my room!"
"I can appear anywhere the bond exists. Which means anywhere you are." His voice was quiet. "You felt her death."
"How did you—" I stopped. Through the bond, I felt his emotions. He'd experienced the same death. The same memories. The same loss.
"Every death I witness, you'll feel now," Azrael said. "I'm sorry. This is my burden to carry, and now it's yours too."
"Sorry?" I wanted to hit him, hurt him, make him feel something besides that terrible calm. "Sorry doesn't fix this! Sorry doesn't give me back the choice you stole!"
"No. It doesn't." He didn't defend himself. Through the bond, I felt his guilt like an open wound. "But if we don't start your training immediately, the bond will destroy your mind before we can break it."
"Good! Maybe that's better than—"
Another death hit me.
A young man. Twenty-four. Drowning in the harbor. His lungs filling with water. Terror. Desperate fight for air. The awful moment when his body gave up and breathed in water instead.
I screamed again.
This time, Azrael moved. He was suddenly there, kneeling beside my bed, his cold hands on my shoulders.
"Breathe," he commanded. "Don't hold onto the death. Let it pass through you."
"I can't—he's still—I feel him drowning—"
"I know. But holding onto it won't save him. He's already gone." Azrael's voice was firm but not cruel. "This is the first lesson: you can't save the dead. You can only bear witness and let them go."
"That's a terrible lesson!"
"It's the only lesson that kept me sane for five hundred years." His star-eyes met mine. "Now breathe. Count to ten. Let his memory flow through you like water."
I wanted to argue. But the drowning man's terror was overwhelming. I couldn't think through the panic.
So I counted. One. Two. Three.
By seven, the panic faded. By ten, the memory was still there but distant—like something I'd seen instead of experienced.
"Better?" Azrael asked.
"No. But... less terrible." I wiped tears from my face. "Is this what you do? Every single death?"
"Every single one." He sat back on his heels. "Sometimes it's peaceful like the old woman. Sometimes it's violent like the drowning man. Sometimes—" His voice caught. "—sometimes it's children, and those never get easier."
Through the bond, I felt the weight he carried. Centuries of deaths. Millions of lives ending. Each one witnessed. Each one felt. The burden should have destroyed him.
Maybe it had. Maybe the Azrael I was talking to was just what remained after death broke him.
"Why did you stay?" The question came out before I could stop it. "Five hundred years ago, you could have left with the other gods. Why stay and carry this alone?"
Azrael was quiet for a long moment. "Because someone had to bear witness. Someone had to care that they died." He looked out the window at the waking city. "The other gods—they love humanity in the abstract. Beautiful, shining, eternal humanity. But they don't love individual humans. The messy, complicated, temporary ones who live and die in heartbeats."
"But you do."
"I did." His voice was soft. "Five hundred years ago, I loved them fiercely. Every mortal life mattered. Every death deserved dignity." He paused. "Now I'm just... tired."
The raw honesty cut through my anger. Through the bond, I felt what he wouldn't say: he'd loved mortals so much that watching them die had slowly killed everything inside him. Love had turned to duty. Duty had turned to prison.
"Come with me," Azrael said suddenly, standing. "You need to learn to control the bond before another death hits."
"It's barely sunrise—"
"Death doesn't care about your sleep schedule. Up. Now."
I wanted to argue, but he was right. If I felt another death unprepared, it might break me.
I followed him to the roof, where stars still dotted the sky. The city spread below—thousands of lives, each one a potential death waiting to happen.
"Close your eyes," Azrael instructed. "Feel the bond between us."
I did. Immediately, I felt his presence—cold, ancient, exhausted. But underneath, something else. Loneliness so deep it had its own gravity.
"The bond works both ways," he said. "You feel my powers. I feel your mortality. Your warmth. Your..." He struggled with the word. "...life."
"Is that why you didn't abandon me when Samael offered?"
Through the bond, his answer came clear: Yes. You reminded me what it feels like to be alive.
Out loud, he said: "Focus on building walls. Imagine your mind as a fortress. The deaths are waves crashing against it. You don't stop the waves, but you control how much gets through."
I tried. God, I tried. But every time I built a wall, I felt it crumbling. The bond was too strong. Too new. Too overwhelming.
"I can't do this," I gasped after the fifth attempt.
"You can. You must." Azrael moved closer. "May I?"
"May you what?"
"Show you my walls. Through the bond." His voice was careful. "But it means letting me deeper into your mind. You'll see my memories. My fears. Everything I've kept hidden for centuries."
I should have said no. Should have kept distance between us. But another death was already building at the edge of my awareness—someone sick, fading, their time running out.
"Do it," I said.
Azrael's cold hand touched my temple.
The world exploded.
Suddenly I was him. Five hundred years of existence compressed into heartbeats. I saw the Divine Sundering—gods torn from the mortal realm, reality fracturing, Azrael choosing to stay while his twin brother Samael screamed at him to come back.
I saw him guiding souls. Millions of them. Each death witnessed. Each memory carried.
I saw him break. Slowly. Piece by piece. Love turning to duty. Duty turning to numbness. Numbness turning to desperate desire for it all to end.
But underneath everything, one truth burned bright: he'd stayed because leaving meant abandoning them. Every mortal soul deserved someone who cared they existed. Even if caring destroyed him.
"This is me," his voice echoed through the memories. "This is what you're becoming. This is the prison you'll inherit."
The vision shifted. Now I saw his walls—massive, intricate, built over centuries. They didn't stop the deaths. They just... organized them. Sorted them. Made them bearable by turning emotion into routine.
"Copy them," Azrael's voice instructed. "Build your own walls using mine as a blueprint."
I tried. And this time, with his structure to follow, something clicked. The walls weren't perfect. But they held.
The dying person's presence faded to background noise—still there, still felt, but manageable.
I opened my eyes, gasping. Azrael pulled his hand back quickly.
"Better?" he asked.
"Better." My head ached, but the panic was gone. "That was—"
"Intimate. I know." He wouldn't meet my eyes. "You saw things I've never shown anyone."
Through the bond, I felt his vulnerability. For five hundred years, he'd been alone with his burdens. Now I knew them all. His loneliness. His fear. His desperate hope that I might understand.
"Thank you," I said quietly.
He looked surprised. "For what?"
"For trusting me with that. For showing me your walls instead of letting me drown."
Something shifted in his expression. The ancient, tired mask slipped, revealing someone younger underneath—someone who remembered what connection felt like.
"Don't thank me yet," he said. "Training has barely started. By the time we're done, you'll hate me."
"Maybe. But at least I'll understand you."
The sun broke over the horizon, painting the sky gold and red. A blood-red sky.
Three days until the blood moon. Three days until Mira's sacrifice. Three days to decide between saving her or saving myself.
"The choice," I said. "Save Mira or start the heists. There has to be a third option."
"There isn't." Azrael's voice was firm. "We can't do both. If we go after Mira now, Vex will be ready. He'll have blood mages, magical defenses, the whole Cartel. We'll fail, and he'll take the crown's power anyway."
"So I just let her die?"
"Yes."
The word hit like a slap. "How can you say that so easily?"
"Because I've made this choice a thousand times!" Azrael's control finally cracked. "Save one person or save thousands? Let someone you love die or doom everyone else? You think this is easy for me? I've watched people I cared about die because duty demanded it. Because the greater good required their sacrifice. Because sometimes—" His voice broke. "—sometimes there are no good choices."
Through the bond, I felt his pain. Every person he'd loved and lost. Every time he'd chosen duty over heart. Five hundred years of impossible choices, each one taking another piece of his soul.
"I can't be like you," I whispered. "I can't choose to let Mira die."
"Then you'll doom yourself to becoming me forever. Is that what she'd want?"
Before I could answer, Finn's voice shouted from below: "Kai! Azrael! Get down here now!"
We raced downstairs. The crew was gathered around the communication stone—the one connected to Mira.
It was glowing blood-red again.
"She's calling," Lyric said urgently. "But something's wrong. The signal keeps cutting out."
I grabbed the stone. "Mira? Mira, can you hear me?"
Static. Then my sister's voice, weak and terrified: "Kai... he knows. Vex knows you're planning something. He moved up the sacrifice."
My blood turned to ice. "Moved it up? To when?"
"Tonight." Mira's voice cracked. "The blood moon rises tonight instead of three days. He used magic to speed it up. He's going to sacrifice me at midnight, and—" She screamed.
The stone went dead silent.
"Mira!" I shook it desperately. "MIRA!"
Nothing.
Azrael's face was grim. "It's a trap. He's forcing you to choose right now—save your sister tonight or lose her forever."
"Then we save her tonight!"
"And abandon the heists? Abandon breaking the curse?" His star-eyes bored into mine. "Think, Kaida. If we go after Mira now, unprepared, we walk right into Vex's trap. He'll have the whole Cartel waiting. We'll die, and he'll take the crown's power anyway."
"I don't care! She's my sister!"
"And what about your crew?" Azrael gestured at Finn, Lyric, and Rook. "You'll be leading them to their deaths. Look at their numbers."
I looked. Death dates floated above their heads.
Finn: 3 YEARS, 2 MONTHS, 7 DAYS
Lyric: 47 YEARS, 3 MONTHS—still flickering
Rook: ERROR
"Their dates haven't changed," I said slowly. "They don't die tonight."
"Not yet." Azrael's voice was cold. "But if you charge into Vex's trap unprepared, those numbers will change. Finn dies tonight. Lyric dies tonight. Everyone dies because you couldn't make the hard choice."
"There has to be another way!"
"THERE ISN'T!" Azrael's control shattered completely. "This is what being Death means! Impossible choices! Watching people you love die while you stand by powerless! Welcome to my world, little thief. Choose: save your sister and doom everyone else. Or start the heists and live with her death forever."
The room was silent except for my ragged breathing.
Through the bond, I felt Azrael's certainty: there was no third option. No clever heist solution. Just two terrible choices and whatever I could live with after.
Finn moved beside me. "Kai. Whatever you choose, we're with you."
"Even if I choose to save Mira? Even if it kills us all?"
"Even then." His voice was steady. "Because that's what family does."
Lyric nodded. Rook simply waited, his ageless eyes understanding.
I looked at the communication stone. Dead. Silent. Mira was out there, terrified, counting on me.
I looked at my crew. My family. Ready to die for my choice.
I looked at Azrael. Through the bond, I felt his memories of every impossible choice. Every sacrifice. Every person he'd failed to save.
The countdown burned in my vision: 27 DAYS, 11 HOURS, 8 MINUTES.
"We save Mira," I said finally. "Tonight. Whatever it costs."
Azrael's expression was unreadable. "Then we'll all probably die. But at least you'll die human instead of becoming me."
Through the bond, I felt what he wouldn't say: I would have made the same choice. That's why I understand you. And why I know it's going to destroy you.
Rook pulled out weapons. Finn checked magical supplies. Lyric warmed up her voice for combat.
We had twelve hours to plan a suicide mission into the Crimson Cartel's stronghold to save my sister from a blood mage who'd already won.
Through the bond, I felt Azrael's grim acceptance.
We were walking into a trap.
And we all knew it.