Excerpt: Deathsoul

Nennia had never been particularly brave.

Or particularly outspoken, or smart, or strong-willed. She thought sometimes that that might be why they left her alive. They needed a female, yes, but one like Eitani would bring their whole conspiracy down around them, crumbling under the force of her anger and the power of her conviction.

Nennia didn't tend to get angry. She was more likely to retreat to her room, to lick her wounds in private and emerge later as the quiet, agreeable Deathsoul that Argenta was beginning to become familiar with.

Her predecessor, from what Nennia knew of her, had been much the same. By the time Nennia was brought to the Palace, the woman was already halfway lost to the power she had presided over for years. Nennia had been very small – from what she had been told, the Deathsouls and Lifesouls had been getting younger and younger at the point of Passage for a few centuries – and her predecessor had been very old, and Nennia had been unable to fathom that she would ever have anything in common with the woman.

The woman. Nennia couldn't even remember her name. She wondered how the woman had seen her, what she had thought of the little girl brought in to be her replacement prop. A newer, prettier doll for the people. In any case, she had been very gentle, very kind, as though she knew what lay ahead for the little girl, already dressed in black robes that overwhelmed her figure. And she had known, Nennia supposed. How old had she been, when she had been brought?

Nennia was born to a noble family. She was pale, and her features were delicate, and her eyes were large, and so she had no need to be smart or brave. She was to sit in the shade of the garden and engage her siblings in conversation, so that her charm would draw suitors. Eventually she would be married off to a handsome, rich man and live her life in marital bliss. This was what she believed until she was a full seven years of age, at which point she no longer had to act demure and quiet, because that was truly who she was. And when she was seven years old, the Lifesoul came for her.

It was a little bit disgusting, she thought. If even she could figure out the truth, they weren't being very subtle at all. So arrogant, so maddeningly superior, as they smiled at her. She was under their thumb, and if there was a way to break free – and she was sure there was; wasn't there always? – she neither knew it nor had the courage to seek it out. Nennia the puppet, Nennia the charming marionette. It was... not so dissimilar to how she had expected her life to play out, and it made Nennia wonder how happy she truly would have been in some nobleman's manor.

But what else would she have done? Perhaps she was fated to be unhappy.

Nennia had never been particularly brave, and perhaps that explained her current position, curled on the bed, biting her pillow to swallow her moans as the cramps took hold. It hurt. It hurt a lot, more than anything she had experienced, but it would be over soon. And perhaps this was the coward's way out.

But Nennia didn't want to die, and surely that made this an act of courage? She was a joke of a Deathsoul; she had no idea what happened to spirits after death. She had never even channeled the gods' will – the damnable ring on her finger made sure of that. She knew better than to hope she would be buried with it, but she would almost be willing to die again in order to see the look on Elian's face if that were to happen.

Pampered little Channels, little Souls, when was the last time one had died from anything besides natural causes? Nobody truly prepared for it anymore. There wouldn't be time, now, for the assassinations, the slaughtering of children.

–No. It was a comforting thought, but Nennia knew it would happen anyway. All she could hope for was to make things as difficult as possible for the architects of this treachery, and maybe someone would catch a glimpse of the truth as the cowards struggled to clear the scene.

After that, she didn't know what could happen. Perhaps nothing. She had never been intelligent. But she knew her weaknesses, and knowing she wouldn't be able to calculate the necessary dosage of poison, she had simply drunk down the whole vial. Even if her death would serve no purpose, there was no going back now.

It was strange... She hadn't thought of her predecessor in years. Or her parents, or the house where she had been born... Does one's life truly pass in front of one's eyes before death, then?

What an irony.

She let out a shuddering sigh, and dimly felt some sort of fluid leak from her mouth, but as her grip on the sheets finally relaxed, she floated beyond the grasp of regret.