We arrived in silence. One heartbeat I was wrapped in Arbor's soft glow, the next I was stepping into a realm painted in dusk and memory. Calavera's domain. The Realm of the Afterlife. It unfolded around me like a dream half‑remembered, unsettling, beautiful, where reverence hummed in my bones whether I wanted it to or not. Glowing marigold petals drifted past my face, suspended in some unseen breeze. They left streaks of gold as they fell and vanished before they touched the ground. Everything smelled of earth and incense, warm and bittersweet. Above us, the sky was twilight, always twilight, purples and cobalts streaked with silver, stars so close they pulsed like heartbeats.
Skeletal dancers in lacquered bones and silk robes glided through an open courtyard. They moved with the deliberate grace of ritual, mourning, joy remembered at the edge of grief. Trees whispered, leaves of pressed gold and etched bone rattling gently. Bark dark as charcoal. Branches heavy with wind chimes made from forgotten names. Somewhere, faintly, music played, strings, slow and haunting. A requiem stretched thin by time. It came from nowhere and everywhere. And gods help me, I swore I heard a name in the wind. One I almost remembered. One that hurt.
I paused under one of the golden trees and brushed my fingers against a leaf. It pulsed once, warm. I blinked, as if something brushed my mind. Then I let it go. "Don't linger too long," I said softly.
"I'm not afraid," she replied.
Of course she wasn't. Everywhere, spirits drifted, not monstrous or cruel. Just present. Quiet. Watching. Whispering. Laughter and sorrow brushed past like warm wind and my skin crawled. I pulled my coat tighter and muttered, mostly to myself, "You would think Death could tone it down. This is aggressively poetic. I get it, mourning, flowers, regret. We all have a phase, but this is…" A spectral butterfly flitted straight through my chest. I shuddered. "…excessive."
Annie kept walking. Marigold petals drifted around her like she belonged here. Then she glanced back at me, eyes sharp beneath her sheer black veil. "Do not be disrespectful."
"I was not—" I began.
"You were."
I opened my mouth, closed it, sighed. "Fine. But if the violin music starts playing itself, I am leaving."
"No, you are not," she said, and there was no doubt in her voice. I scowled but followed her deeper into the painted dream. Because Annie was unshaken. And here, in the land of death, somehow she was the one who looked eternal.
The castle rose from the twilight like a cathedral carved from shadows and memory. Dark stone veined with gold and inlaid bone. Towers spiraling like twisted spires of mourning. Candles floated in solemn procession, flickering blues and oranges casting ghostly reflections on the onyx floor. "If a haunted opera house and a cathedral had a baby…" I muttered.
Annie nudged me sharply. "Respect."
I shut up. (For once.) We stepped into the great hall. Calavera waited. Seated upon her throne of bone and gold, tall and impossibly still. Her gown was layered lace in shades of smoke and ash, draping like a funeral veil down the stairs. A crown of marigolds glowed faintly on ink‑black hair. Her skin was smooth as porcelain, but her face was painted like a skull, elegant, symmetrical, as beautiful as a hurricane.
Candlelight danced to an invisible rhythm. Shadows moved behind her but never too close, as if even they knew to keep their distance. She smiled. Not cruel. Not kind. Knowing. "The living rarely walk here without cost," she said, her voice a melodic hum. Every word dripped with weight, like she spoke in both language and soul. Her brow lifted. "You walk like one who has died and refused to stay dead."
Annie stood tall beside me as Calavera's voice faded into the flicker of candlelight. The room pulsed with magic and memory. Marigold petals floated around us like soft sparks. I glanced at Annie out of habit, expecting her to look at me with that little sideways smirk and maybe elbow my ribs so I'd behave. Expecting, also out of habit, that something irreverent would tumble out of my mouth. Bone babe. Skelly queen. Petal pie. But it didn't. It wasn't fear that held my tongue. It was reverence. Respect. It hit me then: I hadn't called Calavera by a nickname since we crossed into this realm. Not shadow sugar or mourning muffin or anything else ridiculous. In fact, I hadn't called Annie by one either. I never mocked Death. And here in Death's hall, I wasn't mocking her. The quiet respect I offered Calavera… I was extending to Annie. Here. Now. She deserved it. They both did. She stepped forward, just one step. "We need answers," she said.
Calavera tilted her head. Marigold petals drifted slowly from unseen rafters. "And answers often come at a steeper price than questions," she replied. Candlelight flickered across Annie's glowing runes. Calavera saw them immediately. Her smile faded. "Oh," she whispered. "So that's what they dared to carve."
Calavera didn't rise. She didn't need to. She extended a hand and the shadows answered. The floor beneath her throne rippled like water and she glided forward without walking, her gown trailing smoke. She circled Annie slowly. Not like a predator. Like a scholar. Like a curator admiring a forbidden artifact in a gallery of the damned.
I shifted, tension coiling like a snake in my spine. I hated being studied. Annie didn't move. Chin high. Shoulders square. "You walk in strength," Calavera murmured. "But do you know what you wear, girl?"
Annie didn't answer. Not yet. Calavera's hand hovered near the Luxor rune faintly glowing at Annie's arm and she continued in a language I didn't recognize but felt. The words rolled over me like silk laced with iron. "These are not simple runes… not mere offerings of power. They are Glyphs of the First Breath. Stolen from the foundation of the world. Etched in pain. Anchored in soul."
"I know what they cost," Annie said, eyes narrowing.
"I doubt it," Calavera replied, calm and cold. "Because if you did, you would weep."
I stepped forward, coat flaring slightly with the motion. Shadows curled around my boots. "Say what you want, Reina de Huesos," I snapped, the phrase crackling like lightning, "but don't talk down to her."
Calavera stopped circling. She turned to face me fully and smiled. It wasn't cruel. It wasn't kind. It was a smile from someone who had buried kings and kissed the foreheads of beggars, wept with mothers and laughed with ghosts. She inclined her head slightly, acknowledging the weight behind my words. "Very well," she said, stepping back with silent grace. "I will offer you truth. The kind that cannot be unspoken. But truth here has a price."
"Of course it does," Annie said, folding her arms.
"A favor," Calavera replied. "From each of you. One I may call upon, once, at a time of my choosing."
My jaw clenched. "You would bind us?"
"I would remind you," she said softly, "that death binds everything."
Annie looked at me. We shared a long look, a conversation without words. Then she turned back to the goddess. "What kind of favor?"
"The kind you don't regret… until it's too late." Candle flames flared like an exhale. Annie and I exchanged another look. I didn't speak. She did. "Fine," she said, voice unwavering. "You'll have your favor." I sighed theatrically, like someone resigning to sell a piece of his soul for a sandwich. "One favor. One truth. That's the deal." Calavera's eyes shimmered like wet obsidian. "So be it."
She moved again, slow and reverent, returning her attention to Annie's glowing skin. Fingers hovered near each glyph. Candlelight caught her marigold crown's gold. "These," she whispered, "are not of your gods." Her hand floated over the Navir rune, the thin strokes like lightning frozen in time. "They are older than time's rhythm. Older than gods. Older than death. They are fragments of the First Language, the tongue the universe spoke before anything else learned to listen."
Annie stood still. Listening. Breathing. Accepting. Calavera traced the air just above her ribs, where my chaotic glyph curled like poetry made of storm. "They were never meant to be carved into flesh. Not by pain. Not by force. And yet, here they are. Each one a door. Each one… a lockpick."
"To what?" I asked.
"Power," she said, eyes still on Annie. "Each glyph, once activated, opens more of it. Strength. Will. Control. Divinity. It grows. With every spark. There are two paths to activation. One is choice. The other is connection. A willing gift. Or an act of sacred vulnerability."
"You mean—" I started.
"Yes," Calavera said. "Sex. Or something deeper. Each time you connected with one of them, willingly or otherwise, it unlocked another piece."
Annie's mouth tightened but she didn't flinch.
"And when they're all lit?" I asked, already dreading.
"Full activation grants divinity."
Silence fell like snowfall. "You mean she becomes a god?" I breathed.
"No," Calavera said. "Something older than gods." She stepped around us again, hands sketching threads only she could see. "The glyphs bind them to her. And her… to them. Their life force flows through her now. A tether. A circuit."
"So I'm trapped," Annie said through clenched teeth.
"You are connected," Calavera corrected. "If you kill one… you might just slit your own throat."
"Of course," I muttered under my breath. "Of course it's blood magic. Stupid ancient binding curses. Why can't anything ever be straightforward?"
Annie remained still. Voice low. "Can it be undone?"
Calavera smiled faintly. "Everything can be undone. Even life." She didn't elaborate. Not yet. Not without more cost.
Something nagged at me. "These glyphs… the First Language…" I muttered, gaze drifting over the glowing runes. "That's not common knowledge. It isn't in books. Not even in forgotten temples. No one speaks it anymore. Not even you, Calavera. You recognize it, but you don't speak it." I stared at her. "So how the hell did a handful of priests know how to carve it? How did they know what it was? How to activate it? How to tie it to gods? That isn't ritual magic. That's foundational language. World‑making magic."
She watched me with eyes like still water. Deep. Reflective. Refusing to ripple. "I am not the one who gave them that knowledge," she said softly.
"That is not an answer," I snapped.
"No," she agreed. "It is not."
Annie's eyes narrowed. "But someone did."
"There are old powers that linger in the cracks between realms," Calavera said, head tilting. "Whispers in forgotten bloodlines. Magic older than faith. Some truths do not want to be buried."
"That sounds like prophecy," I said darkly. "And I hate prophecy."
Calavera's smile was faint. "Then you will really hate what's coming."
"So you don't know," Annie said. It wasn't a question.
Calavera's expression didn't change. Which was confirmation enough. "I know enough," she murmured. "Enough to warn you. Enough to watch. But this," she gestured to Annie's glowing runes with reverent hands, "this is older than even my memories. And that should terrify you."
My fists clenched. Because it did. Not just for what it meant. But for the fact that someone out there had carved into Annie not with brute force, but with knowledge no one should ever have possessed. It meant this was bigger than all of us.