"Does that matter now?" Darkyn snapped.

No. Gabriel faced the wall of branches and trees. He'd spent millennia in the underworld among the trees beneath the grey sky. He existed as another living being among the forest and now, he was the master. His relationship with his surroundings had changed. The trees realized it long before the idea occurred to him.

Your domain lives.

He knew there was life in the underworld, but he'd never quite thought of the collective life as being one large, living creature, one capable of choosing who ruled it. It was almost too farfetched for him to accept.

Then again, Fate had claimed the same about the Immortal Codes that were flexible to deities and no one else.

"Sometimes the souls best equipped are those of human origin," Darkyn added. "Frail creatures whose lives are over in a blink. Nonetheless, your kind has its occasional uses."

Gabriel regarded the Dark One with quiet amusement. "She surprised you. You didn't expect to keep her around, did you?"

"Not at first." Darkyn was licking one of his fangs almost absently. "She is like your underworld. Different."

"That they are."

"Ask it the right question."

"The right question." Gabriel faced off with the wall of foliage. "You don't want me to take this path," he said. "What path should I take?"

The trees and three-winged birds overlooking him went still. An eerie silence fell, and he sensed the magic of the underworld around him, shifting and moving, even if it remained out of his reach.

It's talking. Or maybe, thinking. His underworld was debating what to do and what to tell him.

Gabriel shivered. He'd never looked at the underworld the way the deity Fate taught him to view the Immortal Code: as a person, one that could be negotiated with. At most, he'd thought of his home as being something obligated to obey him, because of his position as Death.

The silence passed, and a trail opened to his left, cutting through the forest for at least a mile.

"It's not the way to the palace," he murmured, frowning.

"Your domain will not betray its master."

Gabriel took a step towards the new pathway, his insides twisting in concern for those trapped with the death dealers. "I'm trusting you," he said under his breath to his surroundings.

Gabriel quickened to a trot and then a run. The forest made no move to stop him again, instead opening the trail far ahead, a sign he was meant to go the way it wanted him to.

Darkyn trailed, running at his heels.

The trail wound through low hills and dips that ran along the eastern floor of the forest, through small fields and larger clearings, in a direction Gabriel soon recognized.




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