One second, I feel the ground beneath my feet and the next, I don’t.

I do as Ari says. I keep my eyes closed but I cling to him as some fierce gravity pulls me down. He wraps an arm around my waist and embraces me against him with his lips gently pressed along my earlobe.

“Shh,” he whispers. “We’re almost there.”

I believe him. I keep my head down. I tighten my hold on his hand. I banish the fear from me, knowing that I’ll always be safe in his arms.

Finally, the wind slows down and my feet touch the earth. My nose fills with the scent of dirt and old stone and I hear the sound of wind all around us.

Ari plants a soft kiss on my forehead. “Open your eyes, Tannis,” he says.

I hesitate. After everything I know now, I still hesitate at the door to the unknown.

Ari runs a hand up my back but he says nothing, giving me the chance to choose. I’m sure if I told him that I’ve changed my mind, he’d take me back home now. We’d go to Disney instead.

But life, as I’ve recently discovered, is far from a fairytale.

I raise my head from his chest and open my eyes to a world so new to me but ancient in age.

I step back and take a look around with our hands still locked together. We stand on a dock before a vast ocean that stretches as far as my mortal eyes can see. The water itself is dark and calm with barely even a ripple or wave but it moves with an obvious current beneath a midnight sky.

I look behind me and gasp. A castle stands down the beach. The stones are strong and mighty, covered in a deep green moss, but stunningly beautiful all the same. Three elegant spires pierce the sky above, one featured prominently with a balcony hanging over the gently moving ocean.

I look at Ari, completely breathless. “Wow,” I manage to say.

He entwines our fingers. “Welcome home, Tannis,” he says.

“It’s... gorgeous.”

“I always thought so, too.”

“You live here alone?” I ask.

His brow furrows. “Not exactly.”

I look at him, my mind filled with possibility. I can’t believe I never considered that Ari might have a family. He said he was a god. Not the god.

“Who else lives here?” I ask.

Ari swallows. His eyes, once fixed on me with kindness, now turn downward toward the water at our feet. I follow his gaze into the calm water but it’s not my own reflection staring back at me.

Other faces slowly drift beneath the dock and my blood runs cold.

That’s not water.

I gasp and jump back with a hand covering my mouth. Ari keeps a firm grip on me to hold me upright but he allows me a little space.

“It’s okay,” he says. “They can’t hurt you. Just do not let go of my hand.”

Tears brim in my eyes. “What is this, Ari?” I ask, my heart pounding.

“It’s called the void,” he answers. “It’s a resting place.”

“For who?”

He exhales slowly. “For everyone.”

I find the courage to gaze over the edge of the dock again. The faces stare back at me, white and wispy just beneath the surface.

The dead.

“This…” I struggle within, somewhere between sympathy and shock. “This is what happens when we die? This is where we go?”

Ari nods. “Yes.”

I slowly shake my head, rejecting it — though I’m not sure why. I’ve never held any firm belief in an afterlife. It’s not something I ever thought too much about.

But to see it with my own eyes…

A tear falls down my cheek. “Are they happy?” I ask.

“They’re content,” he says. “It’s more peaceful than it looks.”

Deep down, I know he’s right. These faces, with their closed eyes and passive smiles. I can’t help but wonder what they’re thinking — if they even can think as I know it. Is the afterlife a neutral place of our own personal design; full of beauty and love in the eyes of the beholder? Some blissful, quiet contentment?

“You bring them here,” I say, thinking it through. “We die… and you escort us here.”

“Yes,” he says beside me.

One-hundred and fifty thousand people die each day, he said. Give or take.

And Ari carries that burden, alone.

I stand still, silently weeping for them, for him.

“Tannis,” he whispers after a while. “Please say something.”

I look into the void once again. The faces drift past, silent and cold, but content and peaceful as a deep sleep. I take another breath and the lump in my throat fades away. My tears dry and I wipe the evidence from my cheeks.

“It...” My voice breaks.

“What?” Ari studies my face, though I’m not sure what for. For acceptance? For rejection of everything he is?

I look into his dark eyes, unafraid. “It seems lonely,” I say.

Ari relaxes his shoulders and slowly nods. “Now do you understand why I cling to you, Tannis?” he asks.

My heart aches. I look down at our clasping hands as that ribbon of warmth slides throughout my chest.

This. This was why he made that deal with my parents.

A companion, as he said before. Not a slave.

A hand to hold. A shoulder to lean on.

An equal.

A queen.

“But why me?” I say aloud without thinking.

Ari’s lips twitch with that same amusement as always. “I saw you that night,” he begins. “Mere moments after your birth. Your heart had stalled. Your lips, blue and lifeless. Not the first time I’d seen it, nor the last, but sometimes... when a soul comes to meet me, I see a flash of something; some brief, beautiful moment of a life unlived. I saw you standing right here as you are now. Your heart, bold and wild. Lips and cheeks pink with life and I knew that you, young Tannis... you would be the one to save me.”

I blink. “Save you?”

“Being king of the dead, it…” he speaks slowly, “it comes with a heavy toll but when I look at you now… I feel.” He gives a short smile. “You’ve brought something out in me that I gave up trying to find a long time ago.”

I rest a hand on his face. Ari looks at me and closes his eyes, sensing my movement as I lean in to kiss him. He kisses me back as he curls his arms around me and pulls me closer, holding on tighter than the ribbon within.

“Thank you,” he whispers, his forehead touching mine.

“For what?” I ask.

He chuckles, his version of an answer. Strangely, I don’t mind. Somehow, I know exactly what he means.

I kiss his cheek and step back, scanning the beach path toward the castle.

“Show me more,” I say.

Ari raises his head and brings my hand to his lips, giving my knuckles one more sweet kiss.

“As you wish,” he says.