Thanatos landed maybe fifteen minutes later, on a kind of ledge. In the dark, Henry couldn't tell where or how high it was, even though his eyes had gotten so used to the darkness that he saw murky shapes when he focused. It was enough to not accidentally fall off, but not for anything else, and the feeling of helplessness that came with the inability to see made him anxious.

"I'll warn you, should there be danger." Thanatos stretched his wings and Henry mounted down, feeling discomfort at being reminded of how dependent he was on the flier. He walked until he found the wall and absentmindedly fiddled with the fish he still hadn't managed to try.

But apparently, Thanatos found he had wasted enough time. Henry cried when he was knocked off his feet and pressed to the floor. "You either eat now or not at all and in that case, you give the fish to me. Make a decision."

He must still be hungry too, Henry thought as he stared into Thanatos' narrowed eyes and gritted his teeth. "Fine!" he cried; his stomach ached with hunger. He couldn't afford to pass up food. He couldn't afford . . . to be picky. "Fine, I hereby suspend my standards. Now get off me!"

The flier stared at him a moment longer, then reluctantly let him go. Henry sat up and theatrically dusted off his clothes, then got a hold of the slimy fish. Grudgingly, he admitted to himself that his "survive" challenge would inevitably entail non-battle-related things he really didn't want to do. Like . . . raw fish.

His insides writhed as he peeled off the skin and took the first bite. It was cold and mushy, with an intense taste, but as soon as he started eating, he couldn't stop until he had finished it. Afterward, he would have given anything for some water to wash out the strong, lingering taste, but there was none within reach.

As soon as Thanatos sensed he was actually eating, he leaped into the air. Henry quickly discerned that he had found somewhere to hang directly over the ledge. They rested silently for a while and Henry considered just going to sleep.

He was tired, and his body ached as though complaining about every scratch, bruise, and stiff and sore muscle. Henry was not used to being in physical pain like this; it gnawed away at him, not allowing a moment of comfort. He'd had sore muscles from overexerting himself in workouts or other forms of exercise, but it had never felt like this. Exercise soreness felt rewarding; it was proof of the day's work. This was just bothersome.

Henry gingerly stretched and groaned, wondering if, after a while, one could get used to it, like with exercise. If he lived out here long enough, would this kind of ache become normal? If so, he wished for that day to come sooner rather than later.

He shifted back and forth, feeling overwhelming fatigue, but not only was his body uncomfortably strained—his mind was restless too. That is what I call destiny being certain whether you should live or die. Suddenly, Thanatos' words from earlier entered his mind, as did the Prophecy of Gray. Henry knew that, technically, he wouldn't gain anything out of knowing, but it bothered him that he still didn't understand what it meant or where it placed him.

"Stop skittering and sleep. We cannot stay here forever." Thanatos' voice disrupted the silent darkness.

"I cannot calm my thoughts," Henry admitted as he leaned back against the cold stone wall and closed his eyes.

"What is it now?"

"Nothing even that important."

Somewhere above him, Thanatos groaned. "Shoot. Lest you get no sleep at all."

Henry pondered. It couldn't hurt to get a second opinion on the matter, could it? "It's the Prophecy of Gray," he said eventually.

"What of it?"

Henry blew out a breath. "I do not understand what it wants from me. It lies in the past, and yet I still don't understand it. Not the part about me, anyway." He halted, looking up in Thanatos' direction. "Doesn't that seem like the most pointless of concerns to an outcast like yourself?"

"You warned me that your concern was unimportant."

Henry scoffed. "Yes, yes. And ever since you said that earlier, about destiny being certain that I should live or something, I've been pondering the oddity, that is . . . I'm fairly certain that the prophecy did not. Not want me to live, that is."

"I thought you said earlier that you still don't understand it," Thanatos replied. "Yet you are "fairly certain" about this?"

Henry thought it over and, in truth, he had to admit he didn't really know. "It is the most plausible interpretation."

When Thanatos didn't make an attempt to stop him, Henry proceeded to recite the last stanza, describing how it had likely played out. How he had decided where he stood—with the gnawers. Not without some difficulty, he explained how he had not taken care where he had leaped, that he had expected his bond to catch him, and how he had saved Gregor, the warrior, instead.

"As life may be death, and death life again reaps," he cited the last, most cryptic, line of them all. It still made no sense. Not with him being alive. "See? I am—I was supposed to be—the last who will die. The one whose death reaped—saved—the life of the warrior."

Thanatos had listened to his story without interrupting once and he remained still for another moment before he finally raised his voice. "Except . . . what if that is not what it means?"

Henry frowned. Before he could cut in, the flier continued.

"I mean in the sense that . . . What if it wasn't your death that reaped his life? What if . . . Death reaped your life?"

His words only increased Henry's confusion. "How does that make any sense? The word "reap" means "save" here, does it not? Death can't save anyone's life. Wasn't it you, who—?"

Then it clicked.

"You!" Henry exclaimed. "Your name is Thanatos—it means "Death", no? The Death that saved . . . reaped my life!"

"I am the Death that reaped your life," Thanatos replied and Henry found his head spinning as the words sank in. If Thanatos was the death that had reaped his life, he had never been supposed to die to save anyone. He was the one who would be saved. It all made so much sense all of a sudden, like a glaring light of clarity in his mind. Death had never been his fate.

"As enlightening as all of this is," Thanatos said into his thoughts, "maybe there is even more to it. If you misinterpreted that line, maybe you misinterpreted the rest of that stanza too. Recite it again and look at it from this new angle, will you?"

Henry, who had already readied himself to lay down and sleep now that this uncertainty was off his mind, froze. "I thought it was all unimportant? Why does one like you care about prophecies?"

"I do not care about them," the flier scoffed. "But it may be interesting, nonetheless, to know its true meaning. Perhaps even helpful. Is that not why we attempt to interpret prophecies in the first place?"

Henry eyed Thanatos as well as he could in the dark. The flier had a point, and, well . . . he had been part of civilization once, so maybe it shouldn't surprise him as much as it did, that he was not indifferent towards Sandwich's legacy.

"Yours could be an interesting perspective," Henry admitted after a while. "An outsider's eye."

"Then what are you waiting for?" The flier groaned and Henry laughed.

"Fine, fine. Knock yourself out if you must." And so Henry repeated the stanza over and over until Thanatos had finally memorized it.

"The last who will die must decide where he stands," the flier recited.

"I thought that was me," Henry said, "but—"

The flier cut him off: "It may still be you. In fact, I strongly suspect that it is."

"What? I didn't die; I thought we established that."

"Well, not literally."

Henry frowned.

"You may physically be alive," Thanatos said emphatically, "but in the eyes of everyone present that day, you have died, no?"

Henry bit back a reply; the flier was right. Nobody would have seen Thanatos catch him. By that point, even Ares and Gregor had been out of sight. They had to all assume he had fallen to his death. "Yes," was all he said.

"And then there is the curious wording of "must decide where he stands" to consider."

"What is so curious about that line? I decided where I stood."

"You did," said Thanatos, "and yet the line says must decide and not has decided."

Henry opened his mouth and closed it, speechless yet again.

"If this were referring to your standing with the gnawers," Thanatos continued, "it would not be phrased as if the choice still had to be made in the future."

"Okay, fine." Henry scoffed. "What does it mean, then? Shoot. Enlighten me." At this point, he may as well throw overboard everything he thought he had figured out about the last stanza.

"Perhaps it means exactly that," Thanatos replied without a single ounce of irritation in his voice. "Your true choice hasn't been made yet. It may be trying to tell you that this, here and now, is part of your destiny. That it was meant to happen. That you are meant to be here."

"You mean this . . . exile? That Sandwich foresaw me in exile, alive, to still make some sort of decision?"

"That was what I meant, yes."

Henry's mind reeled. He had no response. All he knew was that if the flier was right, there was yet another reason for him to cling to his life. To survive. Because even if nobody had ever survived exile . . . if the flier was right, he was destined to.

Before he could ask what this apparent choice he had to still make could be, the flier spoke up again: "The fate of the eight is contained in his hands," he recited. "I'm not sure if there is anything to be gained out of that line at the moment, to be honest. It refers to your fellow travelers, right? Though in what way their lives were in your hands, it eludes me."

"It was not. I betrayed them," Henry said sullenly. "And yet they all live. My actions had no impact on that."

"Let's . . . come back to that one." The flier audibly shifted. "So bid him take care, bid him look where he leaps . . . This one seems straightforward. It is most likely as you explained earlier."

"How Ares—my bond—didn't save me, yeah."

After an awkward pause, Thanatos resumed: "As life may be death, and death life again reaps."

They sat in silence for a few moments, taking in the heavy words. "That was you," Henry said eventually. "You are the Death that reaped my life."

"I am." Thanatos hesitated. "However . . . There may be even more to it. Consider the meaning of the word "reap" in this context—you would assume it is meant to be understood synonymously with "save," but it could further mean "take" a life, no?" Before Henry could reply, Thanatos already continued: "You may have neglected to consider how strange a word it is to use as simply a synonym for "save", and why it was chosen in that case."

"I . . . guess." Henry pondered. Nobody had ever really questioned that choice of word, not that he remembered at least, yet in hindsight, it did seem like the flier could be onto something.

"So, why was it chosen?" Thanatos asked. "What if it had to do with you and how you, in a way, both lived and died? You know, literal life and symbolic death."

"So, you say it may have been used deliberately to convey that double meaning?" Henry frowned as he attempted to sort all of the newly gained insights in his head. "I died, yet I was also saved . . ."

Thanatos hummed approvingly and Henry slowly relaxed, back pressed against the cold stone. He ran a hand through his soiled, messy hair, shoving strands out of his face, and shook his head. Whether it was in disbelief or in an attempt to process the flood of new information, he couldn't have said.

If the flier was right, that meant, in Sandwich's books, everything was going as planned. And why not? Nobody had ever understood this last stanza properly, and the way Thanatos had interpreted it made much sense. He found himself more than inclined to believe him.

Even so . . . Henry pondered what he had concluded earlier: that he was meant to survive. If Sandwich had foreseen it, he had to. But did he really? The prophecy said he was only destined to live long enough to "decide where he stood", and he didn't know when or how that would happen. It could happen tomorrow, and then he would be free to die any day again.

If only Nerissa was here, Henry thought suddenly. She knew her way around interpreting prophecies so much better than anyone else he knew. The memory of her stung bittersweet, like everything from his . . . Yes, he thought somberly, it was appropriate to call it his past life.

Her narrow face, the round, fearful eyes, her quiet voice, talking of great evil, and the last words she had uttered on the day he had left for the quest, in response to his "I have no plans to die". There are evils beyond death, she had warned, and as always, Henry now understood she had been right. And once again, he asked himself whether she knew where he was now, whether she had known all along. Whether she had foreseen it too.

Henry contemplated his sister's words and the realizations from earlier for a while, but they didn't bring him any new enlightenment. All he knew was that, no matter what the prophecy said, he would survive anyway. Not because it said he would, but because he had decided it would be so. He would not lose this challenge.

"So, why was it that you saved me?"

Thanatos above him shifted when Henry suddenly addressed him again. "What?"

"You were apparently prophesied to save me, so you can at least tell me the reason, no?"

When the flier still didn't respond, Henry groaned. "You didn't just save me when I fell," he said. "You came back to carry me out, too, not knowing who I was or what I had done to be in that spot. You cannot blame me for questioning your motives."

"Just because you may not save a life out of courtesy does not mean others are like you," Thanatos finally replied. When Henry didn't protest, he continued: "Unless we are rendered immobile, a flier will not let a human—or any creature—fall to their death. It would be akin to letting one of your own drown while holding a life belt. I had nothing to gain out of saving you, but it did not cost me either."

Henry could have said a million things, such as that he put himself at risk and even injured himself. That this didn't explain why he had come back later to carry him out. But he didn't press Thanatos for more. Selfless people sacrificed themselves every day; maybe the flier really was just like that.

"Fine," Henry replied eventually, swallowing his own unwillingness to say the words, but he supposed there was no way around them. "So, thank you."

"I was wondering whether you would ever say it."

"You didn't thank me either yet!" Henry shot back. "For crashing your execution." Before Thanatos had a chance to reply, he continued, "You know what? We do make a great team."

An audible rustle came from Thanatos' direction. "Forget it."

"You didn't even hear me out yet!"

"You meant to suggest an alliance, did you not? Or more like, compel me to protect and tolerate your royal ass in the near future?"

"I am not helpless," Henry hissed. "I believe I sufficiently proved that today. I will do my share in protecting our asses if we team up."

"I do not do allies. Did I not make that clear yet?"

"Now that is a narrow-minded view." Henry pulled his knees to his chest and tried to make Thanatos out in the dark. "It's not like I am asking for something permanent. I do not want to be your friend, or—" He cut himself off, unable to even say the word "bond" anymore. "It is just that, and you know as well as I do that we could profit from each other. And as someone . . . wiser than I had originally given him credit for once said, mutual need is the strongest bond of all. Or, something like that."

After a moment of silence that felt like an eternity, Thanatos gave an exasperated sigh. "Oh, I am going to regret this, aren't I?"

***

The next five minutes were spent by Henry and Thanatos discussing the terms of their new alliance. The first and most important rule they established was that they would not be bonds. Their lives would not be one; they would not have any real obligations toward the other and when worst came to worst, they couldn't expect the other to risk their life for them.

Henry found the rule fair, even though he had already sort of broken it when he had saved Thanatos from the gnawers earlier. But that had been before it had even been established, and he decided not to bring it up.

"We can profit from each other; that's the whole deal, right?"

"So you claim."

"I will prove it," Henry said with a grin. "Just you wait."

He would prove it. His grin widened. Wait until this "no strings attached" alliance becomes more reliable than an actual bond, he thought. For the moment, he felt pretty done with the concept of bonding in general. The thought of it brought him no comfort and he found no desire in himself to ever do it again. Considering how his last bond had ended, Henry found this attitude justified.

Bonds are overrated, he thought. What even was a bond other than a lifelong shackle? Nothing lifelong could ever end well, not with how unpredictable and dishonest all creatures were at their core. He'd be better off on his own than committing for life ever again. And at that conclusion, he left it. The topic was hardly worth dwelling on.

Eventually, Thanatos claimed that they both should get some sleep before they left for the Dead Land. But now Henry didn't have to fear being left to his own devices there anymore.

They agreed to switch watch soon and Henry laid down first, trying to make it as comfortable as he could for himself on the hard surface. When he had already closed his eyes, shifting to get into a slightly less miserable position, the flier suddenly raised his voice: "By the way, tough luck with your bond."

"No shit." Henry groaned and squeezed his eyes shut. He didn't want to be reminded of his bond—his former bond—ever again. "I betrayed him first," he admitted, "so it hardly had to do with luck."

"Fair," Thanatos replied. "I don't imagine that made it any better for you, though."

Henry didn't reply, but he was more grateful for the flier's words than he would have ever admitted.

"Something else."

"What now?"

"You were right," Thanatos said. "I haven't thanked you for . . . crashing my execution yet. If you can bring yourself to say it, so can I."

Henry grinned. He figured it must have been even harder for the proud flier to say this than it had earlier been for himself, and for some reason, the fact he had said it at all felt gratifying. "I owed you," he replied.

"And so now, we are even."

***

Henry didn't know for how long he had slept when Thanatos woke him to take over the watch.

He sat up, groaning miserably, and leaned on the wall, stretching his aching limbs. The flier fell asleep immediately and Henry knew he needed the rest—he was in worse condition and he would do all the flying later.

As Henry sat still in the silent darkness, he tried to keep his senses sharp, but his eyes were essentially useless, and his hearing was that of a human—lackluster.

Dissatisfied with his painfully obvious inferiority, Henry forced his mind away from it and racked his brain for something useful to focus on instead. Like . . . finally attempting to come to terms with his situation.

Henry had avoided it so far but he eventually had to face it—where and what he now was. He was an outcast who had challenged himself to live.

It felt almost contradictory, but he was more determined to win this challenge than ever. He would live . . . even if it meant he would have to learn how to live all over again. Here, in this foreign, treacherous environment that he knew next to nothing about.

Henry swallowed, fiddling with a pebble he had found on the ground. Being scared would not help him. Not now, not ever. And what was he scared of? It wasn't so bad, right now. He could be seriously injured, entirely alone, in captivity. The possibilities were nearly endless.

But he was none of those things. The thought did what it ought to and raised his spirits. Yes, he was out here now, far from home and family, but he was alive, and he would keep it that way. Who would think to stop him?

Henry almost laughed. He wouldn't let anyone stop him, so he vowed to himself. Only the weak caved, the weak died. Henry was not weak. So, he would live . . . but living had become significantly harder now. So much so that he knew he should establish some ground rules.

First, he had to stop worrying about his distant future. It was far too frighteningly unpredictable and dwelling on it served no purpose other than chipping away at his confidence and pointlessly scaring him. What would happen in a month or a year? It did not concern him. Pondering it had become impractical, and he could not afford impracticality anymore.

For a moment, he dwelled on that fact, attempting to imagine what kind of life it would be—one solely consisting of practicality. But the concept was too alien. He couldn't tell. Well, I'll find out soon enough, Henry thought.

Second, the same had to go for thoughts of the past. They were equally useless and impractical. It wouldn't amount to anything to sit around and miss it all. It would only make things harder. And if anything, he decided he should aim to keep his situation from getting worse.

Only the present exists, Henry thought and swallowed. Nothing beyond that—no future, no past. Something Luxa had told him after her parents had died suddenly flashed in his mind. Something that had, at the time, shaken him to his core: Every morning when I wake up, I will tell myself it will be the last day of my life. I will tell myself so many times until I believe it.

Back then, Henry had spent hours attempting to convince her to take it back, not give up on life in that manner, yet now . . . All of a sudden, the concept appeared reasonable to him. If he convinced himself death was imminent, he wouldn't be surprised by it, and maybe, one day, he'd even fear it less.

For a moment, he pondered whether an attitude such as this contradicted his "survive" challenge. Could he condition himself to not fear death and live at the same time?

Henry dwelled on the problem for a while but found no definitive answer. Then he grew bored and found that, when he was bored, his rules were exceedingly hard to follow.

His mind flew back to his past, to his home, all by itself. He imagined Luxa's carefree grin and their escapades and adventures. He heard her unrestrained laugh at another of his stupid jokes, then saw her face when he had revealed his plot. Not now, Henry. Not ever. She would never smile at him again.

He didn't allow himself to think of Ares. His face tried to push into Henry's memory but he shoved it aside; the pain was too fresh. It burned so much worse than any other.

Instead, he pictured Solovet, her drills and lectures, and her eternal dissatisfaction with him that had disheartened him on some days and fueled him on others. Had she ever been proud of him? Now, she certainly would never be.

He saw Vikus and heard his last "fly you high"—the one Henry had not reciprocated out of anger about him leaving them with Ripred. Had that been the last time he would ever see him?

There was Mareth, his dead parents, and Luxa's also dead uncle Hamnet, who hadn't been his blood relative but had always been the idol he had chased after. He almost smiled, recalling the day after his fifth birthday. On that day, it had been Hamnet who had taken Henry to the arena for the first time to train. On that day, he had been the first to teach Henry how to hold a weapon and then motivated him to slice open his very first blood ball.

Hamnet was dead, Henry thought. And he was here . . . also dead, at least in their eyes. Everyone had mourned Hamnet, so much Henry remembered. They had forbidden any mention of him after a while, but everyone had mourned his disappearance . . . especially Solovet. He recalled sharing with Luxa that he suspected she had never gotten over his loss and never would, even more so than anyone else.

After what he had done, who would even mourn Henry? He would not be mourned; he would be nothing but a black stain on all of their lives. Would they ever remember him as anything more? Could he even expect them to?

There was so much more, he thought angrily, clenching his fist around the rock. There was so much more to Henry than they would remember him for. He wished to be where they were suddenly, if only to scream it in their faces.

I'm not done yet.

His eyes burned and his heart hammered against his ribcage defiantly. He wanted to go back. Back home . . . back to when he had been five. He wanted to train with Hamnet again, to hear him laugh when he stumbled over his own feet and fell in an eager attempt to follow his instructions. He wanted to scrape his knees, play pranks with Luxa, and even the stupid, boring school lessons he had always considered a waste of his time, he wanted back now.

Only when Henry found his eyes had watered did he force himself to snap out of it. He shook his head until his hair flew into his eyes and he brushed it back angrily. What was he doing? Only breaking his just-established rules. Sitting around and pitying himself, lamenting what he had lost . . . thrown away, wouldn't help him. It was pathetic beyond belief.

He had to think about something else. Henry clenched his jaw. After some consideration, he decided that making a list of things to do in the next few days would be a good place to start. He twisted the pebble in his hand pensively.

Retrieving his weapons—that had to be number one. His backpack too. Maybe he should suggest going back to the bottom of the cliff whenever Thanatos woke? He needed actual weapons to protect himself and his new ally more effectively, although he decided to keep the slingshot as an option. It had served him well today, and the more weapons, the better, he decided.

He wanted his dagger back—not only because it was a short blade for cutting everything that was not meant to be cut with a sword, and he wanted his personal necessities in his backpack, which he had packed for the quest. Not to mention the water bag and the whole group's stash of fabric Ripred had had him carry. Henry recalled his own offense when compelled to carry something that wasn't his and registered his gratitude now for how the scarred gnawer had not cared. If today had proven anything, it was that he would need all the fabric he could possibly get.

Next on his list had to be finding somewhere to stay where there was a steady supply of water and food. But they could worry about that when they were in the Dead Land. Maybe Thanatos knew a spot?

Then he couldn't think of anything else anymore and quickly found himself bored again. Once more, Henry lamented that he did not have his backpack with the notebook and pencil he remembered packing. In addition to writing down his to-do list, he thought maybe some doodling would have helped him pass the time.

Henry had always liked to draw; Luxa and Nerissa had frequently claimed he was really good at it, never mind that, to him, it was a means to express and mark down thoughts rather than an actual form of art he strived to perfect or improve. He had still basked in the praise, of course.

Then again . . . He picked up the pebble and threw it from one hand into the other, then tossed it at the wall. How would he doodle in the dark?