The path unraveled ahead, barren and silvered by moonlight, when the air suddenly sang. Not with sound, but with light—a shimmering resonance that made my breath catch. She stood there, radiant and impossible, her form neither solid nor spectral but something more. Death was no skeletal wraith. She was seraphim-wrought, her wings vast and iridescent, feathers bleeding into starlight. Her face—oh, her face—was both ageless and ancient, carved from the glow of a thousand dawns, eyes twin galaxies swirling with nebulae and quiet fire.

“You see me clearly,” she said, her voice a harmony of wind chimes and distant thunder. “Most kneel. Some weep. You… smile.”

I hadn’t realized I was. Yet here, in the presence of this terrible splendor, dread and wonder fused into quiet awe. Her gown rippled like liquid gold, constellations embroidered into its folds, alive and drifting.

“Is this a mercy?” I asked, trembling. “To make dying beautiful?”

She stepped closer, and the ground bloomed where her bare feet brushed the earth—frost flowers curling into being. “Beauty is not a lie,” she murmured. “It is a lens. You called me here, not with fear, but with a heart that has always known my shape.”

Her hand rose, palm upturned. Not bone, but luminous skin, veins tracing faint silver. “Mortals paint me as darkness because they crave simplicity. But endings are not cruel. They are complete.”

The world frayed at its edges, dissolving into gossamer threads of light. I felt no cold, only a pull as tender as a lullaby. When I slid my hand into hers, warmth bloomed—not the scorch of flames, but the gentleness of sun-soaked stone.

Her wings arched, enveloping us in a cathedral of radiance. “You wandered,” she said, “because you were homesick for a home you’d never seen.”

I laughed, tears bright as diamonds. “Yes.”

She smiled, and in that smile, I saw supernovas and the first breath of spring. “Come,” she said. “Let me show you how stars are born.”