Elise pressed her back against the cold stone of the crumbling archway, straining to quiet her breathing. Darkness enveloped the ancient mausoleum around her; thin beams of moonlight slanted through gashes in the roof, illuminating motes of dust and outlines of toppled pillars. Her heart thudded in her chest as she listened intently for any sign of movement.
The old map had led her here to a forgotten shrine deep in the Whispering Woods. Villagers in the last town wouldn't even speak of this place except in frightened murmurs. Rumors of curses and restless spirits kept most away. For Elise, that was precisely why she'd come. Any site steeped in death and mystery was a place she might find him.
Fifteen years had passed since the night her father died. Fifteen years of hunting for the truth behind the myth of the Coinbearer. She had questioned her sanity many times, wondering if the masked soul-collector was just a nightmare born of grief. But then Elise would recall the weight of her father's hand growing cold, and the gentle apology of the man in the mask. It was real. He was real.
Over the years, Elise chased every whisper and clue. She scoured dusty libraries for any reference to a silver-masked reaper. She tracked down travelers who survived inexplicable brushes with death. More than one spoke of a dark figure and a flipping coin at the edge of their vision as they hovered between life and death. Most dismissed it as a fever dream or angel of luck but Elise knew better. Each account was a thread, and together they formed a trail pointing here, to this forgotten place.
Elise crept forward, her boot scraping over mosaic tails that hadn't felt footsteps in decades. The air stank of decay. Broken altars loomed, carved with faded symbols, a balanced scale, a coin, a tangle of threads representing the Loom of Fate. Her pulse quickened at a familiar carving: the outline of a coin. She brushed dust from its engraved surface with trembling fingers. Perhaps the long-dead cultists who built this shrine had known something about the Coinbearer's ritual.
From a leather pouch at her belt, Elise drew a brittle page of notes. Her research hinted that if one offered a life-and-death wager at the proper altar under a new moon, the Collector would appear to claim his due. And tonight, the moon was new. If the legend was true, recreating the rite here might draw him out.
It was a desperate, perhaps insane plan: use her own life as bait. Elise swallowed hard, steeling herself. She slid a small knife from her boot and held it above her left palm, the blade gleaming faintly. A wound offered in this cursed place might fool fate into thinking her life truly hung in the balance just enough to summon him.
Her hand trembled. She had never courted death, but if this was the price for answers, she would pay it. Taking a steadying breath, she pressed the tip of the knife to her skin.
A sudden scrape of stone echoed behind her. Elise froze, knife poised. That sound was not her doing. Something else was here.
She quickly shuttered her lantern, plunging the mausoleum into thick gloom. In the silence, she heard a faint drip... drip... of viscous liquid on stone, and a low, rumbling growl.
Two pinpoints of amber light flickered in the blackness, like eyes catching the moonlight. A wave of sulfurous stench hit her, burning her nostrils. Elise's stomach twisted. She knew that smell: Hellspawn.
From behind a fallen column, a hulking shape slithered into view, lit by a sliver of moonbeam. Elise's blood ran cold. It was a hound, but not of any earthly breed. The creature's skin was hairless and mottled, stretched tight over sinewy muscle and bone. Its head was canine yet unnaturally elongated, jaws too wide and filled with jagged fangs. Black drool hissed as it hit the floor, each drop eating into the stone.
The hellhound's glowing eyes fixed on her. It snarled, lips peeling back to reveal rows of needle-sharp teeth. Perhaps a guardian of this place, or drawn by her attempted ritual whatever the reason, it now saw her as prey.
Elise realized she had nowhere to run. The beast stood between her and the archway, and even if she fled into the forest, it would run her down in moments. Fight or die, those were the only options. She gripped her dagger tightly, palms slick with sweat.
With a desperate cry, Elise lunged. She slashed out with the dagger just as the hellhound leapt from the shadows. Steel met flesh; the blade cut a crimson gash across the creature's snout, spraying black ichor and drawing a furious snarl. But a heartbeat later, its massive bulk crashed into her, knocking her flat onto her back. Searing pain ripped through her belly as its scorching claws tore across flesh.
Elise choked back a scream, twisting instinctively aside as the beast recoiled for another strike. Her hand fumbled at her belt pouch. By luck, her fingers closed around a fistful of coarse salt, one of the few defenses against such creatures she had prepared. As the hellhound lunged again, she flung the handful of blessed salt directly into its face.
The effect was immediate. The hellhound yelped as the consecrated grains burned its eyes and the raw wound on its snout. It skidded sideways, shaking its head violently and pawing at its muzzle with a whine of agony.
Elise didn't wait to see more. Ignoring the blaze of pain in her torn abdomen, she staggered to her feet and bolted for the trees. Brambles and low branches clawed at her as she half-ran, half-stumbled through the underbrush. Behind her, an enraged roar shook the night, but it sounded muffled—she had bought herself a few precious seconds.
Each step sent a wave of white-hot pain through her core. Blood seeped between her fingers where she pressed her hand against the gashes in an attempt to slow the bleeding. Her strength ebbed with every yard she covered. Finally, her legs gave out and she collapsed to her knees in a small clearing beneath an ancient oak.
Her breath came in ragged gulps. She tried to stand, but her body refused. The wound in her abdomen pulsed, and she felt dizzy from blood loss. With shaking hands, Elise ripped a strip of cloth from the lining of her coat and pressed it against the claw marks, but it was already soaked through.
A wave of despair crashed over her. Was this truly how it would end? After all her sacrifice to die here, alone in the dark, without answers? No... If she had to die, she would not go quietly. Summoning her last reserve of strength, Elise opened her mouth to roar her fury into the uncaring night...
...But no sound emerged. In that instant, the forest fell deathly still. The chorus of crickets hushed. Even the distant snarls of the hellhound ceased, as if the very shadows held their breath.
Elise's ragged breath was suddenly the loudest thing in the world. She sensed a presence, vast and otherworldly, moving through the trees. Her vision swam, but she forced her eyes to focus.
A tall figure emerged at the edge of the clearing, gliding between the twisted oaks. He was draped in a tattered black cloak that seemed to swallow the starlight. As he drew nearer, a stray beam of moonlight broke through the canopy, illuminating a mask of tarnished silver under the hood.
Elise's heart stuttered. That mask, she would have recognized it anywhere. Silver, smooth, with empty eyes that had stared into her soul once before. The Coinbearer.
He had come.
Elise let out a shuddering breath, half relief, half delirium. Whether drawn by the ritual or simply by the scent of her impending death, he was here, at last. A weak, wavering laugh bubbled from her lips, mixed with a sob. She had spent years chasing a ghost, and now the ghost stood before her when she was too weak to stand.
The Coinbearer moved toward her, silent as a phantom. He knelt down on one knee beside her slumped form. In his gloved hand glinted the silver coin, already prepared for the toss.
Up close, he towered over her like a dark angel of judgment. Elise could barely lift her head, but she drank in the sight of him through dimming vision, the same mask, the same aura of cold inevitability. Yet there was something new in this moment: he was real, she could almost feel the chill emanating from him, hear the faint rustle of his cloak.
A memory flashed of him standing over her father's deathbed. A lifetime ago. Now here he was over her.
Tears of pain and bitter irony pricked at her eyes. Elise mustered a faint smile. "You... came..." she whispered, her voice almost inaudible.
The Coinbearer tilted his head at her, perhaps noting some recognition or simply acknowledging her words. If he felt anything upon finding the grown woman who'd once been that little girl, he gave no sign. The silver mask revealed nothing.
He spoke in a quiet, gentle tone. "Heads or tails?"
That simple, fateful question hung in the night air. Elise let out a trembling sigh. How many times had she imagined hearing those words again? She gave a weak, bloody chuckle that made her wince. Trust fate to give her this meeting only at the very brink of death.
Her vision blurred; she was fading fast. Still, she forced the word past her lips: "Heads." It was a mere breath of sound, but the Coinbearer heard it.
He inclined his masked face slightly, acknowledging her choice. With a practiced flick of his thumb, he sent the silver coin arcing into the air.
Elise watched the coin arc against the black sky. It turned end over end, catching a glint of moonlight with each revolution. The night, the pain, even her fear all of it narrowed to that single coin deciding her fate.
The coin descended. It struck the ground with a musical ping and bounced once on the hard earth. Elise strained to see, her consciousness slipping. Did it land on the queenly head or on the patterned tails? She needed to know her life depended on it.
A sudden, sharp gasp cut through the air. It sounded like shock, perhaps even alarm, though whether from the Coinbearer or some unseen witness, Elise could not tell.
Elise never saw what the coin showed. Darkness swallowed her before the coin lay still. The last thing she heard was the faint, uncanny sound of the coin settling... and an eerie silence, as though even fate was caught by surprise.