Kate LSY

Winner of the Inkwell Literary Festival – Short Story Contest, Age 25+
To be displayed at the Civic Centre Resource Library in Vaughan, ON.

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Ice clung to the stone courtyard, and snow gathered beneath the crimson walls. The harsh December wind seeped past cotton, past skin, and pierced deep into the bone, invading the very heart that fluttered weakly before them. 

The Cold Palace lived up to its name—even to Death, who should not have felt the chill. 

She sat hunched on worn stone steps, a threadbare cloak pulled over shoulders grown too thin. Her face was bare, no trace of the powdered rouge they remembered from months prior. Her cheeks had hollowed. Her lips were cracked pale. Between frostbitten hands, a bowl of congee steamed in chipped porcelain.

Death recognized the scent. It smelled of ginger, pork, and rice—comfort scraped from the dregs of the imperial kitchen, smuggled in by a sympathetic maid. One she shielded from punishment, back when she still held favour as the emperor’s latest whim.

They had watched her then, as they did now.

She had grown weak, but not unpeaceful. Her hair undone, ink-black strands spilling like nightfall down her waist. The intricate golden hairpins were gone. The brocaded silk robes traded for coarse cotton. The last of her jewels stripped, like the titles she no longer called her own.

And yet, she remained.

Death huddled beside her. Their robe pooled atop the snow like shadow bleeding into frost, inching toward her dirt-stained embroidered shoes, but never daring to cross.

“I’m not here for you,” they said.

“I know.” She lifted the bowl to her lips. “But you came anyway.”

Her voice was hoarse. The fever had set in last night. But even strained, her words carried the cadence of wild fields and muddy roads—faint now, worn thin by palace polish, but never fully erased. Just misplaced enough to mark her as not quite from this place. 

She took a sip. Steam curled upward, and her breath fogged against the biting air. A flush bloomed beneath the grime, shy against her pallor.

Death looked down at the fold of their robe, bunched as though knees had bent beneath it—but there was nothing there but the shape they wore to be near her.

She had danced this edge before. Nearly stepped into shadow, and turned back to the light before she was swallowed whole. Again and again.

But this time felt different.

There would be no physicians. Not here, in the Cold Palace, not for girls discarded by the emperor and forgotten by the court. 

Death remembered the moment her unbound foot crossed the threshold of the Forbidden City. Her fate had begun to unravel then, and everything since had only been delay. 

They watched. As they always did. Letting the moments unfold like the dutiful servant of the underworld they claimed to be. 

Snowflakes drifted between them. One landed on her sleeve and lingered longer than it should before melting. 

Above, the full moon gleamed like an uncut pearl. 

“You pretend not to feel” she said suddenly, breaking the quiet. 

Death’s hood tilted toward her. Beneath it, the void of nothingness revealed only darkness. 

“But you do,” she continued. “Not here—” she tapped her temple, “but here.” Her fingers drifted to her chest, over the thrum of a failing heart. “Somehow.”

Death said nothing. But they supposed—even shadows, kept too close, began to cast shapes. And mortals always had a way of naming what was never meant to be named.

They had come too often. Now she was familiar not just with their silences, but how they lingered longer than they should. 

She was never meant to see them so clearly, and a part of them wished she hadn’t.

Not when they already knew how this ended. Not when her hands had begun to tremble. Not when they’d grown used to sitting beside her, watching her fight to live even when she claimed she’d given up. 

Neither of them ever pretended Time was kind. 

And yet, here they were—pretending the end hadn’t arrived.

She took another sip. Another breath.

“You’re quieter than usual today,” she said. Her voice barely above a whisper.

“You’re dying.” Death finally said, because it was the only truth they had left.

A moment of silence stretched between them. Then, a laugh burst from her lips, startling in its brightness. Her shoulders shook, and when she looked back at them, her eyes were wet, but bright and wild nonetheless. 

“I know,” she said again. Her grin softened. Not sad. Not bitter. Just the acceptance of something…true. 

She finished the last of the congee and tucked the bowl against her chest, guarding its fading warmth.

“You’ll be the last face I see, won’t you?” she asked.

Death nodded once.

“Good,” she whispered. 

She rose slowly. Her knees wobbled, but she steadied herself. Her hand braced against the wooden frame. The lattice, once layered with oiled mulberry paper, had long since torn. Even whole, it would’ve done little against the northern wind. Now, it surrendered completely—letting the cold pour through without resistance. 

“I may be dying,” she muttered. “But not yet. Not today.” 

Death glanced down at the snow. From afar, they must have looked like a dishevelled mass of shadow, crumpled on the stone steps.

She slid the door shut.

“I’ll see you when I see you, friend.” Her voice came muffled through the broken paper and brittle wood. Light and unburdened. Like she’d simply given a name to a stray.

And names…

Well. Names had weight. 

The paper trembled in the wind. Shadows curled tighter beneath Death’s robe, as if the cold could reach them, too. 

Inside, the wood creaked as she collapsed onto the narrow bed. A soft drag of breath, followed by a faint rustle of cloth, and then a sigh—half pain, half relief—before silence fell upon the howling wind. 

Death sat still beneath the full moon.

And for once, the night felt long. Even to them.

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The wind kept watch while the nights turned over in the sky. Forty-nine days had passed since the fever first bloomed beneath her skin. Death hadn’t expected her to linger, holding on breath by breath, defying their understanding of what a soul could endure—especially in their short tenure.

Outside the Cold Palace, the court roared with life. The warm glow of festive light spilled across snow-dusted stone. Strings of longevity lamps swayed above the opera stage, flames casting dancing shadows across the intricately painted beams.

Above, specks of red and gold sky lanterns flickered against the backdrop of ink-dark night. In front of the Palace of Heavenly Purity and Hall of Tranquil Longevity, two colossal dragon-shaped fire basins burned brighter than moonlight.

The air bustled with joy, trembled with the pounding of drums. The rhythmic pop of firecrackers echoed between crimson walls, loud enough to chase away ghosts.

But Death was no wandering spirit.

They stood at the threshold of it all, where sound fractured and light recoiled. A cloak of blacker-than-night draped over the resemblance of hunched shoulders. Firelight flickered behind them, not enough to illuminate the void beneath their hood where a face should lie, while shadows loomed over the stone pathway, curling ahead in tendrils of smoke.

The emperor had come. So had his empress, the concubines, the dowager in her layered gold and heavy wine-coloured silk.

The court would stay up past midnight, tearing into candied lotus and roasted suckling pig, every face lacquered with the kind of hope that only came from pretending new years meant new beginnings.

Not for her.

None of it reached her. Not the warmth, nor the joy—only silence, ringing louder against the faint chorus of celebration. A sound that belonged to the living with the prospect of a future.

Death entered the Cold Palace without ceremony. The walls whispered in a language only they could hear—soft with the secrets of forgotten women. Names once called by emperors, now nothing more than brush strokes. Their lives pressed between scrolls like crushed petals—delicate, fragrant, and forgotten.

Moonlight spilled through the torn paper screen. It cast its cold light across the narrow bed where she lay curled—pale as snow, weightless as ash.

Death drifted forward, shadows shifting soundlessly, and sat next to her.

She opened her eyes before they spoke, and smiled.

Of course she did.

“Took you long enough,” she murmured, her voice a breath above silence. “I almost left without you.” She coughed, a weak little sound.

“I promised I’d come,” Death said.

“Mmm.” Her eyes fluttered shut, like even that much had cost her. “I’m glad you’re here.”

“You shouldn’t be,” they replied quietly.

Silence stretched between them once again, and together, they listened. To the wind. To the drums. To the sound of everything that didn’t matter anymore.

“They’ll say…I was poisoned,” she said eventually, her voice hoarse. “Or that I wasted away from heartbreak.”

“Were you?” Death asked, knowing the answers already.

She gave a brittle laugh, swallowed by coughs. “Wouldn’t that make for a prettier story?”

They said nothing. Because silence, sometimes, was kinder.

“There’ll be no story,” she added after a pause, her voice dipping, eyes down cast. “No one will remember me.”

“That’s not true,” Death said, before they could stop themself.

She looked toward the hood where no face lived and smiled like she’d caught them in a lie.

“Promise me something?”

Death leaned in.

“In the next life…find me. But don’t come in a cloak.” A flicker of old mischief returned to her voice. “And maybe…knock next time.”

Death hesitated. Then, because it was her, nodded.

“I will.”

If there was a next life.

Outside, the court roared louder. The drums reaching a fever pitch, crescendoing toward midnight.  Firecrackers exploded in bursts of crackles that made the night felt like it was about to break apart.

Inside, she exhaled a long breath. Her eyes blinked closed and the tension in her shoulders eased. A faint smile still tugged at the corner of her lips.

And between the tick of an ending and the breath of a beginning—Death could not find her next inhale.

They reached out. A sleeve brushed her curled fingers, and for the first time, their shadows did not dissolve. Their shape held, no longer shrinking from her touch.

Her warmth could no longer burn them.

Her soul slipped free, no scythe needed, formless and faint—like mist curling through frostbitten air. It hovered briefly above her chest, too tired to form shape, too trusting to flee.

Death lifted their sleeve, and the soul drifted forward, nestling against the fold of black—like a head resting on a shoulder.

“I’ve got you,” they whispered.

The glow seeped into their blackened robe, illuminating them like moonlight across dark water.

They rose, drifting toward the doorway, their hem flickered like fireflies before finally dimming—like the soul had finally chosen a place where it’d like to rest.

“Come now, Darling,” Death murmured.

“Rest with me awhile. Judgment can wait.”