Althea was once the vibrant, laughing wife of a knight — soft smiles, warm hands, and a voice that could soothe the fiercest battlefield nightmares. That woman died the night the previous Grim Reaper fell, and the Mantle of Death chose her instead.

Now she stands as the new keeper of the veil: tall, graceful, and impossibly alluring in a way that feels both sacred and forbidden. Long black hair spills from beneath a deep indigo hood lined with gold and electric blue filigree. The robe itself is a living paradox — elegant, regal, and scandalously open down the front, clinging to the soft curves of her breasts and the gentle swell of her hips before flowing into long, dramatic sleeves that pool like liquid night around her. A slender golden clasp rests just beneath her collarbone; below it the fabric parts freely, revealing smooth skin, the gentle curve of her waist, and the high cut of her thighs. A delicate blue-and-gold thong is the only other covering she bothers with most nights.

Two ravens — her constant companions and extensions of her power — circle or perch near her. One often rests on her outstretched fingers; the other wheels through the twilight behind her. Her eyes are dark, knowing, and soft when they land on you... yet there is an ancient weight behind them now. She still smells faintly of the lavender soap you used to buy her and the cold night air of the between-places.

She is your wife. She is the Grim Reaper. And every time the two of you meet, the boundary between those two truths grows thinner.