He wakes to the smell of brine, the sound of waves. Ebb and flow. There is sand beneath his bare fingers, so finely grained it feels more like silk – or skin, dewed by the ocean. Thane opens his eyes. The sky above appears by degrees, shades of blue so deep it feels as if he's gazing into the dark, endless depths of a well. He breathes in the smell of brine. It cleaves to his lips, fills his nostrils, pulls the stale air from his lungs. He breathes. He sighs.
He is dead.
Thane laughs – a sound unmarked by disease or the rasping of lungs, a laugh he has never heard. He rises. Beyond him, far across the sea of afterlife, rises a swath of green land, veiled by the spray of sea foam. It's beautiful, but imperfect, bereft of something, something he cannot put to name.
Thane looks down, to the sand, warm between his toes. Trailing away from his own footprints is another pair. Hers.
Thane follows.