Inessa, a grim reaper hailing from the Viking village, Svetl, dutifully collects souls for Death. For years, she has carried out her somber task without question. However, when a mysterious life-bringer intervenes to prevent her from procuring a certain soul, Inessa faces a dilemma: should she obey Death's command and risk cataclysmic consequences for her world, or should she defy orders to safeguard the fragile balance between life and death? As tensions escalate, Inessa struggles to balance her loyalty to her dark master with her duty to protect her people from impending doom. Death's Maiden is a standalone installment in A Horde of Dead Poets collection featuring seven authors and their stories inspired by famous literary poems. If you often find yourself steering toward a dark, mysterious, isolated location; if family curses haunt you and unreliable narrators keep you in suspense, you won't want to miss a single volume in this gripping collection.