Mirari Revel stories are short, queer, speculative fiction stories meant to be read in one sitting.
Axel is dying, and he has made his peace with that. What he fears is the Rite.
Among the Pacificus people, no one crosses into the hereafter unjudged. Before the end, you kneel at the grave of your eldest ancestor, lay your offerings, and summon the Elders to weigh the life you lived. A life found whole earns a gentle passing. A life found wanting is sentenced to begin again – and again – carrying the memory of every life before.
Axel is not certain his life will pass. He drifted from the faith that raised him. He never told his parents who he truly was. And years ago, when the man he loved was dying and asked Axel to stay, Axel walked away.
Now, in a rain-soaked cemetery with pomegranate seeds staining his hands, Axel calls the Court of Elders to confess all of it – and to learn whether a life of small failures and quiet regrets can still be found worthy of grace.
The Rite of Death is a tender, deeply moving short story about faith, queer love, and mortality. For readers of Bryan Washington and TJ Klune, it asks whether the forgiveness hardest to earn is the kind we withhold from ourselves.
This is a digital product. You will receive an epub file upon purchase.
The story delivers on the premise of the Rite. I appreciated how the author takes us not just into Axel’s psyche as he deals with his sickness, but right to the core of the life he lived, the decisions he made and didn’t, and their consequences. We are placed directly within the anticipation and performance of the Rite, which was incredibly immersive and poignant. Riley Herbert-Henry set the tone and painted the world very well: Axel’s sickness, the gloomy weather, the unkempt living environment, and a mindset gnawed by fears and reservations toward performing the Rite. Even the lore and mythology of the Pacificus people is something I would have loved to hear/read more about if it were a longer piece, simply because the concept of punitive reincarnation is fascinating to me as someone who’s always idealised reincarnation, romanticised it even — Rite of Death turns that ideal on its head. A beautyful and sad and very emotional story overall.
A beautiful tale of finding oneself through forgiveness by Riley💘
I am fascinated with how Riley came up with this specific concept of death. The death ritual, which actually sounds so dark but Riley has made it a journey of light and healing for Axel 💖.
He viscerally describes Axel's shame and his illness which I think alot of people can liken with depression. I feel like the bigger message here is life is short, you dont know if you are going to get a second chance, you need to create your own second chance.
But oh Axel😪 dear Axel is all of us who focus on our flaws and obsess over where we went wrong.
Rituals set in whimsy, lore created out of fear but ultimately a story reminding us all to be gentle in this life.
It's a shame that the literary world often dismisses short stories, because a lot of the time, I genuinely find powerful pieces of literature amongst them.
Rite of Death by Riley Herbert-Henry is such a phenomenal piece of short fiction. It was a stark reminder that life is short, and we should try to live it with as little regret as possible, and that we should accept ourselves, so that when the Reaper comes knocking on our door we shall accept their invitation with grace.