Love this! Especially the concept of him being lifebonded, or kind of lifebonded, to the Shadow-Lover. And it makes his choice to continue living even more bittersweet. My favorite line was this -- I think it perfectly captures that facet of Vanyel's character:

"Loving Death has been the simplest thing to him."

/not OP, but I've been watching this prompt very hopefully since it went up :D