Prologue
Her chest heaves painfully, almost frantic. There are a million reasons why she needs to do this. And yet, only one that tries to stop her. The icy air is almost crippling. It sets her lungs on fire and hollows her center. The golden tears streaming down her flushed cheeks sting her skin and crystallize before they hit the snow below. It’s happening again. It can’t be. She thought. It’s too soon.
She kneels helplessly before the shattered remains of the battered heart in her hands. Panic, fear, and anger threaten to pull her under and seize her lungs. She doesn’t move. She doesn’t cry out even as the beating heart in her palms gives a bitter squeeze. Betrayal leaves a bitter aftertaste, but as fate would have it, it was neither her or his betrayal that crumbled their foundation.
They were cursed by the Fates to repeat history.
She’s felt loss many times, yet this feels different somehow. Something has changed. She knows the next life will bring their eternal end as she gazes up into his hollow eyes. Blood coats the tether that binds them. His pain-filled screams echo in her mind as she gasps through the ice air. The future has never been so clear. Death was always meant to be alone. She should have known she’d fall. And fell she did as they cast her from the heavens unto the mortal plain.
Even when his soul inhabits a new body, the pain and rage lives on. She should have known better than to have let hope infiltrate her heavy armor. His eyes glow with hatred as he bares his sharp canines at her. He blames her. He always does. She doesn’t cower nor does she run as he towers over her. He is no longer the man she’d fallen for. He is nothing but an empty capsule of the one she’d once known.
Death tilts her head back and gazes up at her lover with a tired smile as golden tears coat her tongue. One can not escape Death. Try as they might, her shadow follows. Not even Death can escape her own fate. Death comes to all. Even those who wield it.
“It will all be over soon, my love.” Death whispers softly as her lower lip trembles. Her heart pounds within her chest as the heart in her palms coats her fingers in sticky blood as bright as the stone sapphire.
He doesn’t hear her. He can’t. He is blind and deaf to who she is and was to him. A blessing turned to a curse woven by her own hands. She lost her soul-flame.
“Digrim.” She murmurs the name given to him in this lifetime as her fingers curl around the pulsing organ. “Say my name one last time. Let my true name fall from your lips and into my ears.”
His eyes cloud with murderous intent. She watches the galaxies expand in his irises and his pupils dilate in recognition. “Nankita.” His gruff voice purrs as he drops into a crouch before her. He drags his dark tongue across the seam of his lips as a shadow falls across his beautiful face. “Death is your true name. Nankita died when you sewed your cursed seed into my soul. I feel nothing for you. And I have you to thank for that.”
Her smile doesn’t waver as she clutches the heart closer. “I have failed you.” She agrees softly. “But in the next life, I hope you can find forgiveness in your brittle heart.”
Her nails dug into the spongy muscle in her grasp and his face twists in pain as a sob escapes her lips. He falls onto his back and clutches his empty chest as her fingers sink into his heart. His screams and gargling gasps of agony fill her ears as she continues to sob.
“Please, forgive me.” She closes her eyes, unable to watch as his body thrashes. “I caused this. I must end this. Forgive me, my love.”
She thrusts her fingers into the warm organ and tears it in two. The cries stop abruptly and she hears his final exhale. Forgive me, Digrim. My love, my soul, my flame. Forgive me.
A cry tears from her throat as the tether screeches and flames lap at her soul. She welcomes the pain as her body trembles from the loss of her other half. Without opening her eyes she plunges a hand into her own chest, snapping her ribs with a pained gasp and tears out her own heart.
Once a woman blessed with the gift of life and death. Now a woman cursed as she falls next to her lover in a puddle of their intertwining blood. Gold and sapphire swirl between them as the tether gives one last musical hum before it falters into a screech and dies away. They’d meet again. That is for certain. A sigh escapes her lungs as her cold fingers brush his sharp claws.
Forgive me.
