Prologue
Some loves are made to last through an eternity, soaring higher and higher until they find the flipside and begin making their slowly sloping descent back down and out the other side, on their way to a new eternity.
One very cold day in the 1,560th year of the Lord, it became quite apparent to Belladonna Castiel y’Carys, princess of Falchion in Castlebridge, that, that she shared with her husband was not one of those loves.
Oh, she would love him until the very last breath she breathed; but she would never again feel the warmth of him beside her.
Belladonna sank slowly, mechanically, onto a nearby marble bench in the palace’s large, airy audience chamber. This day she felt the walls were closing in around her and she couldn’t find breath.
Dmitrian, my love. I’ll never see you alive again. The words kept sounding over and over in her mind, as if she had to keep reminding herself that this nightmare was real.
The message bearers had borne more than just a message, though she feared their words were more than she could withstand. Four young boys carried between them what looked like a child-size stone coffin, very plain but heavy. A soft rattling sound issued as they lowered its weight to the ground.
Belladonna watched mechanically as, with the heavy grinding of stone on stone, the bearers pushed back the slab lid enough to show what was inside.
Dmitrian’s bones. The bones of her husband, whose gorgeous face would never smile at her again, whose strong arms would never hold her close as they had so many times. Her husband, who would never kiss her or make love to her again. Her husband, the love of her life, whom she had worshipped and adored with all her heart and soul for years, would never murmur soothing words in her ear… ever again.
And after the horror she’d suffered just a few months past… her worst failure in life ever; in the worst way a woman could ever fail… she had failed.
Bella stood and slowly took the handful of steps to the side of the box, gazed unseeing down at the contents a moment before dropping to knees no longer able to hold her slight weight as she finally began to feel again. After the numbness which had enveloped her, the agony seemed to crash into her like the mace end of a cugel. Her heart tightened and chills shook her as she keened out her horrific pain and despair. One gut-wrenching, heart-crushing wail after another came out of of her until she had nearly screamed herself hoarse, ending with a weak, “Nooo-ooooo!.... Dmitrian!”
But no amount of keening, of pleading with no one in particular, would change anything, she knew. Her husband was dead.
Her husband was dead, and she had lost their baby when it was nearly ready to birth, or should have been.
Her husband was dead, their baby just a shadow of a dream… and her heart was utterly broken.
