Two Years Later

Night of the Winter Solstice. 

The edge of the dagger slowly pierced the flesh of the Empress. 

Jovine inhaled a gasping breath, the pain of the blade embedding itself through her ribs unbearable. 

Emilia Syrene looked up at her with manic eyes, a sick, perverse satisfaction flaring in the depths of her pupils at the Empress’s approaching death. 

“I win,” she laughed psychotically.

“No,” Jovine wheezed out, her knees buckling as her husband’s mistress shoved the knife deeper until she couldn’t breathe anymore. 

“Yes,” Emilia whispered, bending over with the fallen Empress who was now bathed in blood. 

Jovine toppled to the cold ground as Emilia freed the hilt of the blade from her grasp and stood with a malicious grin. 

“As always, you’re too late,” she taunted. “I will have everything, and you. You will be nothing. And, I am going to relish watching the life bleed out of you.” 

Unable to speak or move, Jovine’s breaths stuttered as she choked on her own blood. Emilia was right. It was too late for her now. 

She could feel herself slipping into the unknown darkness that was death. The heat of her blood even began to feel like a warm cocoon enticing her to give into the pain. 

I’m not ready, she raged against the pull. There’s too much I still need to do. 

But, none of her pleas mattered as she felt the tip of the dagger a breath away from puncturing her heart. 

The familiar, low timbre of a voice she knew too well called out in the distance, anchoring her to the light. 

Richard? 

Emilia cursed under her breath, frantically wiping the blood on the fabric of Jovine’s nightgown, and the movement of her body caused Jovine to sob out a cry of pain. 

“Shut up!” Emilia whispered in a panicked voice. Composing herself, Emilia took a breath before leaving Jovine in a pool of her own blood, discreetly shutting the door from any witnessing eyes. 

No, her mind cried out. The injustice of it all sparked an inferno of fury within her. She couldn’t die like this. 

The distant murmur of voices sounded through the barricade of the door enclosing her in —

Where am I? 

Disoriented, her memories were fading away, as if she was now looking through a fogged glass into her life. 

She directed her hazy vision around the room. 

An open window. The moon. Snow. Marble floors now ridden with red. A ceramic bath. 

Jovine was in a bathing chamber. Was it her own? 

Why couldn’t she recall? 

Jovine squeezed her eyes shut, her body suddenly feeling cold and the pain in her chest settling down to a numbness. 

She didn’t have much time. There was something she needed to do. Something she needed to say. Someone to say it to. 

A broken sob ripped through her mind. She was too far gone to know whether the tears manifested, but the misery and grief were there. 

I need to get to you.

As if the subconscious thought was the last remaining force sustaining her body, Jovine found herself dragging her body across the floor. Her elbows slipped against the gore of her fatal wound, but it didn’t stop her. 

Clawing in desperation, she reached the wooden door, but before she could attempt to open it, her head fell against the frigid ground. 

Death was coming for her now. She felt its insistent grasp determined to rip her away from this world. 

Perhaps hallucinations came with the invitation of death for she could have sworn she felt the caress of the breeze whispering words of sorrow in her ear. 

With a small creak, the door opened before her eyes.

As if the dagger in her heart wasn’t enough, the last image she saw before Death finally claimed her was Emilia Syrene straddling the body of her husband, their lips locked in a passionate tangle of betrayal. 

With one final breath ripped out of her body, Jovine de Tristaine was dead. 

Darkness. 

Emptiness. 

A void. 

Voices. Memories. Sudden light. 

“I hate you,” a voice breathes.

“Hate me all you want. Just don’t leave me.” 

“I remembered something. It seems there’s a lot I’ve forgotten about our story.” 

“Smile for me. You used to smile for me everyday.” 

A yellow rose. The smell of the ocean. “It’ll return to me at the right time.” 

The scent of snow and sandalwood. Silver. The bark of a gleeful dog. “I wanted to take you from him.” 

Fire. Ink. Paper. “I think you might be my only real friend.” 

A dark room. A closed door. “Can I hold you? In this darkness, we don’t exist. As soon as the door opens, you can pretend this never happened.” 

Sweat. Silk sheets. Tangled bodies. “Bend over.” 

“I want you.” 

A flood of tears. A painful ache. “It would have been better if you never came back at all. The dream of you was better than this damned reality.” 

“I love you.” 

A piercing wail of heartbreak and grief. “No. You’re not dead. Come back to me.” 

A trembling. Crescendoing until the darkness fractures. 

Jovine de Tristaine opened her eyes.