Page 2 of The Call of Crimson
“Anything,” I breathe.
“Release your vines. Let me hold my wife in my last moments. Grant me that. Please.”
A sob rattles me as I loosen the vines. His arms wrap around me, pulling me tightly into his chest. His fingers weave into my golden tresses, rubbing soothing circles into my skin.
“I love you, Genevieve. I have from the very first moment I laid eyes on you. Through every fight, every sadness, every difficult decision, every moment of joy, and everything in between,” his voice trembles as he recites our wedding vows, “I have loved you in this lifetime and I’ll love you through the next. Until the very end”
“I love you, Raynor. Through this lifetime and whatever comes after,” The words shake from my lips, “Until the very end.”
He reaches for my hand, his fingers gently wrapping around my wrist. “Form another ice dagger. Make it thinner, but sharp.”
I do as he says, crafting a dagger barely wider than a needle. He lifts it, positioning it at his ear.
For a moment, I hesitate. The overwhelming desire to call for my fire and melt the weapon nearly wins. This isn’t right, and I grapple with how I’m supposed to see this through.
These hands have soothed every hurt, mended broken furniture, and created the greatest pleasure. They held me when Breyla’s delivery stretched into a twenty-seven-hour ordeal, massaging every muscle to help me relax. And when I wanted to give up, they refused to let me fall. Then they held our baby girl as she came screaming into this world.
My heart cannot reconcile those hands with the ones from my visions—the ones that take the lives of thousands.
“Right here, darling. Make it quick. No one will suspect anything.” His deep timbre breaks through the fog, bringing me back to this moment.
“What do I tell our daughter?” My lips tremble, the thought of keeping this from Breyla nearly as painful as what I’m about to do.
“When she’s ready… you’ll tell her the truth. And that I love her—that I am proud of her. Tell her I’m so very sorry.”
“I will tell her, my love. When she’s ready.”
“Gen, the council will force you to remarry to maintain the throne.”
“I know,” I whisper. “I don’t want to think about that right now.”
“It has to be Aurelius,” he says definitively. “I trust no one else with my kingdom or my wife.”
“I couldn’t possibly marry?—”
“You can and you will. You must survive this.”
I meet his hazel eyes one last time and whisper, “Until the very end.”
“Until the very end,” he echoes as I slip the blade into his head.
It only takes moments for the light to fade from his eyes.
His body goes limp in my arms.
And my heart dies in that bed with him.
CHAPTER ONE
BREYLA
After death, when the heart has ceased beating, the body will occasionally continue breathing. The chest rises and falls for several minutes after the heart has stopped, making it appear as though the deceased is still alive. It doesn’t always happen, but the first time you witness it is one of the most morbidly intriguing experiences.
It’s the postmortem motions of my mother’s chest that I see every time I close my eyes. The way her blue eyes glazed over and dimmed. The life leaving her, despite the rhythmic rise and fall of her chest for several long, tormenting minutes.
Dead bodies aren’t foreign to me, but nothing could prepare me for holding my mother as she passed from this world. The sorrow of losing my father had clung to me, my shadows feeling the heavy weight of my pain, but nothing compares to watching the light fade from her eyes as Aurelius stopped her heart. The same poison that claimed Nameah and Layne claimed her, too.
And I wish it had taken me with her.
