Page 15

DOLION

My world remained dark no matter how much I struggled to fight against my stone state.

She’s not gone. She’s not gone.

But my heart refused to believe anything but. The ache in my chest swallowed the grief that lay beneath the pain, though I knew it was there anyway. I’d seen the demoness cut her throat, watched my Steorra’s body fall as both life force and flame erupted from her, taking the world along with it.

And I retreated inside myself, taking my stone form as my heart stopped beating and refused to start once again.

My fallen star is gone.

And coward that I was, I couldn't make myself look to check for the pile of ash that would be swept away and face the rotting pile of flesh that Sebastian would have to fight alone, if he hadn’t already run from his maker.

The ruined creature that ended Ash’s life.

Hot tears tracked my cheeks, only they didn't belong to me. Because stone men didn’t cry.

Something told me that Ash would have an inappropriate comment for that, but I didn’t wait for another minute without her passing to find out. My eyes flung open before my arms reverted to their moveable state. I searched the graveyard for her and came up…

Empty.

Absolutely empty.

Every row was devoid of people, from what I could see from my immovable position in the center of the graveyard where I had placed myself between the demoness and the tiny fragment of family that is still claimed as some sort of home.

And inside the radius of the devastation the woman I loved would create when she died.

Tears that were mine joined the cooling ones already decorating my cheeks.

“Steorra,” I croaked, staring at the blackened ground that covered every available surface. Every single marble crypt, grave or stone was stained jet black, and ash embers, some still alight and glowing red or amber at the edges. “I am sorry.”

“I am not.” Soft, warm lips grazed the corner of mine in an undeniable touch that left me aching in a different way.

My skin warmed with her gentle breath on my cheek and the tears blurring my vision of her stunning face doubled. “You returned.”

“I did.”

“I thought you were dead.”

“I was.” Her arms embraced me as I folded over her, my stone retreating before I stiffed.

“Steorra. The demoness. Is she—” I wrapped an arm tight around her back, twisting about but the graveyard stood as empty as it had before.

“I do not know.” Ash pressed her body to mine, and for the first time, I detected the faintest tremor running through her body.

A shiver, not unlike the one from when she sobbed herself into a mess in my arms on the floor of the convent that night, covered in ash, rippled over her.

I crushed her against my body. “You’re exhausted. What do you remember?”

“I remember—" She stalled, and dark eyes rose to meet mine. “Dolion, I remember dying.”

I kissed her hard. “I left you. I was scared I’d wake and you would be gone,” I rasped against her mouth, drinking in the warmth of her, the way she softened beneath my touch and let me be rougher with her. “I was a coward."

“Because you thought I was gone and you lost love again?” She shook her head. “No, Dolion. You grieved. That is not cowardice. But I am here. And she is…” She shrugged. “I suppose she’s gone. I did not see anything beyond my own death. The blackness. The heat. The cold. After.”

I swallowed and squeezed her tight. Too tight. “The void, and the echoes of life within.”

She nodded against my chest. “Yes.”

I’d never told anyone what I heard within the stone.

The whispers she spoke of that night, admitted to hearing the dead talk to her in the quiet hours, the nuns of the past talking to her through the void in the moments when she merged with the places between…

that was what I also experienced in my stone state.

Sometimes, I hoped to hear Minette, but she had never spoken to me.

I never could identify the voices, only knew that the whispers were there and that the more I tried to listen, the harder the conversations were to hear.

And so they remained simply echoes within the void, the spaces between life and death where I existed in my stone state.

“I love you, Steorra,” I rasped, pressing my lips to her temple. “Whether the demoness is here or gone, I love you. I will fight for you. And I will not leave you again. Not ever.”

“I will burn for you forever,” she mumbled into my chest, soaking my skin with her fresh tears.

The remnants of my shirt hung draped around her face, both our bodies covered in a heavy coating of ash.

Surely the demoness couldn't possibly have survived her flame.

Nothing that hot, the way she gave all of herself…

“She has to be gone,” I whispered, prayed, begged .

“She is.” Tifa’s voice broke into my thoughts that consumed me.

I spun us around to face the witch and Sebastian. The vampire’s pale fade was drawn and closed. Dark eyes met mine, his mouth a tight line. “You know this how?”

“Because I watched. Every moment. Without blinking.” Tifa raised her jewel bright eyes to me, but not the witch’s gaze was as clouded as pale jade, the skin around her eyes reddened and burned.

She stared blindly in my direction, led by my voice alone, I believed.

“I did not take my eyes off the event, not even when you combusted. I watched every moment,” she repeated without blinking, staring unfocused at some point over my shoulder that I knew she couldn’t see. “She is gone. She cannot return.”

“Oh Tifa.” Ash placed a tentative hand on the other woman’s arm. “I am thankful as I am sorry.”

The witch turned her face in Ash’s direction. “I am not sorry. Now, we know. Now, you are all safe.” She smiled and leaned back into Sebastian’s arms, closing her eyes as tears ran from the corners.

Sebestian closed his arms around her, watching us over her head. After a moment, he led her away, along the silent row of graves until they disappeared behind a curtain of ash and embers.

“It’s over, Steorra.” I stroked her hair. “May I take you home?”

She shivered in my arms. “She has burned most of my clothes.” A frown decorated her perfect face, despite the dark smudges that marred her cheeks, and the thin scar that ringed her slender throat in a permanent scar. “Wait. You don’t have a home.”

I smiled. “Let me show you.”