Page 118 of White Raven (Nevermore Duet #2)

It was strange…this life. This life that had seen things. Done things. This life that had left things behind…

What seemed like a lifetime ago, Death had showed its face to him, and he’d become enamored by it.

Was it so unreasonable to believe that he’d entranced Death as well?

It followed him throughout his human life, and well into immortality.

It had bargained with him and whispered songs of notoriety…

the price? His very sanity. What would have happened if he’d only convinced her to smite him with his boyish legs dangling below him as she’d held him against that wall that cold, blustery night?

He had told all the stories she’d asked him to, and then some.

They only listened to them long after he’d disappeared into the shadows, warring with Death, while simultaneously clutching its hand.

What an extraordinary life.

What an extraordinary death.

What a wondrous tale…

What a beautiful woman.

What a fitting end.

He recalled seeing this sad figure standing over a grave being filled with freezing dirt.

A lone, empty being, void with purpose, and slowly dying of a shattered heart.

It was a divine subject for a new story.

A birdlike stone was placed over the earth, and a single tear fled that man’s icy stare.

He didn’t know the woman buried beneath.

But Death had visited this man too, and he saw a glimpse of himself in this raven-haired soul.

The man had turned to look at him when the bird cawed from a hollow tree.

His own soul had connected somehow, though at the time… he didn’t understand why.

Now…it was simple. How Death and Fate were the most coy of brothers, and how they toyed with mortal souls through The Veil.

He watched through the same pair of eyes now…from the same hollow tree. His only daughter holding tight to the same man. They stood at the same grave all these years later…the final chapter in this story…and the beginning of a new one.

Mary Kane…

So that was her name.

The death of a beautiful woman was perhaps the most poetic topic in all the world.

He watched as that man kissed the lips of the only family he’d truly ever had…

the little girl who was now a woman, whom he’d never known how to love.

She was so beautiful. So dark and enchanting.

The smiles on their faces…he envied them.

Envied the truth of how she’d never know that he’d always be here this way to see how the story ended.

Or if it never did at all. He called out her name, and when she turned her face towards him, it was stricken in awe and pride.

“Athan…he said my name!”

They turned from the grave, and he leapt for her outstretched arm, landing gently on it as she nearly cried with happiness.

Perhaps he didn’t have to be envious after all.

She was happy. Alive. Eternally young and filling the dark places he’d seen in the man beside her—the man who’d helped to bring his tortured soul some peace.

His heart leapt with joy he’d never felt…

…And across the ocean…

…In the ‘New World’…

Beneath carefully placed boards in the floor of a townhouse he used to call home…another heart leapt in joy…beating in time with the bird on her arm…

…Tattooed on her wrist…

…Inked into her mate’s breast…

Footsteps and voices echoed questions about how lonely he must have been…how lost his mind was…how they wished he didn’t have to write of a love never felt before…

…Quoth the Raven…

“Nevermore.”