Page 3 of The Book Reader
The last image is of her lying face up in the River Irise, in Alikni, a little sandy town topside.
She was naked, bruises covering her body in dark black and blue patches. She had slashes over her pale skin as if someone had tried to cut parts of her flesh off. Her head was at a funny angle from it being almost severed.
I had to pull her out of the river and carry her back to our home.
Every step was so painful. I didn’t want to go back to a house that she wasn’t in, to rooms no longer filled with laughter, to our cold bed where she would no longer be waiting for me, ready to show me how much she loves me.Lovedme.
My feet carried me home as if they knew I couldn’t keep going. I fell to my knees on the floor as soon as my feet crossed the threshold.
Cradling My Rose in my arms, tears falling silently down my face, I was too broken to make any sound.
No one was going to hear me anyway.
I held her for hours, but when my rage started to creep in, I shimmered us back here, to the Underworld and my realm, and buried her in the marshlands, next to the lake she loved so much.
“My lord?”
My eyes open, and a tear slides down my cheek. The memories are almost too much at times. I look up to see Mark still there, and he is looking at me with so much sympathy that I feel I could break apart right now.
My tears usually fall when I am alone.
A lord in the Underworld is meant to be strong.
“I shall see you later,” my voice downcast as I stand and shimmer to the place she rests.
The two moons are shining brightly in the sky, their glow hitting the ground and making that dark, sad place a little brighter.
A stone grave sits next to the lake, a few feet from the shoreline. She always loved to sit here and tell me all the things she pictured for our life. The future she saw for us both.
None of it ever involved her dying.
My steps are slow and deliberate, my feet sinking into the soft, wet ground.
Trees line the edges of the marshlands, grass filling the gap between them and the lake.
She always said this is the best view to see both moons fully.
I stop in front of her headstone. I’ve left its nameless because I didn’t want any daemons coming here and digging up her body in hopes they may get to her book of power. They don’t know that the book protects itself; hides until she is old enough to not only control it, but to fight with it.
The book keeps her protected, hiding her from the world until it can bond with her.
That’s the moment I hate the most, when it decides she is ready, her scent is so sweet, that any daemon close knows who she is.
I shake those thoughts off. I don’t need to worry about that right now.
Shimmering a black rose to my left hand I place it on top of her gravestone as I go to my knees in front of it. “I’m so fucking sorry.” Tears stream down my cheeks, pain threatening to choke me like it does every day.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t keep you safe. I miss you so much. There is no happiness without you.”
Thunder cracks in the distance and rain starts to pour down heavily around me. My shoulders jerk up and down with my sobs; my right-hand fists, I punch it hard into the ground. I break the first level of dampened grass and soaking wet dirt, the mud molding around my hand, tethering me to the ground where she lies beneath me. A cry full of despair is ripped violently from my throat and echoes over the field,
It’s in these moments that my soul knows no greater anguish.
Chapter 2
ARIANNA - 2020
“You locked your door, Hitch?”
