White Roses, Black Doves

A hunger through time-18

The silence in the room was not the silence of sleep, but the heavy, suffocating quiet of a tomb. I drifted above the canopy of the four-poster bed, my form translucent and shivering like smoke. Below me, the bedchamber was a ruin. The mahogany wardrobe was splintered, the fine lace curtains torn to ribbons, and the air was thick with the copper tang of blood.

And there, pale and still against the velvet sheets, lay my own body. My eyes were fixed on the ceiling, the light long since extinguished from them.

Cornelius was on his knees amidst the wreckage. His clothes were shredded, his hands stained a deep, horrifying crimson. He was sobbing—a sound so jagged and raw it felt like it was tearing the very fabric of the spirit world. He screamed curses at the ceiling, his body convulsing as he smashed a marble bust against the hearth, his fingers bleeding, his face a mask of absolute, shattering agony. The haze that had clouded his eyes during the murder had cleared, leaving only the hellish lucidity of what he had done.

The bedroom door burst open. My father stood there, his face ashen, his hands shaking as he took in the c*****e.

"Lucy!" Cornelius roared, his voice cracking with a terrifying, synthetic venom. He pointed a trembling, bloodied finger toward the hallway. "She did this! She cast the rot into my mind! She used her dark arts to turn my own hands against the only soul I have ever loved!"

I watched, unseen, as guards and servants dragged Lucy from the shadows of the corridor. She did not fight them. She did not deny it. She was laughing—a high, shrill, melodic sound of pure, unadulterated triumph. Even as she was hauled away toward the iron gates of the asylum, her eyes locked onto Cornelius’s, her smile wide and vacant, as if she were savoring the absolute destruction she had orchestrated.

Once the room was cleared, the silence returned, heavier than before. Cornelius crawled toward the bed. He climbed up, careful not to disturb the stillness of my frame, and curled himself around me. He pulled a heavy, antique ruby necklace from his pocket—a stone that pulsed with a faint, rhythmic heat.

"I bound us, my love," he whispered, his tears falling onto my cold skin. "I promised you eternity. Not even death can hold me to this side of the veil."

He fastened the necklace around my neck. The moment the clasp clicked, a searing line of light flared between my spirit form and my physical heart. It was a tether—a magical, jagged promise that death could not sever. He kissed my lips, a lingering, desperate act of worship, his breath hitching against my lifeless mouth. I could feel it though I could feel his lips on mine.

"I will find you," he vowed, his eyes burning with the manic resolve of a man who had nothing left to lose. "In this life, in the next, and in every wretched century that follows. I will hunt for your soul until I have earned my place beside you. I will not live in a world where you are not breathing."

He stood then, with the eerie grace of a man who had already departed. He fashioned a noose from the torn remnants of the bed hangings, his movements precise and devoid of hesitation. He looked at my body one last time, his expression one of terrifying peace.

As the life slipped from him, I felt the pull—a magnetic, violent sensation as our souls were yoked together, dragged into the abyss. We were no longer husband and wife, nor killer and victim. We were two fractured spirits, bound by blood, magic, and a promise that spanned the breadth of existence, plunging into the dark, waiting for the cycle to begin anew.