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ON THE MORNING OF HER IMPENDING DEATH, LIFE LOUNGED BENEATH a wisteria tree.
Life hoped that she would remember his hands, too. Not just how clever they were—as precise with an instrument or a paintbrush as they were with thread and needle—but how they melded against her body.
Fate was her summer sun—too intense for most to bear, while she tipped toward him like a flower, craving his touch.
Passion made people forget themselves. It kept them from feeling the change of seasons upon their skin or curling their toes into the grass. Passion stole their health. It made both time and families slip away as people lost themselves to their pursuits.
“I am not the only one in this world who matters, my love.” Fate’s fingers curled against her waist. “You are to me.”
Life had given up on fighting the inevitable. There could be no life without the experience of death, so what choice did she have but to let herself finally succumb?
Her soul would come back in a new vessel, and so long as she existed in some capacity, souls would continue to be made.
“She is my wife. You have taken from me everything that I’ve ever cherished, and I have never stood in your way. I have never asked you for anything. But I am asking you now, brother, to make an exception. You cannot take her from me.”
IT’S SAID THAT THE WISTERIA VINE IS A SYMBOL OF IMMORTALITY.
If the alleged prince decided he wanted to get married on an autumn morning at an hour when the sun hadn’t yet dried the dew on the moss, who was society to question him?
But to secure Elijah’s safety after he was falsely accused of murder, Blythe Hawthorne had spilled her blood upon a golden tapestry and bound herself to Aris—to Fate—for the remainder of her years. She even had a glowing band of light on her ring finger to show for it, the golden hue so faint that it was nearly invisible to the eye.
Everything in her body ached to flee from Death’s presence, and yet… he was the one Signa had chosen. Blythe would never understand why, but if Signa was happy and Elijah was free, then all was well in the world.
“Hello, love.” Aris may have whispered the words, but his voice was a weapon that slipped through Blythe’s skin and struck to the hilt. “I hoped you wouldn’t make it.” She squeezed his hand, forcing her own smile onto a face she hoped looked half as vicious as his. “I wouldn’t have missed this for the world, my darling. Though do feel free to divorce me tomorrow.”
Had her cousin also struck a bargain with Fate? It seemed that he was unable to harm her, and Blythe’s realization came in the form of a baleful laugh as she drew chest-to-chest with Aris.
Aris shot Blythe a dark look that halted her laughter before it could escape. She cleared it from her throat and said sincerely, “I will marry him, and I will love him even more when he is sick.”
“Hello, wife,” Aris spat, voice too low for anyone else’s ears.
It was not a ring but a shackle. One, it seemed, that neither she nor Aris would be escaping any time soon.
After all they’d survived, it felt as though they’d shared a lifetime together.
Only Blythe could feel how greatly he deflated in Signa’s presence, and while she did not favor Aris, she did pity him. Aris believed Signa to be the reincarnation of the woman he’d spent centuries searching for; he believed her to be Life, the only person Aris had ever loved. And Signa would never be his.
Leave it to the girl in love with Death to be optimistic about Blythe being bound to Fate.
“I can’t kill her,” Fate corrected in a flat monotone. “You saw to that when you made me vow not to hurt her. It’s no matter, though, as her pathetic human life will soon pass and one day I shall build my bed atop her bones and sleep soundly for the rest of eternity.”
“It’s marriage, Father, not murder.”
“Do not make yourself small. Do not change yourself to suit him. Teach him how to treat you, and remember that you deserve everything this life has to offer.”
“I despise you.” “I loathe you, too, darling. Now get walking.”
What a fool she’d been to have ever put that idea into the universe.
The unfortunate truth is that the world doesn’t work that way. Not every genius will be appreciated, and too many amateurs will get the attention that others deserve.”
“I despise our marriage. The wedding in question was called off once the groom realized that his betrothed had been scrumping his brother. I did everyone a favor by taking this cake off their hands.”
Sometimes, like when he’d rescued a young kit during the Wakefields’ fox hunt several months prior, it seemed there might be an honorable man beneath that rigid demeanor. And yet she couldn’t forget how he’d tried to manipulate her, or how easily he was able to coerce a person’s mind into believing whatever he desired.
“Is everyone who lives here a monster?” Blythe asked.
She should have recognized who it was the moment she saw the white hair—Life.
Since around the time of Charlotte and Everett’s wedding, Blythe had been plagued with visions of a faceless man whose laughter could ignite an inferno within her and whose touch she burned for. Never had such a person existed, and yet it always felt so real. Like the ghost of someone Blythe had spent her entire life waiting to meet.
Blythe did not stop until she’d made it back to her room, the memory of Life’s laughter still ringing in her head.
In fact, this war between us has become rather like a game, and I do so love to win.
“Each color is an emotion. Together they tell a story, because that’s all that a life really is—a series of feelings and emotions that draw a person toward action or inaction.” What a horribly clinical definition.
“The man this tapestry belongs to will lead a content life. Nothing special, though he’ll live well into his years and will die at peace.” By the monotone of Aris’s voice, one might think that he was telling her this man would suffer a great curse and die in a tragic accident. “You speak as though that isn’t an admirable achievement in itself,” Blythe said. “Is it so wrong to have a simple life that makes you happy?”
“Just as Death does not choose when people die, I do not choose how they live,” Aris argued. “I write their story as it’s shown to me, and that is the way of things. It matters not if someone is cruel or kind. It makes no difference whether they deserve the life that they get. Once a soul tells me its story, I do not alter it. I do not embellish. I give it the fate I foresee, nothing more, nothing less.”
Whatever story he’d woven for her, she had defied. “You are an anomaly, aided by Death’s hand.”
“Your tapestry,” he began, the words soft at first, though each one grew progressively more biting, “is one of the most hideous abominations I have ever seen.”
Curtains. Finally, the brute had given her curtains.
“Fate may want you to give up,” Death said, “but he won’t go as far as to kill you.”
Though she would have loved to believe that Signa was not the reincarnation of Life, how else could Blythe explain watching Signa raise a horse from the dead?
The man was more than capable of love; he was fueled by it. Who else would remain in search of his wife for so many centuries?
Blythe had never believed in the paranormal, but in the past year, she had come to accept that Death was real, her cousin was a reaper, and her husband the embodiment of fate itself. How quickly she had adapted to such a bizarre life.
Blythe supposed this was why, as much as she’d loved fairy stories, she’d never believed in true love. Aris believed he’d found his soul mate, but in another life, that person had fallen in love with a different man.
Something about Aris’s anger and the burn in her belly felt familiar. Almost… expected.
“Burn as brightly as the sun if you wish, Aris, but I will not look away.”
“Life once said that very thing to me,” he told her eventually, which was fortunate given that Blythe had lost her voice. “It was during our first true argument, so long ago that I’d nearly forgotten.”
“I am tired of fighting with you, Aris.” “And I am tired of listening to you fight.”
“I’ve never known anything but my magic. Using it is just a part of what I am.” “Don’t you mean who you are?” Blythe corrected. “What you are is Fate, certainly, but you’re more than what you do.”
Fresh grass in December. Such a peculiar sight that she wondered if perhaps she was once again seeing things.
