Where the Light No Longer Follows (Blue Fairytales, #3)

by Wendy Heiss

But then Silene had always found more colour in dying than living.

“We can still love things that don’t love us back.”

After so long in her duty as a Reaper, Silene knew for certain that if love was all it took to save someone, they’d all be eternal.

“Because remaining to see and not be able to touch what your heart burns to have is worse than leaving them behind.

Yearning was a disease with a cure. Those strong enough would survive it. They’d conquer it.

But Silene wanted to vanish. She wanted her being to be erased from existence. She longed to feel herself disappear, to suspend into nothingness, to be so light from memories and existence itself that time would carry her so easily afloat into someplace where she was between nowhere and nothing.

Truth was, Gabriel was afraid to love anything at all. The only way he’d ever loved had been from afar.

But Gabriel had been born with a penchant for pain—he wanted to ache only so he didn’t feel like matter, like something only capable of floating.

“I was more afraid of living. It is such a burden we are given. Life is such a burden.”

“To keep living is a burden when you find no meaning in it, to keep watching years go by as you rot away body and soul with the only thing that could hurt you intact all the way through. If I’d lost my mind, it might have been easier. It would have been a kindness, you know, for you to have granted me that at least.”

Gabriel had not once kneeled before anything or anyone, king nor queen, God or Goddess, but for whatever he’d done to deserve her hate, he wanted to kneel before her and beg.

“Sweet dreams, my ruin,” he murmured.

she looked at where Death stood almost every morning and all nights, staring at the bright gates of life across the river, waiting for the human woman who he’d left his heart with to sail through them and back into his arms.

awe

If anything, Silene had found it hard not to love, for she had been made with a heart so able, a heart that forgave all faults and saw no wrong, a heart that justified those that hurt it.

:(

Silene did not know who she was without pain, and she was afraid—Silene was afraid that if she didn’t remember the violence, she would forget who she was. Silene was afraid to live without remembering the pain. She was afraid that she might forgive herself for what she had done.

“You look pretty in yellow.”

“There was this one bargain I once made. In exchange for what I wanted, I had to give her up. The only way I could have her at all was if she wanted me to have her. I kept waiting for her to call for me, to ask for me, to want me. It was something unrequited in the end.”

“At first, I hoped that if I waited, I might begin to matter more to you. Only for you to matter more to me in the end.”

“Anything, you could make anything out of nothing. You gave more life to things than I ever could. Simply by touching them. You were magnificent. The rarest thing I’d laid my eyes upon,”

“Beg,” she said, spinning to him. “Get on your knees and beg for it. Maybe I will consider it.”

Instead of the anger and refusal she expected to be flashed, the God was struggling to hold back a smile as he took his hands out of his pockets and went down to his knees before her.

Ahhh

The way he said her name, how every letter left his lips bewitched the very air she inhaled, almost leaving her heaving.

“You smell like heaven.”

“No one,” he said in an almost whisper, “no one deserves that heart. I forbid you to offer it to anyone.”

“Smart little creatures humans are. To know of their worth. But wretched, for what they don’t deserve, they have sought to ruin.”

“You’re so beautiful, Silene. I wanted someone to think you’re mine. Anyone. Even if only briefly.”

“My taunting eidolon, my lovely apparition, my beautiful phantom,” he murmured as a wet drop fell against the glass frame. “How many more nights must I mourn you?”

“All things die, Silene. All living things wish they could die by gentle hands. This rose will have the gentlest, kindest death of all. A mercy to wither in your hold.”

Her shadow was touching his. The tip of her finger traced his silhouette on the stone. “You’re the only thing that doesn’t die by my touch.”

He lifted a hand, letting the cast of its shadow graze hers, the tips of their fingers meeting. “And you’re the only thing that dies by mine.”

Her eyes roamed all over his face, and she realised why she found so much comfort in his eyes—skies, seas, lakes and rivers, it’s what they reminded her of.

“So sweet, my ruin, you smell so sweet.”

Silene had never thought…she’d never thought she’d wanted to belong to someone. Someone who made her feel so light, so warm, who made her smile, who’d comforted her, who circled around her like the sun itself. Someone who had given sense to wind and rain, to rocks and clouds. Someone who made the entire world disappear for her.

my heart :(

“You’re Silene. My beautiful Silene with the gentlest, kindest hands. It wasn’t the violence that made you gentle, my ruin, it wasn’t the violence that softened you. You were kind and soft and gentle despite it. You won over all. In spite of all, you won. They could not change you, nor your heart—your kind, gentle heart. What they could not change they hurt.

these WORDS have me in an absolute chokehold

“Do you know what I’ve done tonight, my ruin, to have just one moment with you, like this? The waters I’ve poisoned, the air I’ve stolen, the stars I’ve bewitched, the Gods I’ve lied?”

Their limbs had tangled with one another's, her fingers grasping his hair and his grasping hers as they kissed like two stars merging. She could not touch him enough and nor could he.

AHHH

“I couldn’t think of a better way to vanish and leave nothing behind. Just like this. In your arms. Being held by you. It would be a dream. The dreams of dreams.

Something akin to an earthquake raked his body when she pressed a hand to the window and gave him something he had not imagined her ever giving him even in his wildest dreams—a smile so radiant she could outshine any sun.

awe (':

Tears streaked down his face as he leaned in, too, wishing he could love closely without hurting those he loved.

fuck *sobs*

What will happen after…with you…and me?” “You will be reborn.” “And you?” “I will get to watch you live.” “Will I see you?” “No, my ruin, to your luck you won’t. But I will be there. In the sun, the flame of a candle, city lights and every single moon beam. I will always be with you.”

“What if you can’t find me again?” “I’m never losing you again, Silene. I will rake through every world I know to find you. You will not see me, you will not remember me, but I will be there, you have my word.

My beautiful, beautiful demise, live long and well.

I love you.

“You are so beautiful. You are so beautiful to me.”

And once again, he’d be a stranger to her, and she’d be the creation he’d beheld with such violent hands.