Please enjoy this little scene I wrote that would take place after the events of the book :)
The sun rose on Noctem, a place that had previously known nothing but night. The birds ceased their trilling and the foxes crawled backward into the lengthening shadows, their fast little hearts beating a solemn song. The roses in the stone church curled away from the windows, their soft, veiny petals burning in the light. Rabbits burrowed deeper into the soil and a murder of crows took to the air, winging toward the comfort of the retreating dark.
And from my temple of crumbling stone, I expected to feel the warmth of the dawn on my skin, but when at last the light touched me I felt absolutely nothing.
I lifted the golden crown from my head, something I never did, not even in sleep. Without its weight I felt much lighter than before, but not like a feather—like a shadow. I tilted it this way and that, watching the gems sparkle in the light. The sun cutting across the cold stone floor, I cast my eyes down, and only knew I wasn’t alone by the sound of footsteps approaching.
“It grows heavy, does it not?” The voice was familiar, as sweet as dark wine. “I could take it off your hands, if you’d like.”
My heart should have been thundering—but I didn’t hear it at all, and that was how I knew that something was not right. I looked up. A man stood before me, tall and thinner than I remembered. His face was gaunt; his shadow held a blood red tinge.
“Mr. Russo,” I said, and nodded my head politely. My palms began to sweat around the crown. “I fear it would sit heavier on you than on me.”
“Oh, Miss Dragotta. Grace. Are we not past these trite formalities?” Mr. Russo smiled and it was not kind. He gave a mocking bow. “Please, call me John. Or Hypnos, if it pleases you. Not quite my true name, but—close enough.”
I set my jaw, and clutched the crown to my chest. “Why have you come?”
“To see you. It’s been far too long.”
A gray dove flew quietly into the temple and landed on the stump of a pillar razed low by the rain and the wind. I swallowed, and pretended not to see him.
“Only seven years in mortal time,” I said. I had been counting every one. “But for you and I, it’s near to nothing.”
Mr. Russo laughed. The echo of it fell like the clang of a broken bell. “‘You and I,’ she says, as if we are the same. As if we are bound by one thread.” He stepped closer to me, and I trembled like the leaves of the vines touched in the breeze. “You are mortal, Grace Dragotta, and do not forget it. It is only that crown which ties you to this land, and keeps you from Death. Oh, and from Life as well, no? Tell me, my dear: Are you happy here? I know you, though you wish I did not. Yours is a heart meant to wander. Just because you can no longer see the edges of it does not mean you are not still confined to a cage.”
“Have you really come here only to wound and insult? You’ll find, Mr. Russo, I am not so easily brought down. I am still the one who wears the crown.”
Slowly, and staring at him all the while, I set that golden object of his desire back upon my head, the one place he would never be able to touch it. It was no heavier to bear than a beating human heart.
Mr. Russo’s cruel mouth softened, and he looked not so much like a force of nature as a lost and lonely creature, one who has forgotten what he fights for but only that he must fight. What would he do otherwise? Who would he be if he stopped gnashing his teeth?
After a moment he asked a most unexpected question. “You still love my brother?” he said, nearly whispered, as if afraid I wouldn’t tell him a most marvelous secret—even if he wept, even if he begged. He waited, patiently, for my answer.
Yes. But the word froze on the tip of my tongue. I looked to the dark bird perched so delicately on a vine, as still and as silent as a painting. He used to always hover nearby, but more and more he’d flown away for hours that stretched into days at a time. Where did he go, and why? But I could not follow, for I had no wings, so perhaps it was not for me to know. How much of the mortal man I had known was left behind those eyes?
Mr. Russo saw; he followed my gaze to the bird and back. He stepped very close to me, and cupped one hand around the nape of my neck. I didn’t move, and hardly breathed. My heart still made no sound.
“He is a ghost.” Mr. Russo’s fingers pressed into the softness just behind my jaw and below my ears. His grip was impossibly gentle, but strong. “He is spirit, and I am flesh.”
He leaned toward me, and the moment right before his lips touched mine—that was when I woke up.
