Undying Hate | Book Three

Thirty-three | Oasis

Sylvie floated in and out of consciousness. A melody echoed in her head repeatedly, and soon out of delirium, she hummed it. For hours and hours until she didn't know if she was awake or asleep.

Alive or dead.

Perhaps she wanted to be dead. Then she could talk to him again. 

Why wouldn't the song stop? Usually, if she sang or hummed the earworm-song burrowing in her mind, it would cease, but this time her mind was filled with noise. 

Constant, tinkling, lyricless noise.

Elias lay still beneath her, wrapped in the tight embrace of the earth and roots of the trees that surrounded their home. Footsteps paced around them, the dull sound matching the beat of her heart.

Perhaps everything would be dull now that he was gone. Now and again, they would try speak to her. Try to coax her from the earth, but she only blocked her ears.

She wouldn't leave him. She wished they would just leave her alone.

Sylvie?

Rowan's beast spoke to her in the mind link forcing more tears to fall past her waterline. She had been so selfish with him. He was injured, too, and she just left him.

I'm sorry, Rowan. I wish I didn't have to leave you.

I'm right here, Sylvie. I'll stay right here with you until you're ready to come home.

She shuddered and buried her hands in her hair. It was too much. She couldn't do it...

What if I can't come back? I can't - I can't live without him, Rowan.

The cocoon shrouding them bent inward like someone was leaning on it from the outside. Was that him?

Whatever you decide, I'll be here. I love you, Sylvie. I won't make you choose.

She wept. Why was he so understanding?

I don't deserve you.

Don't say that.

She lay down and resumed her wordless humming with nothing more to say.

Time began a meaningless construct in her grief. 

The only signal of time passing was the gradual loss of Elias' body temperature. 

Laying against him now was like climbing inside a refrigerator. She didn't know the decomposition process for Vampires, so she had nothing to compare the experience with. 

With each degree colder, though, it was harder to deny what had happened. 

He was gone. 

And she didn't even get to say goodbye. 

During their last interaction, he was mad at her. She had lied to him, and now she'd never get to apologise.

"What will you sacrifice?" A voice asked from inside the cocoon of her making. Sylvie jerked and blinked in the darkness. Was she asleep?

"What?"

There was silence for a long time, and she almost wrote it off to exhausted delusions when a breathy voice asked again.

"What will you sacrifice?"

It was hard not to voice the raging thoughts the question invoked. Sylvie bit her lip and slowed her inner monologue, trying to find a suitable answer if she was speaking to the Fates.

She wanted to scream until her throat bled about how she'd done enough. She'd sacrificed her morals, killed people for the Fates, and still, they wanted more.