Chapter Twenty-Eight
Dorian
Rain.
It was raining that night when I first took Esme to her bed. I guess it was only fitting that it was raining at the end.
Stupid.
I wished I had the power to bring back life from the hands of death, only so I could tell her how stupid her decision was to end her life to save mine.
It’d been a week since that night.
A week since I watched her eyes gloss over and that bright light inside them vanish, while her last words called for her brother Eli, as if she could see him coming to retrieve her for the afterlife.
My eyes drifted toward the crowd opposite me, staring at the black casket between us.
They did this to her. The so-called heroes. The women were crying, and their men were consoling them as best as they could in the situation. Phillip was looking off into the distance, as he had been the whole time, not ready to accept his choices. He let her die. He saw it coming, as did I, and he straddled that line to make sure it happened.
For what future? The one where I would fall for her, and suddenly give up my fight against them? Join their team? He gambled wrong, and Esme paid for it with her life.
I was ready to die.
For centuries I’d trained, becoming a master at battle, so that one day I could best the infamous general of ancient Greece. But I failed.
He would always be the brawn in our fray.
But I was smarter.
A hand touched my shoulder, and I looked next to me to see a sobbing Melissa Ann trying to comfort me.
She was wasting her touch.
Esme was gone, and nothing could bring her back. No amount of comforting touches was going to change that.
Rage burned inside me, and my eyes landed on Draco.
They did this.
And they would pay.
She should never have been a part of their society; they should have left her alone.
I should have left her alone.
Everyone rose at the pastor’s urging, and a young woman came up to the stand, bringing the microphone close to her mouth, singing out a song of being at peace, and celebration of parting ways.
Her parents cried together with the music, knowing they were burying their last child.
Esme had everything planned for her funeral, knowing she wasn’t going to live that long if she kept using her gift. I knew she hadn’t planned on this, though—falling for the villain. In the end, it destroyed her.
One by one, people walked over to her closed casket and placed an object on top of it. The thought was silly, especially since there was no taking materials with you after you died.
Still, when it was my turn to say goodbye, I couldn’t help reaching into my coat pocket and pulling out the metal. I placed two obol coins from my ancient home over her casket, to pay her way across the river, even though it had long dried up.
I stared down, envisioning her wearing a soft blue dress, much like the one she wore to the gala.
My hand reached back down in my pocket and rubbed my fingers against the other item I couldn’t bring myself to leave at home.
