Lucian Nightshade's Arc

Chapter 1 of 5

For three hundred years Lucian Nightshade had killed men without a word. Tonight his hands shook over a woman's name. He pressed a small box into his coat pocket and walked faster through the dark garden. The ring inside had a tall, jagged stone and black filigree. He had carried it for a month. He had never found the courage to open it. Lilith Ravencroft waited under the candlelit arches, her black dress pooling on the stone. She was the mortal woman he adored, blond and pale, with blue eyes that always seemed to be searching him for proof. Lucian had brought her here many nights. Each time he said nothing of his heart. Each time she left a little colder. "You asked me to come," she said. She did not smile. "You always ask me to come. Then you stand there like one of these statues." Lucian opened his mouth. Old silence pressed back. For centuries he had hidden everything, because what he hid could get her killed. But his silence was killing something else. "I am leaving Duskwood," Lilith said. She turned toward the gate. "I can't love a man who shows me nothing." The word love cracked him open. "Don't go." His voice came rough, unused for this. She stopped but did not face him. He crossed the stones and stood close. "I have never said this to anyone. In three hundred years, no one. I am saying it to you." She turned. Candlelight shook across her face. "Saying what?" "That I love you." The words came out plain and bare. "That I count the hours until you walk through that gate. That I have carried something for a month because I cannot picture a single night without you." Her lips parted. Her eyes filled. "Then why the silence? Why make me beg?" "Because I was afraid." He took the box from his coat. He opened it. The stone caught the candle flames and threw blue light across her hands. "Marry me, Lilith." She stared at the ring. A tear slid down and dropped onto the dark stone floor. For a moment Lucian felt his dead heart wait like a living thing. "Yes," she whispered. "Yes. God, yes." She pressed into his chest. Her warmth soaked through his cold shirt. He held her and felt something he had not felt in centuries. Hope. Then her hand found his wrist. Her fingers stilled on his skin. "Lucian," she said slowly. She looked up. The joy in her face had thinned into a question. "You have no pulse." He froze. Her hand stayed on his wrist, pressing, waiting for a beat that would never come. The silence he had broken had led her straight to the one truth he could not speak.