Page 160 of Eternal Obsession

Silent witnesses, the stones reflected the dawn’s rays, mirroring light off their surface. Daylight thundered over the ground, illuminating the vampiric necropolis, rendering the immortals into ash as it announced its arrival in its predictable orgulous fashion.

Quiet befell Stonehenge.

It was as though the circle of vast ancient stones wept in silence. The air so cold, so heavy with grief, that even the sacred site mourned.

Stillness.

Every leaf, every creature seemed to bow beneath the weight of sorrow.

Back at Leeds’ castle, I had completed the work. And she had risen, reawakened, as if from a dream.

Sunaria . . .

A cruel twist of fate, as one faded into shadow the other reborn, rising like a phoenix cloaked in brilliant blue and white light. A vision of perfection, with flowing dark hair and a form both powerful and graceful, she emerged like an ancient Egyptian queen rising out of darkness into the gleam of the candlelit room. Into the twenty-first century, as if she had always been destined to return.

Sunaria stood before me, unclothed, yet unashamed, radiating a quiet, fearless pride. I averted my eyes with careful courtesy.

I left her in solitude for a time, venturing swiftly to gather what was needed, and returned to her soon after.

I had uncovered Jacob’s old clothes, worn, yes, yet still modern, a white shirt and jeans that somehow fit her perfectly. Over them, I draped a cape, a relic from my past, a shield against the cold, and at least one thing in the strange new world she would recognize.

And for a long time, she stood there, seething and yet relieved, glaring at me.

To placate her, I had told Sunaria how Jadeon had come for her ashes in order to revive her and return her to Orpheus.

I warned her he was innocent in all of this. That I was the one to carry the burden of her delayed revival.

A thousand questions clawed at her mind, each one sharp, insistent. How had she awoken here, in this strange, unfamiliar world? Her eyes fell upon objects that seemed both ordinary and impossible—modern artifacts, alien in their purpose, yet hauntingly familiar. She drank them in, trying to decipher, to understand, to make sense of a reality not her own. Born anew and yet cast into a time and existence utterly unlike the one she had known.

No words, no threats, could bind her to this place, yet to imprison her here was beyond my nature, that was never my way. Her voice trembled, fragile against the slow mending of her vocal cords, yet the horror of what had been done to her, sealed her lips. I too reached for words of comfort, but even I found silence, struck by the dreadful, terrifying creature that stood before me. She was as ancient as she was malevolent, a darkness that had endured through centuries. For a long time, she lingered in the shadowy corner of the chamber, eyes turned away, body still, consumed by a single, unrelenting desire—the moment she could be with him once more.

I stepped toward her. “What can I give you to persuade you to stay?”

Finally, she found her voice, and it curled like silk, dark and sensual, winding through the chamber like smoke. “You have given me life, ancient one, otherwise you too would be dead.”

When darkness draped the castle in its velvet shroud, I had commanded her that her eyes be veiled, as I tied them with silk, so that no glimpse could lead her back.

I set her free far from Leeds.

Sunaria had flown toward the stones, her full form perfect and uncompromising. Orpheus had projected the images of his warring partner, and she had recognized Jadeon’s face. Sunaria had recalled the last time she had seen him. He had been younger.

The mirage faded.

How does one make sense of finding their lost love only at the edge of life? Such cruel thoughts gnawed at Sunaria’s mind, turning their reunion into something sharp and bitter. They were so near—and yet it felt as though a thousand lifetimes had spilled into the silence between them.

She sensed time had passed but refused to fathom it. Approaching Stonehenge with fear in her throat. She vividly remembered her last moments of persecution on this hallowed ground and yet still drew nearer, anxious of what she would find. She scanned the horizon, confirming she was alone. On the very altar she had lain upon within the circle of pillars were mounds of ashes. Hours had passed since she had seen the vision of Orpheus and Jadeon struggling to the death.

She glanced at the stones knowing that her fate had meant to be here, but clearly, someone had interceded.

But who?

Who had saved her that night? The same person who had given her ashes to Snowstrom? The same person who would have known she would not be reawakened for centuries. To be reborn in such a fashion was like drinking from a chalice of dark poison, and yet with it a striking brilliance intertwining within her veins.

If everything she believed was happening to her, it was monstrous and glorious and terrible all at once.

Returning to this place stirred a storm of confusion and panic. A brutal reminder of all she had survived. But despite this, what lay between now and this site were decades of sleep, of non-existence, that enveloped her in a heady sense of impossibility, as if time itself had conspired to blur the lines between memory and myth.

Drawing close, she scooped a handful of cinders, allowing them to fall through her fingers, rejoining the others. And then she saw it—Orpheus’s signet ring, the one she had given him on the night of his rebirth. She picked up the band and slid it onto her left ring finger.