Prologue

A cold wind whispered through the bare trees as night descended upon the frozen forest. The swirling snow danced in the moonlight, a curtain of white shrouding all from view. Within this realm of desolation, a solitary figure sat enshrouded in shadow, grasping desperately to the soul slipping from his arms.

His tears melted the snow around them, crimson streams flowing from his shattered heart.

"Why?" he cried with heart wrenching sob, "Why did you do this? Why?"

But she, his life, his heart, offered only a gentle smile through her grimace of pain. With failing strength, her fingers caressed his cheek, warmer than the snow around them but still cold as merciless death.

"I could not... couldn't let the darkness take... you," she breathed, each word laced with suffering as she spoke haltingly. "My promise was to... shield y.ou from... de... death's touch... whatever the cost. My... time has come. Our journey was... meant to be this... long only... may... maybe in... another life..." Her hand fell, and with it went the glow in her eyes, drowned in the depths of eternity.

A strangled roar rent the shadows as he clutched her closer still, denying the bleak truth. Around them, vague shadows stirred, bearing witness to his misery with downcast eyes and hearts weighed with lead. One approached and laid a hand upon his shoulder, heavy with sympathy. Another joined, touching him gently as a mother comforts a child. But no comfort could mend his shattered soul or nurse his bleeding heart. And so the icy forest echoed long into the night with the grief-stricken cries of a man alone in a world suddenly cold and dark without the sun he held now dead within his arms.