Ashes, Reborn

They warned me.

They said grief makes fools of witches.

That once you open the door between life and death, you don't get to choose what walks through it.

But I never cared for warnings.

Only for him.

---

I left his blade in the earth, upright and untouched. A marker. A promise. His name, carved into stone with my own blood.

Lucien.

It still hurts to say it out loud.

He'd told me once — on a night when our bodies were more tangled than our souls — that love was a spell no one survives.

He was right.

Because I survived.

And I haven't been alive since.

---

There's an old ritual. Forbidden, buried beneath ash and war.

You need a piece of the body.

You need blood.

And you need to offer something of equal worth.

I had the ashes from the clothes he died in. I had the blood. Mine. His. Mixed in the soil where we kissed last.

What I didn't have…

Was anything I wasn't willing to give.

---

I cast the circle beneath the lunar eclipse. Naked. Shaking.

The air turned cold. The trees held their breath.

I whispered his name once.

Then again.

Then again, louder, until my throat was raw and the magic cracked the sky open.

Lightning kissed the stones.

My runes lit up like fever.

And then… something stepped through.

---

It wasn't him. Not at first.

It was a shape. Tall. Shadowed. Covered in smoke.

Then it breathed.

I knew that sound.

His chest, once still, moved with effort. Slow. Painful.

"Lucien," I whispered, crawling to him, tears burning down my cheeks.

He fell to his knees.

Then to mine.

His mouth opened, but no words came. Just a sound — rough and desperate.

I kissed him.

Hard. Messy. Real.

He trembled in my arms like he was being reborn one cell at a time.

"I brought you back," I cried against his lips.

His eyes opened.

Blood red. Sharp.

But familiar.

"Why?" he rasped.

"Because I love you," I choked.

---

And then he took me.

Not gently.

Like a storm that had waited too long to touch land.

He slammed me to the altar stones, mouth hungry, hands shaking as they ripped into my hair, my thighs, my hips. I arched beneath him, sobbing into his shoulder as he entered me — no words, no warning, just raw need.

It wasn't sex.

It was a resurrection.

Every thrust carved him deeper back into the world. Every moan from my throat pulled his soul tighter into his body.

I cried out his name. Over. And over.

"Lucien—!"

He came with a growl, like something feral leaving his lungs, his hands digging into me like he was afraid he'd disappear again.

Afterward, we lay together on the cold stone.

He stared at the stars like he didn't recognize them.

I held him, and I whispered, "You're safe now."

---

But he didn't answer.

Not really.

Because Lucien wasn't whole.

And I had known the cost before I began.

---

Three days later, he vanished.

Not into smoke.

Into shadow.

Into the places between death and memory.

I searched everywhere. Called him with every binding spell. Every trace of magic we'd ever shared.

Nothing.

Only silence.

Only the echo of his breath on my skin and the phantom ache between my legs where he once lived like fire.

---

I burned the altar. I broke the stones.

And I whispered one last truth into the flames:

"I loved you enough to defy death."

"But I don't know if you loved me enough to stay."

---

If you ever return, I'll be waiting.

But I won't raise you again.

Because once was for love.

Twice would be for madness.

And I already lost everything once.

---

End of Arc