In love, the word mercy does not exist.
She dies in the rain, as she usually does.
Just like the first time, she died. And the second. And the sixteenth.
But in this lifetime, she dies knowing nothing about him. Not even a little bit of memory of him. She didn't say any final words. There was just confusion in her eyes, and blood on her hands.
He kneels beside her, he is trembling, as the storm drowns out the noises of the world they were living in.
"Eliane," he whispers to her while cradling her broken body. "Please… Not this again."
Her lips tremble. She tries to speak. But her lungs were already full of blood, and he knows… he knows that there's no spell that can stop this now. He despises fate for it was the reason that he was late.
He touches her face, brushing the wet hair from her cheeks like he used to. Like she used to let him.
"My dear, it's me," he says in a gentle voice. "Do you remember…. me?"
Her eyebrows show movement. However… Not in recognition. But in fear.
She looked at him like he was a stranger.
And in that short moment, he… becomes one.
He doesn't scream.
He's done screaming.
He just lowered his head to match against hers, he was rocking her slowly, his magic was weakening like dying embers across his skin.
"How cruel. I told you I'd find you again. And I did, I always do."
The thunder cracks. The sky tears in grief with him.
His voice was soft like he was talking to her, even as the world began to unravel around him and his most precious.
"But… they keep taking you from me. Over and over. I am so sick of this."
He leans in, softly presses his lips to her blood-slick forehead.
"So I will take something back."
The moment her last breath leaves her body, something ancient inside him breaks and leaks out.
He stands while carrying his lover. The entire forest shakes in his wake.
He raises one hand, and the magic pours out like a dam shattering. It was wild. Unforgiving. Screaming.
The trees near him began to wither. The birds fall silent. The stars flicker and die behind the storm.
Auren closes his eyes.
"Remember this," he says to the gods.
"Next time, I will not beg for her to remember. I will not wait on your so-called fate. I will not hope for something that you use to toy with me."
"I will build a world with my bare hands where she cannot leave me."
"Even if I must burn the rest of it down."
When the bodies turned to ash and the forest was gone, he returned to her grave.
He places one hand on the stone.
He carves her name in every language that he knows.
And he softly whispered to her,
"Come back wrong, if you must.
But please… come back remembering."
Then he walks into the dark…
into the next lifetime.