A hand closed around my wrist.
I spun, dagger raised, breath tearing through my lungs. The torchlight threw jagged shadows across the crypt and for an instant I thought I was staring into the eyes of a ghost.
Riven.
He looked exactly as he had on the night he died. The same silver hair falling loose around his face, the same glacial eyes that had once cut me to pieces and stitched me back together. His smile was a wound opening in my chest.
"Hello, wife, he whispered, his voice rich with mockery and something darker. You should have stabbed me harder, babygirl.
My mouth went dry. My pulse roared in my ears. I had seen him die. I had watched the blood leave his body, kissed the cold from his lips, lowered him into the stone coffin with my own hands. Yet he stood before me, solid and warm, his fingers locked tight around my wrist.
"You are dead, I said, my voice breaking. I buried you."
