The final rune carved into the stone floor flared, a sickening, violet-black light that pulsed once, twice, and then extinguished itself.

The silence that rushed into the hidden workshop was absolute, heavier and more profound than any grave.

Smoke, acrid and stinging, coiled in the stagnant air. It smelled of burnt ozone, of powdered bone, and of the heavy, cloying incense Carnus had kept burning for months to mask the scent of preservation and decay. He was on his knees, his palms flat against the gritty, chalk-covered floor. He didn't remember falling. The intricate necromantic circle around him was no longer burning with arcane light, but it pulsed with a residual, unnatural cold that seeped straight into his bones.

Eight months.

Eight months of this... this crypt. Eight months of frantic study, of desecrating the laws of magic and nature, of whispering to a silent body. Eight months of pouring his own potent healing magic into a vessel that refused to hold it, fighting a battle against the inevitable rot that followed death.

He was a wreck. A hollowed-out thing. His long silver hair, lank with sweat and grime, clung to his pale cheeks. His fine noble clothes were stained with potions, ash, and his own blood, spilled for the the ritual. His purple eyes, wide and bloodshot, were fixed on the marble slab in the center of the room.

She lay upon it, still wrapped in the fine silks he had stolen her in. For 243 days, she had been a cold, still, beautiful doll. A terrible, perfect effigy of the woman he loved. He had healed the rope burns on her neck. He had washed the gallows filth from her skin. He had spoken to her, wept over her, read her poetry, and raged at her silent family for what they had done.

And she had remained silent.

Until now.

Carnus’s breath hitched, a dry, painful sound in his raw throat. He hadn't slept—truly slept—since he’d carried her here, a dead weight in his arms.

Then, a sound.

It was not his own ragged gasp. It was a faint, papery rustle. The sound of air, cold and dry, being drawn into lungs that had been still for an academic season.

His heart, which had been hammering a frantic rhythm of exhaustion, seemed to stop entirely.

"No...". The word was a prayer, a plea, a demand. "Please... please..."

He saw it. A flicker. Beneath the pale, waxy eyelids he had so gently closed himself, there was a tremor. A slow, agonizingly subtle movement.

Carnus pushed himself up, his entire body shaking so violently he could barely stand. He stumbled, lurching over an overturned brazier and kicking aside a grimoire bound in dark leather. His eyes never left her face. He reached the slab, his hands outstretched, his fingers trembling. He hovered one, marked with the dried blood of his sacrifice, over her parted lips.

He felt it. A small, cold puff of air.

A moment later, her eyelids, the ones he knew so intimately, trembled again and then slowly, agonizingly, began to drift open.

The dam of his sanity, held back for eight long months by sheer, obsessive will, finally shattered. A sound tore from his throat—a choked, agonized cry that was half triumph and half pure terror.

"You're here," he breathed, the tears he hadn't realized he’d been holding back finally blurring his vision, hot and stinging against his cold skin. "You... you're here."

His hands, dirty and trembling, came to rest on her. They were frantic, desperate, yet terrified of breaking the miracle. One hand tangled in her hair—her hair, still smelling faintly of the lavender oils he’d applied—while the other cupped her cheek.

She felt cold. A deep, unnatural, cellar-cold that his own living warmth couldn't touch.

But she was here.

"I have you," he whispered, pressing his forehead to hers, his eyes squeezed shut as the tears streamed down his face, dripping onto her skin. "I have you. I won't let you go. I'll never... never... let you go again."

He was clinging to her as if the world were ending, and in a way, it was. His old world was gone. This, now... this terrible, beautiful, blasphemous new beginning... was everything.