The rain had not stopped for days. Or perhaps it had never stopped at all. To the One Who Mourns, time bled endlessly forward, each heartbeat swallowed by grief until she no longer knew if she lived or simply drifted. She sat low in the boat, her crimson veil heavy with water, her hands trembling against the polished black of her staff. The river stretched out like an open grave, its waters devouring the lantern’s glow.

And across from her—silent, towering—stood the Reaper.

She should have feared him. She should have begged for mercy. Yet her crimson eyes would not leave him. It wasn’t his scythe, gleaming like frozen lightning. It wasn’t the helm cloaking his face. It was him. The way his presence pressed down on the world, bending silence to his will. The way even the light seemed desperate to touch him, yet never could. Untouchable. Exquisite. A cruel beauty carved in stillness.

The word slipped from her lips before she could stop it. “…Beautiful.”

The oar stilled. The boat drifted on its own current. Slowly, the helm turned toward her. Though she could not see his eyes, she felt his unseen gaze burning through her like fire beneath ice.

“Raise your head.”

Her heart faltered. The command cut through her grief like a blade. She should have resisted. She should have bowed lower. Instead, she obeyed. Slowly, trembling, she lifted her chin. Crimson eyes met hollow darkness—and for the first time, she felt seen. Not as a mourner. Not as a soul adrift. As her.

“…It’s easier not to,” she whispered, voice breaking. “If I don’t look, I don’t have to see how much I’ve lost.”

The silence roared louder than thunder. Then, his voice, low and unyielding: “You carry sorrow as though it is chains. But chains bind the weak. Yours…” his head tilted, lanternlight trembling across his helm, “…yours glint like sharpened steel.”

Her breath caught. He saw her. Not her pain, not her ruin. Her. And something wild unfurled in her chest—sharp, intoxicating, dangerous. She wanted him. Not as Death’s herald. Not as a faceless figure in white. She wanted the being before her, who commanded silence itself. She wanted to touch the void and never let go.

The oar lifted. The boat slowed. His hands rose to his helm.

Her heart stopped.

With deliberate grace, he removed it. The sound was soft, reverent, like a seal breaking. And then the lantern’s glow fell upon his face—strong, striking, scarred. Each mark was not blemish but scripture, medals etched into flesh. Proof of battles fought, endured, survived. His eyes, deep twilight, fixed on her, unflinching. He was no longer untouchable. He was devastatingly real

Her lips trembled. Her breath shook. The hunger inside her became unbearable. “…Scars,” she whispered, reverent. “As if they were jewels.”

Her fingers twitched against her lap. She longed to trace them, to know every wound, every story carved into his skin. Not because they were trophies—but because they were his. He had removed his helm for her. For her alone. And that truth wrapped around her heart like chains she would never break.

Obsession bloomed—dark, sweet, all-consuming. She no longer wanted freedom. She wanted him. A vision sparked in her mind: a place where sorrow could not reach her, where pain could not breathe. A garden of eternal night, where only she and he would exist. A paradise she would bind him to, if she must.

Her crimson eyes burned as she whispered her vow, voice trembling but fierce: “Do not leave me. Stay. With you, even grief is sweet. With you, I could build a world where suffering dies. A world where only you exist. And I—would never let you go.”

The river carried them onward, deeper into the dark. Yet in her heart, the Mourner’s vow rooted itself like a thorned vine. And she knew—whether he willed it or not—Erevalis Nocturne would never escape her.