I remember many things from across my many lives. It is my curse. Others forget their pasts, but I was created as the cycle of rebirth was broken.
Yet She is slipping from my memory. The most important thing in all of my lives is getting harder and harder to remember.
I first met Her a few hundred years ago. I can remember that She was as bright as the sun, hair as dark as the wings of the ravens that flew over the fields of sunflowers She loved to walk through. Her hands were always cold, always reaching for the warmth of mine. Our life together was full of love and hope — at least, for a time.
One winter, I developed a cough. Nothing to worry about, I had thought, colds are common that time of year. Winter turned to spring and yet the cough remained. It worsened with the arrival of summer. Fall heralded the end of our time together.
It wasn’t enough. It would never be enough.
Reluctant to part from one another, She suggested that we marry while we still had the chance. We had always dreamed of it, but it was always accompanied by a mention of “later”. Later had arrived. There would be precious little time after.
All those we cared about gathered at the sunflower fields She loved so much. As the setting sun began to color the sky, we swore ourselves to one another in this life and every one after. I remember thinking that She was incredibly beautiful that day. She had tied part of Her hair back with a brand new blue ribbon. I loved Her in blue.
When winter came again, I worsened quickly. No treatment we sought could heal me. All we could do was pretend that the end of our time together wasn’t around the corner. We’d talk about our future — about starting a family, about how I wanted to open a small bakery. About how She and I would go on many more walks through the sunflowers, watching the ravens playing in the wind as we did.
One unseasonably warm evening, my cough was the worst it had ever been. I could hardly breathe. Worry creased Her face, but she did her best not to let me see it. That evening, we took our dinner outside. I had wanted to see the stars one last time, to see Her bathed in the moon’s glow. I can’t remember now how she looked. She wore her blue ribbon and her new cloak I had bought Her for Her nameday, I remember that much. I wish I could remember Her face. It was the last that I saw, silhouetted by the starry night sky before my eyes closed for the last time. I breathed my last in Her embrace.
When I next regained awareness, confusion overtook me. I was standing in a field of Her beloved sunflowers, the warmth of late spring surrounding me. I walked through the fields for what felt like hours, yet I never seemed to make any progress. Still, I kept walking. I don’t know how long I walked before the sky began to grow dark, the sunflowers began to wither, and the ground began to fall away into the nothingness. Fear gripped my heart. Would I not be reincarnated? Would I never see Her again? Just as these thoughts began to overwhelm me, there She was. She was the same beautiful person I had know and yet She was not. Dark feathers drifted around her, a chill winter wind picking them back up again as they fell. I could not see Her face, as it was covered by a white, indifferent mask, but I knew it was Her. Her hand reached for me as I ran towards Her through the darkness. It closed around mine, as cold as ever, as I drew close, then I was suddenly pulled away.
No! I managed to scream. The sound was both booming and silent as it echoed and faded around me. My vision began to blacken, taking Her from me yet again. I could still feel Her cold hand on mine, though She was losing her grip.
Then I woke up.
I had expected to be reborn, just as all others had been before me. Yet when I awoke, I was the same as I had always been but as if the color and warmth had been drained from me. My once copper hair was now a silvery blonde, my once pink skin tinted blue with cold. It was as if I had never been sick, but also as if Life hadn’t fully returned to me.
However, She was gone.
Our friends told me what had transpired. She had taken such offense with the now former god of death when I my pleas for more time fell on deaf ears that She felt retribution was in order. I couldn’t bear to hear the details, but I listened anyways. She had done all She could to return to me, to return me to Her, and yet it had failed in the end.
I can’t remember how long I had wept. Our home was gone, as were all of our things. What little was saved was returned to me by our friends. None of it mattered — except the blue ribbon She had worn at our wedding and the red lip color She so adored on me once.
Every time I tried to think of Her, to remember Her name, Her face, I couldn’t. It was as if they were ice that had been melted by the spring sun long ago, never to return. I mourned the loss of Her, of our life together, of who I had once been. Our friends had lost these memories as well. I had taken Her name when we had married, but the only name I had been left with was my given one.
Our friends decided to begin calling me Cadriel the Beloved. What a bittersweet epithet to bear.
I had no idea what I had become. It took years of research and employment by the Necromancer’s Guild to realize that I was a duskwalker, as they had taken to calling me — a being not yet alive but at the same unable to properly die. I theorize that one day I may be granted that blessed rest, but each time that I have been killed- by my hand or at the hand of another- I was denied it yet again. Her mark, the mark of my beloved Goddess, had been seared into the back of my hand where She had tried to grasp mine in that dark void so many years ago. It had taken on the appearance of a silvery burn over the years, but was oft hidden by my gloves these days.
When I had awoken after my most recent death, I had found myself in the middle of the sunflower fields. A small white-feathered bird with a black beak had come to rest on my chest, its wing bent at an odd angle out beside of it. I had delicately moved it as I sat up, taking care not to jostle it and cause further injury. Upon closer inspection, I came to realize it was a young raven, its color drained from it just as mine had been.
“Did She send you to me?” I asked of it. It didn’t respond to my question, instead continuing to shiver from the pain it felt. Together we returned to my modest quarters at the Necromancer’s Guild where I helped it to heal. While I could not be sure that She had sent him to me, I chose to believe that. He became my closest companion, following me through the city as I ran errands. I named him Calon, which many believed I chose because of his spirit-like appearance. Few knew I had given him that name as he was one of the few that had earned a place in my heart.
When I would venture out of the city, Calon would stay behind. I had deliberately chosen not to train him to fight. I couldn’t bear the thought of him coming to harm at the hands of a rogue necromancer.
I have lived longer than anyone should have. I can’t remember my exact age, but it has been well over 200 years since my first death. Calon has also been blessed with a strangely long life, having been by my side for well over 75 years now. He is as hale and healthy as he was at a year old.
I only hope that he is not cursed as I am. When I eventually return to Her side, to rest in my Beloved’s embrace once more, I hope that he finds his way to us, soaring among the stars to find his way home.
