In Which Severin States What He Doesn't Know

April 10, 1167

Severin didn't understand why they called it heartbreak.

A break, he assumed, would have been sudden, surging, violent. The heart would shatter like a fallen jar, blood rushing from its depths and pooling throughout the body, its pieces still pulsating in rapid beats of shock. It would have been painful--and it would have been quick. After a few days, it would begin to heal, like any other superficial wound. It would take time to recuperate, and brief exercises of like and fondness would be needed regularly before it could ever truly love again, but the pieces would grow back together and the heart would be complete again, all but anew.

But this was different. Over the past few days, Alina's imminent death had taken to gnawing at his heart like a dog with a bone. At times, it only nibbled, while at others, it tore off large chunks and left a mess of fleshy crumbs on the floor, but the fact remained that whatever it devoured was gone forever. It was not a break; it was an amputation.

On the bed, Alina stirred slightly, a ring of blue just visible between her heavily-crusted lashes. "Was that all the children now? I've lost count."

She was trying to make a joke, but his sense of humor had long since been served as an appetizer. He could only stare at her, unblinking, as if his gaze was the only thing keeping her alive. "Yes. That was the last of them."

A labored breath escaping her mouth, she turned her head and attempted to nod. "Will you hold me? I always wanted to die in your arms."

"Please don't say things like that," he urged her in a whisper. Nonetheless, he made his way to the other side of the bed and pulled back the covers; if this truly was his last chance to wrap his arms around her and press her close, he did not think he could forgive himself if he missed it.

"I'm so sorry, Princess," he muttered as he settled himself beside her, slinging his arm around her waist and taking her hand in his.

Alina sighed. "For what? For trying to make me happy? Don't blame yourself for this; it's no one's fault."

"But if I--"

She cut him off with a mere squint. "You're always so keen to change things, Severin, and that's one of the things I love most about you, but you have to understand that... well, there are some things you can't change. People die. I'm going to die, and you're going to die, and everyone else is going to die. And what's the point of changing anything about death, really? There are so many things left to change about life."

She opened her eyes fully for a second, then released her hold on her eyelids as if she suddenly found them too heavy to lift. Severin tried to grant her one last smile, but likewise, his lips seemed too great of a load; at best, they were neutral. "You're so beautiful."

Disbelieving, she sniffed. "Liar. I'm a wreck."

"That's not possible."

Still unconvinced, she allowed her head to loll to the side, following the suit of the rest of her body. Severin edged nearer, desperate to find the right strength with which to grip her--gentle enough not to crush her frail body, but firm enough to keep her with him. "This isn't how it's supposed to be, you know. We were supposed to go together, dying of overexertion after a long bout of disgusting, painful, and mechanically difficult old people sex."

"Well, if you want, you could always die of overexertion after a long bout of disgusting, painful, and mechanically difficult old man masturbation to the memory of me," she offered as a compromise; he couldn't tell whether or not she was trying to be funny. If she was, he still couldn't see why she would.

In any case, he shook his head. "I don't want to be an old man if I don't get to have my old lady by my side."

"I can't see why you'd want to be an old man in any case," she groaned as he pressed a kiss to her shoulder, "but to each their own, I suppose. Anyway, if you look in my jewelry box, I dictated to Celina a list of all the women you're allowed to marry."

The heart-eating monster decided that it had grown bored with nibbling and proceeded to sloppy, chunk-wrenching chomps. "Really... don't say things like that."

She moaned softly as her fingers tensed around his hand. "Don't get married right away, though. Let me have at least half a year or so before you look at that list and pick a name... but if you don't think you can wait that long and have to go fuck around with some prostitute or something, I'll understand. I do know what a long line of satyrs you come from, after all."

It was a jab that would have ordinarily stung, but what remained of his heart had already exceeded its capacity--a little quip at his paternity meant nothing now. "Princess..."

"I have to go soon," she stated. She sounded neither scared nor relieved--she just sounded. "I'm going to turn around, and you're going to kiss me. And you'd better not be crying; I don't want your tears to be the last thing I ever see."

He buried his face in her hair and inhaled; even drenched in the sweat of her body it smelled like cinnamon. "They won't be if you don't go."

Slowly, Alina began to rotate herself, just as she had promised. "Severin... I have to go."

"Don't..." He sighed. In his entire life, there had always been one consistency--one person who had always been a part of it--and her seconds were flitting away like dandelion seeds in the breeze, never to be seen again. "I don't know how to live without you."

She struggled through the final degrees, but at last they were face to face. She looked as young as the night he had married her; she looked more alive than he felt. "You'll be fine. You always... were a fast learner."

Why was she so blase about this? How had she managed to come to terms with it so quickly? She'd done in three days what he didn't think he could do in a lifetime. If anyone had ever said she wasn't the stronger of the two of them, they couldn't have been more wrong if they'd claimed that grass was red. "Princess..."

"Look, are you going to kiss me or not?"

He did. He kissed her for minutes, hours... he kissed her for longer than he could have kept track, longer than he ever had before. He didn't stop until it dawned on him that there was no longer anyone kissing him back.

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