Page 2 of Summer of Sacrifice

He wished he could play for her. Play her favourite song on the piano just one more time.

Grimm pushed his wild curls back from his face. His hair had grown so long. Between taking the draught during the Winter and being held captive by Chresedia—Athania, he supposed—for nearly the entirety of the Spring, it had been over half a year since he’d cut his hair. Half a year since any form of normalcy. Not that his life had ever been ordinary. Particularly since Agatha’s arrival—nay, crash—into it. Nevertheless, his hair was longer than it had ever been.

It was the epitome of black humour, what grief and pain brought to the forefront of one’s mind. There he sat, in the tamped dirt of his mother’s grave, thinking of something as mundane as how long his hair had grown.

He was disgusted with himself for it.

Here lies the beloved Queen Mother,

Fleurina Peridot

He’d done everything over the last nine moons for Agatha. Grimm snorted to himself. Hades, he’d done everything for the last millennia for her, hadn’t he? That was still a peculiar prickling at the back of his skull—a stirring of ghouls.

Yet, there was still so much left to unravel. To remember.

Andanother of his loved ones was rotting in the dirt. Feeding the worms and his misery. His failings. Many as they were.

According to Tindle, Queen Fleurina had known her death was coming. Had all but offered herself up in the name of Fate.

Grimm cursed bitterly, arms wrapped loosely around his bent knees. “Fuck Fate.”

That vile hag, Chresedia, kept blathering on, Tindle had said through sobs, saying everything would be hers now. How she was one step closer. His Demitri had seen an untimely end as well, and Grimm would never forgive himself for that, either.

The only victory, minor as it was in the grand scheme, lay in the fact that Chresedia hadn’t yet discovered he did not rule Seagovia in his mother’s death as she’d thought he would. Agatha did.

The scent of night-blooming jasmine carried along on the mid-Summer breeze, and Grimm suddenly felt like a little boy again as Lady Death settled in the grassy patch next to his mother’s grave. Nyxia said nothing, but her presence was comforting. He didn’t look at her, but from his periphery, Grimm was surprised to see her mortal-esque form, as she usually came to the land of the living shrouded in clouds of gloom.

“Thank you,” he finally said, his voice low and raspy.

“For?”

“Being here. To collect her. When I was not.”

Nyxia hummed a note of deep acknowledgement. “I would have done so, anyway, my son. That was nothing you should have ever had to do.”

Grimm closed his burning eyes, and Nyxia reached out to clasp one of his arms wrapped loosely around his knees.

“Every morning, I wake with new recollections,” he said softly after several moments of silence.

“Have you shared them with her?”

Grimm finally lifted his head and turned to look into Nyxia’s violet eyes. “No. Only her name.”

“Asteria,” Lady Death hummed.

Grimm’s heart seized. The name that was synonymous with everything to him.

“Lady Magic.” Nyxia chuckled, a weighted sound filled to the brim with weariness and nostalgia.

“I’m certain she feels the recollections,” he admitted. “She has been quiet. Contemplative.”

How could he set about telling her of their daughters? The original Sisters Solstice. Of their millennia together. Of all the times they’d found each other in mortal life? Over and over and over.

That is not a story one can tell, it must be lived. Remembered. Seen.

It was an agonising bliss to recall such things.

Tucking a blanket around the shoulders of a giggling daughter. Teaching their eldest to ride a horse, their youngest two to shoot a bow and arrow. To recall the moment his wife, Asteria, learned they were going to have another child.