Chapter 2: The Dead Return, the Living Suffer

Lost in these memories, I was startled by a voice behind me: “Autumn.” My heart skipped a beat.

The sound cut through the silence like a knife. It was a voice I hadn’t heard in a decade, yet I would’ve known it anywhere. My heart stuttered in my chest.

The voice trembled, thick with sorrow.

I gripped the broom tighter, not sure I could believe it, and turned around.

My knuckles went white on the handle. For a moment, I thought I was seeing things—a trick of the light, a memory come to haunt me. But he was real. Solid. Breathing.

I couldn’t believe it. He stood there in the flesh.

He looked older, leaner, but the set of his jaw and the storm in his eyes were the same. My breath caught in my throat.

Sebastian was dressed in dark formal wear, his eyes fixed on me, rimmed red—rage or tears, I couldn’t tell.

His coat was dusted with road dirt, but he wore it like armor. There was a wildness about him now, a leader’s edge I’d never seen before.

He stepped closer, voice cracking. “Autumn, it’s me. I’m Sebastian.”

It was him. I recognized him at a glance—my husband, my love, the man I’d lost so long ago.

A thousand memories crashed over me—wedding vows whispered under the old oak tree, laughter echoing through the manor halls, the warmth of his arms on cold winter nights.

His voice broke. “Autumn, after all these years, I’ve wronged you. You’ve suffered because of me.”

He reached for me, as if trying to bridge the years with a single touch.

Sebastian pulled me into a tight embrace, his tears hot on my skin.

I froze, the old ache in my chest flaring. For a second, I wanted to believe it could all be undone.

“But you… weren’t you dead?”

I stared at the people behind him, recognizing faces, feeling the blood run cold in my veins.

They were Sebastian’s personal guards, some of them all too familiar.

He’d had time for his men. But he left me behind.

The realization hit me like a punch to the gut. I’d been expendable. The people he truly valued stood behind him now, alive and well.

Grief crashed over me. Tears burned in my eyes.

I tried to blink them away, but they kept coming, hot and fast. My body shook with the force of it.

Sebastian wiped them away with his thumb.

His touch was gentle, almost reverent. But it couldn’t erase the hurt.

“Don’t cry. We’ve won.”

His loyal men raised their arms and shouted, “We’ve won!”

Their voices echoed off the mausoleum walls, wild and triumphant, drowning out my sorrow. It felt like the world was celebrating while I stood in ruins.

They rounded up the mausoleum’s guards.

Rough hands grabbed men I’d worked beside for years. The air filled with confusion and fear.

“Sir, these are all Langley’s men. How should we deal with them?”

Sebastian glanced over them carelessly. “Get rid of them all.”

The words fell like a death sentence. No hesitation, no mercy. The room grew colder.

The guards fell to their knees, begging for mercy.

Their voices overlapped, desperate and pleading. Some wept, others clung to each other, praying for a miracle.

They weren’t really anyone’s men—just caretakers with no connections or those who’d offended someone, left to be forgotten in this lonely place.

Most of them were locals, sons of farmers and coal miners, just trying to get by. No one would miss them.

Their lives meant nothing. Not to him.

But among them was one man who didn’t beg, his face calm and unflinching.

That was Marcus Bellamy—my husband. My heart clenched at the sight.

Yes. Marcus Bellamy.

I hadn’t stayed chaste for Sebastian.

Life at the mausoleum was hard.

The wind and frost cut like knives, hunger and cold pressed in from all sides.

The winters were brutal. Some nights I’d huddle by the old woodstove, listening to the wind howl, wondering if I’d make it to morning.

Even after I let go of my old life. Learned to carry water, plant vegetables. I never complained. Still, I failed at everything.

My hands, once soft and manicured, grew calloused. I fumbled with everything, from chopping wood to milking the stubborn old goat Marcus brought home.

The vegetables barely grew, and I couldn’t even get a bite to eat.

I watched as my garden withered, the soil too rocky, the sun too harsh. Some days I went to bed hungry, stomach growling.

I sold all my jewelry, but that money only lasted two years.

Each piece I parted with felt like giving away a piece of my old life. The pawnshop owner in town grew used to seeing me, his eyes pitying but never unkind.

Not that it mattered. I didn’t much care about living anyway.

There were days I’d stare at the ceiling for hours, numb to everything but the ache inside.

I waited. Maybe I’d starve, and see Sebastian again.

I stopped fighting. I let the days blur together, waiting for the end.