Noelle fell through the door of her house, slamming it shut behind her with her left hand. Her right was wrapped up in bandages that didn't allow her broken wrist to move. The woman stumbled through the room, grabbing the counter of the island table, clinging to it like her life depended on it.
Maybe it did.
Her fingers of her left hand tore through her hair, pulling it messily down, her hands shook violently, panicked breaths wracking her chest as she hunched over. Her arms wrapped around herself and her eyes squeezed closed as she tried to get air into her lungs.
Her mind shot back to the past hours as tears finally broke free and flowed down her face, sobs shaking her as she slid to the floor. Her blue skirt pooled around her like a puddle of heartbroken tears, hands flying to her eyes to cover them.
Damn that Freya Lo! Damn her for bringing back the dead!
Noelle cursed the Queen every and anyway she knew, voice quiet as she still struggled to get a proper breath in.
Her husband had died, long before Freya had risen. Noelle had mourned for him for months, she finally had moved on. She finally found someone else to fill the hole in her broken heart. But Lo had just made that hole bigger, like driving a rusted dagger into it and twisting.
Her husband had returned and he remembered her. He knew she was his wife, he knew. But she wanted nothing to do with a deathling. He had tried to convince her that he was the same despite staring at her with cold, blue, dead eyes. She had told him she didn't want him, he was a corpse.
Noelle wrapped her fingers around the bandage around her throat, tugging on it slightly as if it was choking her. The house was deathly silent, the only sound breaking it was the occasional sniff and sob of the bartender.
Her husband had kidnapped her, dragged her from the park with a hand over her mouth and a threat to snap her neck if she said anything. She had been locked in his house and he tried to convince her again.
This time far more extreme.
'My love,' he had said, 'You are still my wife and I wish you to stay with me.' She had shook her head, pressing back against the wall. 'Noelle, if you allowed me to kill you, we could be together again.'
Noelle remembered replying with a simple 'That is not how it works, Arthur.' Her husband drew a dagger and she drew her own as well.
An old blade dared one gifted from a Kade. Arthur's free hand went to grab the blade of her dagger, wrapping around it as blood rivered free from his hand. Noelle's eyes flew wide as he pressed his own dagger forward to her throat.
Her wrist wielding the dagger was grabbed roughly and twisted. She cried out but went to shove the dagger forward, knowing it wouldn't work. Arthur twisted her wrist till a heart stopping crack and pop came from it as the woman slumped, shrieking.
Noelle's mind began to drift now, everything had been a blur after that. A voice had called from outside the door and Noelle had said a response though now what that response was was lost on her. The door had swung open and Noelle had been on the floor unable to speak despite trying.
The had been the sound of shattering glass and an animal-like growl. Arthur had been flung to the side past Noelle with a bundle of flying, blurred fur. His dagger had sliced her cheek in the process.
She remembered the yells and sounds of tearing skin as she sat in her daze. All the sounds ended with tha snap of teeth coming together and bone shattering. Someone had pulled Noelle up, stumbling slightly and a large cat brushed against her in a comforting manner.
She gasped, pulling from the terrible sleep that had overcome her. The woman sat up from the floor, darkness filling the house except for the faint lantern light from the road. For a moment her mind told her it was simply a dream.
Everything from her husband coming back to Freya taking her city. But she raised her right hand to rub the horrible sleep from her eyes only to find the bandage on it.
She slumps realizing it was true and that her husband had died again.
Noell stood, lightening a small candle as she had months ago when receiving the letter of her husband's death. She whispered a soft prayer to the Imperial Spirit before beginning her walk to the cathedral, protecting the dying flame of her candle from the blistering cold.
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