“You should be given a chance to take revenge before dying.”

With that softly muttered sentence, my heart dropped. The warmth was no longer felt in the hands that gripped my head.

“…I thought you were dead.”

A smile flickered across the cold face. A sense of relief that the opportunity for revenge was not lost. A sense of triumph for not losing the prey. He possessed a refined arrogance and a beautiful cynicism, instead of clumsy innocence and cumbersome affection. Much had changed, and so had she.

“As much as you have fallen, I have risen.”

I was so accustomed to enduring pain. But enduring pleasure and desire was unfamiliar.

“I want to carve it out. All the memories of that night.”

So, I ran away, carrying his child.

***

“It seems you’ve been doing well in the meantime.” A dry smile spread across his lips as he looked at her. “Even got yourself a kid I’ve never seen before.” Shade’s hand slowly stroked her hair and then stopped on her pale cheek. “Were you happy with that bastard?” While I was going mad searching through the empire? Click, the sound of teeth clenching together as his long fingers lifted her head.

***

We were each other’s paradise, and the shadows cast within that paradise.