Alex's POV
Before the blood, before the silence, before she stopped seeing me… there was us.
Not ghosts. Not broken memories. Just two souls in a world that hadn't yet torn itself apart.
We lived in a house deep in the woods, hidden from the noise of the kingdom. Just us, the trees, and the sky. The ruins they say they're haunted now that was our home. The crumbling stones, the moss covered archway, the broken garden fence. That was ours.
Back then, the garden bloomed like a dream. She made it so. Lumine, barefoot and sunbathing in the warm light, wildflowers tangled in her hair, dirt smudged on her cheek. She'd whisper to the herbs and roses like they were her children, and maybe they were. She always believed everything had a spirit, a memory.
"You're staring again," she teased, tossing a petal at me over her shoulder.
"Of course I am," I said, grinning, stretched out in the grass. "You're the only thing worth staring at in this entire realm."
She rolled her eyes, but that smile, that damn smile. Like part of her already knew time was cruel and she wanted to imprint it all before it slipped. She placed her hands in the soil then put it beside mine. Our fingers brushed.
She glanced sideways at me, a playful spark in her eyes. "Your hands are always so cold," she said, wriggling her fingers against mine.
"Yours are always full of dirt," I teased back. "You'd marry a garden if you could."
She chuckled, low and soft, as she scooped a handful of earth and let it crumble between us. "Maybe I already did. It listens better than you."
"Oh?" I leaned in. "Does the garden whisper i love you, to you at night?"
She smirked. "It doesn't interrupt me every time I try to say something important."
"hmmm, i wont say a word I'll just listen, what's this important thing?"
"I went to the old healer last week, when i told you i had some stuff to buy," she said suddenly, voice barely above a whisper.
I turned to look at her, but she was staring at the flowers like they might speak for her.
"She told me I'd never bear children," she said. "Not in this life. Alex"
The words hit like a stone sinking into deep water. No ripples. Just sinking.
"I didn't want to tell you. But I couldn't keep pretending." Her throat tightened. "You deserve more. A family. A legacy. Something I'll never be able to give you."
I moved closer, dirt forgotten. "Lumine..."
She kept going, voice breaking. "I always dreamed of a little girl, you know? Hair like yours, eyes like mine. I used to imagine her running through the garden, chasing butterflies while you called her back."
Her hands were trembling now. "But I guess some dreams… they weren't meant for me."
I reached for her face, made her look at me.
"You listen to me," I said. "Children!! Lumine, I never loved you for what you could give me. You're already everything I ever wanted. Everything I'll ever want."
She blinked through tears. I kissed the space between her brow.
"If I never hold a child in my arms, but hold you instead, I've won. I've already won."
She let out a breath like she'd been holding it her whole life.
"You're my beginning and my end, Lumine. You're more than legacy. You're the reason I even care to leave one. You're my everything."
She didn't speak. Just leaned into me, resting her forehead against mine, like silence could say what words couldn't.
We stayed like that, in the dirt and the light, two souls pretending the world wouldn't change. But the world never stays quiet.
Some nights, we saw fires in the distant hills, too far to reach us, too close to ignore. She always clutched my arm tighter on those nights. I told her it's nothing. Just distant fools burning wheat. But in my chest… I knew. "War doesn't knock politely. It kicks the damn door in."
Then i heard whispers about it when it went to work at the field. The war is close, closer than ever.Men not coming back. Daughters crying in the market.
"The front's getting closer," they said.
"Kingdom's losing ground."
"Pray it doesn't reach us."
I didn't tell her, not yet. She was humming to the herbs that morning, tying lavender stems into little bundles and hanging them to dry by the window. Her world was still soft. I didn't want to stain it with blood.
But you can only protect someone from the world for so long.
That night the sky turned red like blood.
The first wave of fire came without warning. One second I was laughing with her under the stars, the next screams came. Then the dogs. I don't know if they were soldiers or raiders or something worse, but they were fast. Too fast. The fire hit the trees like it knew where to go, the stink of smoke, the clash of steel in the distance. The war had reached us.
They found our little paradise. All I remember is the sound of our garden burning.
I grabbed her hand, I remember how tightly she held mine, like she already knew this would be the last time we'd be together and we ran.
Through the woods, through the thorns and branches tearing at our skin, the night swallowing everything we loved in its blaze. The house crumbled behind us, but we didn't look back.
Not until she fell.
"Alex!" she cried, gripping her wrist. Blood. So much blood. A jagged beam from the garden gate had slashed her as we fled. I wrapped it as best I could, my hands shaking. Her lips were trembling, but she said nothing. She just kept going.
We made it to the nearby castle the king's outer fortress. Safe, for now. At least that's what I told myself.
The moment we arrived, the guards took her to the healer. Her wound was worse than I thought deep, angry, already swelling. She burned with fever within hours.
I stayed beside her bed all night, watching her chest rise and fall in ragged breaths, whispering prayers I didn't believe in. She kept tossing, mumbling my name, her brow slick with sweat. I ran my fingers through her hair, whispering, "Stay with me. Just stay."
At some point, I begged the healer for stronger potion. "She's in pain," I said. "Please, help her."
But the woman only shook her head. "Too much will do more harm than good. Her body has to fight now."
So I stayed. I didn't sleep. I couldn't.
When the first light of morning crept through the castle window, painting the floor gold, she stirred. Her lashes fluttered. She opened her eyes dull, exhausted, but alive.
"Alex," she whispered, and my name in her voice nearly undid me.
"I'm here." I took her hand. "I'm not going anywhere."
I didn't tell her then. I couldn't not yet.
But after the healer confirmed the fever had broken and the worst had passed, I sat on the edge of her bed and looked her in the eye.
"The king has called for soldiers."
She didn't speak. She just watched me, already knowing where this was going.
"They say we're losing. That it's a lost cause." I swallowed. "But if I don't fight... if none of us do..."
Silence stretched like the shadows in the room.
I reached for her face, cupping her cheek so gently you'd think she was made of glass. "Lumine," I breathed, "I have to go. I'll come back. I swear it upon my mother's grave. I'll protect you. I'll survive. I'll find my way back to you."
She kissed me. And she said it like a promise.
"I'll wait for you."
I kissed her back one last time, one last taste of her. And just before I pulled away, before the warmth of her lips could fade, I whispered one last thing:
"Lumine… promise me you'll remember me."
Her eyes welled with something breaking. She nodded, barely.
"I will."
Then I left. And I never came back.
I wish I could remember how it happened, what final moment ripped me from her arms.
But the truth is… I don't remember.
I don't remember how I died.
I don't remember the battle, or the blade, or the blood.
Death came like sleep, no darkness, no pain. One moment I was alive, thinking of her, and the next… silence.
My body let go. But my soul stayed.
Not because I was cursed.
Not because of vengeance.
Because I promised I'd come back. For her. And love is a vow that echoes louder than death.
I've heard stories like this before.
Ghosts who stayed behind for unfinished businesses, or bound by a promise never fulfilled.
I never believed them.
Not until I became one.
Maybe that's what ghosts really are, just broken vows in the shape of men.
So I waited... just like she did. But in a different form.