A murder of crows fly over the graveyard that night, their black feathers spreading and ruffling as they land on a fresh tombstone. They screech and caw in an eerily melodic tune as the soil on the grave shifts in unrest.

A flash of soundless lightning lights up the night sky into a brilliant red. The ground shakes and rumbles, a filthy hand clawing its way out of the dirt. The ground parts over the strong force that divides it, the hard soil crumbling into dust as a ghostly figure crawls out.

Lady Marienne stands beside her grave, risen from the dead.

Long blond hair hangs limply around her pale face, caked in mud and grime. Her features are the same and yet so different, holding incredible strength like how she had never felt before. Her plain white funeral dress whips against her body in the gusty wind, ironically similar to the wedding dress she was meant to have worn that day.

She stands in a daze, wondering if she is dead or alive. She feels like something in between; a tangible memory or a living ghost. She looks upon the grave she has climbed out of and sees her own tombstone, her name freshly carved in.

Her first thought is Elisabeta.

Does she believe Marienne to be dead? Is Marienne dead?

Marienne remembers the night before with excruciating detail. Bleeding out on the streets. A chill runs up her spine and her fists clench by her sides as she remembers her final words. She made a deal with the Goddess of Darkness, cursing herself for all eternity. Marienne feels the venom coursing through her veins.

It makes her dizzy with thirst.

Marienne ignores the twisted feeling of wanting—no, needing—something she is too afraid to name. She pushes it to the back of her mind for there is only one thing she has space for.

Elisabeta.

Marienne has to see her. She stumbles over the loose dirt around her grave, catching herself on her own tombstone. She notices a similar one right beside it, and perhaps would have ignored the twin stone if it weren't for the lettering carved upon it.

The twists and curves of the calligraphy are the exact copy of those that are imprinted upon her heart. It is a name she could seek out in the darkest of nights in the cruellest of storms.

Elisabeta Kenworthy.

Marienne screams, falling to her knees. The sound rips out of her, inhumane as a banshee. Her fingers claw at the letters, trying to scratch them out like that would make it any less real. Blood oozes out of the black stone where she scrapes, creating gory rivulets down to the packed dirt.

Marienne digs her arms deep into the ground, loosening the dirt as she desperately pulls out the fresh grave. Crimson red tears pool at the corners of her eyes and drips down her face as she unearths the casket. She rips off the lid, flinging it away hard enough to shatter the neat line of gravestones behind her.
Elisabeta's lifeless corpse lies within, nested in lilies. They sprawl around her body, white petals blooming and glowing as they lap up the blood that leaks from her cracked skull. The petals turn red as they soak in her life essence, blooming bigger and brighter with each drop they steal.

If Marienne thought she felt anger and pain before, it is nothing compared to what she experiences now. It is intense and scorching like a brand upon her heart.
"You cannot leave me! You cannot!" Marienne shakes her sweetheart violently by the shoulders, screaming at her to wake up. Her ringing voice falls upon an empty vessel.

Remembering her dying deal, Marienne bites the body desperately. "Please work." Blood leaks down her chin when she speaks. Her voice is cracked. "Goddess of Darkness, please. Let me save her."
Her sinister agreement gives her the power to turn all those who are breathing over to the Goddess of Darkness. Her fangs sink into the smooth skin on the corpse's neck.

Nothing happens.

Marienne bites down again and again. Heedlessly trying even as she sees her efforts are futile. Her face streaks with blood as she creates useless marks on every inch of the lifeless body. She has the power to turn all those who are breathing. But Elisabeta is not breathing.

The Goddess of Darkness could not help her.

Gasping breaths choke out of her bloodied lungs as she stares down at the mangled corpse in her arms. Elisabeta's once perfect face is barely recognizable.
Angry bites leak into scarlet pools within the hollows of her eyes. Her funeral dress is shredded to pieces, ripped apart by fangs that have sunk into every iota of visible flesh. She is torn and mutilated in a heap of broken limbs that will haunt Marienne's every nightmare for the rest of eternity.

The final fact is undeniable. Elisabeta is really dead. And it is a fact that Marienne will not accept. If the Goodness of Darkness cannot help, she will turn to the cruellest Goddess of them all. The Goddess of the Three Moons. Reincarnator and Mother of Wolves.

"This is not the end! In the name of my love, I renounce the Goddess of Death!" Marienne screams into the howling wind. "Goddess of Moons, hear me! Lady Elisabeta WILL RISE from her own death!"
"And till then, I shall avenge hers," Marienne swears. "I shall avenge her death with every power of the Darkness."
The largest of the three moons turns a foreboding shade of hunter green. Silver mist wraps around it and fills the night sky, lighting it in violent violet. A wolf howls in the distance, long and distressing. A sinister promise.

The Moon Goddess has heard her prayer.
Lady Marienne makes her final oath to the Goddess of Love to bond their souls in eternity. "Elisabeta will walk Ather once more—and she will be mine. This I swear."
And with that Marienne rips her fangs through her own wrist, allowing her blood to rain upon her sweetheart's corpse.