Completion of the Whisper

Chapter Fifty.

Nyshard.

They say your life flashes before your eyes when you die.

I can tell you, that it doesn't.

No, it really doesn't.

But I can tell you, that it rips your heart out, that it tears your soul apart.

Your very being shatters in a million pieces, when you see your life, your love, the very person you'd do everything for... give their everything for you.

Your inner walls crumble into cold dust, when you realise, that the one person you wanted to save, the one person you always wanted to be alive and happy, the one person that deserved to have a life, a meaning and a purpose...

... when you realise, that this one person, gave all of it up.

Just for you.

How can you live on like that?

How can you go on, knowing, that this person will never be the same? That this person will never be again?

How can you not give up?

How can you live, knowing about what she's given up, knowing, that she thought she never meant enough? Knowing, that she thought she'd never deserved more?

Knowing, that she'd expected to not survive this, knowing, that she'd even planned her death, had even taken precautions?

How can I... ever dare to think about you again, knowing, that I'd truly been your decay, knowing, that you... the rose, the brightness, my light... myn yele.... Knowing, that the love of my life had whittered right in front of me, but I had not seen it? How can I continue to live without you? Without your smile, your happiness, your very being?

Adriyele.

I was your demise.

I didn't bring you happiness, I only brought you pain.

From the moment I laid eyes on you, a small, haunted looking young women with fire in her beautiful, bright, green eyes, I knew I had to be guarded. The instant I saw you in my study after you'd tried to flee, I knew I was in trouble, I knew, I'd eventually have to fight against myself, against my very being, against my very soul.

Because it yearned for you. With every passing week, every month, every encounter I'd tried to avoid while I'd also craved to be near you.... I wanted to get to know you, but I knew, I shouldn't.

So, I tried not to.

I tried to be as cold as possible, I tried to be as harsh as I could without hating myself for it. But I did.

Every time I saw how my coldness, my indifference hurt and irritated you, I hated myself for it.

It was necessary.

I thought it was.

No, I still think, it was.

Or better... I now think, I've not been cold enough.

It should have never come to this. You should have never fallen in love with me.

You should have never found anything about me loveable or even attractive.

Hell, I should have cut right across my face to make you turn away from me out of revulsion. But maybe even then, you would have still searched friendship. Of course, you would have. You've always been alone, avoided by others, looked down upon because you seemed only like a half-human. You belonged nowhere, not to the humans, not to the Rhaayl. You lived into your youth thinking, that this was all you ever got. You even told me yourself once, that you've always been happy to live to the next day, even though after your mother's death, you hadn't even known how to survive the winter.