❝I thought they were just bones.❞
❝If you truly believed that, you would have let her rest.❞
They could bury her bones, but they couldn't bury the truth.
For 90 years, Klaus Mikaelson has been haunted by the memory of the woman he betrayed.
For...
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Ireland, 1922
Rowan Blackfyre died on her knees.
She did not beg for mercy or plead for her life. She had fought with everything she had, before it was taken from her. There was nothing left to give. She was tired of fighting the tide, she was ready for it to wash her away.
She stared into the eyes of her murderer and wondered how it had all fallen apart so quickly, unravelling amongst the blood, smoke and screams of New Orleans. She took a final breath she never got to loose, as her neck snapped to the right with a sickening crack, her limp form hitting the street.
Klaus Mikaelson was her last thought before everything went dark.
The wind whispered her name.
Rowan gasped, inhaling sharply. Everything was black. She wasn't on her knees anymore. She was on her back, staring into the darkness. Lifting her hand above her, she felt a soft velvet material covering hard wood. It encased her, surrounding her on all sides making it almost impossible to move.
Klaus's face popped into her mind first when the fog of confusion cleared. The rest of it flooded back in fragmented shots, and her chest heaved up and down in panic as she realised exactly where she was.
Rowan screamed, hands hammering against the velvet and wood. She pierced the velvet, ripping it apart and beginning to punch fiercely at the wood above her. Her knuckles bloodied as the wood splintered, the skin cracking apart under the brute force. Dirt spilled through the hole she'd formed, falling heavily onto her face and chest.
She couldn't breathe. She struggled further, her hands digging upwards as her body heaved itself up. Every inch of her was stiff and uncooperative but she fought on and upwards until her fingers no longer felt the dirt.
Rowan's hand burst forth from the ground and grabbed at the grass above. She pulled herself up, dirt falling from her hair as she sucked air into her lungs and fell forward onto her stomach.
It hurt to breathe. Her body had been dormant, her lungs empty for so long. It burned. She lay for a moment before she could bring herself to raise herself up onto her knees and survey her surroundings.
No one had witnessed Rowan Blackfyre break free of her coffin. She was alone, save the movement of owls and foxes in the surrounding trees. She looked back at the hole she'd crawled from, the one they'd buried her in. It was no graveyard she realised, no headstone marking her grave. A great tree lay a few inches above the grave, towering over her and she shook with the cold and effort as she realised exactly where she was.
Rowan had come home. They'd buried her in Ireland, under the same tree where they'd found her. The haunted tree none would approach, the one they'd named her after. The Rowan, the Tree of Life.
She gaped, memories flying back to her of how she'd ended up here. The last moment of her life flashed to the forefront, and a hand flew to her throat. She could feel the phantom touch of her killer's hand on the skin there, caressing her cheek before he'd broken her neck. A neck which was now magically healed. Her hand roamed lower to her abdomen, finding the knife wound that should have been there had closed over. There was no blood under her palm, either, and she noticed her clothing was different. The large gash on the dress she wore caught her attention and she reached to her chest, below her breast. Something had cut the clothing there. Her hand moved into the hole, her hand running along the skin underneath, feeling a line of scar tissue beneath her breast.
Her face hardened as she pushed herself off her knees and onto her unsteady feet. She couldn't lift them beneath her, instead stumbling and dragging herself forward as she adjusted to life again. She knew for sure she was dead. Or at least she had been. She had no idea how long she'd been dead, nor what had become of the others who had fled that night. Standing in the cold night over her grave she knew why she'd come back.
