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Skeletal hands run over gold as green flames follow the patterns engraved deep in the bracelet.
The hazely green of helidor gems twining with the unique purple of the sapphires in perfect harmony.
His remnant of a gaze falls upon the mausoleum in front of him, his own name etched in the marble as Shroud’s Kiss weaves its way around the columns.
Volkarin.
Inside were his parents, Manfred’s remains…and Rook, the holder of the matching bejeweled grave gold.
“It matches our eyes.” He still remembers her beaming up at him as she slid the gold onto his wrist. He remembers all of their days. How the skin around her eyes crinkled when she smiled, the delicate scent of amber and sandalwood she wore, how her laugh was the most beautiful melody he had ever heard.
He remembered it all.
His focus returns to the engraved name that held everyone he had ever loved inside. They were all long gone. Every one of them simply bones now that their flesh had faded with time, unlike him.
Emmrich looks down at his own bones, animated still, but theirs were not.
He was alone.
His solitary figure stands in the eerie glow of the Necropolis, just as it had done so many times in this life, and now it seems it did more in his death. If he were still human, he knows tears would be staining his face as he looks down at his most cherished possession, feeling its weight like a life preserver.
Three hundred and fifty years. His bones clench around the metal, false feelings of despair falling down his face.
Four hundred years since Rook came crashing into his life, eyes wide with adventure and urgency, and three hundred and fifty years since her mortal flesh gave way to her internal slumber.
“Lea.” Her name is almost a foreign memory on his tongue.
He hears the call of the other Lich Lords. Their demands are too great to ignore, and as Emmrich slides the bracelet back onto his left hand, its place of honor, he places a ghost of a kiss on the cool metal.
“I’ll be back, my beloved.”
His tone and walk are solemn as he floats through the Memorial Gardens. Emmrich looks back one final time at the building that held more than bones, and thinks back to that day all those years ago.
“I would rather have had you and Manfred for the rest of my lifetime than an eternity without you.”