Vincent, on the other hand, paid no heed to the vitriol William spat beside him.

Penelope herself was in no better condition. She had endured months of countless abuse. She had been diminished, used, stripped of her dignity and her inheritance by the very people she should have been able to trust more than anyone. She had been nothing more than a convenient pawn upon a game she hadn’t even realized was being played.

William never loved her.

She saw it now with cruel clarity. From the very beginning, his affection had been but a careful performance, a means to secure the modest inheritance her mother had left behind. That small fortune, meant for her protection, had been the true object of his pursuit, destined all along to be placed into her sister’s hands.

It had been his and Mirabel’s design from the very beginning, and she had walked into their snare with the guileless grace of a fool.

Vincent had tried to warn her.

More than once, he had spoken of William’s character, urging her to see the rot beneath the man’s charming exterior, but she had been so blinded by her love for William that she mistook his protection for malice. She had convinced herself that he was merely trying to drive a wedge between her and her true love.

She had met his tireless devotion with coldness, treating his every act of affection as if it were a lingering curse.

But now... now she realized she had loved the wrong person all along. The one she had cast aside, had been the only one who truly cared for her at all.

Her thoughts were severed as she witnessed William grip one of the blades embedded in Vincent’s chest, only to give it a sudden, vicious twist. Vincent’s pupils flickered, meeting William’s gaze with a ghostly defiance even as the other man leaned his weight into the hilt, driving the steel toward his heart.

"Die," William hissed through gritted teeth, his countenance twisted beyond civility. "You bastard. I have been waiting for so long to end you, so just die already!"

A dark stain of crimson escaped Vincent’s lips, the last vestiges of his strength haemorrhaging from his body.

"LET GO OF ME!" Penelope’s scream pierced the air, her tears flowing freely.

Mirabel watched her sister’s frantic struggle, a thin, viperous smirk playing on her lips. With a negligent wave of her hand, she signaled the brute to release her. The moment their iron grip vanished, Penelope surged forward.

William had already stepped aside, watching her stagger toward Vincent’s collapsed form with detached annoyance. He clicked his tongue irritably. Despite months of abuse, he marveled that his wife possessed any strength left to move at all. But it was of no consequence now.

With a mask of bored cruelty, he reached for a final arrow– the one he had saved specifically for this dark climax.

"If you yearn for his company so fervently," he drawled, his voice as cold as the winter wind, "then perhaps you should join him."

Penelope did not turn.

She did not even flinch. Her entire world had narrowed to the fading light in Vincent’s grey eyes and the sticky, copper scent of his sacrifice. She was still trying to reach him, her bloody fingers outstretched to touch his cooling skin, when the air was suddenly stolen from her lungs.

A sickening thwack echoed in the clearing, the sound of wood and steel meeting yielding flesh.

The force of the arrow propelled her forward, the shaft driving clean through her chest. For a moment, the forest was silent.The wind ceased its howling, and the pain was distant– a dull, humming vibration compared to the agony in her heart.

Was... was this the end?

The taunts of her captors echoed mockingly behind her. Mirabel was already leafing through the parchment, her eyes devouring the lines of the document they had coerced Penelope into signing.

"At last," she breathed in sickening relief. "It’s all mine. Every jewel, every acre, every scrap of legacy that was yours, it’s all mine, Penelope. But do not fret; it is a mercy you are dying. You can join your late mother in the afterlife. Perhaps you can find a peaceful life there, hmm?"

William chuckled, a dry rasping sound as he pulled Mirabel flush against his side. He looked at the shivering, broken figures on the ground with the indifference of a man stepping over a dead hound.

"What did I tell you, my love?" he murmured, his fingers trailing possessively over Mirabel’s shoulder. "The estate is finally yours. We shall wed exactly as we planned. And when I have usurped the title and am named Marquis, now that the position is going to be vacant, I shall make you my Marchioness. A far more fitting crown for you than it ever will be for her."

They stood there, basking in the glow of their treachery while the lifeblood of their victims pooled in the dirt.

Penelope was still dragging herself forward, every inch a pilgrimage of agony, her breath rattling like dry leaves. Across the blood-soaked earth, Vincent was doing the same, his strength a flickering candle against the dark.

Their bloodied hands finally met, fingers intertwining in a desperate, slick grip that felt more sacred than any wedding vow.

As he looked at her, Penelope saw the tears that finally slipped free from his flint-grey eyes, carving tracks through the grime and gore on his face.

"I am sorry," he uttered, his voice a ghost of its former command. "I failed... I claimed to love you, but I could not save you, Penny."

Penelope shook her head, her own tears blurring the sight of her broken form. "No," she choked out, the words thick with the iron scent of her own end. "I did not listen. You tried to warn me, and I turned my back. I brought you to your death. Why did you risk your life for me... after everything I did to you?"

She had a thousand confessions to make, a lifetime of apologies to offer, but the sand was running thin in the glass.

"Penny," he rasped, his grip on her hand tightening one last time. "If... there was... another life... would you have me then?"

His question caught her off-guard, piercing through the cold numbness of the end. This time, there was no hesitation, no pride. She nodded, her forehead coming to rest against his.

"Yes," she sobbed.

His expression shifted, the lines of silent agony smoothing into a fragile, haunting relief. His gaze began to drift, the light in his eyes dimming like a guttering candle.

"Wait for me, then," he whispered into the wind.

"N-no, Vince—"

In that final, harrowing embrace of hands, even the shadow seemed shamed by the depth of a devotion she had realized too late. As her blood mingled with his upon the forest floor, Penelope’s last vision was not of the monsters who orchestrated their death, but the man who had loved her even when she had given him every reason to hate her.

If she were granted a second chance in life, she vowed she would make things right.

This was not fair.

Even if she was not worthy of redemption, Vincent deserved to live. So why was the universe cruel to him as well? Was this the toll he paid for the sin of loving her?

Come what may, she thought as her heart gave its final, stuttering beat. I would marry him a thousand times over, if such grace existed.

As the darkness claimed her, she clutched that single promise to her soul, carrying it like a lantern into the void.