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Description
A darkened corner in a vast, shadowy space that threatens to extend onward into infinity. A cloaked figure sits at a desk, pen at the ready as he moves to press the crimson ink to the pristine white page in front of him. He pauses, turns ever so slightly to the sound of an approach. A visitor that he knows quite well.
It is you.
"Ah, so we meet once again, dear reader. My my, your patience must be growing rather thin by this point. Yes, I know what it is that brings you once more to linger upon my doorstep...my little corner of the now and hereafter. I have promised you the end of a tale. A most fitting closure to that which has lingered open and kept you in suspense. Now here you are. Gathered here Life's theater that has held you, a member of this captive audience, since the time of your birth. Ah, it isn't exactly the grandest of venues, now is it? Yet I suppose it has certain charms. Comedy, tragedy, romance, slice-of-life, even horrors untold have played out upon the vast stage that I have so meticulously set, the curtains of pages written about to be pried open once again for your entertainment. But which of us, I wonder, shall prove the most entertained by what we are to witness? After all, you are the mute witness, sentenced to watch while I have every power to direct and to change as it so suits me."
"Oh? You thought Fate impartial? Blind and neutral to the ins and outs of history? All is but a set path, correct? We must only press onward as a puppet strung up by the red strings." He chuckles. "Ah...still so naive to my work. I am blind yes, but to the pities and sorrows of others. I am the infinite. I march on, unhindered, permanent, everlasting...while you, my child, are but a single thread in the grand tapestry I weave. Set into place in a moment, and then forgotten in the grand scheme of my inner workings."
"Come now, no need to look so disappointed. All hold their purpose, and they must be content with it until the curtain falls and you can take your final bow. It may end with your head toppling at your feet, but that is not for me to say. I only pen the tale. The rest...that is the work of another. Oh, but where are my manners?" The pen trails along the page in a single, wide-sweeping arc as simultaneously a red string is brought to the forefront of the pitch black void.
"My work is nearly done, and the tale is close to completion. For now, please keep your patience, for there is so much more to lose."
"Hmm...shall I give you a taste? I wonder, would a snippet of what is to come whet your appetite and keep you appeased all at once? Perhaps if you ask politely. Kindness will get you everywhere and nowhere, as they say."
"Very well, but just a brief glimpse. Any more, and I would have to run my threads straight into your eyes in compensation.
We are clear then? I shall set the stage..."

...

' “What are you- stop! Get down from there!” This and a veritable cacophony of yelling assaulted Tuomas's ears as he finally broke through to the other side of the encroaching garden. The removal from it was sudden and abrupt, bringing him right out to a stony landing that led to the cliffs in back of the castle's grounds. Far behind him, the shadow of the large structure could be seen embossed with the moon's glow. Candles had already started to be re-lit in the windows on the higher floors by other servants, yet this was observed only at a passing glance. The full of his attention at present was drawn in the same direction as the Lord Bloodthorne's as the ruler appeared at his side. A glance up to his features would reveal about the same as he imagined his own visage to be. A mirrored and shared expression of confusion, horror and stark fear. Enough to drain away any bits of warmth or color from his snow-kissed brow and near still his heart mid-beat as he looked on.

A small grouping of guards had circled one of the crests of the jagged obsidian rocks that made up the face of the cliff. The whole of it ended abruptly with a straight drop down, and they took precautions in this knowledge, careful not to stand too close where a slip on the ice could prove their undoing. The pinnacle of fear however came from the sight of a single figure motionless at the very brink of the highest point.

Rose.

She stood unblinking as the icy blasts of wind whipped around her figure and tore through her pale skin, the folds of her ball gown from the banquet billowing out from her torso. Here where she teetered so precariously, there was no snow. The mists from the walls of waves and gusts would not permit it. All was ice. A thin coat as black as the rock on which she stood. Even though her hair twisted violently around her with each passing gale, her expression was the same. Pained. The once rosy cheeks stained with the trails of tears that had flowed unhindered. One glance, and he knew. Not only that, but she knew that he had known all along. And for that, he was instantly beset with a stabbing remorse.
Clutched firmly over her heart was the faded red book that he had tried so desperately to keep hidden from her grasp. Carmine's journal. His sister's notes and the grim secrets of what it meant to be a symbol of the Rosencroix Kingdom.
Bloodthorne saw this as well, his expression as pained as that of the woman before him. Still, he could not move nor approach. His shock and fear for her rendering him an immobile figure even among the shouts and requests of the guards as they attempted in vain to talk her down from the deadly precipice. A spray from the waters below shot up into the air, breaking into a myriad of chilling particles as a single tear pulled away from the corners of her vision to meet them. Rose took a half-step backward, all she could afford to do as her heels now sat upon air. The whole of the group moved forward as one with that instant, halting as quickly as they had advanced. All forms of shouts or yelling had quieted with this, turning to desperate pleading and requests for a calm and rational movement away from the brink.

“Rose...”

Bloodthorne's voice was lost in the drowning commotion of wind, water and the internal thoughts that he knew were pounding away in her head. Still, the lips parted and he knew that she recognized the familiar word that had escaped from them. They traveled silently across the cold wind, an unspoken prayer from his heart to her's. The woman turned to him. Her knuckles were white as the snow as they held the book unwavering; crimson eyes filled with a pain that spanned centuries into the past. Such was the sorrow he felt as those two orbs gazed deep into his own.
Then they closed.
Soft lashes pressing gently together in a look of calm and unpleasant acceptance. Rose leaned backward.

The sky embraced her as she plummeted through it and toward the cliffs below.'

...

"I do hope that this has proven enough to sate your longings. Or have I only increased them?" The cloaked figure gives a bemused smirk as the pen once more dips into the ruddy ink. "We shall look back upon this, and the remainder of the tale that is 'Graveskye', soon enough. Please...do look forward to it..."

((Excerpt provided by Erica Burnham, author and creator of 'The Memoirs of the Rose' trilogy. All rights reserved. DO NOT COPY OR USE WITHOUT FULL PERMISSION OF THE AUTHOR))

Description
A darkened corner in a vast, shadowy space that threatens to extend onward into infinity. A cloaked figure sits at a desk, pen at the ready as he moves to press the crimson ink to the pristine white page in front of him. He pauses, turns ever so slightly to the sound of an approach. A visitor that he knows quite well.
It is you.
"Ah, so we meet once again, dear reader. My my, your patience must be growing rather thin by this point. Yes, I know what it is that brings you once more to linger upon my doorstep...my little corner of the now and hereafter. I have promised you the end of a tale. A most fitting closure to that which has lingered open and kept you in suspense. Now here you are. Gathered here Life's theater that has held you, a member of this captive audience, since the time of your birth. Ah, it isn't exactly the grandest of venues, now is it? Yet I suppose it has certain charms. Comedy, tragedy, romance, slice-of-life, even horrors untold have played out upon the vast stage that I have so meticulously set, the curtains of pages written about to be pried open once again for your entertainment. But which of us, I wonder, shall prove the most entertained by what we are to witness? After all, you are the mute witness, sentenced to watch while I have every power to direct and to change as it so suits me."
"Oh? You thought Fate impartial? Blind and neutral to the ins and outs of history? All is but a set path, correct? We must only press onward as a puppet strung up by the red strings." He chuckles. "Ah...still so naive to my work. I am blind yes, but to the pities and sorrows of others. I am the infinite. I march on, unhindered, permanent, everlasting...while you, my child, are but a single thread in the grand tapestry I weave. Set into place in a moment, and then forgotten in the grand scheme of my inner workings."
"Come now, no need to look so disappointed. All hold their purpose, and they must be content with it until the curtain falls and you can take your final bow. It may end with your head toppling at your feet, but that is not for me to say. I only pen the tale. The rest...that is the work of another. Oh, but where are my manners?" The pen trails along the page in a single, wide-sweeping arc as simultaneously a red string is brought to the forefront of the pitch black void.
"My work is nearly done, and the tale is close to completion. For now, please keep your patience, for there is so much more to lose."
"Hmm...shall I give you a taste? I wonder, would a snippet of what is to come whet your appetite and keep you appeased all at once? Perhaps if you ask politely. Kindness will get you everywhere and nowhere, as they say."
"Very well, but just a brief glimpse. Any more, and I would have to run my threads straight into your eyes in compensation.
We are clear then? I shall set the stage..."

...

' “What are you- stop! Get down from there!” This and a veritable cacophony of yelling assaulted Tuomas's ears as he finally broke through to the other side of the encroaching garden. The removal from it was sudden and abrupt, bringing him right out to a stony landing that led to the cliffs in back of the castle's grounds. Far behind him, the shadow of the large structure could be seen embossed with the moon's glow. Candles had already started to be re-lit in the windows on the higher floors by other servants, yet this was observed only at a passing glance. The full of his attention at present was drawn in the same direction as the Lord Bloodthorne's as the ruler appeared at his side. A glance up to his features would reveal about the same as he imagined his own visage to be. A mirrored and shared expression of confusion, horror and stark fear. Enough to drain away any bits of warmth or color from his snow-kissed brow and near still his heart mid-beat as he looked on.

A small grouping of guards had circled one of the crests of the jagged obsidian rocks that made up the face of the cliff. The whole of it ended abruptly with a straight drop down, and they took precautions in this knowledge, careful not to stand too close where a slip on the ice could prove their undoing. The pinnacle of fear however came from the sight of a single figure motionless at the very brink of the highest point.

Rose.

She stood unblinking as the icy blasts of wind whipped around her figure and tore through her pale skin, the folds of her ball gown from the banquet billowing out from her torso. Here where she teetered so precariously, there was no snow. The mists from the walls of waves and gusts would not permit it. All was ice. A thin coat as black as the rock on which she stood. Even though her hair twisted violently around her with each passing gale, her expression was the same. Pained. The once rosy cheeks stained with the trails of tears that had flowed unhindered. One glance, and he knew. Not only that, but she knew that he had known all along. And for that, he was instantly beset with a stabbing remorse.
Clutched firmly over her heart was the faded red book that he had tried so desperately to keep hidden from her grasp. Carmine's journal. His sister's notes and the grim secrets of what it meant to be a symbol of the Rosencroix Kingdom.
Bloodthorne saw this as well, his expression as pained as that of the woman before him. Still, he could not move nor approach. His shock and fear for her rendering him an immobile figure even among the shouts and requests of the guards as they attempted in vain to talk her down from the deadly precipice. A spray from the waters below shot up into the air, breaking into a myriad of chilling particles as a single tear pulled away from the corners of her vision to meet them. Rose took a half-step backward, all she could afford to do as her heels now sat upon air. The whole of the group moved forward as one with that instant, halting as quickly as they had advanced. All forms of shouts or yelling had quieted with this, turning to desperate pleading and requests for a calm and rational movement away from the brink.

“Rose...”

Bloodthorne's voice was lost in the drowning commotion of wind, water and the internal thoughts that he knew were pounding away in her head. Still, the lips parted and he knew that she recognized the familiar word that had escaped from them. They traveled silently across the cold wind, an unspoken prayer from his heart to her's. The woman turned to him. Her knuckles were white as the snow as they held the book unwavering; crimson eyes filled with a pain that spanned centuries into the past. Such was the sorrow he felt as those two orbs gazed deep into his own.
Then they closed.
Soft lashes pressing gently together in a look of calm and unpleasant acceptance. Rose leaned backward.

The sky embraced her as she plummeted through it and toward the cliffs below.'

...

"I do hope that this has proven enough to sate your longings. Or have I only increased them?" The cloaked figure gives a bemused smirk as the pen once more dips into the ruddy ink. "We shall look back upon this, and the remainder of the tale that is 'Graveskye', soon enough. Please...do look forward to it..."

((Excerpt provided by Erica Burnham, author and creator of 'The Memoirs of the Rose' trilogy. All rights reserved. DO NOT COPY OR USE WITHOUT FULL PERMISSION OF THE AUTHOR))