Andrei and Rhian

Lidia Ruza never meant for her brother to see her still pretty, still loved, but not alive. She never meant to murder their parents in front of his eyes. Oops. So she begged the man in the emerald suit to help him forget, and he promised he would, if only she'd promise to set her old life aside.

Only, the lass couldn’t help herself, could she? She interfered everywhere she could. Her brother was an orphan because of her, but she never meant to send him straight into the hands of an abuser. Oops. So she gave him the fight he needed to hold that pillow over that bastard’s face, the idea he needed to set the house on fire, and the courage he needed to start a life in Istok.

She watched as Alexander became so much like their father, if their father had been at all kind. She was right around the corner when he met Isabella. She watched as they grew their love, built a home, and tried for a family. She'd always known her brother would have all the things she wouldn’t. Oops, she never meant to hurt them—one time, two times, five. She hadn’t counted on the jealousy. She’d let them have the next one, and she’d keep her distance for now.

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Around then, folks started going missing from their homes in Oskari. Women and little girls, grown-arse men. Boys. Lured away by an old man with a mustache offering his services for the winter. Time after time, she tried for what she wanted—an immortal family and friends to replace the ones she’d lost. But time after bloody time, the man in the emerald suit destroyed them all. The man in the emerald suit—the one with all the promises. The one who took all the blessings for himself and left her cursed and alone.

Only when he was certain she’d learned her lesson to leave her old life behind, he stepped into a burgundy suit, slipped a silver ring around his finger, and laid himself to rest. “Wake me up in ten years, my dear,” he said, and she promised that she would. And once a week she visited his resting place, left flowers at his feet, and filled his casket with lives to sustain him. Once a week for ten years, and then one hundred years, and then two hundred, and then four until someone unsuspecting stole his ring and woke him from his long nap.

Aye, and is this part where I say... oops?