The Groom Who Waited in Bone

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“He kept the vow the world forgot, waiting in bone for the bride who walks the frost.”

A Raven Noir Fragment

He did not rot. He waited.

Long after the vows were spoken, long after the bride vanished into frost, he remained — seated at the table where the holly had wilted, where the wine had dried, where the candles had burned down to waxy ghosts.

His fingers were bone. His smile was carved from silence. His heart was a relic, still beating beneath the snow.

They called him forgotten. They called him mad. But he was neither.

He was promised.

And promises, in the Raven Noir world, do not die. They calcify. They wait.

Each year, when the last snow falls and the veil trembles, he returns to the table.

He sets two glasses. He lights one candle. He speaks no words.

Because the vow was never broken.

Only paused.

And somewhere in the dark, the bride stirs.

“The bride returned not for love, but for the promise buried beneath the frost.”