Brave Legacy

Chapter Nineteen: The End of Ruby

The graveyard was silent. The air was lighter, brighter. The centuries-long shadow of the curse had at last been lifted. Rubina knelt in the grass, sobbing into her hands and rocking back and forth.

Iris and Jasmine looked at each other, before slowly coming to kneel beside her. Their footfalls were gentle on the dewy ground.

"Rubina?" Iris asked softly.

Rubina flinched at her name. She sucked in a ragged breath and looked up, her eyes bloodshot, her cheeks streaked with tears. She scuttled backwards, eyes wide in confusion and fear. "Who... who are you? Where am I? What... what is this place?"

Jasmine crouched down, keeping her voice low and soothing. "You're safe, Rubina. The curse is broken. You're free now."

Iris knelt on Rubina's other side, nodding to reinforce the words. "We're Iris and Jasmine Brave. We're your descendants. We're... family."

Rubina stared at them, lips trembling. The world around her was empty of darkness, and it was too much for her mind to fully accept. "Family?" she repeated, a whisper, as if she wasn't yet sure that was real.

Jasmine nodded and reached out a hand to her. "We broke the curse. You're not alone anymore."

Rubina's shoulders shook with a sob. She clutched herself and bowed her head, crying again. "I'm sorry," she gasped, voice cracking. "I'm so, so sorry. For everything. For all the pain... all the lives..."

Iris's eyes stung with tears of their own. She placed a hand on Rubina's back, feeling the sorrow of ages in the woman before her. "We know. We know it wasn't all you. The curse warped everything. You fought it for so long."

Rubina sobbed again, her voice coming out in shuddering, broken gasps. "Please... forgive me. I never wanted to hurt anyone. I didn't want to become... that. I... I'm so sorry. Please... can you ever—?"

Jasmine and Iris both reached for her, hands warm on her cold, shaking ones. Jasmine squeezed Rubina's hand and whispered, "We forgive you. It's over. You're free—really free. And you're not alone anymore."

Rubina looked up at them, hope dawning in her tear-soaked eyes for the first time in centuries. The graveyard was silent, but in that silence, forgiveness that had been long denied could at last begin to take root.

The three women knelt beneath the moon together, the Brave family whole at last.

As Jasmine and Iris offered forgiveness and warmth to Rubina, a new figure entered the graveyard, soft footfalls on the grass. Ambrose stepped from the shadows, careful in his approach, and never taking his eyes from Rubina. He crouched down and placed a shadow across her shaking form.

Rubina's sobs were quieted at his approach. She was still shaking when she raised her head. Moonlight glinted in Ambrose's eyes, warm and kind and sorrowful. Wordless, he reached out and wiped away her tears with the back of a hand.

Rubina stared up at him, held her breath, as if she scarcely believed what she was seeing. "Is it you?" She whispered, awed and fearful, her voice thick with emotion. She reached up, one hand trembling as she cupped his cheek, fingers brushing the contours of a face she had only seen in memories and dreams.

Ambrose smiled. His own eyes glittered with tears. "It's me, Rubina. You're free now."

Rubina's knees buckled and she fell to a sob, forehead pressed to Ambrose's shoulder. "I'm so sorry... I missed you... I thought I'd lost you forever..."

Ambrose held her to him, arms around her, for the first time in centuries truly holding her close and safe. "You were never lost to me," he murmured, voice rough with love and release. "Not really. I've been waiting—hoping you'd come back."

Jasmine and Iris looked on, tears in their eyes and their hearts full, as Rubina and Ambrose clung to each other in the moonlit graveyard. The past was a scar of pain, but this night there was nothing but forgiveness, and the quiet, gentle beginning of a new start.

For the first time in a very long time, Rubina wept not in grief, but in hope.

And the Brave family was at last whole.

Ambrose smiled, gently brushing her tears away with his thumb. Then, with nothing more than a kiss, he leaned in and met her—full of longing and years lost, of a promise they both thought they'd lost. Rubina melted into it, gripping him and not at all wanting to let go. But he pulled back at last and she threw her arms around him, burying her face against his shoulder.

"Thank you," she murmured, voice small and trembling. "Thank you for bringing me back. Thank you—Jasmine, Iris... all of you. I owe you everything. Thank you again." She clung to Ambrose, tears wetting his shirt, reluctant to let him go.

Ambrose smiled, his eyes shining as he gave her one last, gentle kiss on the brow. Then he stood, gazing up at the full moon as if looking for some answer among the stars. But suddenly, his body was seized by pain. He staggered, putting a hand on his chest, and fell to his knees with a strangled cry.

"A-Ambrose?" Rubina gasped, rushing to his side, catching him before he fell completely.

He grit his teeth, sweat forming on his brow. "It's... something's not right... I don't feel good..." His voice was constricted, tight with pain as he tried to stand and immediately fell back.

Rubina cradled him, panic setting in. "What's happening? Ambrose, look at me! Please!"

Ambrose's breath came in ragged gasps. He looked up at her, eyes full of love and regret. "I... I feel it dragging me back," he rasped. "Like I don't belong here anymore..."

Rubina held his face in her hands, her own tears freely falling. "No... no, please, stay with me... stay..."

He drank in her face, memorizing her, in the last few moments he had left. "Rubina... you are so beautiful... And I lo—" He coughed harshly, and pain wracked his body. Using the last of his strength, he whispered, "I love you, Ru."

He shuddered. His body began to break, fine as dust. The moonlight caught the powder that was all that was left of Ambrose, and a sudden breeze caught it up and swept it up into the night air.

Rubina clutched at the spot he'd been moments before, sobbing brokenly. "What's happening? Ambrose... Ambrose!"

Iris knelt at her side, eyes wet. "I think... the magic is gone. He was from another time, borrowed. Maybe... maybe now that the curse is broken, he had to return." She looked to Jasmine, not knowing. "I don't know what happens to souls set free..."

Heartbroken but changed, Rubina turned her tear-streaked face to the sky. The full moon cast its soft light over the graveyard, bathing three women—Brave, forgiven, and forever bound by love and loss.

Rubina whispered to the night. "Goodbye, Ambrose. I will always love you."

And the moon, silent and watchful, held witness as another chapter in the Brave family's history drew to a close.

Just as Rubina's sobs quieted into the graveyard's silence, a deep, rumbled growl came from the earth beneath their feet. Iris staggered, grabbing Jasmine's wrist to keep from falling as loose stones and clods of earth fell from the old graves.

Rubina jumped back, eyes wide in fear. "What's happening now?"