Prologue

He screamed as the light was extinguished, and the countless lost souls who were tied to him screamed with him. They shared his terror, his despair as he was engulfed in the very blackness he had once used to entrap them. Bound to him for so long, they felt his anguish as if it were their very own. As he struggled against the darkness, they struggled with him.

And then he felt something else. Something separate from him.

Joy.

It was there only for a moment, a sensation so fleeting and foreign, that he almost tried to reach for it, and then it was gone. Gone, along with something he needed. Something he needed to fight back against the darkness closing in. Already he could feel it pressing in more closely.

Joy again. And then more loss. He could feel himself weakening. The darkness was beginning to suffocate him. Joy and then loss. He struggled uselessly and the lost souls added their strength to his once more, but now their resistance had…lessened, as if they were no longer quite as concerned about his peril.

Joy. Loss. Joy. Loss. He could feel the strange flashes of emotion happening faster and faster. He could feel the darkness pressing in harder. Joy and loss. Now it was happening continuously, the flickers between the two lasting the barest of an instant before repeating. And through it all, he could feel himself sinking into the darkness, faster and faster. He was weakening, and as the cycle of emotions continued, he finally began to understand why.

They were leaving him.

"NO!" he tried to howl, but the endless depths swallowed up his once deep, resonant voice, turning it into the terrified whisper of an insignificant little speck. And still, they continued to leave him, their joy at finally being set free stabbing at him, mocking him, as they rose up and out of the blackness.

He could see them now, tiny white lights that seemed almost blinding against the darkness surrounding them. He reached for them frantically, trying to keep them from escaping, but they slipped through his long fingers like snowflakes, like mist, leaving him empty handed and weaker than ever. And as they rose up and disappeared, their absence made the darkness seemed deeper than ever before.

"COME BACK!" he wailed. "DON'T LEAVE ME HERE!"

But his fate was no longer their concern. They were free now, free to return to their worlds and their lives, and if they felt anything at all toward him, it was surely satisfaction at that his fate now matched the ones he had led them too.

They were almost all gone now. Only seven remained, and with so few of them left, he could make out the stragglers individually as they departed. The young man who had spent his days tirelessly working at his parents' business, hoping to gain their approval, only to find upon their deaths that they had left everything to his lazy older brother. The old man who had watched his entire family, his entire legacy, snuffed out by plague, rendering his existence meaningless. The mother who had sold all her possessions, had given up everything, to buy medicine for her sick baby…only to have the child die anyway. The soldier who had fought with everything he had to survive the ugliness of war and get back home to his sweetheart…only to find she had married another. The little boy who had, while out in the woods, taken a wrong turn on the way back to his family's campsite and had never seen them again. The older brother who had, for years, taken his father's violent abuse so his young sister would not have to…only to see her life ended with a single, fatal push down the stairs on the one night he hadn't been fast enough to intervene.

One by one, he'd heard them, called to them, enticed them, and finally, they had come.

And now they were leaving him.

The Beast screamed at them, cursed them, hated them, envied them, and finally, when the rest no longer mattered, begged them not to abandon him.

But nothing made any difference.

Only one soul remained with him now. Slightly different from the others, it glowed with a soft pink light, the color of newly bloomed rose, still sparkling with dew. It hovered near the Beast's chest, where his heart would be if he had one, and he recognized it at once.

It was the soul he had hidden behind all these years. The most important one. The one that had kept him alive with love instead of despair.

Her soul.

He should have known she'd be the last to leave him. But she was leaving him. Or trying to, at least. As her spirit tried to rise up out of the darkness, something seemed to hold it back. It still rose, but slowly, as though it were dragging a heavy load.

And the darkness began to recede.

In surprise…relief…hope…the Beast reached for her soul. It slipped through his fingers the way the others had, but did not abandon him, even as it continued upward. And although he could not touch it, he could hear it; hear a familiar voice, coming to him through both space and time.

It's all right…

I won't let you die…

My mother says you put your heart and soul into creating something you love. If she is right, then here is part of mine…

The soul of the Woodsman's daughter rose out of the darkness and the Beast rose with it.