Prologue
"Once upon a time, there lived a young maiden so beautiful and pure of heart that every man in the kingdom desired to make her their wife. She had many suitors, but the girl was young and so turned the men away. Others came, year after year, but still she refused to marry, for she believed that she had not long for this world.
Beautiful things often wither away in their infancy, like rose buds frozen in an early frost. The maiden was no different, but when Death came for her, he found that he could not lift his scythe against her, for even he had fallen beneath her spell.
To him the girl was the personification of life, the very thing that he was tasked to destroy. He at once hated her and loved her for it. He could not remember exactly when he began to envy the living. Death was old, older than man, older than the earth and older still than light. In his old age, he had become more curious about humanity. Why was it that they clung so to life? Why did they always plead with him for mercy, for just one more day? Why did they not just come with him happily? What was it about life that humans loved so much? He often pondered. It must be a glorious thing indeed. It wasn't until he came for the life of the maiden as she danced in the spring sunshine, her skin aglow with warmth and vitality, that he finally understood. Life was beautiful.
Disguising himself as a handsome youth, Death came to the maiden and enticed her with honeyed words and outlandish promises. Delighted by his charms, the maiden met with Death in secret in the night. With each meeting, the girl fell more and more in love with the strange and mysterious youth, for he was kind and patient. For once, she found herself unable to turn a man away, despite her fear of an early demise.
Death is a cruel seducer and he is quite good at it as well. He promised only lies and told her only what she wished to hear. For her, he played the charming prince with smiles and whispers of love, but these things Death did not at all understand. He knew only that he wanted her and Death always gets what he desires, regardless of what he must do to obtain it.
Before long, the maiden had vowed to become his wife. And so the couple went to the village church with the maiden's father's blessings and the two were married. The maiden was oblivious to who it really was that she married, but when Death lifted her veil and kissed her lips for the first time, all was revealed to her, for her first kiss had been the kiss of Death.
The moment his lips had touched hers, the maiden's heart stopped beating. She died.
Death retook his true form and silently waited. Patiently, he watched as his wife's body was buried beneath a willow tree by her distraught father and her four elder brothers. Death smiled to himself as he watched their torment. This had been his plan all along. He now had everything that he had wanted.
Three nights later, there was a knock at the father's door. When the father opened it to see who was there, he screamed in horror at the sight that met his aging eyes, for on his doorstep stood his dead daughter, her wedding gown covered in graveyard soil. She was not at all the daughter he had loved so dearly in life. Her hair, which was once as dark as Death's shroud, was now a shock of white. Her skin was death pale and the rosy color was gone from her cheeks. Her heart too was no longer the same. The once happy, cheerful child had become somber, as if she were filled with a heavy sadness.
The maiden thought that she could return to her life, to those that loved her most and that she could forget all about Death and his lies. However, her family and the village that had once adored her were now terrified. They believed her to be an unholy specter and wanted to be rid of her.
The poor maiden, now despised by everyone she'd known, was dragged away from her home and sealed inside a tower with no doors or windows.
The maiden's four brothers, horrified by what their father had done to their sister, tried day and night to find a way into the tower, all to no avail. Finally, on the third day, Death appeared before them. "What are you doing?" He asked, his voice the soothing sweetness of the youth he had pretended to be.
"Return our sister!" The boys demanded.
"Return her?" Death scoffed with a wicked laugh. "She is my wife now. I will never return her. She will remain with me forever."
"Please, you must." The brothers pleaded. "She is too young to die. Give her back to us so that she may live!" The boys groveled at Death's feet, begging for his understanding and mercy.
They would receive neither. "No." Death replied coldly. "Your sister was never meant to live beyond this year, but because I love her she rule at my side, an eternal god. She will see uncountable springs thanks to me, because I have chosen her as my bride." Death laughed at the stupefied looks on the brothers' faces. "You wish me to give her back her life, but I have given her much more than that. I have given her immortality."
The Brothers, distraught at the loss of their dear sister, begged Death for the chance to say goodbye to her. Reluctantly, Death agreed and made them as ghosts so that they could walk through the tower walls and he guided them to the bedchamber, where the maiden awaited. At the sight of her the brothers dropped to their knees and cried. "Forgive us! Forgive us!" But the maiden remained stoic, as silent as a sculpture. Once their cries had silenced to whimpers, the maiden kissed each of their cheeks with her cold lips and whispered softly. "I shall never forgive you. As you have betrayed me, so shall I betray you." As she spoke, Death touched each of the brothers with the edge of his scythe and stripped them of their lives.
The next morning, hunters found the brothers lying dead outside the tower. The four had fallen to their deaths as they struggled to free their sister from Death's tower.