She had been beauty made flesh, and now she was memory made color.
He painted.
His golden eyes shimmered whenever he painted her, as if remembering.
Her hair, black as ink spilled across moonlight, flowed down her shoulders in soft waves that once shimmered like silk when the wind touched it.
Her eyes, gods, those eyes, crimson like dying embers, never cruel, never monstrous as some whispered, but alive with fire and warmth. He used to tell her they were sunsets trapped in glass. Now, they were just the hardest shade to paint.
The man's hand trembled as he brushed crimson onto the canvas. His own hair, a pale gold turned dull from weeks without sleep, caught the dying light through the studio window.
"You'd laugh at me for this," he said softly. "You always said I painted better when you were watching."
But she wasn't watching anymore. The chair where she'd sit, teasing him about his "brooding artist face," sat empty. Only her memory guided his hand now.
