Prologue: California coast, 2014

He was right. It always comes down to blood.

That's what the ocean is, really: the heart's blood of the earth. Not just necessary to life, but life itself. It roils and boils with a restless passion, sings and hums and screams, pulsing with secret vitality. More so at high tide, when the waters struggle to be free, yet, ultimately, must come back upon themselves. It is their will. It is their fate.

I never appreciated oceans at night until I became nocturnal, yet, looking back, I can't say I loved them any less during those long ago summers before Sunnydale, before vampires. Those were innocent days---I had my face to the sunlight, ignorant of the approaching shadow.

A cool, sweet breeze sweeps over the rocks, lifts my hair, brings me back to myself. This night will be hard enough without sliding into self-pity. I am the Slayer, say the Powers. It is their will. It is my fate. But my destiny is my own. I forged it from the ashes of August, 2004, that devastating summer of souls. Seven years after my twenty-fifth birthday, I'm still alive, still loving--and fighting--still as turbulent as the waves crashing near my rocky perch. If the monstrous losses of that summer resulted in an epiphany, the after-years have brought something like grace. There were so many things in life I wanted to escape; so many decisions I wanted to unmake. Since Angel, I'd been running away again and again, thumbing a ride down that same old lonesome highway. All this, instead of putting down roots and growing in another direction.

The sea-spray dampens my face, gleams on my leather boots, takes me back to the months after everything went to hell. I used to come here, stand on the cliffs and contemplate how much easier it would be simply to fly down rather than tread the path again. Both my shadows hovered anxiously until I returned from the edge.

Sometimes he commented on the ocean

"It's nature's way of saying, "piss off."

Mostly, we were silent. There were no words for what we'd been given, or what we'd lost. The words came later, when the grief receded, like the waves, with time and grace.

A tingling sensation, like the touch of pale fingers, shivers down my spine. It's time. A light step is falling on the rocks somewhere behind me. Booted feet are climbing slowly, accompanied by the swish of leather and the faint copper penny-scent of blood. I was the May Queen, the princess, the prodigal daughter for but a moment in time. I'll be the Slayer forever--it's a lifetime deal, from cradle to grave--and I know the odor of fresh, human blood. My heart constricts, even now. I'd hoped there was another way. That things might go differently this time. I turn to meet my visitor, and a thousand memories assail me…

Mom, in the kitchen, laughing…

Fleeing Glory along dusty country roads…

Running toward a bitter rose dawn…

Jumping…

Waking…

Turning…

Failing.

I wish I had vampire sight to see in the half-light. A flame erupts in the night, but still there is no movement, just a black-clad figure standing with head slightly tilted.

So like him.

Finally, the candle is set down on a nearby rock and we stand face to face for the first time since that unforgettable night when love died and a soul went renegade. I gasp.

She's breathtaking, in that hideously beautiful vampire way. A dark rose, forever caught in mid-bloom. I love her still.

"Dawnie."