Drops of water dripped down onto the wooden floor. Aurelie inhaled loudly, remembering to breathe. She wanted to move but couldn't tear her eyes away from the nothingness that they stared at. She sniffed and then shook her head. Alorah wouldn't have cried for her and so she wouldn't disrespect her memory by showing weakness either. It was damn hard.
The room was dark, and a hint of Nic's perfume lingered in the air. The duvet was pushed to the foot of the bed and the sheets were disturbed. Cheerful voices sounded outside, many of them. Night had come to Highfire and it sounded like they were celebrating, yet again.
Aurelie stood still for a moment longer, taking in the laughter coming from outside. This was a different world. Standing in Karah's bedroom felt surreal.
Footsteps approached, soft and light. Karah came into the room. Aurelie could barely see her. Her light nightgown was the only thing that stood out in the dark.
She gasped. "Oh dear God!" she said, regaining her breath. "Your Highness, you look like you've seen a ghost, which is ironically exactly how I feel."
"The Queen is dead."
Aurelie saw the whites of her eyes widen. "Long live the King," Karah said after a minute of silence.
"He won't," Aurelie replied. She felt hot suddenly. The room was stuffy but it took a while for her to notice.
Aurelie walked toward the light coming from the hallway. She had a sudden urge to see Kirin.
"I was only kidding," Karah shouted after her.
The shop was dark when she entered it. It smelled of staleness and herbs. People walked past the windows, hand in hand, almost hopping from sheer joy. Lights flickered near the park square that was partly visible from the shop.
Cold air hit Aurelie as soon as she opened the door. She thought of nothing but Kirin as she left the shop. Shoulders bumped into her, but she didn't stop to apologize to look who it had been, she had been counting the steps until she saw him.
She turned corners and crossed streets, hardly noticing anything around her. When she stood in the warm light coming from the window of Peter's house, she lost all the courage to go inside.
What the hell was she going to tell them?
The wind blew her hair over her eyes, she turned slightly to wipe them away and caught sight of the most beautiful blue eyes in the world. He stood, flustered, gaping at her from across the street.
"I missed you," she shouted over the joyful chatter coming from the crowd. There were less of them here than closer to the square but still enough create a hell of a lot of noise.
"I love you," he replied.
Aurelie looked to her left to make sure that the way was clear and took a step. When she looked back to where Kirin was standing, she was met with the backs of five darkly clad figures. Running toward the group, she searched for him among the passing faces, knowing she wouldn't find him there.
"Kirin!" she shouted. "Kirin!"
"Aurel-" she heard his voice call out, panicked and muffled.
A small flame ignited below the sole of their shoes, Aurelie made the fire spread along their clothes. They didn't move.
People screamed. A man ran up, taking off his coat, and started to beat their backs with it. Horrified, he looked at Aurelie.
"Help!" he said before noticing the fire in her eyes. Stepping back, he pointed his finger at her. "Dear God!"
"Leave!" she said.
The men didn't move. Once Aurelie reached them, she saw that there were more than five, and they all stood in a circle around. . .
"Let him go!" she screamed, hitting one of them on the back. He didn't flinch, nor did he break his concentration.
People were running from the circle. Their screams sounding farther and farther away.
"What's happening?" she heard Daerious scream from the direction of the house.
"They have Kirin," she said, trying to pull them apart to get into the circle.
"Let him go!" she said again, jumping on the short one, hoping to somehow overpower him.
Smoke rose from their clothes and crisp smell of burnt meat choked her. Aurelie ignited her hands and wrapped them around the woman's face, clawing her fingers and pressing into her eyes.
She screeches and Aurelie felt a small sense of a relief but it faded soon as it came. If they felt the pain but didn't let go, they meant business. Her heart pounded, ears muffling out the sound of their chanting.
Aurelie dug her hands deeper into the woman's eyes. The chanting stopped for a second, and they moved. Their faces turned to her, dark skin, marked with scarlet scars. She'd seen them before. They were the shamans that gave her the portal to the Icelands.
"Long live the King," someone whispered into her ears.
They chanted again. "Fura! Fura!"
Aurelie felt her arms go limp, she fell from the back of the woman, bracing herself for the fall, but just before she hit the ground, a forceful wind knocked her back. She flew away from the group, and landed on the floor, hitting someone on her way.
The shamans dispersed, fire and all into different directions, but Kirin was nowhere to be seen.
She stood up, intending fully to chase one down, but someone grabbed her forearm. Peter stood behind her, he shook his head.
"You don't want to follow them, Princess," he said, "Not while you're bleeding." He looked down at her elbow.
The dress was torn and blood came out of small cuts on her elbow. The impact must have bruised her, but she didn't feel it.
"Are you alright?" Daerious asked. Shaelyn stood behind him, glaring at her through her deep-set eyes.
A human, a scorned witch, and age wizard. That wasn't going to save Kirin from the Icelands.
Peter started to let go of her forearm, but she grabbed his back, and he paused. "Take me to the castle," she said. "I want to see my father."
"No!" Daerious shouted. Aurelie circled him in a ring of fire and rose the flames to burn like a wall around him. "For God's sake, Aurelie! He wouldn't want you to do that."
"He doesn't have a choice."
Orken can out of the house. "What the hell are all you doing out here."
The shadow below Peter and below Orken started to expand. A shadow in the shape of Orken appeared behind him and grabbed him by the arms. "What the hell is this?" he shouted.
A gentle breeze started to circle Aurelie and Peter. His eyes filled with purple light. Darkness covered them and started to twist and turn.
"Hold on tight," Peter said, "I haven't done this in a hundred years."
*****
A cold silence fell on the throne room. Aurelie sat looking at her father, wide-eyed and shaking. She should have been afraid. Should have . . . Yet, there was a flicker of hope inside her. That of a little girl running to daddy, sure that he could save her. She had not forgotten the way he looked at her on that field. It was as if he felt her pain. Even now, his eyes were soft. She no longer cared about herself. All she wanted was to get Kirin back.
Aurelie reached out her arms toward him. "Take it," she said as fresh tears ran down her face. "Just save him." It was the only thing she had to give except her life. Although, she was offering both just by being there.
"They took him," Peter said, "from right under my nose, those bloody bastards."
"Who?" Kirin's father asked. He looked at her briefly, took his father by the shoulder and led him away, listening to Peter's account of what happened. Aurelie hadn't been aware that he had seen as much as he had, but from the sound of things, he was there moments after the ordeal began.
The King leaned over in his seat and covered his eyes with the palm of his hand. Aurelie gasped, choking back her tears. Even the tips of her fingers ached with the loss of him. This was defeat. She didn't understand it before. But now, as her bones filled with the force of his absence, she knew.
Across the room, below the set of steps that led to the throne where her father sat, Aurelie noticed a girl who had watched her with just intensity that a chill ran down her spine. She was plump, blonde and enraged by her presence. Aurelie knew exactly who she was from her reaction. The Fiancé. The girl he left behind. Jealousy came over her. Not because of her beauty, or anything trivial like that but because she had gotten to kiss him, had gotten to be with him and had gotten to meet his family and do all the things only a partner could do.
Aurelie stoodâholding her head highâand approached the throne.
Her thoughts were scrambled with unanswered questions. Why did it have to leave the house alone on that night and that time? She would have been there if he had just left later. If he had just come back earlier, he could have missed them altogether.
If she didn't stay as long at Karah's, she would have been closer and he would have lived. On and on the deceptive thoughts went.
His expression was blank but not cold. A part of her still expected him to cackle any moment but he didn't.
"I'm not going to take your magic," he said simply and leaned back against his throne.
"What?" she said, louder than expected.
"Aurelie," he said.
"No!" she protested. "This is what you wanted. What did you kill everyone for if not this? Take it!" Did you suddenly get a conscience? Maybe he realized that without her, there would be no Dranoirs left, unless he had illegitimate mongrels running around Highfire as a living, breathing power source.
He didn't seem to know where to start. "The plan wasn't to kill you."
"Oh, so it was just to displace me and kill everyone around me. Now it all makes sense, thank you for clarifying."
The King closed his eyes. "Leave!" he commanded, his voice deep and frightening.
Aurelie scoffed. What was he going to do? Keep her alive? That was about the only torture she was afraid of short only of never seeing Kirin again. "No!"
"Not you."
Aurelie closed her eyes. Images of Kirin flooded her mind. From the firefly tree to that very first time their hands touched on the grass near the pond. She wrapped her arms around herself and lowered her head. There was nothing about her that felt real anymore.
Inside, she was cracked, chipped and altogether broken. She remembered being pierced with the arrow and wished that it was the same kind of pain. That she could handle. She knew that there would either be healing or death. A visual sore with a process she could track, to then form a scar. That had an end.
"What do you want with me?" she said when finally everyone had left the room. The King even chased out the guards.
"I want you safe."
A single tear rolled down her eye. Her hand reached for her chest where all the pain had gathered. "I can't ever be safe if he isn't. I had the chance, but I was too weak to let him go. Nowâ" she clawed her fingers into a tight fist over her heart, "he's gone. I can't live without him. I can't do it. If heâ" She didn't know why she stood before her biggest enemy and poured her soul to him. Nothing could explain why at this very moment she felt like he cared. Grief was an unexpected demon. "Whatever you want from me, and I know there must be something; I just need to tell you that I have nothing left to give you."
"You'll heaâ
"No," she shook her head, "I can promise you that I won't. Why did you start all of this?" Why did you do it?" The fight was over. She stood before him and he didn't even have to drag her there. Maybe, in the joy of his victory, he would be honest with her. Tell her the goals, so that it wasn't in vain.
"I didn't, my father did," he said. Darkness fell over his face. He genuinely looked as if he was grieving along with her. Aurelie didn't want to acknowledge it. If there was real humanity within him, he wouldn't have killed all her allies. The weight of the consequences and their impact on him didn't affect the ache in her heart.
"That doesn't explain why you killed them all." Aurelie pressed her lips together. She was homesick for a place that did not exist anymore, for the way she felt before it all happened. The joy, she remembered the feeling and longed for it.
"I went there to save you."
"Liar," she whispered. Recalling the tender moments that had passed between her and Kirin, she began to cry. Why did you have to go out tonight? Why tonight? She closed her eyes to see his face. His light blue eyes and the string of hair that always seemed to hang over his eye. A tear ran down her cheek and then another. What are they doing to you?
"It's true," someone said from behind her.
It was Kaiden's voice. A deep soothing grunt that was usually only heard when she had done something wrong. She turned, clenching her teeth. "He went there to bring you home. Your people attacked and that's why they died. There was no opportunity for dialogue."
Aurelie stared at him through narrowed eyes. After convincing herself that it was not a ghost that stood before she, she spoke sharply and with all the rage that she could muster, "You've been here all along? Safe."
"Yes."
Aurelie smirked. "Well, aren't I the fool?"
"You aren't," The King said.
"You both know that I would have come with you if you had brought Kaiden, yes?" she asked.
She felt hatred toward him stronger even than what she felt toward The King.
"I know, but that would have foiled everything. I couldn't agree."
She turned to him. There must have been disgust in her expression because he recoiled from her like the superstitious do when faced with broken mirrors.
"These games you've been playing with me, have they now come to an end?"
"This isn't a game," Kaiden said.
Aurelie's eyes ignited. "You see, you say that," she pointed her finger at him, "but I've never been anything but a pawn. You've broken me. I've hated the wrong man. His betrayal is easier to swallow. I am nothing to him. But you..."
"You're everything to me!" The King stood, holding out a fist.
Kaiden closed his eyes, just like she would when she wanted to stop her tears. "Aurelieâ"
"Stop," she whispered. "The sound of your voice makes me sick. Leave us!" The power in her own voice scared her. Her scream echoed through the room, sounding even louder.
To her surprise, he did. A hot pain flashed behind her eyes. As if she needed to hurt more. "I'll give you time to explain," she told her father. "Just a friendly warning, if you ever lie to me, I will leave. And I don't care in the slightest if Highfire implodes without me. That doesn't frighten me anymore. I will leave and damn you all in a heartbeat."
Her father nodded once and held out his hand to the chair on the right of him. "The Keeper, before my father took his place, told me of a vision he had. This was three months before your birth. You died alone on the castle steps. A hooded assassin had slit your throat. He showed me this. The castle burned behind you. But it wasn't the kingdom that touched me, but the fact that you were alone. From that moment on, that was my biggest fear. Your solitude."
"Isn't that ironic." The empty pain inside her chest tempted her to bend over and scream.
The King looked down. "I suppose it is. Well, the Keeper and I began to find ways to change fate. Eventually, I began to study my magic more carefully, to become stronger . . . so that I was able to protect you. This made my father and Elizabeth uncomfortable and surely enough The Keeper had another vision. One where I became King and you survived. So, I let them take you and make me the monster and based my actions on that vision."
"Why did you come to the inn that day?"
"I made a bargain with The Keeper that if he told me how to save you, I would allow you to break the curse on The Icelands. Years later I saw him in The Dream Realm, hidden away from my father and he told me of another vision. He said that it would prepare me to deal with your despair. He saw the boy die in your arms." He sniffed and leaned back in his chair. "Then, I decided, along with Kirin's father that we were going to get the both of you out. He didn't want his son to die and I saw what it did to you."
Aurelie held her fingers over her mouth. "Why didn't you force me to come?"
"You fought me with such intensity." He smiled. "For the first time, I saw your strength. You were so determined to save Highfire from me that I thought I had to let you do it. Save the world. My father had been scheming in The Dream Realm. Who knew what would happen if I betrayed The Keeper? I didn't want to tempt fate more than I had already with coming to you. I saw you as a woman and no longer a child and I knew, from that moment on, that you could handle anything."
"And now you see that I can't," she said.
"That's not true."
"Thank you for telling me what happened." Aurelie stood. The knock of her heels echoed through the throne room. She stopped and without turning, addressed her father again. "Not a fortune teller in the world will be able to tell you how to keep me alive if he dies."
***
She stood out on the balcony when the Kingdom lit hundred up with of hundreds of sky lanterns in celebration of her return to the castle. They colored the sky like stars.
Alorah's wishes would sadly not be able to see the light of day. Somewhere around the melting snow, Lukas was celebrating the end of the curse and his coronation. He kept creeping into her violent thoughts.
Had Kirin been delivered to him yet, she wondered.
She had been informed that the King had set out his best spies to find information but that wasn't enough. The entire bloody army should have been out there searching for him.
With both hands clasped firmly against the frame of the balcony, Aurelie watched the orange lights drift into the heavens. Her teeth dug into her tongue until she tasted blood.
"Every last man that was involved in taking you from me will burn," she said aloud.