20 Hiraeth

My hideous clothing will blend with the night. Moving with my shadows I draw in a massive black velvet cloak and use a golden pin to fasten it. Pulling in a brown glove my fingers arch within it, tingling with the knowledge of what it might touch tonight.

The Derns wall.

A page of Arran's confinement.

To distract from the stringent thoughts of what I might see, I shuffle through the massive wardrobe that swarms with clothing tailored to my fit. Extravagant fabric and silk shirts hung loosely by the rack and amid the throngs of shirts is a small door to wooden chest. Tension grows between my brows at the mystery of it. The opening it is the first stage.

Gaping is the second.

Delicate dresses, neatly folded within sat idle for me to stare at. I don't dare skim it. But I want to. Oh God if anything more at present I wish to do than leap at it and don it on.

I drop it close, shut the door to the armoir, and walk out of the room when I heard a knock.

"That was precisely fast," says Erix the sooner I peel the door ajar. He is dressed immaculately in an Armin suit-only that a white band slashed across his chest. His eyes decline from the top of me to the bottom, a small smile lifts up his entire face.

"Prepared I see"

"You said you'll send someone"

A fraudulent painstaking look takes over his features and he presses his hand over his heart.

"Am I not better than someone?" His tone is joking, his eyes aren't. He appears to thrill in my misery. With him hovering around me like a fly it's doubtful that I could do what I intend to be doing. But he is the best means to enter Arrans chasm. My shoulder brushes with his arm as I step out, it was unintentional but he found a way to acknowledge it.

"Desperate to feel me?" he strikes again and my eyes couldn't help but roll at his obsession with self.

"Think what you may" I regret the second it leaves me. He walks beside leading the way, I am yet to learn the path of this manor. I could barely remember where we came from.

"See, I had a hunch that you were more than what you let be" he moves snugly with his long legs, I haste my speed to reach him but ended up staring at the back of his arrogant head. I am a girl raised as a boy in the cursed land of ivyaki away from civilization. How less different he thought I would be?

By different I precise that I could survive much happily with three pairs of clothes and boiled potatoes for the rest of my life if it meant ever not seeing Ezdan and Morana faces.

"Awfully quiet. aren't you today" There are so many pillars in here as we leave the mansion which I might go and hit my head on. Perhaps then the bad fortune I am blessed with might take pity on me and vapor.

"Since when was I ever chatty with you. Or do you always dream of such a sequence" two horses are awaiting us, they are the same from my classes. Erix turns- extending a hand,

"Maybe I am paranoid, but snowflake- you were pretty demanding this morning. Hence the result , our first romantic courting will be in a prison" he says, looking like the master of tricks and words. He gains power in behaving such. Bewildering minds with his gullible demeanor to hide the lives he has ravaged.

When I stood still, unwilling to take his hand to reach the saddle. He takes my hand anyway only for another- a new angry hand to yank at my free wrist.

"Where are you taking her?" My stomach clenches at his voice and the night before crashes through me like unhinged waves. His grip on me is tauter than Moranas who eventually let the Ezdan take me to his side. Erix dons a pitiful gaze my way- a modest poise taking over him.

"You always have the wrong timing your Highness," he says with a tang as if he suckle on a pickle "Why can't you let me do things in my way for once?"

Ezdan chuckles, I am ridden with shock to see him like this- true to a laugh.

"The last time you were stubborn, you almost got her killed" Edzan's mock doesn't faze the sour state of Erix, he frowns with a bargain.

"I would have saved her even if you hadn't followed" he mutters "Since when do you professionally stalk people Julie?"

"Since when do you save people instead of killing them?"

In seconds Erix had the collar of Ezdan in his vice, his lips curling into a sneer. I take a shallow breath when a sinister smile from Ezdan rises- nothing good ever has come out of them.

"Stepped on an aching nerve didn't I?" this infuriates Erix further but I fiddle in to stop the banter from becoming a full brawl. I unclaw the furious fingers of Erix from Ezdans shirt which he smoothens to its length. I take stagnant steps toward my Mare and climb on it. She wriggles awake with her feet ready to rush. Both the boys stare up at me as if awaiting the ruling from a queen.

"I care the least for who will take me to the Dern- but I intend to return before the sunrise," I ask them with a pride that bursts within me. It's  new. it's magical. It is the awareness of self-worth where I know I was powerful enough to bring down a realm the day I will harness my core and these men knows my price.

Erix is fast to latch onto the reins off my horse and take his space next to me, engulfing me as whole while I complained with grunts and mumbles.

"These are my horses, I get to choose my ride" he clears the air for a pissed Ezdan who silently got onto another horse. He went quiet after he wasn't answered for the reason we were off to a reformatory district. The cold wind swirls over us and with the proximity of Morana- it magnifies. despite the hoard of clothing, I wore I shivered through my bones when we arrived at a forest road. Full of gravel and dirt the mare galloped to save her legs causing me to fall by Moranas chest.

A sudden twitch of temper kicks through me, and erix in time whispers.

"Is he watching us?" I do not have to comb my head for what he intends, to confirm I look through his shoulder to see Ezdan staring at the path ahead. so intense had he fixed his gaze on the trees and barks that it was evident that he is thinking something else. about someone else.

"No" I whisper back.

"Bet our friendship is bothering him"

"We are not friends"

"And let's act as if the Prince isn't passionately involved with you"

My denial would only work to fuel his gimmick. But I think of last night and with obliviousness, I slowly begin to play with the possibility of Ezdan desiring me. It's vile, and it's disgusting to even have such forbidden beliefs but his words are never short of possessiveness in them. and I hate it. I would love to hate it. Hate that a man bound by death from my hands could fancy me in an evil sense.

Is he twisted?

Is this his fantasy?

I have read about them, the kind of disturbing romances highborn's toy with. I am shaken to the edge at what I am thinking- and I reply erix with grit.

"Be quiet," i say, he hums a whisper of warning. I then add "Please"

The next hum is approval.

Ezdan is an obedient man tonight, tailing us and keeping his invasive thoughts to himself. Sadly I missed his repartees and wits that he throws me under. Without it, he seems incomplete. He looks tired, like a defeated soldier on a horse stripped of honor. But once the prison walls and the fire that lit the arena come into view- he blooms into the stoic royal he is born as.

Our eyes meet, it evaluates me with void as his hold on the reins tightens. He slashes through and past us. when we reach the gates the guards steps ahead to inquire, only to flow back when Ezdan stepped down from the horse. The guard in all greens pressed his hand to his heart and dunked his head.

"Your Highness" he then peeks at Morana and repeats "My lord" he looks at me, an unfamiliar face among the elites- but he allows the gate open for us without a question. They can bring a raccoon to court and need not be asked for a reason. their life- is an illusion. their power- a science of envy.

Two officers come rushing to them, greeting them with flickering nervousness and admiration. Erix and Ezdan return the respect with equal fervor. It is when I realize that I should quit neglecting the Arminhood these men carry, a fellow soldier in ranks- inside these walls there are lineage with bigger ranks of military than Erix and Ezdan. I feel like a mouse from Sewer indulging in a lavish lavatory.

"Is that the incredible Mr. Kasper i see?" one of the senior officers speaks up, eyeing me with his beady eyes with a glistening scar that cuts through his lower lip.

"He indeed is" Erix pats my back and pushes me forward into a bow. "Meet the welfare chief of Azure Timo. Tell him how much you wish to work under the court's amenities"

To be told to succeed a competition to win a ticket to Azure is one thing. And to be told to lead a heist is another. But to be dangled on the spot like a fresh meat for the vultures to peck at is cruel. The officer squints his gaze when a series of nothing but air come out of my open and closing mouth. I hesitantly take a step ahead, the train on my cloak is to blame for the step I staggered in. I felt the fall first when I lost my balance.

But it never comes.

Instead Ezdans arm circles by my waist and fingers of Eric grip at the back of my neck as if carrying a cat. I shrug them away coming to my feet. The officer of Azure soon lost interest in me and was it my first fail? If I need the ring, I ought to impress a set of administrators like him and here I made a farce of my test. I brave my stance and surreptitiously glare at my feet and sometimes later at the circular concrete until they went away.

Erix snickers as soon as the officers were out of sight.

"That was hilarious. right, Julie?"

Ezdan doesn't laugh, He looked like he could spare me the comfort of pity but he was too stubborn to do that.

"Do not call me that" his voice is the only thing that alive within the dead atmosphere of prisons where spirits come to die. Dern is the largest high crime prison where inhabitants are held under the metal and stone walls made of such hard materials that none of their powers could surpass through it. without ventilation and in the confinement of solitary- early deaths are a common conception here.

Arran was said to have gone insane within his chasm, writing, and scribbling on the walls with stones and nails, talking to himself during nights. It is said that his screams would scare his wardens as his detention of powers began to burn his insides until a day it went silent and he was found dead.

"Call you what Julie?" when Ezdan ascends his steps towards a suicidal Erix I hold my hand up and wriggle in between.

"I demanded to visit the Arrans chasm and he bought me here. you both shall resume your affairs tomorrow as I-

"We are not going there" Ezdan braved denying me when I was speaking and Erix frowns mimics mine.

"Yes, we are" I enclose the little space between erix and me to accentuate my point.

"No, you aren't"

"You cannot keep telling her what she aims to do and learn" Erix swiftly takes my elbow and starts to move. I mouth him thanks when Ezdan again joins us beside.

"What do you believe to find there" he tries to get us talking but none of us answers him for a second wise. He sighs slowly, surprisingly none of them seem to have trouble locating the maze-like depth in the stroll to the chasm. as if they walked the path since the day they learned to walk. Ezdans glare was reluctantly on me in every interval as if he was striving to my read mind.

our minds.

Erix wasn't spared of it either.

when we enter a fort I variably knew that we are near. the strange energy of pain and possession of past powers riots together here. There's just one single lantern lit to light the cave-like jaws of the path. The stone are layered with thick dust, fresh footprints of on-and-gone visitors imprinted.

We come to a halt by a gate that are closed, Erix draws a key out of his suit and I look at Ezdan to see what he was doing.

he stared at me plainly while Erix meddled with the locks.

"The tourist isn't allowed further," he says, assuming that I was seeking knowledge. I nod at his politeness. There's a click of the rusty lock coming undone and the rattles of chain that slips and fall to ground. the gate cries open and a bat almost flies towards us with rage. Eric has its wings crust with ice slowing it down. Erix could be my least favorite person in this twisted world- but I cannot be blind to the dread it is to see him use his power.

There are carvings in stone barricades for punishments and tortures one endures if they go against the court. There is a woman on a pyre with fire lapping her body and I try not to shudder at it. I don't wear the armor of royalty like Ezdan and his counter friends, so death would be inevitable for me if found.

They know this.

and yet they are heartless enough.

I am reminded of Hann and Marlon. I wonder what they might be up to with dorin and Castle. Are they unknowingly learning the art of thievery masked as warrior training?

or do they already know?

There's  an iron door, plain as a surface with a singular lock holding it. it comes directly after we walk down a spiraling stair into the depth of the ground. I touch the lock with my gloved hand and gasp at the sheer presence of energy extant and living within the cell.

"Feel that?" Erix pipes "That's the glory of Arran"

Death. even after his demise, his power has survived. And here I am spontaneous to my strength fibbing with my health to meet the corrupted figure of history that Erix appears to idolize. Is it allowed for him to do so?

"I don't want anyone inside" My request is as feeble as my idea to do what I intend to do. Ezdan roughly passes through me opening the door with one hand and getting inside. Doesn't say a thing, but his gesture was loud. It said- does anything about my face look like I take orders?

Erix shrugs with a shoulder. There's an odd aroma in the air, a pleasant smell protected by time. The cell isn't small. But neither is it big. There's an absence of ventilation and a small passage which I believe would lead to a hygiene room. The scribbles on the wall, I brush my fingers through it- the lines- the drawings or the words are mad. They are furiously written.

Arran spent a year in the chamber before he went insane.

"Has no one been here in years?" I ask, tucking away my gloves to feel the wall with my bare hands. Recently I have been controlling my mind from slipping into the robust onset of power the sooner I touch a thing. I started with simple entities like a cup of tea then moved to the curtains by the widows. after countless visions of people sipping from the cup to bring the curtain dusted by maids, I was able to keep my head separated from time to reality.

"How could you say that?" Erix asks while Ezdan observes us with eyes as sharp as of fawn.

"I feel it"

I squeeze a part of my velvet cloak with my fist when he doesn't assure me of such normalcy, each day I have begun to realize how different I am from the other high bloods. or high-borns even. in my eagerness to be understood, I look for Ezdan who stood quietly by the corner watching me. He seems to have discerned the purpose I am here with. so he has resisted insisting on it.

which he tried.

once.

I would have told him had he inquired more. But dare his ego that would let him. I was suffering at the hands of his profound silence and wished he would tell me even an ounce of what he meant last night. Because you are my hell and mine alone. He had said. But what have I done so far to redeem such? If not, he should know that my tremors and fears are because of him. If I am his hell then he is mine.

Gathering my sleeves I put both my hands forward, placing them by the patchy wall, and closed my eyes- sucking in a deep breath I will my powers to flow. plodding my mind through every peaceful thing I know- the forest, the humidity, the hugs from dorin- everything.

Yet nothing.

Nothing happens.

I wipe my palms on my shirt and attempt again.

Nothing.

But then I feel a tension seep in me- and ezdan is behind me. Using both his hands to take mine and press it back to the wall.

"This is Arrans chamber. Peace doesn't work here" his words are a settled whisper in my ear and I am shocked how he isn't affected by our nearness in front of Erix. I do not look at him but I feel his stare cold on us. I close my eyes once more and now, the anger is easier to create than peace.

I am a chaos by birth and yet all I see is the Ezdans secretive nature boiling my rage. I am sweaty I am damp, I am air and I am water. and soon the pleasant smell is stronger and I open my eye to a sparsely lit room. The same room but newer in aspects. There's a bench made of wood in the corner and in it sat Arran. Bleak and thin, wrapped in a flimsy woolen rag. his hair longer, so much longer than before. a guard comes in and snatches his little blanket that must be keeping him from the cold that I cannot feel. The shirt he wore is stained with blood and gashes, torn at the middle and edges, and tattered in the back.

There are bruises on his cheek and lip and my stomach sinks at the view of him. When he sees me, he props himself up, resting his back by the wall he sat on the bench. His eyes aren't tear stricken, But angrier- brimming with hostility. He isn't the same arran that I had seen last wise. This one is broken, melting iron that is being dissolved into spears. this is something so wrong.

His dry chapped and bloodied lips curve into a smile, he looks at the keepers,

"They can't see you" he says to me as I slowly walk to him. I sit beside him. Up near, the scars on his skin is so real, some old and healed and some fresh and wet. With blood and with sweat.

"What have they done to you?" I whisper, giving a strange sympathy that awakens within. I cannot stop it from reaching my unexplainable heart. He is the villain of Antars past and I am of the present. I see him, I feel him. Perhaps he is misunderstood or might he be the real rogue. But no one deserved to be hurt this way.

He looks at me, up and down. At my cloaths, at the hair, my eyes- everything that has changed in years he learns through my appearance. His eyes so prudent and wise, his manner so light. It smiles, his gaze despite fire of anger that must char in him. he rests his head against the wall, a lock of his hair fall across his chiseled face.

"How do you know me?" I ask. I hunger the answer to the thing that has kept me at night "You took my name. How?"

He looks at me, this time through a film of tear. he sniffles bringing his knees close to his chest.

"How can I not know? A traveler of time is the soul that doesn't belong to us" he lifts his hands, his fingers splayed to touch me. But a thin haze separates my skin from his. His shoulder sags but his spirit stayed awake "I am a ventim with core to seek ghosts. so I see you. I speak- to you"

I hesitate but raise my hand to his, the haze glows when I push it deeper to feel his palms. it warms and soon it scorches. I gasp, snatching my burning arm away.

"It yet doesn't elucidate my name that you know" my voice Is rough. an amalgamation of fear and hesitation. But more with the sake to seek the understanding. The desperation that only he can decipher. "I can't be here for long, my power hasn't been harnessed. This meet could kill me if it takes long"

we hear the sentries discuss the slow descend of arran to madness as he probably appears to speak with himself. when they leave, it's an odd relief. though I am invisible to them it's still a solace and I could only imagine the terror Arran could feel under their hands.

I shift to Arran and his keen eyes is prior on mine.

"You are a prophecy of centuries Iris. A born of Helian descent to reign a throne" his tone isn't empty. it overflows with gratification and hopes "You will kill the heir and be the queen that ends war and misery. You will harness the power of my ring. You will bring peace to the land of Antar that the origens will strive to conquer"

origens.

The originals belonging  from the land of core. whose descendants are considered to be us. The high borns. But origens do not exist. No one has seen them. For centuries they haven't  been spotted nor have they made an appearance to symbolize their power.

"Origen are a myth" I spat my terms with anger. but he breathes with a shake of his head.

"You speak like the rest. Disappointed that you aren't so special Iris"

I give him a stare of pure disdain.

"It's because i am not. I am a curse"

"You are the cure"

"I will kill an innocent man to reign? is this what you mean?"

"You will kill him to save millions. The crown won't let you have the throne unless the prince dies. He has to die in the war. They won't listen to you and the choices you have to make are harsh. But it has to be done. And if he kills you first- the future of Antar is ruined. nothing will survive in this land" They are stabs from knives, his revelations that I have no reason not to believe.  he is a dying man on the brink of execution- he doesn't know that he dies of loneliness. But he knows his end awaits beneath these cold doors. He has no reason to lie.

"Why are they coming back?" I go kind and afraid in my voice. The features of Arran soften to sympathy. He sees my trust in him and he appears flushed with life again. he looks at me as if he is looking at a light in the depth of a dire tunnel. "The origens"

He is quiet.

He is quiet for long as if unprepared for its answer.

"They never left," he says slowly, his fingers twitch. "They live among people like commoners. living for centuries. Aging slower than anything that has life with strength so enormous that it doesn't have boundaries. They are fire, they are earth and they are magic. Origens never left this world- they only learned how to merge and unite like rest."

my head spins with everything thats have been told, my knuckles has turned white with anticipation as I ask him.

"How do you know so much about them?"

Trapped.

I have him trapped.

And he doesn't want to escape. he smiles. He says.

"I am one of them"

silence.

"I am an Origen"

Tombs of panic and alarm envelopes me, I fend for the little respite in me that could have me seated. But I am on my feet, Retreating my foot after another. My heart is startled as i begin to look around for a way out. I cannot find it. I cannot find a path to leave. He is on his feet- this time his arms catch mine and he lurches me forward.

"I won't hurt you, Iris," he says as I wish for the haze to form and burn his touch. I breathe through my mouth with a heave when his stare pours into me "I don't share the same conscience as other Origen. I am not like them"

It could be his lie. he could be lying to me all this time. Betraying me to avenge his pain. Making a kingdom suffer by using me as a puppet. it could be anything. origen are not humans. They are monsters. It's what I had learned, it's what i believe.

"Humans conquered our lands, like bees out of hives they shall spread now. They have evil intentions in hearts Iris. please stop them. Find their leader. Beg if it takes-

"Why do you care about humans after what they had done? Why create a hybrid like us if you wanted us dead? why-

"They want slaves. soldiers, runners, hirelings to make their world above the surface. they will dispose you all for their cause. I have a lover. a human girl with the kindest of souls that I have seen. I know not every human and highborn is spawned with an evil choice. I am infinite Iris- I have been in time like you- my powers don't have an end. I am an origen. I am Azrael Arran and I cannot let the world my children will be born in scar" I grit my teeth, twisting my wrist from his tight hold. I reach for his jaw with a fist but the haze stops me. only he can reach me. I realize.

"What if I don't want to do it?" I ask him "You won't marry or have children because you die here. Alone and cold is how you finish. what if I refuse to save the world your blood will live in. And your ring will rot in court because I refuse to bring it to life" I am pleading, I am angry at him for burdening me and my pitiable life with an obligation so despicable that I can feel my heart in my mouth.

He looks at me as if he is flipping pages of my life, his brows are perked and he is smiling with his teeth bare.

"Dear little Iris. You don't know what I have done or seen in my life. I do not die here- I have a big life before I perish. I escape tonight and in trepidation of uproar from the Antarians, they declare me dead. They must lie to keep their peace and power or how else can they justify the power of mine they'll see. I could have left any day- but I waited for you. In days I begged them to listen to me- But now I command you my order because I raised you for this day"

Things couldn't get worse.

But it does.

I look into his young eyes and I see it.

I see my old man.

Arran is my old man.

I want it to stop. the betrayals, the beat of my heart, his voice. everything that is him and I. I hoof for it to stop. But it doesn't. Not until he speaks again.

"And The ring in Azure Iris?" he drops my hand "It's false. I had it made to deceive the court"

silence.

"The real power of the ring?" The torch dims "It Resides within you from the day you opened your eyes to this world"

I shake.

I shiver.

He lets go of me and the lamp dies. I am in the empty room with my palms flat against the wall. I turn to see Ezdan and Erix, a stance of bother veneering them. Ezdan is the first to see the weight of anguish on my shoulder. He comes forward to catch me before I fall. but he is late, my knees hit the ground as I kneel.

I look at him once.

Then I bent over-

and I throw up.

Don't forget to vote.

So. Was the twist expected? Ask me any question you like. Tell me anything you desire. I am here to answer.

Who is ready for the ball?