When day goes,
and night arrives,
I shall see the stars,
shining to my window,
from the height of unknown.
When I fall,
And he comes,
His hands will be my consolation.
When he goes,
And you die,
I shall be all alone.
I stared down on my open notebook, across the lineless pages. Those words lied right on the middle of one of them. Every single syllable, every single word of the poem stabbed me just as coldly as the way he had bade me goodbye. Ironically, I was the one who wrote it, I was still having my quilt in my hand as tears began to steal down my face. The pain of letting go of something, or maybe someone was exquisite enough to let me remember him for all of my life, where I would be all alone.
He had been the knight of the vampire kingdom. We, the noble Cascadanian race of vampires, had been ruling the world for centuries. For six hundred and fifty years, he had been protecting me, the heiress, from those who desired my life. For more than half of my life, I had naively thought that we could end up like the princes and princesses in those fairytales my father, the king had read to me as a little girl. Nevertheless, he had lied to me.
‘James, how could you?’ That sounded more like a furious confrontation than mere, unthreatening question. I could feel my voice trembling when I said those words. This isn’t true, tell me this isn’t true! I screamed in my head, ready to let my pathetic soul tear away from me. That was the pain that made me think that he was killing me even without making an effort to do so.
‘Leia, we could just go away. We could go far, far away. We don’t need to be like this, we don’t need to part,’ said James, his dark-blue eyes pleading. I could not believe this. He, the supposed loyal knight of the Cascadane kingdom had betrayed my father. He had murdered him in his sleep, just like what Macbeth the traitor had done to the king of Scotland in the human Shakespearean play. And now… right now, he was telling me to elope with him, the unforgivable, to the Vascan empire where a position was promised for him. He was telling me to walk away without a backward glance. I hated him. I despised him. My heart was shaking with violent hatred, and I wanted to kill him, to avaenge the fall of Cascadane. However, my body was so weak and exhausted that my arms drop themselves and clung lifelessly onto my shoulders.
‘Stop it, you traitor. I was stupid enough to be fooled by you all these while, and I doubt that you’ve never even thought of using me. I’ll never believe you again.’ I had said those words with as much gelidity as I wanted them to be cruel. His eyes dropped, finally giving up.
‘Adios, my lady… Your Highness, Leia.’ Those were his last words. They collided with my world with a deafening, thunderous wham. The next moment, he was gone, and every single piece of innocence shattered. For me, it arrived later than girls in novelty. And I knew that someday, I would hunt him down, and exact my revenge.
When I returned to the capital of Cascadane, it was already showing the sun at the horizon. I stood in the middle of the remains of the kingdom that my father had built along with my aunts and uncles, who died in the ferocious battle last night. It was all because of James that everything was gone. The knight that had performed outrageous treachery. He betrayed me, and everyone who was fit to call him or herself a Cascadanian. A few peasants who were passing threw me a doubtful look as if I had ruined this kingdom with my own hands. I could not look at them, I dropped my head- and my heart. It was all because of me that Cascadane was gone. If I had not trusted James so easily, my family would not have been wiped out. James probably should have stabbed me with his filthy, blood-stained sword before departing at midnight.
No, I thought. He shouldn’t have let me live, but I should live. I knew that I could make use of the stupid mistake that the traitor committed. So much for his flawless plan. My lips came up into a shape that was not quite a smile. And then I lifted my chin and looked up to the sun across the mountains. Suddenly, I wasn’t Leia Cascadane anymore. I was Lady Leia, the heiress of my kingdom, and soon I would be the queen who conquered the Vascan empire.
Thus, I had ordered my people for the rebuilding of Cascadane. To emerge as the dominant again, there would be some ruins that had to be repaired, inevitably. The Cascadanian folks had worked with doubts that their queen was true about avenging her father’s death, but I had used my authority to order, to command, for the first time in centuries, in many light years. Queen Leia had transformed, from a sweet and demure vampire princess to a battle-sharpened leader. I had wrapped my heart with layers of ice while I had my troops trained stringently. My violet eyes were not soft and gentle anymore, they were piercing and fiery. James would be shocked when we finally came face-to-face. Oh, how I miss him, I thought with dangerous sarcasm.
This time, I had planned well. My armies would train underground when the time was arriving, when Vascanians still thought that Queen Leia had been thoroughly beaten, crestfallen, basically dead, unbreathing. The new generation of Vascanians had been living in comfort zone that the young men were not trained to combat like their ancestors. Useless Athenians, I called them. I had made sure that there were not loopholes, and no one could pass messages to alert the king of Vascan, even scums like James. Weapons were sharpened and sufficient to flatten the mountains along the border between Vascan and the outside world. I was prepared to fight, and this was war. My people were ready to see me avenge the previous fall of our kingdom. James, here comes Queen Leia.
The attack was a great success, as I had planned for everything to be faultless. We took the Vascanians by astonishment and shock by our arrival. My men fought valorously, and had slain every single Vascanian army they saw. I was the first to reach the palace, and killed the king who had ordered my family’s death. He obviously did not know that I still existed because he dropped his mouth before blustering out a threat. That was a weird way a king had behaved, even when he was trying to slip out for his escape. Pathetic, I thought sympathetically before turning around to meet James. The man that had been my knight.
‘Leia, I just knew you would come someday,’ he said, moving towards me, closer and closer. My heart melted the moment my eyes met his. Looking deep into them, I saw Leia Cascadane, the vampire princess who had been so lovely and innocent.
‘You killed my father, you betrayed us all. You lied to me,’ my voice was trembling viciously when I said those words. My will giving up almost everything of myself, my sould giving itself to him, just like before, once more.
‘I know.’ His voice was tender, and without realizing, he was already standing before me. He had an arm around my waist, and another around the shoulders, embracing me, hugging me close to him. I let myself drown in his arms while my head floated. For instant, I had clean forgotten why I had battled for so long.
This is the person who killed your family- your father, your uncles and aunts. Would you leave everything behind just for him? Just to stay in his arms for eternal years? A voice spoke from somewhere else deep in me.
Yes, I would. I would leave everything behind.
He was the one who ruined everything you once owned. He betrayed your trust. He lied to you.
I knew what to do that instant. With the speed of lightning, I grabbed his head and forced it to the side before sinking my teeth into his neck, draining him like how he had drained my feelings. After some time, I dropped his body and he fell to the ground, unable to retaliate. I looked down, and he still had some bits of life remaining. Soon, they would be gone.
‘Adios, I love you,’ I whispered to him. Those were the last words I said to him, the last words that relieved me from all these years of agony.
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