Author's Note: I had a lot of trouble starting this update off, but I was suddenly hit by the writing bug midway through it. I do think the quality might vary depending on which part of the chapter you're reading, but overall I think it's one of my strongest ones yet - I finally get to have Kartiel be a little more truthful about his feelings, and Cass makes a major decision on her own.
I hope you guys enjoy it. <3
Words: 2,001
Last Line(s): “I'll
be in my room,” the Dark Mage suddenly said, turning on his heels
and storming out of the room with a swish of his cloak. The door
slammed behind him. The darkness remained constant; Cass was unsure
if the threat was truly over, as Kartiel continued to stare in the
direction his mage had gone even after he was long gone.
The
basket and its flowers laid forgotten on the floor.
Now
it was just her and the king.
A little voice in the back of her
head was telling her that this was her opportunity to run. The Dark
Mage was gone, and he was the one who had the strongest magic.
Kartiel was thoroughly distracted by his sudden exit. The king might
have been watching the door with sad violet eyes, but her soul knew
Aldonius. It didn't matter that he was Kartiel now; the feeling in
her chest hadn't changed just because she could give him a different
name. Kartiel would watch her go the same way he watched the Dark
Mage leave.
As she took a deep breath, she tried to come up with
some sort of plan. She'd leave the castle. Then she run towards the
town or the woods that surrounded it—she should have questioned why
her dreams took place near a giant stone building, in retrospect—but
she could make it if she ran fast enough. From there, she could try
finding help. Maybe there would be someone who would want to help her
if she explained her story, or-
Another deep breath. The darkness
began to die down, now only up to her knees. She could figure out the
plan later. She just needed to run.
One last glance at the
king.
He was fingering his locket, but he was beginning to turn
his attention away from the door. This was her last chance if she
wanted to take advantage of the argument that had just happened. She
took in a third gulp of air—this one was longer than the last—and
darted for the door.
She was pushing through the open doorway.
She could see the empty hallway. She forced her legs to move a little
faster. She could make out a shape disappearing down the hallway, but
the Dark Mage's receding figure was the only other person in the
hallway. The darkness followed after her; she could see the little
strands of it appearing in the corners of her vision, desperately
trying to keep up with her.
She tried her best to not think about
it.
She needed to get to safety.
She ignored her soul as it
attempted to persuade her that Kartiel was safety. He was going to be
her contracted someday, and those who were contracted trusted each
other. He might have failed at doing that as both Aldonius and as
Kartiel, but, the feeling in her chest argued, the principle still
stood.
She could hear Kartiel's footsteps from inside the throne
room.
She was a few feet down the hallway now. Her traitorous
legs were screaming out; they didn't like being pushed so hard. But
she couldn't afford to stop.
Couldn't afford to think about how
running would do little to help now, since he would eventually become
her contracted anyways.
(The footsteps were getting
closer.)
Couldn't afford to think about how much she wanted to
return to that room.
(They paused for a moment.)
Couldn't
afford to think about how Kartiel, despite what she had heard, had
treated her decently.
(They started again, now entering the
hallway and bridging the gap between Cass and the king.)
Couldn't
afford to think about how he had saved her life when there had been
the confrontation with Prince Rodet, and how he had even healed the
little scar on her cheek-
She skidded to a sudden halt.
(The
footsteps stopped.)
Cass slowly raised one hand and touched the
place where she had been cut. The skin felt normal when her
fingers ran over where there should have been a scar. She hadn't put
much thought into it at the time. He had said that he had healing
magic. She had no reason to distrust him then. He had been Aldonius
in her eyes, and Aldonius having healing magic felt right.
She
fingered her golden locket.
Lira had said Kartiel had darkness
magic.
It was why hers was a curse, wasn't it? The darkness was
a thing she couldn't control, something that marked her down for
someday becoming someone just as hated and feared as the evil king
and his evil mage. She raised her gaze and stared at the door
awaiting her at the end of the hallway; Kartiel's memories said it
would lead out into the garden. If she just ran a little bit farther,
she'd be free.
She could leave Telorum. It would be impossible
to get the information she needed now that she had been brought
before the king, and impossible now that she had lost the one person
she was going to confide in. The next step was to go back to Rey. She
could follow the map Lira gave her, and hope that they would make
more progress than she had guessed they would. She knew, somewhere
deep inside, that it would never be the case, but what else was she
supposed to do? She had nowhere else to go. Telorum had been her only
plan.
Aldonius had been her only plan.
“You can
go,” the king said.
The darkness—which had been laying calmly
around her ankles as she thought—shot up in a brief spike. She
hesitantly glanced behind her at Kartiel. He hadn't realized he had
managed to get so close to her; they were only a few feet apart now.
But Kartiel made no move to bring her back into the depths of the
throne. He just stood there and watched her. She, in turn, did the
same, staring at him over her shoulder as she tried to understand
what had just been said.
It should have been an order. He was a
king, and he must have seen her as someone who could be ordered
around—evil rulers were supposed to be authoritative. That was what
they had been like in her stories and her history books. They would
have never just said for someone to go.
But it didn't
sound like an order.
It sounded like he was almost begging her to
go—begging her to leave his castle, leave his kingdom—even though
there was a slight note of hopelessness to his voice. And while the
doors to the garden were so close, and while she knew she be
running as far away from this place as she possibly could according
to her common sense, something about the way he spoke made her turn
around.
“You would come back, eventually,” Kartiel added. He
let out what sounded suspiciously like a sigh. How had she failed to
notice how tired his voice sounded back in the park? “It's our
destiny to become contracted, and nothing either one of us can do
will stop it. But I suppose you already figured that out?”
She
hesitated, then nodded. “...Don't you...Don't you want that?” she
nervously asked. The darkness was practically nonexistent now, little
more than a thin layer blanketing the ground underneath her feet.
“In all honesty, I don't,” he said. She should have been
grateful that he wasn't interested in her in the slightest, but the
five words made her feel like she had just been stabbed in the heart.
“I'd prefer if you walked out that door and went back to Rey. It
would make things easier for the both of us. But you would
undoubtedly be brought here again by means I can only try to predict,
and something tells me you intend to stay right where you are right
now.”
She glanced back at the door, and then at him.
Maybe
this was a lie. Maybe he was trying to trick her into staying by
making her curious—make her question why things weren't adding up,
and then she would want to stay so she could understand why this king
was nothing like what she had expected. But it didn't feel like a
lie.
“Why don't you want me to be your contracted?”
The
hand fiddling with his own locket dropped down to his side, and he
regarded her with a look that betrayed nothing. His memories were
stubbornly quiet on why he wouldn't want her to be his contracted.
“Contracts are built on trust,” he simply said.
“I'm
trustworthy,” she quietly protested, regretting the words the
moment they left her mouth. She shouldn't have cared so much about
what he thought of her. She should have been ecstatic by this turn of
events, but every word that was passed between them only made her
feel worse.
He shook his head. “No one is.”
She
stared.
He let out another sigh. “So you're staying,
then?”
She glanced one last time at the door.
She already
knew her answer.
“I am,” she said.
He nodded, then turned
his back to her. He began to head down the hallway. After a moment of
hesitation, she hurried on after him. Though he was taller than her,
he kept his pace slow—it wasn't difficult for her to keep up with
him. “Orpheus prepared a room for you already,” he said. “It's
near his. He was insistent that it was near one of ours, and his made
the most sense.” Kartiel paused and glanced over at her. “You're
not scared of heights, are you?”
She shook her head. “N-No.
Why?”
He returned to facing the stairs. “Your room is on the
highest floor of the castle. You can see the forest from its windows.
Orpheus doesn't have a problem with heights, but your memories can
only tell me so much.”
One hand returned to fiddling with his
locket as he put his foot down on the first step. Now he began to
increase his speed. She had to hurry to keep up with him as they
climbed up the stairs. Her own hand began to fiddle with her locket
out of habit, but she stopped herself when they came to the top floor
a few minutes later. There was nothing to imply that the hallway that
stretched on ahead of them was at the top of the castle, but Kartiel
led her off of the stairs and into the hallway.
Though there was
a few doors scattered throughout the hallway, two in particular stood
out to her. Their designs were notably more elaborate, each with a
significant amount of golden added into their dark design.
“Orpheus
said he would show you around, whenever you eventually got here,”
he informed her. He briefly looked in the direction of the door on
his left. She nervously followed his gaze; that had to be the Dark
Mage's room.
“You...you won't be?”
“I have a kingdom
to run,” he said, an almost amused look flickering across his face
before the emotionless expression returned. He raised a hand and
pointed at the door across from Dark Mage's. “That's your room.
Wait in there until Orpheus comes to get you in the morning—I'm
sure he's already told the council that you've arrived, but it'll be
easier if I can say something to them before you accidentally run
into them.”
She glanced over at the Dark Mage's room.
“B-But
he only just left,” she managed to get out. “How could he have
already seen the-Do they live here, too?”
“They don't,”
Kartiel answered. “Not many people do, anymore—the royal family
has grown small over the years. Orpheus and I are its own permanent
inhabitants, though I guess you'd be considered one of them now.”
He gave the door to the mage's room one last look, then began to
head back towards the stairs. Her eyes widened in alarm. She had so
much she needed to ask him. Even if now wasn't the time to ask her
questions, it didn't feel right having him leave like this.
Wasn't he supposed to explain everything to her? His real name may
have been Kartiel, but Aldonius would never turn his back on
someone.
He hadn't turned his back on her with Prince Rodet.
She grabbed onto her locket again.
So
why was he leaving her now?
Her grip tightened.
Why did even her contracted not want to stay with her?
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