Midnight's Song (52 page)

“You’re wrong,” I
said without thinking, “If you’ve taken me here just to keep me
from Aurelian – you’re going to fail. The moment that he sees that
I’m gone he’s going to begin searching for me just as I would if I
lost him.” I stopped for a moment, taking in a deep breath and
sternly looking into Faolan’s silvery eyes. “He
will
come for me.”

The room fell silent. Faolan laughed
and displayed another one of his wicked grins. He hadn’t been
affected by my passionate speech or threatening words. No, he
already had something bigger unfolding in this all. It was
something that surpassed any of my expectations; something that in
the heat of the moment I had still failed to see. A few moments
later he turned away from me and spoke up in a deep, intense
tone.

“Yes, he will come
for you. I assure you,
he
will.”

In an instant,
something about Faolan’s monstrous words suddenly set in. I finally
realized what this was! My heart dropped and my skin paled in
horror of what I’d just realized. Still turned from me, Faolan
already sensed from my silence what his words had sparked. This
wasn’t about me anymore, I realized. This was about the one I
loved. I wasn’t a sacrifice – no. I was bait that Faolan would use
to lure Aurelian back into his poisonous world and bring him to his
eternal
downfall
.

A feeling of
powerlessness overcame me as I realized that now there was nothing
that I could do. I was trapped behind the bars of this cage,
seemingly defenseless against this supernatural power.
I clutched the ring in my hand despairingly,
watching its gem change color in the palm of my hand. Now I was
certain that at least one of us was going to meet our
end.

What love or purity could save us
now?

It had been three days since I’d
arrived there. Every moment was one that I sat dwindling into a
pile of dust at the bottom of the cage I had been shoved into. That
cage was worse than any prison I could have conceived – because
although Faolan didn’t touch me, every second I spent in that cage
was one that Faolan continued to play his game of mental
torment.

These three endless days of Faolan’s
trickery made me feel hopeless, for I did indeed expect Aurelian to
come after me by now. At the same time, I already knew that the
outcome would be grim. Even if I longed for Aurelian selfishly in
the short term, I knew what would happen if he came and prayed that
somehow he wouldn’t find me. It was like a vicious tug-of-war in my
mind; one side begging that Aurelian would come to my rescue and
the other side begging that he would stay far away. Though,
Aurelian was going to come. Faolan had assured me of it.

On the third day, I had nearly been
reduced to a pile of dust. Faolan continued sitting on his throne a
short distance away from me as my cruel captor, rising and falling
in small bouts of threats and gloating every step of the way. I had
nearly lost all of my strength, but as I continued to clutch the
ring in my hand I reckoned with myself not to lose all of it.
Faolan suddenly got up from his throne and began circling my cage
again, testing me. This time he displayed a clever smirk,
apparently wishing to tell me of some new plan or
conspiracy.

“It has been three days, Elissa. My
brother still has not come for you. Perhaps it is time to rethink
the person to whom you owe your love.”

“I will do no such thing,” I glared at
him, mustering the little strength I had left to stand up. “It
doesn’t matter where he is or how long it’s been – you know nothing
of true love!”

“Oh?” Faolan
mockingly spat. “
True love.
I know everything of true love – I know that
there is no such thing!” He narrowed his eyes at me and paused
before continuing again. “True love is just a
fable.”

“To my people, you’re just a fable.
But you clearly seem real,” I cleverly shot back in
reply.

“You think you’re so clever?” Faolan
answered to this disrespect, “You had better hold your
tongue…especially considering that I’ve been thinking about making
you a new offer.”

“What offer?” I shot back.

“Today is the day that your purpose
will have been served. I could dispose of you…or I could use you
for something else…”

In that instant, Faolan deceitfully
softened. He acted as if he was newly tenderhearted and willing to
give me love. Faolan reached his hand into the cage and grabbed my
hands, snatching my ring and taking it out to examine it. After a
few seconds he reached back into the cage and slipped it onto my
finger. I remained motionless, sober-faced and silent.

“I am fonder of your company than
you’d know…so, I’ve decided that I might spare you and make you my
wife.”

“So, then you will spare Aurelian?” I
asked him in surprise.

“This isn’t a replacement for the
plans which I have already made,” he glared. “It is an offer to
spare you from the fate that I had originally intended to fall upon
you both.”

Faolan reached into the cage,
attempting to caress my face. I turned away from him in disgust.
Although my opposition was clear, he continued to persuade
me.

“Marry me, Elissa. Allow me to spare
you. Your marriage to me will be payment for my mercy.”

I backed away from him in that
instant. Faolan was still a monster to me. His reasoning didn’t
make any sense at all! He didn’t understand what love was. He
believed that he was the King of the world and that he would be
able to win my affections because of it. He had the nerve to ask
for my hand as payment for a debt…and he still intended to kill the
one that I really loved! Part of me was cringing in disgust, while
there was another part of me that couldn’t help but feel strange
pity. Instead of answering with biting words, I looked into his
eyes with every ounce of soft, discerning certainty that I could
muster.

“That’s what you’re missing, my King!
Love is not a debt owed to another unwillingly. It is a debt that
two souls owe to each other willingly and eternally.” I told Faolan
with an inhuman amount of strength. “I can’t marry you as payment
for mercy. I will only agree to it if you spare the one I
love.”

My words did something to Faolan that
I’d never seen before. For the first time since I’d seen him, it
appeared as if they’d actually penetrated him. When the silence was
over, he spoke up again; speaking as if he had been disappointed,
even betrayed. Considering how heartless Faolan seemed, his actions
could only lead me to believe that he was entirely mad. Then,
Faolan did the unthinkable. He suddenly put his hand on the lock of
my cage, unlatched it and let me go free.

“You’re letting me go?” I asked in
confusion. Before I could think one more thought, Faolan grabbed me
by the waist and pulled me into his trapping embrace.

“No,” he whispered into my ear. “It
appears that your prince is here for you.”

The message he gave me had a meaning
so surreal that at first I couldn’t comprehend it. After my three
days of torment, I had both anticipated and dreaded the moment when
Aurelian would come. Now I shook, wanting to deny this all I
could.

“No,” I muttered in cold shock,
“No…”

“Oh, but he is!”
Faolan wickedly told me. “He’s just opened the third-to-last
portal…he’s risking it all to save you. He’s crossed over now – and
he’s just in time to have a little journey through
the maze
!”

“The maze?”

“Yes, the maze! He is lost in an
endless chamber of traps and mirages…by the time he reaches us
here, he will be half dead! And considering that it takes quite a
lot to kill my kind, you’ll soon see that my power surpasses
anything you can fathom.”

Thinking of what horrors Aurelian
might have been facing caused me to shake. What if the maze
contained a wall of knives? What if he found himself faced with a
monstrous dragon? These thoughts crossed my mind, but only briefly.
Still not seeing any evidence of this, I reasoned that it must have
been one of Faolan’s tormenting tricks.

“You’re lying!” I
exclaimed.

“No, this time I’m afraid that I’m
telling the truth,” he smirked. “Why don’t we watch it as it
conspires?”

Faolan took his free
hand – the other still firmly gripped around my waist as I squirmed
– and used it to cast some sort of spell that allowed him to move
the air into one of the strange, mirror-like formations that he
always used to see the world. In the mirror’s glass was a moving
image – almost like a movie – that displayed the image of a young
man running in darkness. The young man was seemingly unprepared for
battle but valiant nonetheless. In his hand he held a sword as his
feet carried him through a treacherous maze of traps that shot
every terrible and impaling thing from balls of fire to shards of
ice. My heart dropped when I realized who the valiant young man
was. It was
Aurelian.

“I’ll give you one last
chance, Elissa. Stay with me and live. Refuse me and suffer the
same death as he.” Faolan lowered to me in a whisper.

Seeing life and death dance before me,
I fell silent. I closed my eyes, contemplating. Was there a way to
change this? No, I realized. This was out of my hands now. As much
death as I’d escaped, I’d never been as entangled with it as I was
now. I couldn’t marry Faolan. I wouldn’t. If Aurelian was going to
die, then so would I.

“I’d rather
die.”

“Very well,” Faolan coldly remarked.
He bent down and gave me a kiss on the cheek. I winced in pain, for
his touch burned like acid. “You’ve made your choice. Now it’s time
for you to serve your purpose.” He suddenly released me from his
grasp, throwing on me on the ground with such force that I was
nearly propelled over the edge of the ledge we had been standing
on.

“What are you going to do?” I
shook.

“I’m not going to
anything,” he glared. “
You
are going to bring me the
prince.”

“I will do no such thing!” I shouted,
knowing good and well what would happen if I did. Faolan remained
where he was standing, instead using his hand to cast a sort of
magic over me that forced me to stand up.

“Not willingly…but
with a little magic I can make you do
anything
. And I have more than
enough magic to get what I want.”

“Whatever magic you use – I will defy
it!” I shouted at him in return. “I will fight it with every ounce
my being, I will –”

“Oh, silence you foolish girl! You
cannot defy my magic…you cannot fight it! My magic is one of the
strongest powers that there is, much more powerful than anything
you can conjure up,” Faolan spat. He waved his hand, causing me to
feel a familiar invisible chain wrap around my entire body. “Now,
you are going to find my brother in the maze. Then, you will lead
him here to me. He’ll be so enthused with you that there will be no
way for him to resist.”

“No, you’re still wrong. The moment
that I see him I will tell him everything you’ve done to me and
everything that you intend for him! He’ll never come to you after
he realizes the truth – just wait and see –”

“You still amuse me, Elissa,” Faolan
interrupted. “You think I haven’t already contemplated that? Of
course I have. You won’t be telling him anything. Ha! I’m putting
you under an enchantment that will force you to do everything I
desire. If you so much as try to breathe a word about my plans to
him – you’ll find yourself mute before you can even make a
sound!”

At that moment, Faolan did something
that caused me to feel as if my heart and lungs were being crushed
by a massive weight. I found something take grip around me,
tightening until I couldn’t bear it anymore. Then, my legs were
moving. Faolan turned me away, and against my will I found myself
journeying down the stairs. My legs continued by themselves stopped
by absolutely nothing until I had navigated through the darkest
passageways and tallest corridors of the castle.

Somehow I found
myself being carried outside into a strangely familiar place – one
that was familiar, but darker than I could see in my memories. I
had exited through a bitterly cold concave into a spectacular
palace garden. For just a moment I was able to tilt my head upwards
and see the blackest, most dreary night sky. There were no clouds,
but the sky still was not clear. It was deep and murky, void of any
stars. In the sky, there was just one light that was bright enough
to see by. Its surface was poetic, the description something I had
reminisced before. It was a lone but massive moon; its hue the
color of
crimson
.

In a sudden jolt of pain, my head
snapped back into place and looked straight forward. My legs
propelled me into what appeared to be a hedge maze. It was so oddly
familiar…I could have sworn it was the one I had at home. Though,
aside from their similar shape they were completely polar entities.
Instead of being made of docile hedges, the bushes in this maze
were made of choking vines and trees with thorny
branches.