Midnight's Song (56 page)

Of course, it didn’t.
Instead, it filled his mind with images of our light. It was a love
so strong and true that even the simple thought caused the Darkness
to tremble and cease its beckoning. All the while, the prince
continued lamenting.

“Oh Elissa, I’m so sorry.
I’m sorry that I couldn’t save you…that I came when it was already
too late. There’s so much that I’ll never be able to say to you…”
He shuddered, concealing the rawness of his anger. “How I loved
you…how I still love you.”

The prince lifted my
body, his expression that of stone. Then, he became convinced of
something particularly strange. If nothing else mattered, this
surely did. It was something that he couldn’t escape – something
that he was utterly
compelled by
love
to do.

“Elissa, if your spirit
still looms – let it see me bestow upon your lips this final,
parting kiss.”

The prince lowered his
head and imparted his love in most the heartfelt action. Upon my
lips he placed the softest, most delicate kiss. The prince lingered
there some more, struggling to unbind his heart from what he
believed to be that of a dead woman.

Then, the miraculous
happened.

The amethyst ring came
alive again. It shifted from its unmoving purple and began changing
color just as it had when it adorned my living hand. The prince
didn’t notice the miracle, still preoccupied with grief.

After the ring, something else
happened – something more evident. The color began rushing back
into my skin and the life back into my bones. Soon all of the color
and warmth rushed back into my body! The stiff and immovable limb
that he held in his hand became warm and soft once more. Feeling
the warmth, Aurelian opened his eyes and fell backwards in
astonishment.

The face which had
been gaunt and hollow just moments ago looked youthful and new. In
many respects, you could say that it looked more invigorated than
before. It did more than return to what it once was – it
became
inhumanly
beautiful. To him, it had always been beautiful – but this
was an entirely different kind of beauty. I was being
reborn.

Whatever was happening to
my body was either terrible, wonderful, or both. The next thing
that happened to me seemed to be the unthinkable. He put his ear
over my chest and heard the rhythmic thud of a heartbeat. In a few
moments, a breath of new life entered my lungs and caused my body
to jolt itself awake.

Aurelian’s kiss had
brought me back from the dead.

Life coursed through my
veins like lightning. I sat up, opened my eyes and gasped as I’d
just been pulled from the watery deep and given the oxygen back to
my lungs. I had been jolted awake from the deepest sleep by the
most beautiful and terrifying nightmare.

“It’s…it’s you…Ari,” I
mumbled in my dream-like state. The full name didn’t come out,
probably because I was still robbed of breath. It was the first
time I’d ever called him by that name – obscure as it seemed – and
for some reason it caused him to smile. Aurelian hovered over me,
his face speaking of both joy and dismay.

“Yes,” he weakly laughed. “It’s me,
Ari…or whatever else you’d like to call me.”

“What just happened?” I asked again,
feeling a splitting headache surge across my head.

I didn’t get to say very
much after that, because all of a sudden I found myself be pulled
in for another kiss. It was slow and passionate. It was filled with
an intensity that I sensed came from a darker depth.

Then, I looked up. I
saw our reflection plastered on the mirror above my head and in
almost all of the others. I remembered where I was now. The
memories flooded back into my mind. I struggled to piece it
together until I finally realized what had happened. I had
died.

“Aurelian,” I exclaimed in
a breathy murmur. “I was dead…and now – you – you’re here! That
must mean that I’m dead, or you’re dead…but, I feel alive
–”

“You are alive,” he
soothed.

“But, how?”

“I don’t know,” he closed
his eyes. “It was the kiss. You were dead, and now you’re
alive.”

His eyes suddenly drifted
away from me, remembering. He stared blankly up the ledge for a
moment, and then his appearance became undeniably dismal. Could he
see something that I couldn’t? I used what little energy I could
muster to take my hand and tilt his face back toward
mine.

“It’s your gift. You’re a
healer, Aurelian.”

The prince caressed
my face for a moment, mesmerized with me. Soon, his emotional
outpour turned into internal pain. The curse was coming back, he
realized. The stranger was returning to knock on his door, and
Aurelian believed that there was a monster inside of him that must
have been pining to give in. He looked into my eyes – eyes that
were now bright and very much alive – and felt no stronger urge
than the urge to protect me from the monster that at any moment
could become
him
.

“We should leave this room
of death,” the prince murmured under a stone-cold gaze.

He knelt down and took my hand,
attempting to help me stand with him so that we might leave.
Though, as soon as I tried to stand up I felt my legs quaking
beneath me. Although I was alive, my entire body was weary and
weak. It seemed that it must have been because of the trauma I’d
just endured – yet, it couldn’t be. I had been woken up and
transformed into someone who seemed as new and healthy as ever. The
true reason for the pain in my newly lively body was one that was a
bit more complicated. My legs were now like those of a newborn
fawn, long and strong but not yet able to stand. At the very
attempt at doing so I fell flat back onto the ground.

For reasons that one can
easily guess, Aurelian was quick to catch me. There was no way that
he would let me be injured in another fall of any kind, whether
long or short. In light of my ill state, the prince gently lifted
me into his arms and began to panic. Now he could see that I was
sick. After what he’d seen, the slightest sign of weakness was
enough to cause him to fear that death would soon ensue.

“Aurelian, I’m fine,” I assured him in
protest as he draped my body across his arms against my will and
left the room in search of help. Seeing that there didn’t seem to
be anyone else here, it seemed a bit mad to demand for help in a
castle that was mostly vacant.

“No, Elissa. You’re weak. You need a
doctor – you need rest!”

“Don’t be absurd. I’m
fine,” I told him, lapsing in fatigue “Besides, shouting for
someone won’t do you any good. There’s no one here.”

“No, they’re here. They will come, and
they had better come soon!” He shouted quite intentionally into the
air. “The servants only appear when they’re needed,” he raised his
voice into a shout once more before kicking open the door and
exiting the room.

In the corner of my
eye, I saw one of the mirrors reflecting Faolan’s spot on the
ledge. I had absolutely no idea that was where he had just been
slain. There was nothing to hint it, either – because the mirror
didn’t reflect a body. It only reflected a pile of black,
sparkling
dust.

“Someone, come now!”
Aurelian shouted again.

A figure appeared in the
shadows.. Seeing the prince, it surfaced into the light. It was a
meek young woman, presumably a servant, shaking as if she was
terrified past her wit’s end. Aurelian gave her the most urgent of
looks.

“Find a doctor for her now! Can you
not see that she is ill?” Aurelian pleaded, gradually resuming a
more forceful tone and gathering up his naturally princely
eloquence.

“I don’t think that the King would be
very pleased if I did that,” the servant girl shook.

Aurelian suddenly realized
what was going on. These people still didn’t know who he was…and
they had been avoiding him for that reason. The next words he
uttered would change our paths forever:

“I am your king now.”

The maid fell at his
feet. They all knelt before him and begged for mercy. What terrible
things would he do to them since they hadn’t come to my aid? At
Faolan’s hand, they knew they’d indisputably be punished. Though,
they didn’t know Aurelian like I did. At least, they didn’t know
him the way I
thought
I did. I don’t know if my heart dropped at that moment or if
it skipped a beat. Was it true? …How? If he was the King that meant
that he would have had to…

“You’re the King?” I
whispered.

When I saw the look of hurt in his
eyes, I didn’t need to ask another question. I knew what he had
done. As soon as I knew the truth the pained King looked away from
me. I didn’t hate him for it, yet he hated himself for it. Even
though this was now his, he still couldn’t face it.

“We beg your apology, O King!” The
maid trembled in horror. “Not a single one of us was aware that
Faolan was no longer our King! He instructed us to stay away from
him during this…please do not be angry with us!”

“There is no need to be afraid,”
Aurelian hung his head low, assuring them that he intended them no
harm. “You’re here now, so help us. Prepare my fiancée a room and
send for a doctor!”

“Yes, of course, Your Majesty!”
Several servants called at once before scurrying around to make
preparations in a chaotic jumble.

Someone came to take me
from his arms, but at first I refused. I knew very little of this
strange place, and all I had was Aurelian! I refused to part from
him now, clinging to him somewhat angrily and shooing the servant
away. Seeing my fear, Aurelian spoke to me in the softest of
voices.

“Yes, Elissa. I’m the King
now.”

We didn’t speak after that
utterance. Not for a very long time. My eyes bled compassion as I
stroked his cheek. In return, he gave me a filled with tender pain.
Without words, the King carried me into a room that had seemingly
appeared out of nowhere. The walls were deep violet, a satin bed of
the same purple color sitting in the center. Aurelian took a few
steps forward and gently put me down on it.

When his arms parted
from mine, I got a glimpse of his eyes. They were different now.
They no longer shifted from this color to that. Now that he was
here, they were a color I’d never seen them before. They were pools
of crystalline
purple
.

“Your eyes, they’re unchanging
now…like amethysts.”

“Yes,” he struggled
to tell me as he continued to feel the unbearable worry inside,
“It’s because I’m here now. I’m home…with my
own kind
. When I run, they change as
I do. When I’m where I’m intended, they also become as they’re
intended.”

As I took notice of
the color of his eyes, he saw the color of mine. The King backed
away, his soul made of ice. It became apparent that he had done
more today than simply win his crown. The murky brown of my eyes
had changed. I didn’t seem possible, and the prospect hardened and
haunted him. They had become something not quite human. They were
the same color as
his.

In my dreams that night, I
saw fire and fairy tales. Whatever glimpses I’d gotten of eternity
in the time before had quickly been buried in the back of my mind.
A few glimmers of it still existed in the world of my fantasies.
However long I remained in that world of dreams is something that I
can’t say. It was quite some time – perhaps a day, maybe longer. At
the end of it all I found myself being lured awake again by the
strangest of sensations.

Cold metal rattled against
my skin. I felt a heavy object bear down on my ankle. My waking
couldn’t be far off. When my cognizance came back, I prepared to
open my eyes and see Aurelian standing beside me.

He wasn’t. Instead, I
opened them to see a very short man standing at my bedside with a
wide array of tools in his hands. Startled, I found a rupture of
energy within and quickly sat up.

“No need to worry, Princess. I’m only
the doctor,” the stocky man assured me.

“Oh, hello…” I shyly let
out before the man moved to examine the top of my head.

I relaxed myself and
took notice of the man. This was a person like none I’d seen
before. He was even shorter than I’d first perceived now…perhaps
even like an elf or dwarf
.
Now, before you get your feathers in a ruffle for
me referring to him in that way – know that I honestly don’t mean
the word in the sense of a little person. I mean, he was a
real
dwarf.

His standing had to be
somewhere around three or four feet, his nose and face rounded with
slight points on his ears. His demeanor was warm and safe in
comparison to everything else I’d seen here. It was like I was
staring at someone right out of a story I would have read in my big
book of fairy tales! At this point, it honestly shouldn’t have
surprised me. But, the next thing that this doctor would tell me
would still give me quite the shock: