A/N: Hello you! Here I am, updating this story after... er... well, let's just say a rather lengthy amount of time. Sorry about that!
Hooooooopefully there are still some readers out there. Thanks for everyone's comments; the PM's especially were lovely.
I should totally be revising right now. In fact, this whole chapter has been written in shame, because, dear reader, just for you, I have ignored my revision needs completely in order to finish it. SHAKESPEARE CAN JUST BE QUIET. I'm so sick of Hamlet feeling sorry for himself, I can't bear to read his lengthy soliloquies anymore.
My first exam is in a week... oh lordy.
ANYWAY, enjoy!
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The darkness taught me not to be afraid of shadows. Sometimes the deepest secrets can be found there.
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There was nothing romantic about it, I tried to convince myself as I was led up a flight of non-descript stairs. There was absolutely nothing romantic about a ceremony under the moonlight, nothing poetic in the silent watch of the stars, nor in the breath of wind which made the trees shudder their eerie wedding march. No. I did not want this.
How could I allow myself to want something so entirely out of my control?
It was the first time I had left my prison in ten years, though it hardly counted. I was still under close watch as we ascended the stairs up to the battlements of the palace. My heart was racing, though I did not let myself believe it was from anything other than fatigue and anxiety. My feet climbed and climbed the cold stone, without will, without provocation from any conscious part of my mind, as if they knew that resistance was pointless. An odd part of me felt as if I were being led to my execution. I suppose I was, in a sense. After all, this marriage was a thing born of desperation, of mere responsibility. I did not delude myself into thinking it could grow into anything more. Any ideas I may have had of love had died long ago. And if not, they were certainly dying now.
My thoughts strayed to the dark prince. I wondered what he must be thinking; waiting for me in the cold, wondering what on earth was to become of him after the ceremony. Since our unsolicited meeting earlier, I had considered what must have happened in his country for him to be cast out in such a manner, and the only thing that had come to mind was the word I knew my father feared most: Revolution.
Perhaps…well, was his father still alive? Perhaps he had been killed or had vanished … and what about the rest of his family?
Or was he truly as alone as his eyes betrayed?
The maid in front of me opened the latch on the door we had finally reached. I could feel the breeze that squeezed under it on my toes, fighting its way through the cracks in the wood. When it opened, the first thing I realised was that I had not savoured the last time I had been let out into the open air, those ten years ago. My imprisonment had been something unexpected, something that I was not able to consciously prepare myself for. So this time, I thought, this last time, I would make every pore relish every taste of the outside it was about to receive. Tonight, I promised myself, I would feast upon nature and all it allowed me to feel.
I followed the servant out into the night, my silk shoes silent upon the stone beneath my feet. Looking up, I saw the moon as a tear in the night's ebony shroud, as a shard of crystal that had smashed violently, its minute splinters forming the stars that filled the darkness. I couldn't stop myself from halting then, from taking in the vastness of the sky. I had only seen it through a window all these years, had only been able to take a piece of it and watch it change with the seasons. This…this endless sea of black was a picture that I had forgotten. I fought back the urge to weep with the beauty of it all. The beauty I would never see again.
"My lady." A familiar, low voice brought my eyes down to earth.
I turned, eyes wide still, to see the prince standing a few feet away. He had obviously approached me as I'd drifted into my own world. Caught in my reverie as I was, I could not comprehend the look on his face. With the darkness shadowing his features in icy monochrome, his expression was unfathomable. Naturally, this darkness suited him, as I had well predicted. He had changed clothes since I'd seen him previously that day, now dressed from head to toe in black, blending seamlessly with the natural backdrop of the night. I blinked. Swallowed.
"My Lord." I replied, curtseying awkwardly. My eyes drifted to another man, the would-be priest, standing ill at ease behind him. Who knew how much money my father had bribed him with to do such a thing and keep quiet about it. Selfless indeed, this idea of religion.
The prince stepped forward and took my hand in his own, surprisingly warm one. The contact made me jump inwardly. In my head, I suddenly felt the urge to remind myself that my hand would not be the only part of my body he would touch tonight. My heart kicked a beat. He led us to where the other man stood, wordlessly. I shivered when he dropped my fingers and stood opposite me. The priest, rather a squat man when contrasted so closely with such lithe elegance, cleared his throat unnecessarily between us.
"I will not bother with the preliminaries." He stated, his voice shrill in the silence, "I assume you will understand my reasoning."
The prince nodded once opposite me. It was only then I realised I had been staring at him quite openly. I quickly moved my gaze onto the priest, who seemed to be waiting for some sort of reaction on my part. I uttered a hasty, "O-Of course."
"Very well," He continued, "Then presuming that neither party has prepared any vows, let us begin."
The priest recited, and the prince repeated. Recitation, repetition. Recitation, repetition. And then apparently it was my turn.
I heard him offer me the words, heard them escape my lips in a voice that seemed barely my own, but for the life of me I could not understand how I managed it. As I finished, my hand was suddenly raised from its place at my side, gripping the fabric of my day dress, my cold palm colliding with the prince's warm one. My eyes followed the movement of the priest's surprisingly nimble fingers as he wrapped a swathe of white silk around our wrists, binding us together for the night. For what was supposed to be eternity.
"With this promise, and nature as your witness, you are bound together for as long as you both shall live. I now pronounce you man and wife." The priest's hands dropped from between us as ours remained as one, suspended in the air.
"You may kiss."
Our eyes met.
I saw him swallow before my own breath caught. Leaning in slightly, he steadied me (or perhaps himself?) with a hand on my shoulder. His lips were a hair's breadth from mine; the air I tasted was shared between us. I could swear my heart had stopped for the silence that descended around us.
And then…
He whispered something that made my eyes widen.
"You will see blue sky again," He breathed so only I could hear, "I swear it."
I barely noticed the kiss he placed, chaste and utterly innocent, at the corner of my lips.
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My eyes stared, unblinking, back at me through the mirrored glass, but otherwise the reflection was not my own. The clasped hands, wringing the air were not mine; the legs that shook with anxiety, that caused tremors to run through my night rail were not mine either; the expression, so unnervingly calm…it could not have been mine. It was only the eyes that I recognised, filled with the fear I knew so well, which betrayed that this barely clad body was my own.
"His lordship will be up in a moment, my Lady." The maid's parting words of several minutes before still hung in my mind, "If…if I could but offer some sound advice to you, my lady…" She had worried her lip, obviously apprehensive of speaking out of place.
My eyes had just widened, which she had seen as a sign to continue.
"Well I…I might just tell you that there will be pain, my Lady, although you must know that he is not truly harming you…" She carried on quickly, "And you may bleed, but that is normal too." Regarding my expression of diluted shock, she hastily backtracked.
"Mind, it is only for this first time, my Lady. Afterwards it…" She seemed to haul in whatever she'd been about to say, blushing lightly. "Well, my lady, it becomes rather nice after that first time."
I had swallowed, reddening. Bearing in mind that this short explanation of losing one's virginity was the most this maid had said to me in a decade, I was rather startled, to say the least. Somehow, I had nodded my thanks towards her, incapable of speech as I was. She had smiled slightly in some form of female understanding, closing the door softly as she left me to wait alone.
It had taken a few minutes for me to remind myself that whatever pain was to be expected could not possibly be that bad. After all, every woman who could call herself a… woman had been…well, in this peculiar position. How was I any different?
Fleetingly, I wondered if this would be the first time for the prince as well. Part of me, the logical part no doubt, did not believe so. Things were not the same for men and women, or so my nurse had told me at the age of seven, when I had asked why I was never allowed to walk next to my father or sit next to him at dinner. And it was perfectly true. Things were most definitely not the same for men and women. I doubted they would ever be so.
Regardless of all of this, however, a small piece of me, perhaps the only romantic piece left in my weary heart, rejoiced in the fact I would have company for a short time. I was not one to refuse such gifts when they were offered plainly to me, even if they were in the form of a brooding member of distant royalty. This man, this…dark, misunderstood prince seemed to be my salvation, and yet I could not stop the spark of unease that had begun to smoulder in my blood. I could not stop the shivers that rattled my bones and caused my teeth to chatter.
Time stretched cruelly, and as the seconds and minutes spent themselves in the shadows, I grew more and more restless. I kept looking down at my wrist, to where the skein of silk from the ceremony had once been tied. I hadn't initially thought I would have time to myself after we had been wed, and yet as the Prince and I had approached my chamber, tied together still, he had stopped outside the door. Wordlessly, he'd raised our coupled hands and unbound them. In answer to my attempt at objection, he had simply looked at me, muttering softly, "Prepare yourself. I'll wait". With that, he had turned and descended the staircase. I had merely been able to watch him leave in astonishment, his kindness shocking me into stillness. I knew he would return in a matter of minutes, and yet I appreciated every single one I would have alone.
Finally, there was a knock on the door. I swallowed. My time was up. I opened my mouth to speak, and yet when I did, all that surfaced was a soundless croak. I cleared my throat.
"C-Come in."
The latch raised and the hinges creaked as he entered. I turned from the mirror but refused to look to him, instead regarding the floor, examining the cold, dead stone. His footsteps stopped briefly, and I heard the door close once more. When only silence accompanied the crackling of the fire once again, I blinked and looked up, almost expecting to find the room empty. Devoid of the man who'd been sent to defile me. Use me.
But my gaze fell on his strangely elegant form immediately. He was leaning back against the door, arms crossed over his broad chest. His eyes, practically obscured by a slash of ebony hair, were trained on mine. He studied me, wordlessly taking in my appearance with unnerving stillness, those eyes darting down my thinly-veiled body before catching the fear in my stare once again. He moved towards me without warning, and I did little to conceal the jolt of disquiet that flashed through my body, making me gasp and stagger away. The motion caused him to stop mid-stride.
"Don't be frightened." He said, surprisingly gently. Keeping his eyes on mine, he took another small step. "I'm… not going to hurt you."
I swallowed. I felt like a frightened animal, caught in a hunter's grasp. I couldn't move, my limbs heavy and so fraught with anxiety that I could not stir them. He continued to approach me, slowly, his hand reaching out in a gesture of compassion.
"Trust me." His voice was velvet, rich and dark, "I swear I won't hurt you."
I regarded the outstretched hand warily, my own fingers trembling next to where his waited patiently in the muggy air.
Trust him?
"Please."
My eyes drifted back to his. They were intent upon mine, dark, even in the amber glow drifting from the coals in the nearby fireplace. Deciding I could not shy away with him so near to me, I put my hand in his for the second time that night. His long fingers closed slowly around mine, callused, hardened, but warm. That warmth seemed to pass up my arm, through my shoulders and into my heart, where it beat comfortingly against my breast, reminding me I was alive and breathing. Barely breathing though, I realised. We regarded each other then, waiting for the sudden tension between us to ebb away.
"I don't know what you want me to do." I seemed to admit, involuntarily, my hushed voice simply answering the question in those probing, hawk-like eyes of his, "I've… never… been with a man before."
He blinked, seemingly startled by my questioning.
"I haven't come here to lie with you." He said, shaking his head. I tried not to collapse with relief.
"But—"
"I came here to tell you that I'm going to help you get out of here."
My lips parted in surprise. He looked so intent, so serious… it was as if… as if he actually meant it.
"What?" Was the only word I could manage. His hand was hot in mine.
"We're leaving this place." He uttered, quietly, dangerously. "Together."
I blinked.
"You're—"
"Tonight."
My thoughts scattered. My eyes widened. My throat closed. The possibility of escape frightened me into stillness. After a moment of silence, the prince, obviously confused at my understated reaction, narrowed his eyes.
"Do you understand?" He pressed, obviously impatient.
I blinked wildly. "I… I…"
But I didn't know what to say. What could I have said at that moment that would have summed up all the dread and wonderment I'd felt? There was nothing that could have accurately depicted how terrified I was of the sky and the sun, nothing that could convey how I longed to breathe air that hadn't feasted on the flames of dozens of candles. But how, and why he intended to do such a thing for me… I did not know. We were strangers, thrust together by the desperation of a king, the desolation of a father. We were not friends, nor anything near. We were merely husband and wife, and only in name.
The prince grabbed my shoulders suddenly, taking me from my reverie and back into the stuffy room in which we stood, tense and uneasy, opposite each other.
"Will you come?" He asked, slowly, each word engraining itself into my consciousness. I swallowed. Why was he suddenly so on edge? Something inside him appeared to have snapped in desperation.
"But I—… Why are you doing this? Why are you… helping me?"
He took a breath and looked deeply into my eyes. I suppressed a shiver at the darkness looming there.
"What your father has done to you… is wrong." He unhanded my shoulders, scanning the room quickly, "That's all you need to know for now."
My eyes flickered back and forth between his roaming ones.
"For now?" I repeated, mindless with confusion, "But… surely you can't be serious, I—"
He pinned me with a level glare, "I'm always serious." He walked to the open window before looking back at me briefly, "You'd do well to remember that."
I swallowed again, disbelieving, frightened. This was getting ridiculous.
"Do you honestly think my father will let you, let both of us, just… just walk out of here!?"
The prince glanced at me again. He seemed poised to turn away, as always, and yet this time he could not seem to stop his eyes from following my form from the top of my mussed hair to the peeping tips of my toes.
"You should change."
"You're not answering my question!" I blinked, "I— change…?" I looked down, immediately reddening as I recognized the near translucency of my gown in the firelight. I glanced up at him shamefully, crossing my hands over my chest, a rudimentary suit of armour, protecting me from his harsh, hawk-like gaze. He looked away, muttering something incoherently. I couldn't shake the feeling that he was slightly disgusted at the sight of me. My fingers clutched tighter at the sheer fabric beneath them.
"Change." He repeated, the harshness of his tone causing me to jump slightly. I swallowed, defeated.
"…into what?" I whispered, suddenly fighting back tears for reasons I did not know.
"I don't give a damn." His bluntness gave way to dislike on my part, "Just make sure it's more than a scrap of silk; you'll have to move in it."
He began to pace as I edged towards the wardrobe on the far side of the room. He looked to me like a caged, wild animal; ready to pounce, to hunt, ready to flee as if his life depended on it. I wondered whether perhaps it truly did. I closed my eyes briefly as I turned my back to him.
"We can't do this, my Lord." I said softly, shaking my head. "There's no point in trying so soon." My hands, shaking too, reached for the wardrobe doors while I attempted to stall for time, "The guards… they're everywhere, my Lord. Perhaps… perhaps we should wait—"
"We can't wait."
"But—"
"Look, I thought I had more time, but I don't, so either you leave with me tonight or you stay here and suffer the consequences." His voice was sharp behind me. "Which do you choose? Be quick and be certain."
I swallowed, the seconds stretching on before I turned to face him. The tension between us was like nothing I'd ever felt before. It seemed to burn stronger than the fire beside us.
"Tell me what's going on." I demanded, quietly.
His eyes narrowed.
"Come with me."
I shook my head, resolve coming from a place inside me I had never been aware of. "I'm not going anywhere unless you…explain yourself."
He glared at me.
"You would choose rape over freedom, would you?" His words made me flinch. "You would be whored by your father to countless, desperate suitors rather than start a new life with me?"
My expression did not change, though he must have read the profound sorrow in my eyes, for his tone quieted slightly. He approached me before I could move away, taking my shoulders again, albeit more gently than before.
"Come with me, Hitomi." My name on his lips sent my senses reeling. I could barely breathe, he was so close to me again. I shut my eyes tight, but I couldn't stop one solitary tear from gliding across my skin.
"I'll tell you everything if you just…" His fingers drifted along my cheek, catching the tear before it dropped. "Please…"
I shuddered, my eyes opening to his, dark and warm and sinful, so close to mine I couldn't think anymore.
"I… can't." I tried to move away, more tears falling as I shook my head in denial, but he just pulled me back, closer than before. I closed my eyes to him again, whispering over and over, "I can't, I—"
His lips found mine as if it were the easiest, most natural thing in the world. They were warm and soft, and so gentle that I barely felt them at first. But then I gasped, and the action gave way to such startling friction that I did it again… and that was my undoing. He rubbed his mouth across mine, his lips moving only slightly, but enough to send shivers through me. I had no idea what to do, but I couldn't… think. My hands scrambled for purchase on anything nearby, but found only the warmth of his arms to grasp onto. I tried to react, and yet it seemed I already was, my lips moving in some primal response that beat hard in my blood.
But his caress ended all too soon, and I fought the urge to follow when he moved away. His eyes were hooded, fixed on the mouth he had taken only moments ago. Before I could gather the energy to speak, his thumb caressed my cheek lightly, smearing tears over my skin.
"Come with me."
I swallowed, my thoughts scattering like matchsticks. It was the second time he'd kissed me that evening, and yet this one had felt so different from the chaste one he'd given me a mere hour before. This one had felt… amazing. Rapturous. Addictive. I blinked the thoughts away.
"But my… my disease." Finally, coherence returned, "I can't leave, it's too dangerous, I—"
"I'll take care of you."
My eyes widened at the words, before filling anew with tears.
Nobody had ever said that to me. Nobody had ever cared.
I bit my lip, "Where would we go?"
"To Fanelia, my—…" He stopped himself, sighing before gradually moving away from me. "We'll go to Fanelia. I've been running for too long, and we—" His eyes caught mine before he turned to the fireplace, "…you, can be free there."
I chose to ignore his obscure phrasing. The thought of freedom anywhere was persuasive enough, I didn't care so much about the details. But even if I did go with him, there still remained the problem of… well, how we'd escape this prison in the first place.
"How are we going to get out of here?" I asked him, quietly, after a moment. He continued to stare into the fire, silently accepting the choice I had made. He seemed to be rather pensive all of a sudden. I supposed talking about his old country gave him much to think about. After a moment, he answered me.
"There's only one guard standing outside this door, and once I knock him unconscious then it should be simple enough just to sneak into the grounds through my chamber."
I almost choked on my breath.
"One guard?!" I repeated, disbelievingly, "… but there are— my father always told me there were dozens watching me!"
The prince looked at me then, and I saw pity in his eyes.
"I fear you have been lied to for longer than you care to imagine." He turned back to the fire, his forearms braced on the mantelpiece.
I felt the handle of the wardrobe dig into my back as I leant on it for support. All this time… all this time I'd thought I had no chance of escape…when there was only one guard outside my door? There were plenty of heavy objects I could have knocked him out with by now. I closed my eyes in frustration. I had been so foolish. Although, there remained a voice in my mind that wondered: even if I had known the truth, would I really have tried?
The prince was looking at me again, I noticed. Hastily, I turned my back to him.
"I'll change now."
I grabbed my least constrictive dress, a dark garment of almost indescribable colour, uncorseted and, as far as I could tell, warm. Even though its skirts still reached the floor, it seemed the most suitable choice for travelling. Grabbing the 'sturdiest' looking pair of silk slippers I had, I took everything behind the changing screen and proceeded to dress myself as best I could.
"Do you need to take anything with you?" His voice reached me from the other side of the screen after a few minutes had passed. He was pacing again. I tied the last cord of my bodice, cinching in the excess fabric at my waist before replying.
"There's nothing here that I want to remember."
He seemed to consider my statement for a moment.
"Nothing?"
I stepped out from behind the screen, smoothing my skirts before looking up at him.
"Nothing." I said simply, before moving back to my closet to search for a cloak, even if I suspected I didn't have one. I could feel him staring at my back.
"Take something."
I blinked and twisted my head back to look at him.
"What?"
But he wasn't looking at me anymore. He was staring out the open window into the night.
"If I had known…" He began to say, his eyes suddenly distant, caught in his past, "If I had known what would happen to my home… to my family…" He swallowed, closing his eyes briefly before turning to hold mine. "I would have taken something to remember them by."
I wasn't certain I understood, but the rawness that bled through his façade of indifference gave me pause.
"I—"
"Believe me," He started before I could ask him anything more, "It's easier than you think to forget who you are."
Barely perceptively, I shook my head in confusion, "But… why would…"
"It happens." He said quietly.
He turned away, leaving me to process his words as I continued my search for a cloak. At that moment, to me it seemed the darkness I saw in his eyes had already found its way into his very being. He sounded so… wounded. Tortured, even. I frowned. The only thing I could even think of taking was the new book I'd been given the day before. I didn't even know what it was about; I hadn't had time to even pick it up.
"I don't have a cloak." I said after a moment, facing him once more. The words seemed small and trite in the face of his melancholy.
"I'll give you mine." He said simply, approaching me, "Are you ready?"
I nodded, though I wasn't even certain I was. I wasn't certain I could ever be. He returned the gesture.
"Let's go."
He turned and walked to the door. I followed, scooping up the book from my bedside table. I looked at the leather-bound cover.
"The Dragon's Lady"
A story. Hopefully it would serve as a useful distraction from the chaos that was set to ensue.
"Ready?" The prince asked me again, causing me to look up from the book and into his eyes, serious and set upon me.
"Yes."
"Do what I say, don't question it." He said, intense though his voice had lowered to a whisper so the guard couldn't hear outside the door, "Be ready to run the minute I tell you to, and don't make a sound."
I nodded. He knocked on the inside of the door, a sign to be let out, before turning to me once more.
"And one more thing, Hitomi. Don't change your mind half-way." He breathed. "Because then we'll both be dead."
I heard the lock crack open from outside. The prince exchanged one more pointed glance with me before slipping out of the door. It locked behind him, the clanging of metal echoing through the room. And when I was left alone in silence once again, the sheer magnitude of the decision I'd made hit me with such force I practically swooned.
I was leaving.
I would be free.
And yet the enigma of my disease still clung to the back of every thought of freedom. Would I ever truly be free from it? The prince had said that my father had been "wrong" in keeping me here… but had he been wrong about me being a danger to those around me? Had he been wrong in thinking me a danger to myself?
I heard something heavy hit the floor outside the door, shortly before the lock clicked open once again. For a split second, I considered the possibility of the guard walking in, the prince's blood on his hands; the plan failed before it had even begun. That's when I realised. I had to do this.
I blinked as the prince shoved the door open hastily, shaking his hand out as if it pained him. His eyes found me in the same place I had been standing a moment ago, and motioned for me to follow. I obeyed. He took my hand with his good one, and led me out into the corridor, past the sole guard slumped against the wall, unconscious, and onto the first flight of stone steps. We moved silently in the candlelight.
And as our escape dawned on me, I could only begin to wonder: why had he been so desperate for me to come with him?
I clasped his hand tighter. Only time could tell, I thought, as his squeezed mine back in answer.
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Where will they go? Nobody knows.
Oh wait, Fanelia.
... Well that failed.
Anyway, if you loved it/hated it/averagely accepted it/just fell asleep whilst reading it - please review.
I'll be writing writing writing as soon as my A levels are finished, so, until then, wish me luck.
TOODLES!