She knew they were reaching the lodge before they stopped walking. Their footsteps sped up at first in anticipation, then lagged when they reached it, of course, but it was the sounds she noticed first. There were voices, calling out to one another and laughing, and axes colliding with tree trunks and simply the steady hum of people, moving in and around each other, living. She was in civilization again, and a civilization where no one was going to lock her in the dark or cut out her heart, misleading her with dreams and visions.
Virth's hand slackened around her wrist, before letting go altogether, and the blindfold that was still tied tightly around her eyes was now slid over her forehead and off. She finally stood free.
She watched Tomas in front of her, along with all the archers, move to their places amid the clearing crowded in with trees and dense foliage. Glancing somewhat nervously at Virth, she saw him give her a slight, sideways smile and was glad to see that he remained at her side. She looked around in earnest then, to take in her surroundings.
The thing that struck her most was the life—the trees were spread thick all around them, stretching long limbs closer into the large glade and farther up into the sky, which was nearly crowded out with green, thick leaves, save for one bright blue circle around them.
There was one building towards her left, looking as though it were pushed over to the side of the clearing in unimportance. She supposed it was the lodge, though it truthfully looked little more than a log cabin. It was longer than a cabin would be, but neither very wide nor very tall. The roof seemed slanted towards the middle—what little roof there was anyway. It was mainly only on the edges and tilted precariously downward, with a few threadbare sections of twigs and branches in the middle, all looking ready to fall through at any moment. So Tomas wasn't lying when he said they needed a roof.
The middle of the clearing was filled with more trees, but small ones, like they'd once been cleared out and were now trying to be grown again. They stood at various heights, most only up to her knees, some to her waist, and a very few above her forehead.
There were several men at various places around the edge of the clearing with axes in their hands ready for swinging but paused momentarily to glance at the newcomers. She stepped backward under their curious gazes, staring at her with stern eyes above unkempt beards and hardy muscles. Within a moment, though, most returned to their loud chopping with wood chips flying into the air.
A few more men carried logs out of the forest and to the clearing, and all seemed to be supervised by a young man with light brown hair and skin tanned from warm sunlight, standing towards the edge of the forest and watching with obvious dissatisfaction as some of the tallest trees were destroyed under the sharp bite of the axes.
She saw Tomas walk up to him then, standing for a moment without being acknowledged, before finally tapping the man's shoulder. Finally catching his attention, the older man said a few words, and the younger one turned towards them with a huge grin, seeming almost too large for his narrow face.
Aida glanced at Virth, certain such a smile wasn't meant for her, when she didn't know him at all. Virth's thin-lipped smile looked halfway between amused and annoyed, but the look in his eyes told her there was something more, some recognition and comfortable familiarity...the feeling of friendship, of home.
"Virth!" the man was calling now as he walked swiftly towards them, loud and exuberant. "Virth Gideon, you're alive!" Reaching them now, he stood a few feet away, still grinning broadly. He spoke again, not quite as loud but still with an exaggerated emphasis, "And you know, I was all set planning your funeral. It would have been a truly grand affair. You'd have loved it, I know. I was sitting there, all alone in the lodge, basking in the woodsmoke from the fire, when suddenly—"
His voice was raised to the peak of suspense, when Tomas broke in, interrupting with what he guessed was the completion of the sentence, "You felt him fall alive into the forest?"
Aida looked at the first man, who was blinking at how he'd been cut off. He turned a thoughtful eye towards the ground then, pursing his lips and frowning slightly. "No, actually, that was when the roof fell in and I was rained upon with sticks and dirt and all manner of insects. Most unpleasant, I assure you..." he frowned a bit more, kicking at a pine cone under his foot, before raising his head again, "but, I knew it was a sign! And sure enough, not two days later, here you are! I knew you'd escape somehow, Virth, but I'm still wondering how you did it."
"I had help," Virth replied quietly. She glanced at him and saw his eyes locked on her, startling in his intensity. He turned back to the strange man. "This is Aida," he said, gesturing towards her. "She saved my life."
"The king's lover," Tomas whispered under his breath, soft but fierce all the same, eyeing her with mistrust.
She dropped her eyes to the ground again, letting her hair fall in front of her face. There was no moving past that, was there? She'd be eternally tied to Aaren in their minds, eternally under suspicion. She dared a glance up, though, to look at the man in front of her who'd greeted Virth so boisterously. He still hadn't said his name. Alexander, perhaps?
He coughed slightly then, awkwardly breaking the silence. "The king's lover? An...interesting taste in romance you have, madam."
She looked up at him, feeling pained, wishing she could explain that she didn't know back then, and now she wished a million times over that she'd never had anything to do with Aaren, but...then, that wasn't entirely true. She regretted the days spent with him, but in a way she wanted him back, and...it was all so complex and frustrating, and she had no idea what to say about the matter.
He was staring at her with an undisguised interest in his brown eyes, but also with a slightly softened look, like she was something to be treated gently. He didn't appear unkind really; he actually appeared most kind, but curious.
After a moment, he smiled again, not the huge grin this time but a slow and amiable smile. "I'm very sorry," he said. "That was...a strange interlude, I must say, but I have not yet properly introduced myself."
She looked up at him curiously, and he grinned at her, something almost sly in his brown eyes. He brought his arm out, swiveling it through the air, then crossed it against his chest in a low and sweeping bow. "Alexander Alexander, at your service. I hope you enjoy your stay here, Miss Aida, however long it may be, and you're certainly welcome as long as you like. We may not have much of a roof at the moment, but I assure you, we will. All in good time. And of course, if you want to leave us and go to some other part of the country, you need only ask myself or any one of my men, and we would be glad to escort you there."
She stared at him, feeling slightly at a loss from his long introduction. So he was Alexander Alexander. She met him at last. He was not quite what she expected, but he seemed to be a good man, if a bit elaborate. And...he said she could leave, anywhere in the country? Did that mean they would escort her home as well?
As if sensing her thoughts, Virth spoke in a low and tense voice, "Alexander. She can't leave. Not until the Breaking Dawn at least."
Alexander's face grew immediately more serious, face drawn tight, lips pinched. He looked almost pained as he glanced at her then quickly back to Virth. "I'd guessed as much, if she helped you escape. What...who is she, exactly? King's lover, saved your life, I'm really not sensing the connections here."
Virth cast her a shadowed glance, but she didn't bother looking away or pretending she wasn't listening. This was the important talk, about her, and she wanted to know. After a moment he looked back at the man in front of him. "She didn't know what he was, until he tried to take her heart."
Alexander's eyebrows shot upward. "She's—?"
Virth nodded. Aida frowned slightly, annoyed that everyone seemed to understand what was happening to her except herself. Virth went on, "And she sides with us now, but it's not easy for her."
"Well..." Alexander laughed nervously, halfway forcing it, while it still seemed to sound somewhat natural. "I think we should...talk about this. I'll call a meeting, and we can decide what this means for...all of us. The Breaking Dawn could be much closer than we thought."
Virth held up his hand, stopping the man from going on. "Not yet. Wait until tomorrow." He glanced at her, catching her eye, and gave her half a smile. "I have a story to tell."
Alexander looked between them, seeming to understand the meaning, and nodded. "Very well. We can finish repairs on the roof first, I suppose." He glanced at the workers, still swinging away at the trees and sighed, before turning back to them. "I'll make food for you; you must be hungry. What would you like?"
"Flapjacks," Virth said, reaching his hand out for her to take. "But none of your tea! You make horrible tea!"
Alexander made a face. "Fine, then it's cold spring water for you, Virth!"
"Good, I like spring water. Meanwhile, we'll find a better place to sit than your roofless lodge."
Aida smiled, slipping her hand into Virth's, almost giddy with excitement that he was finally going to tell her the story she'd been waiting to hear for what seemed like aeons now, though it wasn't really much more than a day, she supposed.
"Is this good enough?" Virth asked, glancing around them.
Aida looked around as well, noting the still trees, huge and silent above and all around them, the sunlight drifting down in beams of light, illuminating specks of dust drifting throughout the air. There was a log on the ground a few feet to her left, with one of the beams of sunlight falling straight down to it. She moved to it and sat down, smiling at Virth. "Good enough," she replied. "Now start your story."
"A bit impatient, aren't we?" Virth commented as he sat down beside her.
"I think I have a right to be," Aida replied, looking at him pointedly.
He gave a small smile. "Perhaps." His eyes turned toward the ground then, and his dark brows drew over his forehead in a frown. "It's not a pleasant story," he said at last, looking up and into her eyes again, "not the type of story you tell. But you wanted to hear it."
She nodded, feeling a puzzled frown creasing her own brow now. It seemed to bother him so much, like—like he was a part of it, somehow. She supposed he probably was, even as she was, only...he knew so much more about it, and it was more...personal to him, though she didn't know why. "Go on," she said, when his eyes lingered on her.
With that, he turned away again, dark hair whipping out as he looked straight ahead. When he spoke, his voice was deep and grave. "It started with a princess, as I've said. Her name was Aurore, and she was more beautiful than the dawn—or so they said. She loved a man, deep within her heart. He was a warrior. She saw him at a banquet, standing across the room. She made her way through the crowd to him and touched his arm, and she took him into her heart."
"You mean—?"
"Yes. Her heart was...beautiful and pure, innocent as an angel. The sun seemed to dwell there and a golden white glow rested over everything. It was similar to yours—the place you saw when you saved me, the flowered meadow. Without realizing, you took me into your heart, saving my life."
"That was...my heart?" Aida asked, feeling confused. She didn't feel that she quite understood...all of this jumping into hearts was so strange, but then...the place had seemed familiar somehow.
"Yes," Virth replied, looking sincerely into her eyes. "The innocent heart...can do many things. When the princess took the warrior into her heart, he was also able to take her into his, and they knew each other better than two people ever can. And they loved each other. But he wasn't worthy of her. His heart wasn't like hers. There were all the things he loved in it, of course, but there was...darkness, too."
"How so?" Aida questioned, leaning toward Virth, who flinched away from her. She frowned, wondering what it was that troubled him so.
He looked at her steadily then, green eyes clear and plain. "He was flawed. He lacked her innocence, and there was an evil in him, an evil that might have—in a way, did—destroy them both. He didn't set off to ruin them, but...he did it all the same." He paused for a moment, looking off into the trees around them, before turning back to her.
"The Ageless are part of an ancient curse. It was the dying words of a king long ago, even before Aurore's birth. He said, in his last breath, I bequeath my kingdom to those who will keep it forever. At first it was taken lightly, but then...things changed. The family line of the royals changed many times as they were killed by jealous usurpers, all their doings were destroyed. No one could keep the kingdom in their hands.
"Then, the princess's family came to power, and she was born. She was pure and innocent. It is said that only an innocent heart can rule forever. If another innocent heart could join with hers, they could keep the kingdom in their family line. The warrior was put through many tests to see the merit of his heart and what was found within it. He went through many trials, traveling across the lands for obscurities, to test his faith, his goodwill. He excelled in all but the last.
"The last trial was a test of his honor, of how far he would go for the sake of good. He was put into a scenario—a vision—in which he saw the world at it's end. He had a choice to fight for the lives of many, or to die for the cause of honor, purity, innocence. He chose the former, fighting for life. He joined a group of people called the Ageless, who would not die. They said...they fought for life, to live forever, for what better fate was there than that? Other armies railed against them, saying that they had no understanding of love, of compassion. The warrior...he felt no need for compassion, not while death stared him in the face. He wanted life. In his vision, he would live forever with them.
"When he awoke from the vision, the princess's father, the king, told him that he was sorry, but he had failed. He was commanded to leave the princess alone, but he did not. They met in secret, and he persuaded her to run away with him, to elope. Aurore was blinded by her love for him. She didn't believe him capable of any wrong.
"On the night they were to leave, she waited for him in her private courtyard. I'm sure you've seen it before—it lies in ruins now, but there are marble statues there and roses, everywhere roses."
Aida nodded. She remembered waiting there for Aaren, much the same as the princess waited for her warrior—each of them for a man they believed capable of no wrong. She shivered. "I—I cut my finger on a thorn there. I was waiting for Aaren—on the night he captured me."
Virth nodded. "There were no thorns there, until that night the princess waited. And the roses there were white then. She was fingering a petal, when her hand caught on a thorn. Red blood dripped from her finger to the pure white rose, staining it. All of the roses there turned blood red that night, under the pale moon. And the princess fell to the cold marble floor, dead—or so the warrior thought when he reached her.
"He came too late. He saw first the guards at the palace as he passed. They also lay slumped on the ground, and he believed they had been killed. He ran through the palace, and everyone was the same. His heart began to tremble with fear. When he reached the princess, he cried out in agony, a loud, shearing scream.
"As the echoes died away, he saw something even more frightening. Out of the darkness formed beings of the night and of the cold, pale moon. There was something wrong with them that he could not place, something terrible. They approached the castle, marching all together in uniform, none of them ever straying from formation. And they seized it together, with no one to stand in their way.
The warrior fled from them then and hid himself, but later, he studied them, for he knew them. They were the Ageless, in his last trial, the very ones he had aligned himself with, for a life that could never die. They were all beautiful, and none of them old, but they cannot love, cannot have compassion. It didn't seem important in his vision, but at last now he realized the terrible truth. The Ageless have no hearts to feel love with."
Aida gasped at this, at last understanding. "Then Aaren is—"
"He's one of them, yes," Virth replied. "Everyone who has lived in that castle for nearly the past hundred years is Ageless, and none have ever died naturally. What the dying king uttered so long ago is now true. It's not only the innocent heart that lives forever. The Ageless can keep the kingdom and never lose it, never die."
She frowned then slightly, puzzled. She didn't know much about the royalty of Shyrin; she didn't know anyone who did know much about them—but she had heard their names before and different ones than Aaren. "But, Virth, before Aaren ruled there was Bram, and before him was...Diederick, and—"
"The king changes his name when the proper amount of time has passed, but he's still the same man—if you can call him a man. The rule did change once in the period, about fifty years ago, from Aaren's father to him.
"After the curse was fully in place, the warrior stayed around the area a few years, to see what would happen. The peasants seemed to forget completely about the princess and everyone else. They accepted the new rulers as if they had always been there, as if they were influenced by the curse as well. The princess and the king and queen and all of the nobles were not dead as he had assumed, but in a deep sleep. He saw the Ageless bury them all in tombs underneath the ruins of the princess's courtyard, in an attempt to hide them all away.
"The rest the warrior learned was from conversations he overheard from the Ageless. They feared something—a time they referred to merely as 'the end.'"
"The end of the...curse?" Aida asked, creasing her brow. She was still confused, though the pieces of the puzzle were beginning to fall into place. She still didn't know what this had to do with her, however, or how the curse could possibly be broken.
Virth nodded. "Yes, so it would seem. The curse has to last one hundred years, but after that, it's free to be broken."
"But...how can it be broken?"
"It has to be what the dying king said—his kingdom must belong to those who can keep it forever. The Ageless can keep it, but so can the Innocent. There are others like the princess, like you. The Ageless feared the Innocent joining together with the princess's true love and waking her—and the entire kingdom. They do their best to corrupt innocence, but lately they've taken another approach—stealing hearts. Aaren wants an Innocent heart for his own, so that he can wake the princess himself and marry her, ruling forever. He wants hearts for all of the Ageless as well, so that they'll all survive when the curse is broken."
"That's...why he tried to take my heart," Aida said, pursing her lips together. She moved her hand to her chest, feeling her heartbeat there, slow and steady.
"Yes," Virth replied. "He tried to convince you by nearly making his way into your heart, so he could remind you of your love for him, but you didn't love him truly enough to give it away. He also played on your pity for him, saying he wouldn't survive. He was partially in truth, however. The Ageless cannot survive inside of hearts, can't come into them the way we can. If someone tries to bring the them into their heart, the Ageless is overwhelmed by it. They disappear, the same as if the curse was broken. But it's also destructive for the heart they were in. We have to join our hearts together—like the chain—but the Ageless have no hearts. It's like reaching off the edge of a cliff for something that's not there—you fall, and your heart is broken and gone. Then, you become Ageless like them.
Aida swallowed. Her heart had almost been taken by Aaren. She would have become Ageless like him. She didn't want to be like him. He was so cruel. And without love...what could any of them do?
"There are a few exceptions to the Ageless. Count Rivion, whom you met at my trial and execution," he gave a half amused smile at that, "he has half of a heart. Close to the beginning of the curse, a man saw one of the Ageless women and fell in love with her beauty. She found him amusing and agreed to marry him, yet she could not love him. In time, he gave her his entire heart, trying to show her his selfless love. He died in the act, and she had his heart and was at last able to feel love and pain. She grieved his loss and later died. Her son, Rivion, is half human and half Ageless, so he has half of a heart."
Aida blinked, unsure of what to think. It was such a strange tale. Tragic, really, but...mostly just strange. "That's...that—but—"
Virth nodded. "There are many strange tales concerning the Ageless."
Aida stared for a moment longer, trying to make sense of all this. "How long has it been since the curse began?" she asked at last.
"Nearly the hundred years. That's why Aaren has become so desperate to try and cut your heart out to get it. He is determined not to relinquish his hold on these lands."
"Oh," Aida said. "And...the warrior, what happened to him?"
Virth sighed. "He doesn't age either, though he still has a heart. But he sided with the Ageless once, and he lives as they live. In his vision...he made a promise to them, to give up his heart and live with them. He never did, but...the promise is still there. He was caught by them once and fought Aaren's father—King Owain. In a desperate suicide attempt, he dragged the king into his heart, making Owain feel the suffering he'd caused. You saw Owain in the throne room, the old man with the beard of many colors, for all the long years he's lived and not paid for. Owain got out of the warrior's heart, and they both survived, but the king aged so he was unfit to rule, and the warrior was harder and more bitter than before.
"He traveled much over the years, living always alone and never staying in one place for long. Every few years, he returned here, fighting the Ageless many times over the hundred year span. He killed many, slaughtering them like...cattle, until his own heart was dark and grey without color or life—a bitter wasteland of what it once was."
Aida started at this, thinking of...that grey, cold land Virth had taken her to. There was no color or life there, except for the dawn in the east and that woman...Aurore? In everyone's heart were the things they loved. It must have been his heart, and that would mean that...he loved the princess. "Virth," she ventured at last, barely above a whisper, "the warrior...who is he?"
He looked at her for a long moment, his face expressionless like stone, eyes unclouded. Then he rose from the log and walked away.
I know this is kind of infodumpish, but I hope it's...readable, at least, and not too confusing.
