Chapter 13: Some Secrets Are Meant To Stay That Way

I felt my courage shatter when I saw the owner of the first voice. He was in no way what I had expected, but he seemed familiar. Familiar in a way I could not describe, but familiar none the less. Somehow his messy jet black hair that hung down onto his face and his deep blue eyes struck me as familiar. His pale face watched me from under the screen of black hair, and his lips were slightly parted, as if his next word was caught helplessly on his tongue.

When he saw me, his pale lips bent into a wicked smile.

"Hello, Faelwen." He said. I stared at him in disbelief. How could he know my real name? I stood up slowly.

"Her name's Maddy." Both Lestat and I turned our heads to where the battered form of Ithen stood. He looked as if he had been trampled under a horse's feet, and an orc-made axe stuck out of his chest.

I caught my breath and held it, terrified at Ithen's appearance.

"You know nothing." Lestat snapped.

"Ithen?" My voice was fairly weak. "I thought you were dead."

"I am." Ithen answered sadly. My heart jumped into my throat, and the horrible realization of what was happening slapped me in the face. I guess it had to happen sometime; the realization that what was happening to me was real. I had always believed in it, but part of me still hung back, afraid to admit that it was real. But it came to me suddenly, in that small moment when Ithen's eyes met mine; his lifeless gaze forever engraved in my mind, contradicting the simple reality I had lived with my entire life. This reality, here, was mine; it always had been. I would never fully escape it, or erase it, no matter what world I was in. And in the moment that Ithen's gaze met mine, the world seemed to switch into slow motion, turning over and over again, the simple truth I had avoided for so long finally showing itself fully.

"Sad, isn't it?" Lestat said, a sarcastic tone to his voice. He walked over to me and gripped both of my shoulders with his cold hands. "How you knew him but never took the time to know him? Do you understand?"

I nodded mechanically, fear gripping my body as he leaned his head in close to my ear.

"He has no more life. You can't save him." Lestat moved away from me and walked over to a large basin, sitting on top of a marble stand. I watched as he gestured towards Ithen, and then waved his hand over the basin.

"Goodbye, Ithen." He said. Ithen glanced sadly at me one more time and then his form slowly melted away into a silver light which dove into the basin.

Lestat turned to me and brushed some of the jet black hair out of his eyes. There was a glint of a smile in his face.

"Do you remember me yet?" He asked. I shook my head.

"That's a shame." He continued, "I've remembered you for a long time." I thought his voice sounded kind of sad, but his face was solemnly bent over a book.

"You're familiar." I said truthfully.

"That doesn't matter." He said shortly, "I've waited down here in this prison for years!" His voice grew angry as he turned, his blue eyes blazing. "I always looked to the day when you'd come back, but somehow I was mislead into thinking you'd still remember me!" He came towards me. I backed away, but was stopped by the hard brick wall behind me.

"For years we were together!" He was even angrier now. "And yet you know not who I am!" He trapped me against the wall, and his icy fingers slid around my throat. I choked for air, feeling my conscious self drift away…but there was something about his touch that woke some memory deep inside me; a memory that I had stored away for a long time.

Flashback

It was dark; too dark. Heavy raindrops fell around me and screams echoed throughout the thick air.

I ran, I ran faster than I ever thought possible, fast enough to bring my lungs to a bursting point.

But I tripped and fell, gashing the side of my head on a sharp rock as I hit the cold ground.

"There's no point in turning back." He said. He had always been there, watching me from the shadows.

Lestat was the one who had haunted my dreams; he was the immortal that stood before my weak form, offering me a hand. I took it, not knowing that just touching his hand would drag me into the biggest mistake of my life, and in the end even my destruction.

SSssSSssSSssSSssSSssSSssSSssSSssSSssSS

When I woke up, I was lying in grass, a gentle wind slightly ruffling my hair and dress, along with the greenery around me. I sat up slowly, and looked around me. It seemed to be a forest, but it was much too peaceful to be any forest I had seen before. And the sky was white.

"Well, what do you think?" I turned and saw that the speaker had been a man. But he was in reality no man, but one of the immortals I had been warned about. His jet black hair hung slightly over his face, and his pale lips smiled at me.

"Where am I?" I asked.

"You are in between then and now. In the middle of yesterday and tomorrow, before time, yet after destruction. You are in my realm. And I am Lestat."

End Flashback

"You were Time!" I choked out. But his grip tightened.

"I was more than that!" He hissed.

"You--" my vice was fading, the room disappearing from sight, "You were the secret-keeper." He released me, and I collapsed onto the floor, gasping for breath. But he was beside me in an instant, helping me to sit up and then holding me there, muttering some sort of a spell. When I had recovered enough to sit up on my own, he stood up and walked back to the desk, keeping his back to me.

"You didn't remember." He said softly. When he turned around to face me, I could see small tears gleaming in his eyes. "You broke your promise."

"What promise?" I asked. But perhaps that was not the right thing to say, for I could see anger seep back into his eyes.

"For all eternity!" He yelled, flipping the desk onto its side in anger. Images spun around in my mind. To never leave the other dying;

"I saved your life!" He was furious, throwing bottles of strange liquids onto the floor.

One voice would sing, the other crying

"And then you promised!" He threw the basin onto the floor.

Bound together by more than a promise,

Though one was pure;

The other, demonic;

Never to cease, their compromise of fates;

These two,

This pair,

The fallen angels of their race

The verses flooded into my mind, awakening me into memories I had not seen in a long time.

"I lied to you." I said softly. All this time I thought I had been a victim of circumstance, and from what Gandalf had told me this all had been planned by the Dark Lord.

But Sauron had never found me; nor had his forces set the trap to bring me here. It had been Lestat all along; he had planned this from the start.

"And then I went away—back to my mother." My voice was unsteady, "Then you came after me…to try and bring me back. But at the same time The Dark Lord had decided that I was a threat…so Elrond and Gandalf sent me to the other world…" I paused, unsure of all the strange and terrifying memories that had re-entered me. "to keep me from you." I finished uncertainly, but the look in his eyes was almost unbearable; he looked so hurt…so sad, and tears began to slowly make their way down his cheeks.

"And then they sent me here." He said quietly, avoiding my eyes, "To lock me away in a place where I would not be able to do any harm…or find you."

"But you did find me--" I said. He nodded.

"And I tried to bring you back here…but magic isn't as powerful underground…so you were transported somewhere else. I tried to send spirits out to find you, but they were too weak to survive for more than three days." He looked at me, "So I sent a pixie." I felt my heart suddenly stop. The pixie that had saved me from certain death had been sent to find me.

"Then the black stone it gave me was from you." I said, pulling the stone out of a small pocket in the side of my dress. Lestat nodded.

"I had to bind the pixie to the stone, or it would have abandoned you from the start. But with the stone, I could tell exactly where you were, and who you were with." He admitted. He sat down on the edge of a table and motioned for me to come sit next to him.

"So you sent the pixie to give me the stone so you could know where I was?" I asked, not moving from my spot.

"And to protect you." He said, "As long as you had the stone, I could send magic to help you…and even send people to help you." I didn't respond.

"I sent the riders to you when you passed out after the fairy left you. Remember? And I sent a spell to keep you warm." He said.

"But why?" I asked. "Why go through all the trouble of keeping me alive, and bringing me here?" He looked straight into my eyes.

"Because with you here, I am no longer a prisoner. With you here, I am free. I brought you here because from the moment I brought you into my realm on that horrible day so long ago, our fates were bonded together."

I stared at him, both scared and amazed at what I had just heard.

"Should I be afraid of you?" I asked. Gandalf and Elrond had tried to hide me from him…something about him had to be threatening.

"No." He answered.

"Then why did they try so hard to keep me away from you?"

"Because they were afraid."

"Afraid of what?"

He stood up and violently threw a book off of the table.

"They were afraid of what I would become!" He looked at me, both sadness and deep hatred shone through his eyes.

"But what does that have to do with me?"

"You left them, remember? You left them and I found you, half dead and saved you. They didn't want you to help me go against them…they didn't want me to get powerful enough to get revenge against them. You could help me do that, and so they convinced you that I was evil and then they sent you to that other world."

"To protect me from you!" I retorted. "Why were they trying to protect me from you?"

"Because if I grew powerful enough to overthrow them, you would have to be there, right by my side. And you would have been, too! You were going to help me take revenge against those wicked murderers, but they found out and took you away!" He said. I opened my mouth, but found no words waiting for me. I felt like I should go comfort him, but somehow he seemed like the new enemy. I backed away from him slowly until my back once again hit the wall.

"Why did you try so hard to get me back here?" I asked. He looked at me long and hard. After several moments of silence, he walked toward me, holding out his hand. I watched him come to a stop in front of me, and let him take my right hand in his.

"Imo doche navarie." He said softly, and when he let go of my hand, a small blue light flittered up from it and twisted itself into a small luminescent chain.

"As long as you live, I live. When you die, I die. When you feel sad, I have no choice but to feel the same way. We were bound together; that's why I was able to find you, and that's why I had to." He said, looking up into my eyes. Their deep blue color shining with unborn tears, his eyes were lined with thick black, as if he had purposely lined them with eye-liner, but I knew he was incapable of that. All of the suffering I had endured, he had also suffered, but twice as hard. And it had all left him in this desperate and sad state.

I was confused; I didn't know what to do.

With shaking arms, I hugged him close, feeling his body shake with the tears that now flooded down his cheeks.

"Faelwen!" I let go of Lestat in surprise and looked at Gandalf, who had emerged from the darkened staircase. "Faelwen get away from him!"

But Lestat grabbed my arm, and pulled me against him.

"I won't let you take her again!" He said. Gandalf moved slightly, and Théoden, Aragorn, and Eowyn appeared.

I didn't struggle against Lestat's grip. And Gandalf could see that.

"Faelwen, please." Lestat pleaded quietly into my ear. "Don't leave again."

"I have to." I said, and I pulled away from him. Strangely, he didn't try to hold me back, he just watched me go with a mingled expression of pain and misery. I turned back to look at him, but he looked away and shrank back against the wall, folding his knees against his chest, and putting his head down. I was pulled up the steps by Gandalf and Théoden, but all the while I was watching him; the deepest feeling of pain washing over me.

I had betrayed him again.

When we had closed the door and securely hidden it once again, Gandalf turned to me.

"What did he do to you?" He demanded.

"Nothing." I answered truthfully.

"What did he tell you?" He asked.

"Everything that you wouldn't! Why do you keep him locked up down there? What exactly did he do that made him so dangerous?" I said furiously. Gandalf looked back at Théoden and then practically dragged me into a small room with no furniture, and was very dimly lit. Théoden followed.

"You were not always an elf," he started, "after your three-hundredth birthday, you became very distraught and moody. So Elrond decided to send spies after you to see what you were doing."

"And they found," Théoden cut in, "that you were visiting a particularly dark wizard by the name of Lestat. He turned you against your race, and many others."

"Then he lured you into accepting him as your friend, and he made you take part in that bonding ceremony just so that he could use you to destroy all other races but his own." Gandalf said. "Elrond couldn't bear to see that happen to you-or anyone-so he sent you to that other world to keep you away from Lestat. But the bond could not be undone. I guess it was stronger than we thought." I thought about what he had said. All of this was so scary, and so new. Almost terrifying.

"So I was going to help ultimately destroy Middle Earth?" I asked quietly, gulping back the small tears that had formed at the corners of my eyes. Gandalf nodded.

"You had already led three armies and barely destroyed Rohan. You were the reason that so many people died." He said sadly.

"But why didn't you tell me about this? Why keep it from me?" I asked.

"Because the old prophecy foretold that you would someday find him again, and return to him." Théoden said, "We could only hope that you wouldn't find him—but you did."

"But I didn't stay with him." I said softly. Gandalf nodded again.

"But we cannot be sure that you will not go back to him and restart what had been stopped so long ago." He said.

"I'm different now." I said "That was all in my past."

"We can only promise you safety if you swear, with us as your witnesses, that you will never again go to that room and never again will you look upon the being that is Lestat." Gandalf said.

"I promise." I said weakly, tears forming at the edges of my eyes.

"I'll take your word." Théoden said sternly, and then he and Gandalf both left the room, leaving me leaning against the cold brick wall.

I couldn't help but feel distraught; I slowly slid down onto the ground and cried.

Author's note: Please review.

Oh, and I'm thinking of deleting this story. Please tell me what you think.