Chapter Thirty-Three –
The Chapter of Our Tale That Will Remain,
For All of Time,
NamelessIt was either some divine intervention, or mere deified cruelty, that sustained the sunset that night, drawing it out for what seemed an eternity.
Jaedin watched Elowyn run from him, and he knew exactly why she fled – and this time, he did not chase after her. He wasn't even certain, in his own mind, that he could stand the sight of her now: she, whom he loved more than anything.
But their mutual dismay was justified.
As he wandered through the paradise that was the grounds of the ancient temple, later, his eyes rooted first to the ground at his feet and then to the twilight sky, he mulled over all that they had just learned. It was shocking enough when one stumbled upon one's true love, he knew; then how much more improbable was it that two people, who had been on opposite sides of a war, would find one another, discover a powerful bond that tied them inescapably and inexplicably together…
And then discover that they were not simply a vampyre who'd grown into maturity to become a Dark Lord, and a faery princess, both of whom were tied together by a prophecy that foretold the end of a world – but a dethroned god and goddess!
He went over the memories that he had of that moment of initial discovery, forcing himself to recall it even as his mind cringed, reeling with incomprehension and disbelief. His training in the art of enduring even the most revolting and undesirable things in life served him well, he thought miserably to himself.
* * *
In the beginning of time, the Three had decided among themselves to create a world – a sphere that would become known as Evyrworld. In it, they placed oceans, land, plants, creatures, and people, giving the last two the gifts of thought, speech, and magic: some more strongly than others. When all of this had been done, They also brought into being a company of beings who would serve as stewards of the different elements of the world.
One would rule over the element of air, and all of the creatures belonging to it; another would rule over the element of water, another land, another fire, and so on, through the remaining elements of animals, Sentients, Legendaries, Smaller Folk, and even Life and Death. Each of these stewards was known as a Power, and together, they made up the Seven Powers of the World, also known as the Fates. Together with their wives, the Seven governed everything within Evyrworld.
But there had not always been just seven of them.
Over the Fates ruled a god and goddess. He was Hate, and she was Love, and both were of equal power, held as joint sovereigns over the Council of the Fates.
Love, the goddess.
With grace unmatched,
Standing tall –
Love was beautiful,
And queen of all.
Indeed, Love had been very beautiful – without compare: a goddess revered by many, especially the females of each race who knew of the deities that cared for their world. She was honoured as the one who brought romance and true love into each life: blessing families with longevity, children, and prosperity, and countries with peace and amity between each other. Her symbols, as indicated within the temple, were the Star-Lily, which grew and bloomed only beneath the light of the moon, the white rose, ivy, and turtledoves. In many artistic representations, she had been shown as a tall, beautiful woman with the white wings of a swan.
Hate, her husband and co-ruler, was exactly her opposite. He was both feared and respected, for within his hand he held the power to create war and strife, and the Fate of Life and Death was his close comrade. His symbols were the hourglass, the coiled cobra, the oleander and nightshade, and – of course – the dragon. Whereas Love always wore white, Hate always wore black.
Clad in black,
As deepest midnight's cover,
Hate was fair king,
And her lover.
But then disaster had struck, into the heart of the Council of the Fates.
For Love and Hate, perceiving their individual abilities to both create and destroy, became overly proud, to the point of conceitedness, and began to strive against one another, in spite of their fellow gods and goddesses' council to be reconciled.
Hate took fiery pleasure in rending man from man, country from country, race from race: he caused brothers to despise one another, sons to rebel against their fathers, monarchs to turn and lash out in violence towards their allies. Love reacted in vengeance by employing her power to make all creatures act in the name of their desires. She would manipulate a king into growing so fond of his treasure that he would arrange for his own children to be assassinated, or cause a young man to murder his brother for the hand of a maiden.
Turning against one another, and forsaking the immortal love that the Three had created them to have for each other, Hate and Love took their battles further into the world, causing wars and death all in their own names.
Love and Hate both had their dark sides. Hate could be used for good, to cause men to abstain from and loathe evil, and Love could be employed to create harmony and bliss. But when they forsook their given responsibilities to the world that they governed over, the darkness came forth. The effects of hate were obvious, as those of wrongfully used love were also quite evident.
In their battle against one another, the god and goddess wreaked so much havoc that their comrades in the Council of the Fates at last grew weary and concerned of the pair's duel, and went before the Three with their grievance. The sovereign Trinity, who had observed the warring of the god and goddess all along, were finally moved to a decision, and Love and Hate were summoned before Their eternal throne.
They had abused their divine powers, and caused much suffering and evil in the world; now they would be brought to justice.
An edict was made against them: for their crimes, they would be cast out of the Council of the Fates, and made to endure life in the forms of the very races that they were supposed to have protected. Only when they had found one another again, would they become aware of their past life; only when this had been done would they be given a second chance, to win the world's forgiveness, and again become the god and goddess, Hate and Love.
Then they had been reborn: he as the son of a family of Sytherrian vampyres, and she as the daughter of two faeries of the White Realm. By the time that this had come to pass, evil had entered the world in the form of the Dark Realm, and the Three had created the prophecy that foretold the end of it. Little had anyone – even the Fates – known that the two people who would fulfill the prophecy would also be the reincarnated, as it were, figures of Love and Hate: Princess Elowyn and Jaedin, the Dark Lord.
Unfortunately, because of the prophecy, the wicked Ebony Queen had snatched up Jaedin and attempted to thwart the will of the Three by turning him to evil, and then ordering Elowyn's death.
But Fate could not be thwarted.
* * *
So now here they were.
Their hidden past life had at last been revealed, and they had a choice, it was obvious. They could go forward into destiny, and fulfill the prophecy, ending the reign of the Dark Realm in the world and once again take up their places as rulers over the Council of the Fates. Or they could refuse to acknowledge the truth about themselves, and turn from one another again.
Jaedin looked out over the wide, shimmering landscape of the oasis that he had come upon with Elowyn, his princess, and knew that she was somewhere within it.
The fact that he had once, in a former life of sorts, been her husband – her mate, who knew her through and through, as no one else did – at last revealed to him the exact nature of his bond to her. Not only through his love for her did that tie exist. It was because he was Hate, and she was Love. Struggle as they might against it, conspire as the world might against them, it was true – they were two beings, and yet one.
Would she ever accept him now? Would he accept her?
He knew, without a moment's further thought, that he would. The past was the past. He had been prideful and foolish: arrogant to the point that had caused his downfall, and, to some degree, hers. He didn't know whether he had been the one to create the rift between them, or if it had been her – he really didn't care now.
All he was aware of was the fact that the Three had, at last, given them a second chance. They could make things right; he might be returned to his love.
And he did love her – oh, he loved her with a passion that could be equaled by no one and nothing! Jaedin loved Elowyn, and Hate held the same feeling in his heart for Love. Nothing could part them, not even their own mistakes, not millennia apart.
The past was the past.
With the future before him, he was confident of what he must do.
Jaedin and Hate combined, he set his shoulders straight, and set off, down the path that led around the hillside, away from the forest. Her presence was ever within his mind, the sense of it growing stronger and stronger as he moved. Yes, he would go to find her, and he would tell her all that he now knew to be true – to be real and eternal and unbreakable – within his heart, and he would make her listen.
She would listen, and they would begin to make things right again.
After all, it was their destiny.
* * *
Elowyn sat alone on the hillside, knees drawn up to herself with her hands draped over them. The beauty of her surroundings still awed and amazed her, but it seemed a painful loveliness now, for her heart was wracked with the pangs of the deep grief, loneliness, and guilt that now resided within her.
How could this ever be?
She had once been a goddess, who had erred in the confidence of her power and the heat of her anger, and had hence been exiled from her home, and torn from her beloved. Her spirit had been held in dormancy for millennia, waiting to be reborn and set into life again – and when it had, she had become a faery princess who knew nothing of her past life, or of the one whom she had loved so much.
And now, she was faced with the fact that she might have lost him forever. She had brutally shoved him away from herself, and run from him, turned her back on him—he might not, and with good reason, choose to accept her in the wake of her actions! She had denied the feelings that she knew she had for him, had been cruel and unkind to him, and lied to herself again and again, saying that she did not care for him, she could not love him, she would not.
But she did.
Oh, Fates, I do…
With that thought bearing down upon her confused and unsettled mind, she put her face in both of her hands and cried. She knew that her destiny now lay in taking up the truth of herself – of who and what she really was: the goddess Love and the herald of the Dark Realm's doom – but she was afraid to face it. And she was afraid, because she did not want to let destiny take her without the arms of her beloved to protect and guide her.
He had loved her all along, from the very beginning of their second and earthly acquaintance; and she had loved him as well, deep down, although she told herself at every turn that this was not so, it could not be so.
She loved him.
Love desired to be reunited with Hate, her lover and mate, and Elowyn desired nothing more than to spend the rest of her life in Jaedin's embrace.
The reality of this was what had frightened her the most; it was, ultimately, what had caused her to run away. He had been her husband – he had known her as no one else did, or ever could, and she had known him in the same way. And when she, as Elowyn, had become aware of this…it had terrified her. She hadn't even been able to clearly define what she felt in her heart for him – if it was love, or simply mere affection, or something else entirely – and then there stark, blunt reality had been.
You were once his wife, it told her, and he has been meant for you from the beginnings of time. You were one, and you will be one again. You cannot escape it.
She was still frightened, but not of this.
She was frightened of life without him.
A single tear coursed down her cheek, following the others that had gone before it, and she looked back out to the setting sun. A single name whispered through her mind…Jaedin.
"Jaedin."
Suddenly, she became aware of a presence behind her. She'd been too distracted by her own thoughts to have an sense of him, and now there he was – standing beside the tree that was a little ways up the hillside from her.
He wore the same garb that he'd been in during the flashing, vision-like moment of the revelation of their pasts – a tunic of pure white velvet, breeches of the same material and colour, and black boots. She herself wore a peerlessly beautiful but simple gown: white as well, with a corset-style bodice and sleeves that came off of her shoulders, cascading down from her elbows to mingle with her flowing skirts. This was, she realized, the look of Hate and Love.
All white – pure as their original bond…
She looked at him, unable to take her eyes away.
This was Jaedin, and this was Hate. They were one and the same, just as she and Love…just as she was Love. Elowyn, and Jaedin. Love, and Hate.
After a moment of silence, he came towards her: moving slowly, as if he didn't want to frighten her, and she watched him until his shadow fell directly over her. Then, he sat down, close enough for her to have reached out and touched him, if she had wanted to. The look in his silvery eyes was one of gentle sadness, compassion, and tenderness, and it stung her. Feeling utterly unworthy, she looked away.
Elowyn, little Love – stop pretending to yourself, stop telling lies to your aching heart; it will only intensify your pain. Go willingly into the arms of the one you see before you: he loves you. He always has, and he always will. You must trust him – you must trust yourself. After all, you were not created a goddess for nothing…
And she turned around.
Jaedin still looked at her, unhesitant.
"I love you," she burst out, in a breathless, desperate murmur, and then she thrust herself into his arms, and was holding onto him with a passionate fervor that left him in no way incognizant what her thoughts were. In a moment, they withdrew from their embrace, looking long and deep into one another's eyes. Then he spoke.
"I love you, Elowyn."
Elowyn – Love – held no doubt in her heart now that this was real. This would last forever, and this was what she wanted. He was hers, as she was his.
And nothing could ever again change that.
So, hesitantly – almost shyly – she reached out and touched his face with her hand, brushing her fingertips along his cheek until her palm cupped along the warm, silky skin of his squared jaw line. His quicksilver eyes gazed back at her, longing.
Their lips touched lightly and carefully at first, a mere brush of the mouth, and then the embrace immediately intensified. Jaedin's arms wrapped around his princess's slender body—and in that embrace, they left thought, reason, and reality, and everything beyond it, far behind themselves. Knowing only their sweet bliss – their love.
* * *
That very night, the Dark Lord and his faery Princess pledged themselves to one another: taking again the vows that had once joined Hate and Love in a bond sanctified by the Three Themselves. As the first stars burst into being in the blue-black night sky, they ended their nuptials with a long, meaningful kiss of pure passion and devotion: sealing their eternal vows with that all-consuming display of their deep love…
And the universe danced with joy.
* * *
A/N: So, are you all still with me now? Have some of the questions been, at long last, answered for you? Are you flipping surprised?! (I certainly hope so; if we haven't reached some sort of shock level here, I'm not doing my job properly…) You probably have more – go ahead, ask them; I'll do my best to explain myself. Oh dear…anywho, please r&r! We have finally reached the end of my update. More will come in the future – but whether that is near or far in the vast expanse of time, who can tell…
And yet we remain in the woods, but for a while longer. ^_^
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