Author's Disastrous Note: Hello, my dear child :said the big bad wolf with a saccharine voice: what are you reading this fair little morning, may I ask?

Anyway, I just wanted to say, to warn, really: if you are a sensible, sensitive person, ( and if you at least cried more than five minutes at S.B. or A.D.'s death is H.P. 5 or 6,) you'd better NOT read this bit. Someone is going to die, and to horrendously tragic consequences. I hope I will describe the scene poignantly enough; you'll have (I mean it, guys, you'll HAVE,) to tell me about it. And please, don't cry too much (which means, catching the Hidden Meanings, that you hare in the obligation to cry just a bit, you know, the little pink handkerchief at the corner of heartbreakingly dry eyes, and the affected little sobs'n'sniffs.)

Chapter Twenty Two

The Mutilated Heart

When Arach woke up the next morning, she was alone, in the middle of the large bed, deeply entangled in her warm blankets. Wondering whether she had dreamt about the Prince, and flushing deeply at the thought she might have, she slowly dragged herself out of the bed, which was a difficult prowess to accomplish given the incredible comfortableness of lying under gentle satin covers, in a deep mattress of feathers, with soft, cloud-like pillows under her head. Admonishing herself for growing more and more lazy by the hour, she who was used to sleep in her narrow, cold bed at the bottom of an old, cheap inn, Arach sank, without even noticing it, deeper into the mists of sleepiness.

Finally succeeding in sitting up, Arach rubbed her face with her hands, pulling down the corner of her eyes and sighed. The comb she had been wearing the day before had been removed from her hair, which now fell down in the usual ragged veil of unequal dark strands, falling over her dark eyes and white forehead and tickling the back of her neck. Arach, glaringly looking around at the room, with the dawn still too pale outside to lit it properly, and the clear fire in the chimney, told herself that after all, she didn't have any work, and that she could permit herself to go back to sleep for a few minutes without bruising her honour too much. So, lying back down, she blissfully shut her eyes, and fell back into delicious slumber.

The second time she was awoken, it was by the Prince, leaning against her back and arm, and bending to lightly kiss her cheek. His lips were cold over her warm, flushed cheeks, and his silky black hair caressed her face. She opened her eyes, groaning, and blinked in the raw, metallic light streaming pitilessly from the windows, softened by the muslin curtains but still too bright.

'Gerrofme,' she slurred incoherently, as she struggled to emerge from the delicious paralysis of sleepiness.

She lazily rolled away from beneath him, but he caught her back, tenderly embracing her through the blankets.

'You can go back to sleep,' he told her, in the way a king would give a great amount of gold to a starving peasants.

She decided she wouldn't be as feeble as she had been in her dream, and rolled further away until she reached the edge of the bed, and fell over to the rush-covered floor, heavily, and lay there, looking up as he bent his head out of the bed, looking down at her and frowning between the silkily hanging hair:

'And why exactly did you do this?' he asked, with a smug little grin.

She sat up, heavily, as if her body weighted too much for her to pull it up, and clumsily pushing long raven strands away from her blinking eyes, she yawned inelegantly.

'You can guess by yourself, your Highness,' she said, as she stood up, unsteadily, clutching one of the posters to hold herself up.

He lay back on the bed, settling comfortably among the pillows and covers, which were still warm from the assassin's body, closing his fine lids over his emerald eyes and sighing deeply; and she took her chance and went for the door; which was unfortunately locked.

'Why did you lock the bloody door?' she asked, and went to sprawl down in an armchair by the fire.

'Oh, you can guess by yourself, opaline,' he said, not opening his eyes, but smiling.

They both remained silent for a moment, and finally, the Prince announced in a most majestically idle way:

'A third hunter arrived this morning, a little before dawn. Sir Nightspell. Looking for a certain Lady Arachna.'

'Ah,' said Arach, flatly, 'and so what?'

'I told him she had dastardly plotted against me, and had been most severely tortured, killed and left to rot at the bottom of the coldest, deepest dungeon.'

Arach, in spite of herself, grinned.

Silence fell again, with only the sad whisper of dreary falling rain from outside and the crackling of the fire, and Arach, curled in the depths of the easy-chair, felt her eyelids grow annoyingly heavy again. Not properly awakened anyway, she felt herself sinking back pathetically into sleep, but was caught back into the real world when the prince drawled:

'Opaline, come here a second.'

'No way,' she declared, too low for him to hear and not even bothering to open her eyes.

He didn't reply or insist. The sound of the rain that had started pouring viciously against the glass windowpanes, replacing the slow, lazy splutter, and the low, peaceful purr of the bouncy fire filled the room. Arach dozed off.

She woke up with a start, with an idea that had crossed her mind in a dazzling flash: sharply sitting up, she looked piercingly over at the Prince: sprawled on the bed, his eyes shut and his beautiful face paler than usual, he was sleeping, breathing slowly and steadily, with both arms thrown over his head. Arach, a slow smile of triumph spreading across her face, tiptoed over to him, and bent down. Where would he put his key? She first looked for pockets at his black breeches, but found none. Then, she slowly, carefully groped at his clothes, with the tips of her fingers, feeling for the solidity of some iron. She started by his throat, then lower down his chest, and there, she found something hard against her fingers. Nimbly, she raised the neck of his tunic, and slipped her hand inside, reaching for the small key, which, unfortunately, hung from a thin silver chain around his neck. At the same time as she realized this, she realized that he wore nothing underneath the light black tunic; he who always wore an armor, even when sleeping, was now utterly defenseless. Shocked to feel the warm, satiny skin under her hand, Arach sharply got it away, as if it had burned her. Stepping away, and biting her lip hard, she thought about how she could take the key away: she could either try to get the chain over his head, and risk waking him, or find a way to cut or break the chain, which was probably thin enough, or find a possible clasp. So she bent back over him, careful not to sink too much in the deep feather mattress, and took hold of the thin cold chain, which glinted in the feeble grey light from the windows, and started turning it slowly, keeping the key between her fingers, but slipping the chain around, looking for a little clasp. There wasn't any. Furiously, Arach straightened, away from him, and looked around for anything that could help her break the chain. Nothing, of course. Cursing inwardly, she took the resolution to try her last chance: taking the chain delicately in both hands, and raising it above the prince's sleeping head, she drew it slowly upwards, feeling the back, which was under his neck, slowly ease away from the heaviness of his head. The worst thing that could happen, she thought darkly, was that it would catch his hair and wake him up. She went on pulling slowly for a while, and finally, the chain drew free. With a smirk of triumph, Arach jubilantly made to move away, but the prince, his eyes still closed, grabbed the key from her hand, with an indolent snigger:

'Stupid child,' he drawled lazily.

Arach, unable to admit defeat, grabbed at his wrist, and tried to tear the chain and key from his closed fist, but he held fast. He was stronger than she was, and though she pinched him as viciously as she could, he did not let go.

'You could go on twisting my skin until it fell off my arm: I shall not let it go,' he declared smugly, opening his eyes.

She let go of his arm, sighing in exasperation and glaring at him, with no result but an amused snigger.

'Why can't you just lie down and stay at rest, opaline,' he said 'I don't see why you so absolutely want to get out,' he sat up, and, leaning his head on one side: 'Come on, give me a reason.'

'I want to get back home,' she said aggressively, glaring at him.

'What is waiting for you back there? A cold assassin's couch, dirty jobs, hunters after you...'

'My freedom! My—'

He cut her through, disdainfully waving away the feeble reasons with a sweep of his elegant white hand:

'Just think, reasonably, and using this little brain of yours: What is your cold cheap inn against my royal apartments? Your few blood-stained coins against all my possessions? Your freedom against my love?'

She said nothing, but her glare deepened: she absolutely hated being silenced by anyone or anything—it was against her reason, and it was a very hard, cruel blow to her already vastly damaged pride.

'What are your prospects in life? You have nothing, you are alone; you were desperate enough to risk trying to kill me against money. Where is your life leading?'

'I've got a revenge to look to,' she said, and briskly got up.

'Aah,' said the Prince, his smug smile turning to a frown.

He caught her wrist, so quickly she didn't even see him move, and brutally pulled her down beside him:

'What is it about, this vengeance?' he asked, keeping a firm hold of her hand.

'None of your problem,' she said bitterly.

He lowered his pale lips to her ear:

'A love story?'

She grabbed the hand with which he was holding her free one, and tried to tear it away, crying:

'What the bloody hell are you talking about?'

'There are very few things that could push such a young lady to seek vengeance. Disappointed love is often the reason.'

'Well, I'm no lady, if you want to know: I am merely someone looking for revenge, end of matter, now leave me alone.'

'That I most certainly won't. I wonder if I should not try to get the story from one of those lords who are seeking you: Lord Drymarchon, or this other one whom you seem to hold in such loathing: Lord Araneus.'

His lips stretched into a satisfied grin as he saw her pale to frightening ghostliness.

'You…you won't do that, will you?' she asked tonelessly.

'Aah, so those two are involved, aren't they? And so is probably the certain Hunter Hawkke.'

She grabbed his arm, pleadingly:

'Who told you about him?'

'You did. You should have seen your face when you asked me if any of the hunters come for you was named Hawkke. I wonder what those three men did to you to make you so pale, you who couldn't be brought down by my cruelest blows…'

He looked down at her, and his smile faded:

'I am afraid there are too much mysteries and men in your life,' he said, softly.

'Give me the bloody key and let me go.'

'No.'

'You know,' she wailed plaintively, trying to free her wrist which he still held tightly, making it feel numb as the blood got blocked off, 'with all the pretty women like Eeliria that repine themselves over you, I don't see why—'

He majestically cut her through:

'And I don't see why you are always talking to me about Eeliria: but I daresay it is absolutely normal to be jealous.'

She glared up at him, her eyes glinting black daggers, and he laughed, pulling her against him, and hugging her.

'You are fooling yourself, and you know it!' she cried, but he once again cut her across:

'Perhaps I would be fooling myself if you hadn't given up the weapon you could have plunged into my chest.'

'You were wearing an armor!' she cried, at once disgusted with the feebleness of her own answer.

'Oh yes!' he cried, laughing in triumph and mockery.

He roughly stuffed the back of his hand under her chin, and brusquely tipping up her furious face to his, kissed her on the mouth. His lips were so soft, so gentle it startled her, but then he pulled away, smiling, as, biting her lips, she looked at him with childish accusation in her dark eyes. He then held up the chain, from which the silver key, catching the cold light of the day, dangled; and gently, slipped it around her head. She looked up at him, gaping, astonished, and his grin widened, as if he had just heard a really amusing story. He took her hair, raising it so that the chain fell against her neck, and them smoothed it down tenderly over her shoulders.

'Really,' she said, frowning, 'I fail to understand you.'

'So do I with you,' he said, and took her back against him.

'Wait!' she cried hastily, slipping her hands between them and quickly pushing away, 'do you really allow me to go?'

'Obviously not!' he exclaimed, and sniggered, 'you know,' he added, as he brought down her hands away from between them with his arm, so that she brutally fell forward against him, her cheek to his shoulder, 'I really marvel that you are still hoping to get away.'

'And I marvel that you are still hoping you'll get what you want from me!' she said fiercely.

He casually ignored the reply, and pulled her down, lowering her and himself into the soft, deep mattress, with both their heads upon the pillows. Arach protested loudly, wailing at the top of her voice:

'I'm not your damned mistress! Let me go, your bloody Highness!'

'I am excruciatingly weary,' he said quietly, 'so, you will have to wait till I'm asleep, and then you will be able to bewail yourself as much as you want.'

'Why didn't you go to sleep in your own bed? Or any other bed in any other room in the whole damned castle? I mean—'

'I absolutely do not care what you mean. Keep your dagger-sharp tongue behind your teeth, and be silent.'

Arach opened her mouth wide to reply, but then she felt against her breast the solidity of the key, and thought, the only way I can open the door is while he is asleep…

She remained silent, and lay still in the gentle embrace of his comforting arms, as he shut his eyes and his breathing started to slow and steady down. She waited for several cautious minutes, glaring attentively at his beautiful thin face, and trying to catch an expression that might betray that he wasn't sleeping. As she found none, she slowly started to roll away from him, but as she was about to finally pull off him, his hold tightened possessively, and he brought her back into his arms, hard against his chest, and sighing in her hair.

'Ooh, damn him,' she grunted through gritted teeth.

She waited a bit more, counting up till hundred and then starting to count again, growing more and more fierce and impatient by the minute. Finally, she decided it was safe enough to try again. She succeeded.

Slowly, very slowly, she extirpated herself away from him, and when he grunted, swiftly stuffed a pillow between his arms. It seemed to satisfy him, because he cuddled against it, and heaved a deep, contended sigh. Sneering, Arach got of the bed, and briskly made for the door. When she reached it, she took the chain with the key form her neck, stuffed the key in the lock, and turned hopefully. The lock creaked discretely, and clicked. Arach, her grin widening in a most evil way, pulled the chain back on, and opened the handle.

The door opened in front of her, quietly, giving on the corridor, which was lit up by quiet torches, having no window, only rising wooden doors. The corridor ended in a tall, arched wooden door, and Arach, without hesitation, ran for it. It was locked. Her glee somewhat smothered, Arach forced herself to calm down and think; he didn't have any other key, so, he hadn't come by this way, given that the door was locked. Of course, he could have had hidden the key somewhere in any of the rooms, or even hers. But still, she decided to look for an open door. She started with the first room at the corridor's end's right. The door was locked. She skipped.

The next door was opened, and she unceremoniously banged in. It was a small room, furnished in rich glossy oak, and with walls covered in deep violet tapestries. Arach, angrily, looked behind each and every of them, and behind curtains too, but found no door. She went out. Trying door after door, skipping the locked ones, she visited all the open ones, and looked for other doors—she found none. Finally, accepting the fact that in a way or another, he had another key, Arach went back into her room, where the Prince, peaceful, because he had known all along that she would not be able to escape even with the key, still slept.

'Damn him.'

Arach tossed herself into one of the armchairs, and glared into the dancing fire, which seemed to mock her in its bouncy cheerfulness. She wished she could kill it.

He woke up several hours later, finding her unceremoniously sprawled over the floor, in front of the flaming fire, building castles with a pack of cards she had found on the mantel-piece, and then smashing them down with vindictive viciousness. He rose easily, and went over to her, as she scrambled up and tossed a handful of cards at his face:

'You're rested now, so bog off!' she yelled at him.

'I wonder that you are still here,' said the Prince, with bright sarcasm.

'Ooh, you are so funny, your damned highness,' spat Arach, 'now just get away from my room!'

'Ah, your room, assassin,' said the Prince, smirking smugly.

'Well, get me back into a dungeon then!' said Arach defiantly.

The Prince picked up the cards.

'The heart queen!' he exclaimed, brandishing one in front of her nose , and then and laughing: 'certainly not you, opaline.'

He tossed the card into the fire.

'Do you want to play?' he asked, gathering the other cards.

'If you play money,' Arach declared mutinously.

'Oh, indeed. But what about you? What money have you got to bet?'

'I can still borrow money out of you, your cursed Highness,' said Arach, collapsing into her armchair.

'You perfectly well know I don't want any money from you. You can pay me with kisses. You never actually kissed me.'

'Dream on, Prince,' said Arach mercilessly.

They ended by playing cards. He liked inventing new rules, but she was always better than him. He tried to cheat, but he wasn't good at it either, even though he was swift and graceful. Finally, tired of his whims and awful playing, Arach tossed her cards into his face, and went to throw herself on her bed, with a tragic sigh of disgust and weariness. He bouncily rejoined her, but she rudely pushed him away until he fell off. He wailed reproaches as he scrambled back up again, but this time she decided to simply ignore him. They lay side by side, looking up at the bed's dark canopy, and finally, she proposed:

'You could bring swords. Then we could fight, and whoever kills the other one wins.'

'Oh no,' said the Prince, in desolated tones, 'it is absolutely boorish to hurt a lady.'

'You're afraid to lose, that's all,' said disdainfully Arach, 'after all, someone who doesn't know how to play cards probably doesn't know which side is the sword hilt.'

'That,' said the Prince patiently, 'is because I don't need swords to kill people—'

'You only need your feet, your fists and a wall,' Arach interrupted him sardonically.

'Don't be so vindictive…'

'I have my reasons for being so, and I think that you perfectly know these reasons, your bloody Highness.'

'If you imply the incidents of your first days here—'

Arach snorted loudly.

'—then I cannot but ignore such a feeble reason.'

Arach shot up, turning around sharply.

'Feeble reasons, your bl—'

'Quit calling me this, for I am neither bloody nor high.'

'You're bloody and low, your bloody Lowness.'

'You could be hanged for such insolence,' said the Prince mildly.

She lay back down, her head sinking in the pillow, her hair spreading around in a halo of ragged raven, and they remained silent for several minutes. Finally, Arach declared:

'You will finally end by letting me go. You could, of course, reduce your sufferings by letting me go just a little bit earlier.'

The Prince sniggered.

'I incidentally found your company rather entertaining, my dear assassin, and I think I would rather endure your cantankerousness rather than lost the privilege to listen to your amusing, silly replies.'

'I hate you,' she declared solemnly, as a conclusion, and both fell silent again, staring dreamily up into the canopy; the Prince with his hands under his head, his legs crossed and a smug smirk stretching his thin white lips; Arach glaring up as if the heavy garnet velvet as if it had done her an unforgivable wrong.

Finally, she savagely wailed:

'I am so weary!'

'Are you?' the Prince asked eagerly, leaning himself on one elbow and looking at her in a way that made her quickly add:

'Weary of doing nothing, your obtuse Lowness.'

'Well, I do have remedies to your weariness,' he started meanly.

'It's all right!' yelled Arach quickly.

'—I suppose you never even tried. I could, of course—'

Quicksilver, she grabbed one of the deep soft pillows, and thrust it violently into his grinning face. He simply laughed, tossed her the pillow back, and lay down again.

'My dear unwilling mistress,' he started, and ignored her as Arach winced sourly, 'do lie down beside me, as mere friends, and talk to me about this childhood drama that retains you from living in my arms till the end of your days.'

Arach lay down beside him, after having stuffed a line of fat cushions between the two of them, stuck her hands under her head; her long, black hair spilling all over the deep white pillow. She closed her eyes, and said:

'I was born in a faraway country called Blue. No—actually, it was called Black. So, I was born in Black, which is situated far into the north, among a little group of tiny islands filled with very small people with weak health. I was born at the fifth moon, as Killer, Destroyer and Poisoner, the three greatest northern stars, lined into the Axis of the Assassin. My parents, a fish-seller of the lowest-rank,' Arach took the greatest pleasure in inventing such a father, at the same time as imagining what her real father would have said if he had heard this, 'and an old retired inn-singer, were most horrified with my being born under the Axis of the Assassin, and they moaned and wailed all night with other various relative.'

At this point, Arach stopped: the Prince, slyly, looking unconvincingly innocent, had been slow removing the pillow she'd placed as a barrier between them. Firmly, and without giving him one look, she took them all back, and rebuilt the barrier, then lay back down, as he sighed miserably, and went on with the tale:

'As I grew up, it was obvious that I was to be the cruelest and most unfeeling person in the entire island, and my parents had quick to send me away: to the boarding school of White Thane; a cheap, measly academy situated in the farthest island in the north: Lair. There, I grew up most sickly, and all my teachers agreed on one point: I was stupid and disobedient. They all took top bet me from dawn till dusk, and I was often not allowed to eat and even less to sleep—one day, I ran away.

'Into the cold snows and blizzards, I difficultly made my way to a tiny village of Bear-Hunters. There, I learned to fight bears and ice-wolves from a wise, magnanimous old man, and then I killed him and took his place as a leader. It was my first assassination.'

At this point, Arach was starting to deeply enjoying herself. She had never told so much lies packed so tightly and told so loosely: she grinned as she went on:

'One day, a particularly unfruitful hunt pushed us further and further into the north, until we reached a cave, in which we boldly entered. The cave, to our great wonder, was filled with crystal lights; for the walls, the ceiling and the ground, as well as the sharp stalactites hanging over our heads, were all in the purest, hardest diamond.'

She went on like this, inventing on as she spoke; adding flying engines, talking daggers and apocalypse to revive the tale. However, she presently had to stop: after the encounter of a man-banshee disguising himself as Thunderion, she had agreed to assassinate a certain mentally-feeble prince. She turned around to look at the Prince, and saw, to both her amusement and annoyance, that he was sleeping; his hands lying on his chest, his face sunk in the pillow.

'Sleep on and strangle in your sleep while you're at it,' she told him out loud.

He grunted, as if in courteous agree, and went on sleeping, and Arach started wondering if the servant girl, Mayflower, would ever come with food again. She was hungry. Finally, out of boredom, she fell into a kind of waking-slumber, half-conscious, half into the dazed, glazed world of dreams. Beside her, the Prince sighed, but she didn't take notice. She fell asleep.

She woke up several hours later, it was not naturally: a feeling of warm wetness sipping through her clothes, at her side, her sleeve and her arm, had awoken her. Opening her eyes, still in a state of half-sleep, she looked around: her head was resting against a deep pillow, supported by a taut, hard arm, and her right arm was tucked against a warm side, her hand lying on a solid chest. Sitting up, she clumsily removed long strands of cobweb-fine hair form her face, and looked down.

The sight that met her eyes tore the breath from her throat. Not believing what she was actually seeing, she stared: the Prince was lying on his back, his eyes shut, his face serene—he could have been sleeping, but if his face had not been so pale; it seemed to have been forsaken of any color; white cheeks, wide eyelids, a white brow—all as white as death. His hand that hadn't been supporting her head was deposed lightly upon his heart, from which rose a thread-fine carved silver pommel. Blood had soaked his entire tunic, as well as the cover underneath him, her own right sleeve and half her bodice.

She did not believe what she was seeing. She stared, her eyes blank: shock held her body paralyzed in a grip of iron, her breath tightly imprisoned in her chest, unable to come out. Both her hands had risen to her mouth, and trembled there, frail and shivering like the mirror of water being kissed by the feather-light touch of wind.

'No no no no…oh no…'

The whisper left her lips, low and like a pure note in the silence, strangely shuddering.

The Prince opened his eyes, slowly, and looked at her: her face to which the blood had stopped coming, her wide, shocked eyes, her trembling fingers pressed to her trembling lips…He smiled, his lips stretching slowly.

Anger, at the same time as a sorrow she had never imagined could even exist, hit her. A brutal sob racked her body, and violently, she grabbed his hair, with both hands, yanking hard and crying, her voice broken with grief:

'Don't smile! Don't you dare smile! I hate you I hate you I hate you…'

She shook him ragingly, the words fading from her lips.

The Prince, his smile widening, raised a hand to her face, caressing her cheek with the back of his hand, softly, tenderly, as she screamed brokenly:

'Who? Who?'

'You do not need me to tell you…'

'He—'

She gasped in her breath, her grip tightening.

'He did it—didn't he? He—'

She released him, and threw herself away, tumbling off the bed and screaming raggedly:

'I'll hunt him down—I'll rip his throat to rags of blood—I'll tear his heart from his chest—I'll—'

She precipitated herself to the door, but before she reached it, staggering, she whipped around, and ran back to the bed.

'Don't close your eyes!' she cried, grabbing the Prince by the shoulders, 'I'll help you! I'll bring your healing potions, I'll stop the blood! I'll—'

'Child,' the Prince interrupted, quietly: 'Be silent.'

Arach sank to her knees beside the bed, grabbing a blood-soaked hand and pressing it to her lips, violent sobs racking her body, tears running down her face, from eyes that never before had wept but in anger.

'Please, please—oh please—no…'

He said:

'You will not remove the blade form my heart. You will not go anywhere. You can, of course, but if you did—' he stopped to hiss in his breath, '—I would hate you for ever.'

'Stupid Prince!' she screamed, her voice thin, broken.

'Come beside me. I want—' again he stopped to breathe in, '—to die in your arms. You cannot refuse me this last favor…'

'I can!' she screamed, rage and sorrow tearing at her heart, 'I bloody can! I told you not to trust him! I told you!'

She got up nonetheless, and threw herself beside him, burying her head in his hard shoulder, and weeping:

'You don't care…You don't care…you die selfishly, without me….you don't care!'

He pressed her closer with an arm, and without thinking, she slammed her open palm over his heart, surrounding the knife, and feeling the warm blood flow through her fingers.

'You did not care about me, when I longed for you, did you? No—you were selfish. You refused me the only thing I ever loved. Don't accuse me of selfishness.'

She clutched at the knife, her hand fisting with the streaming blood running down it, ruby-red against snow-white. The tears were burning her cheeks, blinding her, and hard sobs shook her body so hard they shook his body too.

'I hate you, oh how I hate you…'

'Liar.'

He hugged her harder, pressing her closer, as blood soaked through her bodice, the warm, crimson gold of his heart reaching her heart, burning it. She had a heart, then—after all this years of persuading herself constantly that she did not possess this strange, hateful organ of love, there it was; hidden in the depths of her black hate: this burning, white-hot heart, now shattering like spider-webbed glass, the keen bits biting into her entire body, blistering needles of knife-sharp sorrow piercing every single bit of her flesh.

Arach wept and wept and wept. She wept till her body was listless with wariness; she wept till no more tears were left; she wept till she fell back into miserable unconsciousness. The Prince, with his bleeding heart, clutched her to him, hard and possessively, rocking her in his arms, lulling her to sleep, soothing her—because she was the one who was suffering the most. He, with the knife plunged into his breast, his dying heart weeping the last of its blood, didn't feel as much pain as she did, with the shattered bits of her own broken heart cutting through her body.

Arach awoke with a start so abrupt it nearly shocked her. Was he dead yet? Had he died while she slept? Oh no—please no…

'Child…'

She snapped into a seating position, knelt, and bent over him, tearing hair away form her eyes, tears starting to flow again.

'No no no…'

'Child—I am going. Kiss me, one last time…'

'You're not going anywhere! You're lying! I hate you!'

She fell forward, and pressed her mouth to his own, savagely, as if urging him to drink life from her bloody lips.

His face had grown paler, which didn't seem possible. It was not white, not colorless—it was nearly translucent. His eyes, however, were darker, full of the blaze of agony, full of the fierce love which belonged only to her. His lips, pale and thin, stretched into a long, satisfied smile as she removed her mouth from them, her own hot tears raining over his skin.

'We will meet again—I love you.'

He raised a hand, touching the cold back of it to her burning, tear-covered cheek, then let it drop again. Drawing his pale, heavy eyelids close over the striking emerald of his blazing eyes, he took a long, deep breath—which he never released.

Author's Apocalyptically Apologetic After-Note: Dear Reader: I suppose that after so many weeks without reviewing I should write a very long after-note, but I just can't do it—I am too shaken by my darling Prince's death. You just admit, however, that to have Double-Game betraying him to Thunderion, then Thunderion to him, then finally killing him was a masterstroke. I myself am amazed with my own genius :modest cough:

Anyway: I must really apologize. I can't help hoping, of course, that you have been dying to read the next chapter (you probably understand—most of y readers being writers.) But still; sorry. My lateness is not my fault, but that of my teachers: the fact is: I am now a GCSE student—conclusion: I must get tons of homework if I don't want to fail my GCSEs pathetically. So this is what I have been doing, between coping with my crap timetable and my tortuous lessons, my annoying family and crazy friends: HOMEWORK (bane of the world of teenagers.)

I hope you will forgive me.

Now: REVIEW (I know I shouldn't be asking favors, given my position, but well, I am, after all, a most masterful person: REVIEW right now or detention! (Oh, bloody hell, Sharpe's back! I can't believe it::miserymisery:))

So, seeing you soon and writing soon, I hope: now review, I tell you.