A/N: This chapter is broken into two parts. The first part takes place twelve years before our main storyline, directly before the prologue. The second part takes place five days later, directly after the prologue.
Glimpse of Us: [Jareth] My Kingdom For A Kiss Upon Her Shoulder
[.Twelve Years Ago.]
Jareth's pacing footsteps fell into rhythm with the ticking of the clock on his library wall. He'd scoured each text and scroll countless times. Every passage led to another dead end, confirming that the spell that had once been so significant to the fae had long been forgotten.
"I need more time," he said to himself, his voice a thin croak from holding back tears. "Something. Anything."
He let his eyes drift to a corner of the library he had been forcing himself to ignore. A black, leather-bound book rested on an altar, protected by ancient magic, where it had been untouched for thousands of years.
As King of the Goblins, Jareth alone had the power to touch the book, but it was the only thing truly forbidden to him. His parents had warned him of its dark magic, of what meddling with the book could bring. He'd guarded it dutifully, ensuring the magical wards protecting it were secured as generations of fae royals had done before him.
"I have no choice," he said to the empty room as he approached the altar, unsure if he was trying to convince himself or the spirits of his long-dead parents.
As soon as his gloved hand touched the book, a single word, previously invisible, began to etch across the cover in dark red lettering.
UMBRA
He'd heard of Umbra, though he'd always thought she was a myth, nothing more than a story used to dissuade the fae from using dark magic. According to legend, she had once been revered by fae society before the rise of The First Kings and Queens. Little else was known of her, other than that she had fallen out of favor for preying on half-mortal children before disappearing into The Beginning.
Jareth hissed, snatching his hand away as the book opened of its own volition. A dry, sinister chuckle rose from its pages while they flipped as if coerced by invisible fingers.
"Stop," he demanded, but the laughter only intensified into a manic cackle as the pages fluttered back and forth.
"Ask what you wish to know," came a chilling voice from the turning parchment.
Jareth reeled back in surprise. He considered trying to spell the book back into stasis, to undo whatever awakening he had encouraged with his touch. He thought back to his parents' warnings of dark magic, of the corruption and loss it could bring down upon any king who dared to trifle with it.
His belief that nothing could be worth the risk-—to him, to his kingdom, his people—had always been steadfast.
Until now, he thought. Now that my love lies dying in our bed.
Her death was inevitable. They had always known it—something acknowledged but seldom discussed as they enjoyed their first year of marriage.
But neither of them was prepared for the vicious pace death would set to claim her. Neither expected illness to demand her life so soon.
"Immortality," Jareth said. "I need the spell to grant immortality."
The laughter pouring from the book was unbearable, grating against his eardrums like the clash of dull swords. The book slammed shut with an abruptness that made Jareth stumble back a step. It was still for a moment that, to Jareth, seemed to drag on for an eternity. When it opened again, he held his breath, waiting for the pages to resume their endless turning.
When they didn't, he approached the book and peered down at the open page.
The first spell preserved to scroll was the spell to grant immortality.
While treasured by the fae, immortality was believed to be a gift that should be bestowed sparingly.
The First King and Queen of the fae entrusted the scroll to Umbra, the only Honored One to support The Rise of The Royals.
Umbra was discovered to be a practitioner of dark magic when she stole the half-mortal child of a member of The First Royal Family. She harnessed their variable power to enhance her own.
She escaped prosecution, fleeing to The Beginning. Her power was so great that she successfully disincorporated, making her impossible to punish.
The First Royals attempted to find Umbra in hopes of recovering the scroll containing the spell of immortality.
They ventured into The Beginning, never to return, and the immortality rite has long been considered lost.
Jareth's eyes were wide by the time he came to the page's concluding line. Something like hope filled his heart, replacing the never-ending dread that had been consuming him for days.
He transported himself to his bedchamber and stepped to the edge of the bed to gaze down upon his beloved—at her sunken cheeks, flushed with life just a week before.
Earlier that day, the room had been full of the most respected healers in the Underground. Jareth had demanded answers, but all they could do was shake their sad heads, explaining that the disease silently destroying his queen's organs had been lurking unnoticed for too long to be treated. He'd dismissed them from the bedchamber after they had assured him there was nothing that could be done for her, that even if the illness had been detected sooner, there was no known cure.
Jareth crawled beneath the covers and gathered his love in his arms. He held her as tightly as he dared to, committing the shallow thud of her heartbeat to memory for fear it would be gone when he returned.
"I'll be back," he sobbed brokenly, pressing a kiss to her forehead. "I will not lose you."
She didn't respond. He hadn't expected her to, but felt the small part of him that had dared to hope fracture beneath the weight of her silence.
Jareth slipped from the bed before fluffing a pillow and swapping it for the flattened one beneath her head. He drew up the covers and tucked her in.
Gods, I'll give anything, he promised as he transformed into an owl and departed for The Beginning.
[.Five Days Later.]
Jareth's vision blurred as steady tears mixed with the grime covering his face. He swiped at his eyes furiously, cursing as he just managed to drag more sludge into them.
He had to get back to her. It was all he could think about as he pushed his way through the unforgiving jungle. He hadn't dared to let himself hope.
Not again. Not yet.
Without access to his magic, he couldn't even scry to confirm she still breathed. The sickening fear that he had pointlessly left her to die alone, only to return to her corpse, was more than he could endure.
As he ran, he found himself bargaining again—with himself, the gods—he wasn't sure.
I'll give anything.
It was strange, he reflected bitterly, to continue to have these intrusive thoughts. He had already promised everything and accepted the devastating loss of what could have been.
A hollowness sprouted in his heart where before had only been sheer desperation to get home.
To make it in time.
To not be too late.
Jareth crashed through the treeline and felt his magic spill back into his system. He didn't hesitate before transporting himself home to their bedside where he had left her.
"My love," he said, his voice cracking as he searched her face. It was void of all color aside from the dark purple valleys beneath her closed eyes.
She was disturbingly still. When he had left, she'd appeared deep in slumber. Now, she looked…
He moved onto the bed beside her and pressed his face to her chest, listening with his ears, his magic, and any sense that could confirm a heartbeat.
For a series of seconds that felt like hours, Jareth heard nothing.
"Please," he begged, despair devouring him as any semblance of hope dissipated.
Her faint, familiar heartbeat fluttered obediently beneath his cheek.
I made it, he thought, overcome with relief.
Jareth was about to pull away and begin the immortality rite—but froze. "Gods, no," he whispered, shifting to press his ear to her belly. He listened intently as his own heart battered against his ribs with bruising brutality.
The impulse to deny what he was hearing was nearly overwhelming, but the longer he listened, the less able he was to argue against it.
Beneath her weak pulse was another sound—a stubborn, unfamiliar pattern of thuds.
There had been no second heartbeat when he'd departed mere days ago. Even if Jareth had noticed she had missed her monthly blood, he would have assumed that illness had disrupted her cycle.
His shock quickly dissolved into horror as the severity of the situation hauled him back into the present. He didn't allow himself more than a beat of heartbreak before he retrieved the scroll Umbra had given to him.
The immortality rite was a simpler thing than he had expected, and he almost cursed its lack of complexity. He'd paid an unforgivable price for a scant few words, with slight variations in order and rhythm to what he had tried time and time again.
When she woke, he permitted himself the briefest moment to hold her. To let his unshed tears spill. Tears of insurmountable joy, of fathomless grief. It was all indistinguishable to him now.
She was bewildered by his weeping and tried to soothe him until he could gather himself enough to speak.
To explain to her what he had done. The deal he had made.
Their first child in exchange for his beloved's immortality.
In all the centuries Jareth had lived, he had never experienced anything as horrific as watching her face shift from concerned confusion to inconsolable agony.
Her world—their world—was violently crumbling around them, and he could do nothing but plot their escape.
There was only one strategy that could ensure their chance of surviving as a family. After explaining the plan to his wife, he left the bedchamber to inform the healers that he had found her lifeless upon his return. The cadaver he glamoured to look like her and the funeral he staged left little doubt about his story's efficacy.
Immediately after the funeral, Jareth declared he was giving up his crown and that he had decided to end his own life. No one questioned the announcement. It was far from unusual for a fae—especially one who had suffered such a devastating loss—to choose death over an eternity of heartache and mourning.
He wasted no time in settling his royal affairs before naming a successor and—as per the custom—departed for the wilds alone with nothing but an iron dagger. Instead of searching for a place to open his own throat clear to his spine as everyone had expected, he sought out the copper-haired woman he knew was waiting for him.
Seeing the flash of red curls through the trees was bittersweet. Jareth was relieved to see her—his love—but not.
No chocolate brown tresses.
The eyes that darted to meet his at the sound of a twig crunching beneath his boot were not jade, but hazel.
Only a moment passed as he stood staring at this stranger in the woods, but years of memories of his love's face flashed through his mind.
Fifteen years old, hand on her hip, a scowl of self-righteous indignation on her face. Jareth wouldn't tell her so until much later, but he'd seen so much of himself in her then. But he'd also seen a kindness and natural ability to lead that he knew he did not possess. He'd managed to convince himself that he resented her for it, but truthfully, he'd admired her.
His love at twenty-seven, laughing in the grass under the night sky while Jareth regaled her with the absurd antics of the gods as displayed in the constellations above. They had been strictly friends at the time and only recently reacquainted, but as she gazed up at the stars, he couldn't drag his eyes away from her smiling face. That smile was because of him, and it would live in his memory forever.
Later that year, she'd rolled her eyes at Jareth's appalled reaction to the texture a gooey marshmallow had left on his fingers after making his first s'more. "Come on," she'd urged, shoving his shoulder lightly with her own beneath the blanket they shared by the fire. He'd made a show of reluctantly bringing it to his mouth, all the while knowing he would have done anything she asked.
His beloved on her thirtieth birthday, gently toeing over a fallen log in the Oregon wilderness to reveal the writhing ecosystem beneath it. It had been the first time he had seen her in her element, eyes bright with wonder, her words coming out in a rush as she pointed to various organisms and explained their life cycles, diets, behaviors, and roles. She had been so happy that day, exploring the coastal rainforest and sharing what she knew about every mushroom they passed by.
Later, at the cabin he had secured for the weekend, Jareth had scooped her up after she'd fallen asleep on the sofa. On the way to deposit her in her room, he felt her arms slip around his neck.
"Jareth," she'd murmured. He'd looked down at her—expecting to see her still asleep—but her eyes were wide and waiting for his.
"Madame Mushroom," he'd said, an eyebrow raised in question.
She'd smiled at the moniker, fingers twisting nervously in the hair at his nape. "I'm in love with you. I thought you should know."
That last memory spun Jareth out of his reverie and back into the reality in which he would never see his love's true face again. He would have to learn to love this new face—with the freckles in all the wrong places.
The face of a dead woman buried in the ground forever glamoured to look like his wife.
And then she smiled at him weakly, but it was enough for him to see it—that spark that was uniquely hers.
The love in her foreign eyes that was for him, and him alone.
Jareth returned the smile and approached her with arms outstretched. "Sarah-mine."
It's never over
My kingdom for a kiss upon her shoulder
It's never over
All my riches for her smiles when I've slept so soft against her
It's never over
All my blood for the sweetness of her laughter
It's never over
She is the tear that hangs inside my soul forever
'Lover, You Should Have Come Over' by Jeff Buckley
A/N: Thank you, Geliot99, for being the most superb beta and helping to ensure I do not completely eff up this whole shebang.
Ooooof this one really hurt, folks. Hopefully, you got *some* answers, though I am sure you have more after reading this. Please feel free to ask me questions in the comments if something written here was unclear. If I feel my answer would be spoily, I can always let you know it's too early to answer. But if I can help clear anything up without being spoily, I am happy to.
I actually wrote this (for the most part, with some adjustments and edits) directly after writing the prologue. I'm really excited to finally be able to share it with you and put some pieces of the puzzle together.
Thank you so much for reading and being patient with me while I let the reveals trickle out of this tale. I can't tell you how much I enjoy reading your comments and ideas/theories/thoughts.
Please let me know what you're thinking and how you're feeling.