Chapter Twenty-Five
Sarah
October 10th, 2002. Day 23 of quarantine.
Sarah opened her eyes under the water, feeling the momentary sting before they acclimated. Light glittered in the depths, piercing through the liquid in slanted sheets. Squinting, she moved closer to the mosaic, tracing the patterns with her fingertips, the small tiles as delicate as fish scales.
Her lungs started up a warning call, and she broke the surface of the water to find Jareth standing above her, hands on his hips, head tilted like his avian form. Today his tight pants were open more than what would have been appropriate for her first run, in a shade of gray echoed in his shirt that offset his eyes perfectly.
Sarah reached up, encircling his ankles, grinning when his frown deepened. "You're getting my feet wet," he complained.
Her grin widened further. "Care to join me?"
His gaze darkened, and she was sure she had him, that he would cave to the temptation that she offered. She had been offering it since they returned from the aisling of his ancestral home, and yet Jareth's thoughts seemed to turn inward, his words gentle when he bade her goodnight and kissed her cheek, turning from her.
This morning she had slipped from the bed before him, succumbing to the temptation of the enormous sunken pool that he called a tub. Her plan had been to swim around until properly relaxed, and then take inventory of that incredible closet. But an interlude with Jareth sounded like a better idea.
She gentled her grip on his ankle, thumb brushing up his calf as she tilted her head, looking up at him. She knew that her breasts bounced just so in the water, and that he might even be able to glimpse the thatch of dark hair between her thighs.
Jareth's lips parted, his arms relaxed to his sides.
If Sarah were more sure of her hold, she might have hauled him into the water. Instead, she lifted herself beyond the rim of the tub, letting water slide in rivulets from her dark hair and between her breasts, down her back. Her hand slid up his leg as she rose until she had him by the hip, holding herself out of the water. Her other hand ran up his thigh until it cupped a swelling erection.
"Jareth... sit down," she said, voice breathy, licking her lips as she rolled her eyes up at him. Heat already coiled between her legs, and she knew that her body was readying itself for him, that she wanted him just as much, no matter how they needed to talk, because this was Jareth.
He slid to the tile floor, Sarah lowering into the warmth as he went, and his legs dangled in the water, which covered him nearly to the knee. "Sarah, I—"
She leaned forward as he spoke and placed a hot kiss on the thin fabric covering him. His breath left him in a gust as her fingers pulled and plied until he was free, and she was licking up the underside of his shaft, cupping his balls as she began to take him in her mouth.
Her eyes slid closed as she swallowed a moan, halfway floating in the water and halfway held by her grip on his back and waist, she let herself get lost to the sensation of him filling her. Maybe not where she truly wanted him, but something about the act felt powerful. Especially as words seemed to abandon him, and the King of the Goblins was reduced to groans and incomprehensible pleas for more.
Jareth petted her head as she bobbed on his shaft, and she moaned low in her throat as he rasped, "Precious, I'm going to come."
Sarah had never done it with anyone but him, but swallowing him down as he cried out, dick throbbing between her stretched lips, made her body light up with sensation.
She licked and sucked him clean, reveling in the little aftershocks of pleasure that had him twitching and nearly collapsed against the tile floor. When she finally released him, she found him gazing down his body, propped up on one elbow, expression fathomless.
Her lips tingled. She licked them. Her voice came out husky, and she saw the immediate effect it had on him, heat boiling between them. "I want to put on one of those fancy dresses—"
"And jewels," Jareth interrupted, his voice thick with lust. "I want to see you in gemstones."
She gave a nod. "Then I want you to fuck me in it."
One moment she was half-suspended in water, and the next, she was standing, shivering a little in the sudden kiss of the air on her wet skin, in the golden light of the massive closet. Jareth had his back to her and was sorting through some of the more ornate dresses on display. She shuddered again, and he waved a hand, magic pricking the air as skin and hair dried in an instant.
He pulled a silver dress from its hanger and it disappeared, wrapping around her a moment later. She was utterly naked beneath the satin fabric, which rustled and slithered across her thighs and calves, but held her tight with a built-in bodice that cupped her torso and breasts, the sleeves falling off her shoulders.
It was a grown-up version of the dress she had worn to the ball. A version not unlike what she had worn in the dream where Jareth had stolen a kiss, and proven in some ways that she had been yearning after him for years.
The Goblin King was currently digging through her chest of jewels but, not finding what he was looking for, turned and slid a naked finger along her cheek.
Sarah felt the rush of the magic first, and then heaviness along her crown as her hair was piled atop her head, pinned through, she saw as she turned to look in the mirror, with combs of diamond and platinum.
Jareth moved behind her, still mostly naked, his appearance that of a wild thing as his fingers waved and more magic peppered her skin, making her shiver.
Drop earrings of more shimmering, pure diamonds appeared at her ears, as did a spider webbing collar of diamonds that flowed down the dip of her cleavage like the world's most expensive waterfall. She had never seen so many diamonds in one place before, each as small as a pea, and glittering like stars.
Her wrists were encased next, then Jareth moved in front of her, his gaze heavy, holding out a final piece of jewelry. "Beloved," he murmured. "Will you accept this?"
It was a ring. The finest ring Sarah had ever lain eyes on. Platinum and yellow gold, twisting and braiding around a central cushion diamond of incredible depth and vibrancy. Though large, the profile was low enough that Sarah knew it would fit well.
Yet this was more than she had ever dreamed of wearing. It was not the ring of a mid-level graphic designer, but that of a champion. A queen.
She lifted her gaze to his, and saw the hope that was waiting to be crushed, noting that though she had said the words, he still expected her refusal.
Sarah had felt hesitation for years, yet now? There was something different now.
These moments and nights in his arms, few as they had been, changed things. Shifted them.
And she did not want to run any longer.
Lifting her chin, Sarah spoke clearly. "Yes."
Jareth expelled a breath, and when she held out her left hand, he slipped the diamond onto her ring finger. It settled, the band giving a slight squeeze.
And the magic, well—
It hit her with the force of a natural event, a thunderclap or a sudden earth-shuddering wrench before the landslide, though she did not fear it.
The glyph which stood stark against Jareth's left hand twined and bloomed upon the back of her own. She stared as the henna-like coloration spread across her skin, and the magic which came alongside ran through her. Wild, unfettered, and incredibly dangerous, she knew.
Jareth made a sound of distress, and his more familiar warmth was around her, holding her close, his lips on hers even as she could not breathe for the intensity of the moment. But he was pushing air into her lungs, and then she was wrenching away, coughing—
He held her until her fit ended, the tingles of magic still coursing through her, leaving her with a pins and needles sensation that she could not shake.
Eyes watering, she looked to him. "What was that?" She glanced at her hand and saw the glyph of the Labyrinth was still upon it. "Why—"
Jareth grasped her hand in his, their marks showing. "I told you that the fae have branding marks, at times, that it is given to us as a signal of the one we're supposed to be with—" He was speaking in a rush, but held her closer, his forehead resting against hers. Her hands slipped out of his and up his chest, feeling the thrum of his heart beating fast through his ribs. "There are legends that the fae touched, that they can share in the branding mark, that they become as one with those they resonate with."
He cupped her cheek, and Sarah trembled, reaching a hand up to cover his. "You've talked about some of this before, and the book that I read, it mentioned something, but nothing has been clear. What does this mean?"
"It means…" He brushed his lips against hers. "You are The Goblin Queen. Power—my power, that of the Labyrinth and the royal seat—is going to bolster you now, precious. It means—" He swallowed hard and closed his eyes. "You are filled with a kind of magic which will continue to strengthen you. With it you are, effectively, immortal."
The oxygen seemed to leave the room in a whoosh, and Sarah clutched him as her knees turned watery. She knew without having to say anything that this had not been of Jareth's doing. His obvious fear when the magic was bucking through her made her certain of it.
And she was afraid, too, but it was fading. Each moment made it less than the one before.
Jareth's arms around her were strong, and she leaned into the sensation, looking now not only at the mark on the back of her hand but the ring fit snug on her finger right above it. Diamond cuffs twisted up her arms, as well, her body still heavy with hundreds of glittering gemstones.
Sarah pulled back, his grip loosening enough to allow her until she had him at arms length, still grasping his biceps as she gazed into his eyes.
Something was charged in the air between them.
And then it started to unfold within her.
Power.
His power.
This was more than the nebulous sensation of warmth and healing, the generalized zing of magic itself, but instead—there was enough here that she knew, instinctively, much more could be accomplished. The fabric of reality itself seemed more malleable than ever before, and she wanted to play, but—
But the look in Jareth's eyes was unmistakable, his gaze tracing the fall of diamonds between her breasts.
Her breathing ticked up, and she did not object as he slid forward, closing the distance between them. Hands sliding up to his shoulders before tangling fingers in his hair, Sarah could not help the moan that fell from her lips as his mouth crashed against her throat. Teeth grazing her neck, nipping and sucking where he could reach outside of the diamond collar, Jareth palmed one of her breasts through the dress.
Heat rose through her, kindling more than from his touches but from the aftershocks of the magic which had coursed through her. Sarah wanted to dance, to twirl and throw her head back and laugh, but most of all she wanted to revel in the thick press of him between her thighs.
Already the Goblin King was hardening, grinding against her stomach in a way that left her breathless. No one had roused her like this before. Not even close.
Jareth spun her around, gripping her hands and placing them on either side of the floor-length mirror. When he removed his hands, she kept hers firmly on the wooden frame, licking her lips as she leaned toward her reflection.
Diamonds glimmered and shone like a river of starlight encircling her neck and plunging down her chest. Jareth gripped her throat with one hand, the touch gentle enough yet still firm, while his other hand pulled up her long skirts.
"I can smell you," he said, his voice a husky rasp. Fingers slipped between thighs, and she spread her legs as he slipped into her channel, eliciting a groan from deep within her.
They locked eyes in the mirror, Sarah's lips parted as Jareth released her throat and then his straining erection, the heat of him intense against her bared backside.
Sarah's fingers tightened on the black wood frame of the mirror, and she could hardly look at herself. She was made of diamonds and the raw, wicked buzzing sensation of a recent flush of magic. Each touch from Jareth seemed to pull with it more power, and she wondered at that, even as the head of his cock nudged between her dripping folds.
Her throat clicked as she gasped, wood groaning beneath her grip, but she did not notice it or that the cracks beneath her fingers as her love pushed within her.
Jareth was so fiercely hot, his teeth bared as he looked between them, and she knew he was watching his shaft disappear, his hold for the moment upon her hips, guiding. Sarah was panting by the time he was fully seated within her, and then his hand was wrapped around her throat once more, squeezing gently. "I'm going to fuck you now, My Queen."
Sarah's, "Yes," was a choked gasp, her breath seemingly caught by his skilled fingers. He held her, firm yet gentle, and she knew she could wrench away if need be, that she could stop him, and he would stop, but there was no conceivable way she wanted this to stop.
Her body was alight, legs trembling, liquid slick down to her knees as Jareth began to make good on his word.
From her viewpoint, Sarah caught an occasional flash of thigh, but for the most part she looked as though she were fully dressed, covered as she was in finery and jewels. Though no one, at a glance, would be able to deny what was going on between her and the savage, devastatingly handsome man taking her from behind.
She had never seen his gaze so dark, his mouth falling open a little as he pounded between her legs, relentless. This was not the quick starts and stops of mortal lovers. Jareth possessed a stamina and staying power which had her keening out his name as an orgasm slammed into her.
Jareth slowed, reaching between her legs and gathering up the fabric there so that he could reach her—to find her swollen, sensitive clit. She bucked against him, whimpering, as he began to give it languid strokes, and once again found she could barely look at herself, or at him, heat so intense between her thighs that she felt like she would melt around him.
The Goblin King held her there, trembling and shaking, on the brink of another orgasm, while he plunged in ways which hit the deepest, most aching parts of her.
"Watch me," he commanded, and her gaze snapped to his in the mirror. He grinned, more a baring of teeth, and the sight did something to her. The sight of them both—her flushed face, brazen gaze and parted lips—and how her body moved in ways she had never witnessed before.
Sarah's breath caught. Jareth's swirling strokes on her clit paused, but he did not cease pressing deep between her legs, and she felt hopelessly pinned there. Ankles spread, her choked cry of, "Jareth!" came a moment before a shuddering orgasm.
For the first time, she watched herself come. Watched the way that the Goblin King gripped her tighter, and how his face fell into a mask of wonder, his tempo slipping as her inner muscles pulsed around him. Magic had been weaving between them, but now it crested, making her feel as though a fist were expanding within her chest, and she knew—could feel pulsing through the brand on her hand—that he was experiencing much the same.
Sarah watched as Jareth lost himself, emptying into her without slowing in his thrusts so that he began to leak down her thigh.
There was stillness and silence for several thundering heartbeats, and then Jareth exhaled a long breath and slipped from her, her skirts rustling as they fell to cover her once more. If not for the high color in her cheeks and chest, or the aching in her core which begged for more, still, Sarah would have looked the picture of regal grace and beauty.
Arms wrapped around her, and not a moment too soon. As soon as Sarah released her grip on the mirror, her trembling legs threatened to give out. Jareth's grip tightened around her waist, and he nuzzled his face along the back of her head, her neck, his breath hot in her ear. "I love you."
Sarah closed her eyes. "I love you, too."
And she did.
It was new, this realization, but it was not fragile. It was as solid as stone.
She'd loved him for quite a while, perhaps even most of her life, but now? Sarah twisted in his arms, clutching him close, diamonds scraping against his bare chest. Jareth did not seem to mind. He still gripped her, and then his hands were on either side of her face, bringing it to his. Pressing lips against hers, soft at first and then with greater, rising need that she echoed.
"We can't have sex every moment," she gasped as his hips rolled forward, pressing against her silken dress. "We still have to—"
"Do you forget so easily, my love?" he interrupted, starting to pull the fabric of her skirts up. "I can reorder time."
Sarah laughed, and Jareth grinned, leaning in to kiss her again.
###
The crystal slipped from her fingers, and Sarah swore, but before the delicate-looking orb could shatter upon the floor, it defied gravity to zoom back to her hand. She grinned, glancing over to see Jareth watching her, a prideful look in his eyes. "It may be some time before you have the handle of them that I do," he said, pacing to her side. "But they'll still be a mighty power for you."
"They feel amazing," Sarah breathed. "And this is the Labyrinth's power, isn't it? Not just yours."
He blinked, then grinned. "Very good. But what you feel now is nothing compared to what it will be when we return home."
Home.
The word made her stomach lurch, and for a half moment Sarah had the abrupt desire to toss the crystal away, to deny everything that had passed between them.
But, no.
No, she had made her choice.
"I love you," she said.
Sarah reached for Jareth, the diamond on her ring finger glistening and refracting light a thousand times over. Though it should have felt foreign, it instead was as comforting as his touch. Gripping the crystal in her right hand, still, she squeezed his fingers with her left, pulling him in close enough that she brushed lips against his.
Magic rushed through her. Jareth's magic, as well as the magic of the Labyrinth, and Sarah felt her heart ache for Underground.
But she would be there, soon.
As she pulled away from the kiss, Sarah took some roused power and pushed it toward the crystal still clutched in her hand. It glowed gently, like the soft light of the moon, and she sensed that it acted like a lens. Something to pinpoint the magic, to give the brunt force of it a scalpel-like precision.
Taking a deep breath, Sarah did the bit of magic she and Jareth had been practicing for the last several hours—in between bouts of lovemaking that left her breathless—and said a single word. A name.
"Aldric."
The magic was gone, zipping through the worlds, and the moment it hit the fae nobleman Sarah could feel both his attention, shock, and an immediate, rising fury. But she was already pushing the crystal into one of the floor-length mirrors in her private bath, heart thundering as she created the bridge between Earth and Underground.
"Be safe," Jareth called, and those two words contained multitudes. Longing, fear, trepidation, worry, yet also confidence in her.
He had attempted to persuade her in a dozen ways not to do this thing, and she had been moved. There had been times she doubted her path, but she also knew she could not let Aldric die. Not if she could do something to prevent it.
She had asked for the time needed to master some new magic, and her love had granted it, grinning broadly as she quickly found her way around some of the more complex spell works.
"I love you," she said again, not looking back before stepping into the mirror, into the darkness between the worlds, and then taking another step into a sun-soaked study.
She put a hand up to shield her gaze from the light, and so she did not see Aldric's expression, only heard him.
"S-Sarah?" he stammered, and the piece of her magic that was tethered to him, the bit which allowed her to sense his emotions, recognized shock.
And fear.
Then the magic was gone, its work done, though the portal mirror would remain a bridge behind her, something that she could access if she turned to find it, hovering as a narrow, silvery door. She wished she could see Jareth through it, but she could not, and knowing this she did not even look to check on it.
Sarah dropped her hand, eyes acclimated to the late-day sunlight, then gasped.
Aldric was almost unrecognizable. Closer in appearance to some denizens of the Labyrinth rather than the devastatingly handsome fae noble he had been for centuries.
"Is this because you're fading?" she asked, knowing there was little time if he looked this bad. If he were this far gone.
Aldric huddled in a padded leather chair on the other side of a wide wooden desk, hugging his arms around his emaciated frame. He was skeletal. Stick-thin, his hair in clumps, his eyes little more than sunken sockets. From the way his lips were trembling continuously, she wondered if he had lost some of his teeth.
Sarah started toward him, stride purposeful.
"No!" The sound was an inhuman screech, and close on its heels was a whimpered, "Go away."
Her chest tight, tears threatening to blur her vision already, Sarah stopped for a moment before moving forward again, slower this time. She did not want to startle him. "It's alright," she said in as soothing a voice as she could. "I'm not here to hurt you."
The laugh which ripped out of the corpse-like fae made tears fall regardless of her attempt to stop them. He was studiously not looking at her, and his shaking was so severe that she could see it from several feet away. "Just being here, you hurt me."
Sarah flinched back, startled. "What—"
"Go away!" he screeched, and Sarah covered her ears in response, nearly missing the whispered, "Please."
There was a stone on her chest, and yet she would not stop, no matter his words. Slipping around the desk, she knelt before Aldric's emaciated form and reached for the book at her breast, where she had hidden it in an inner pocket. "You need to take this back."
"I don't want it," he said, his voice like a whine. From here she could smell him. Sour sweat and sickly sweet rot.
"Yes, you do," Sarah argued, the golden cover of the book glittering in the sunlight. It looked magnificent. So at odds with its owner. "Listen, I'm here to help you, understand? Because I care about you. Aldric, I—" She hesitated for a moment, then reached out and placed a hand on one bony knee. "I don't want you to fade. Please."
When his eyes met hers she had to swallow the urge to shrink away. They were milky. Pale and crisscrossed with lines, they seemed to have trouble focusing on her.
Jareth had warned her that fades were different, each one. Some were easy things where the fae simply slipped off into sleep, or did as the word described, and faded from sight like some sort of ghost, but this?
This was horrific.
Insects, she realized, were numerous about the room and his person. A centipede crawled over one of her fingers where it rested against his leg, disappearing a moment later into the crease of his crotch. Sarah swallowed hard, noticing as she wrenched her gaze back to his that the things she took as marks in his eyes were instead thin, translucent worms. And the smell of rot was coming not just from his clothes, which seemed to be moldering on his frame, but from his breath and skin.
Aldric was being consumed in front of her.
His laugh was as brittle as sunburned paper. "Don't like what you see, love?"
Sarah's lips pulled back from her teeth. "It's not what you think." She shoved the book at him. "Take this back. Now."
Aldric made no move to touch it. "Do you know why I gave that to you?"
Sarah had been attempting to puzzle that out for the last long while, even discussing it with Jareth while they were in their bubble of time. "I have a few thoughts, but no. I don't know."
The fae made a rasping chuckling sound. "It was a trap. I'm sure my brother told you that to place your hand on it and speak my name would bring you all my memories?"
She said nothing, only watching him.
Flies landed on the skin of his face, hands, and neck, and he did nothing to shoo them away. Aldric's voice seemed to wilt as he spoke, though a thread of cruelty now ran through it. "That was partway true. It would have shown you a great deal of history. I'm not even sure how much you would have absorbed, as a fae touched.
"But what I counted on my brother not knowing was how this one works, the one which belongs to our family line." A thin smile. "If you had done as I said, it would have pulled you to me, for our device always gives its old master a final chance to reclaim it."
Sarah felt chills down her back. "A trap?" she repeated, pulling her touch away from him at last. "But then why would it have given me your memories? Why not simply bring me to your side?"
"A level playing field, my love, and..." He looked away. "There are some things I wish were known, without having to be said."
Brows knitting, Sarah stood and thrust the book out toward Aldric again. "I don't care that you tried to trap me. I'm pissed, but I still don't want you to die. So take the damn book back."
Aldric's lips were bloody from where he had worried them with what broken, blackened teeth were left to him. "No." He turned his face away. "Leave me."
"I'm not leaving until you take it."
"And then what?" he challenged, though the tone of his words was weary. "I will regain my full power in an instant, sweet Sarah. Do you think I would let you go if I had a choice?"
"You're letting me go right now, you've been telling me to leave since I got here," she pointed out. "And I may surprise you. Do you think I would meekly bow to your will? When has that ever been the case?"
Aldric smiled at that.
She pressed on, "You know what? If you want to try to keep me here, fine. Try. You say you love me? Try to keep me here while I actively detest you. Or—" She let out a frustrated sound. "Take the damn book, bid me farewell, and then let me come back."
His gaze went to her again, the motion slow only for the state that he was in, quick in comparison to his other movements. "Come back?" he repeated.
"Yes. Not because I'm promised to spend hours with you every day or because you're forcing my hand, but because I want to. Aldric... I care about you." She smiled a little. "I'm not swearing anything, you understand? Even my own family doesn't see me for weeks or months at a time, and that might be the same for you, especially at first because—well, you keep trying to trap me, for one."
Aldric let out a laugh, and a wave of putrid odor rolled out of him. "You would come back," he said, tone flat. "Truly?"
Sarah did not hesitate. "Yes."
There passed a few moments of silence, and then Aldric let out a huff. "Fine."
She stepped forward and lifted the gilt book toward him once more.
When Aldric's fingers closed on the cover, Sarah let her end go at once. If not for that, she might have lost her footing for the blast of power that radiated from that connection. The device wanted to be back with its master, that much she could determine, the edge and taste of the magic not unlike what she wielded now with Jareth's abilities coursing through her.
She shielded her eyes and stepped back as Aldric rose, the book changing in his hands much the same way it had in the ballroom only a few nights before. Sarah could still hardly believe it had only been that long. The glow of the thing eclipsed the light streaming through the windows, and her eyes throbbed though she had them firmly shut.
And then, the light was gone, spots dancing before her vision as she refocused on where Aldric would be.
He stood resplendent before her, his hair full and lustrous, skin glowing with health, and the device against his chest.
His naked chest.
In fact, he was utterly nude.
Sarah let out a strangled sound and covered her eyes again. "Aldric! I know you have the magic to clothe yourself. Cut it out."
"Just showing you what you're missing out on, love," he said with a chuckle, and then, "It is safe for your delicate gaze now."
When she looked upon him again, she immediately noticed the change in him. There was, behind the lighthearted armor, a weight. A weariness.
They stood for a long moment, bathed in slanting sunlight, simply staring at one another.
Sarah knew two things.
One, that Aldric was aware of the generalities of what had recently passed between her and Jareth. His gaze had only needed to flicker to the diamond on her finger once before that knowledge filled his eyes.
And two, something had happened, recently, to hurt him deeply.
"You didn't tell me before I left, but would you tell me now? Who hurt you?"
Aldric tilted his head. "You would never see me the same."
Sarah took a half-step forward. "I don't need anything from you." Hurt glinted in his expression, and she hurriedly explained, "But I also want you to be okay. As someone who cares about you, even if it's only a little."
Or more than a little, even if she would never admit it aloud.
"You chose Jareth," he said, and the weariness was back in his expression. It made her chest ache to hear.
"And you," she pointed out. "I didn't have to come back. I didn't have to place my hand on that book and say your name. None of it. But I chose." She paused for another moment, then reached for his hand, finding that he had reached for her at the same time. She squeezed his fingers in reassurance. "I care about you," she repeated. "Please, I want to know what weighs so heavy on your heart."
Aldric closed his eyes.
Then he told her everything.
###
When Sarah stepped back through the mirror, she knew that Jareth could sense her mood. It hung like a shroud about her shoulders.
But he stood back when she raised a hand, doing a minor bit of magic to close the portal behind her before something irreversible were to happen. The last thing she needed was another fae noble stomping around her six-hundred-square-foot apartment. Especially that particular one.
With a dry chuckle, Sarah covered her eyes and leaned against the wall of mirrors in her private bathroom. "Well, that went both better and worse than I could have ever imagined."
"Did he hurt you?"
Her chin trembled, and her voice was watery as she began to weep. "No." The pain that she was feeling had nothing to do with anything Aldric had done, and everything to do with High Queen Aurora.
The next thing she knew, Jareth had enfolded her in his arms, pulling her close, murmuring to her in that fluid language that she was starting to understand a little more every time.
She could almost recognize it all now.
Beloved one, brightest among the stars of my life, how may I comfort you?
And she wept all the harder, remembering those last words before she had come back to Jareth.
"Will you not give up on the Labyrinth?" she had asked Aldric, pleading with her whole heart. "If The Goblin King heard of this, you know he would help you defeat her with all the power at his disposal."
"Do you not understand?" Aldric had said back, his voice full of sorrow. "This is my only chance. I need the Labyrinth, and the magic at its heart, or I need you by my side. Otherwise, she will always have power over me." His smile had been thin. "I only hope that you understand, what will come next is because I have no other choice. I must be able to conquer this myself."
Then he had bid her to go and, still thrumming with the knowledge of all that had passed between him and the High Queen, Sarah had acquiesced.
She knew all about power, and how it felt to be utterly without it.
Though Jareth had, many years ago, taken away the blatant pain of the incident, she still remembered being degraded and humiliated by those who thought they had the ability to render her weak.
"What did you do to those men?" she asked now, her voice barely above a whisper, face tucked into the heat of his neck. "The ones from all those years ago?"
Jareth tightened his grip on her momentarily. He did not even attempt to deny or evade her question. "I found them after I left your apartment that night. I waited a few years. Then I killed them."
She pulled back, tears streaking her face, and felt the rise of power within her and him. Sensed the marvel of their connection, the resonance of which Aldric's book had spoken. Without raising her voice above more than a whisper, she asked, "Would you kill for me again?"
The look in Jareth's eyes was fire. "Who?"
"She who would call herself your ruler," Sarah said, trembling in all but words. I have to do this. "I want her head."
Jareth looked toward where the mirror had been, then to her. Something shifted in his expression, and he did not hesitate further. "It is yours."
Author's Note:
*walks in*
*takes a look around*
*dusts off a few things, slides hands into pockets*
Well…
I really have nothing to say for myself.
There were a few times I attempted to end this chapter early, but I figured that after all this time, I owed you.
I hope we see each other again soon.
ETA: That was written maybe 2 months ago. I have a bad habit of writing Author's Notes before I'm truly done with the chapter. I hope you'll forgive the entirely-too-long hiatus. I had to work on a few things, and I've moved again, across several state lines. It was exhausting and I'm ready to be settled for a time, but that doesn't look entirely likely, either. All that to say, I'm determined that, "I will write despite the burning wreckage of my expectations." Shit be strange. The world looks like it's going toward a dark, dark place, and I'm buckling the 🐥 in.
❤️. Stay safe.
~CrimsonSympathy
P.S. - very special, "Thank you a million times over!" to friends and betas BowieQueen, foxfaceinthewindow, and FaerieFord for taking a look at this chapter. You're amazing, every one
P.P.S. - want a picture of Aldric? Well, there is one! Kind of. Look for me on Insta or most anywhere: