Bound to the Prince (2 page)

He missed her mere presence at his side. Even
worse, she had shut her mind against him, so he couldn’t sense her
anymore, didn’t know where she was or what she felt. He despised
himself for having tainted their pure, innocent love with his
forbidden desire. For the first time in his life, the prince was
utterly alone. He did not know that it would stay this way for
centuries to come.

When he finally realized that Ailidh would
never come back to him, he continued his training with a newfound
strength, eager to fight real battles where sweet death would
eventually find him. Soon, the opportunity he had been waiting for
arose. Humans were attacking the boundaries of the realm. King Bres
summoned the prince to appear at court. As Elathan knelt down
before his father’s throne and respectfully bowed his head, the
king spoke the words that the prince had secretly been hoping
for.

“My son, your time has come to prove that
you’re worthy of being a true knight of the realm, defender of the
Tuatha Dé Danann. You will lead the army to meet our enemies at
dawn. Do not show them mercy, for they will have no mercy for our
people.” He nodded slightly, so the prince arose and climbed up the
few steps to the throne. There he kneeled down again. A servant
brought a golden chest adorned with the royal seal and opened the
lid, holding it out to the king. Bres took a dagger from the chest,
made of gold and richly decorated with gemstones. Then he looked
into his son’s eyes with the silent order not to move or show any
sign of weakness. Elathan didn’t see any regret in his father’s
face, no plea for forgiveness for what he was about to do.

The king stretched out his hand and started
to cut the royal signs of initiation into his son’s unmarred body,
slowly dragging the sharp blade over his chest - elven runes,
marking him as the sole true heir to the throne. Elves, especially
the young ones, healed too quickly, and the king knew this very
well. The cutting didn’t just scratch the surface of his skin, but
dug deep into the prince’s flesh, so he would bear the scars
forever.

Elathan didn’t even flinch, but stared right
into his father’s eyes. Noticing the unwavering coldness there, he
tried to block out the searing pain from his mind. He was strong.
He knew he could endure this with dignity. His father had never
shown him any sign of love, not once praised him, no matter how
hard he trained to succumb to the king’s wishes. Blood ran over his
chest and dripped down to the cold marble floor. The throne room
was so quiet now that those present heard the sound of it, like
raindrops falling from the leaves after a thunderstorm.

But then, unexpectedly, Elathan felt a rush
of pain that wasn’t his own. Ailidh. She was not here, but he could
feel her cringing, falling down to her knees. While she shared his
torture, he knew that she felt the invisible blade cutting through
his skin. Ailidh had dropped the inner shield she had erected to
block Elathan’s mind out while he was searching for her.

No. He didn’t want her to bear his burdens
anymore. He was too weakened to cut the connection between them
right now, but he could take the pain from her, and suffer it along
with his own. Elathan entered his cousin’s mind, joining with her
so all she felt was occupied by his senses. Then he pushed her to
the edge of their shared consciousness. “No,” she whispered in his
thoughts, but he ignored her, concentrating on the pain they both
felt while the king cut snake-formed lines all over his upper body.
The doubled pain was overwhelming. It possessed his whole being and
turned him into a primitive creature, wanting to cry out and kill
the one doing this to them both. It took his whole willpower not to
cringe or step back to escape the sharp dagger.

Yet Elathan stood perfectly still, showing no
sign of distress while the king slashed him over and over again.
Then, with a long, final cut, the deepest of them all, Bres
suddenly drew his blade across his son’s face, slicing from one
cheekbone to the chin. A painful gasp escaped Elathan’s lips, he
couldn’t help it. Blood streaming out of the gashing wound, he
stiffened, not wanting to give Bres the satisfaction of deeming him
weak. When the king returned the dagger to the waiting servant, the
prince allowed a part of the pain to return to Ailidh, knowing she
could take it now. “We are even, my sister,” his devastated mind
told her. “I’ll go to war now. You will be free soon.”

* * * * *

For three days and three nights the elven
prince fought in battle, leading his army against the human
invaders. Thousands of humans fell, as they couldn’t compete
against the elven warriors' fighting skills. Victory seemed near,
until the humans brought forth new deadly weapons the elves had not
expected - catapults hurling enormous rocks through the air,
destroying the elven lines.

But Elathan refused to give up so easily. He
thought about a new plan of action. A part of the elven army
pretended to retreat, only to attack later from the other side of
the mountain. Elathan and his guards assaulted the human army
directly, setting out to burn down the war machinery they so
detested. The elves had long since achieved the skills to build
such weapons, but declined to use them, for they thought it
cowardice if a warrior didn’t fight his enemy face-to-face with his
own hands.

At dawn the prince and his men set out to
resume the fighting, when a soft, female voice called out to him in
his mind. “Elathan,” his cousin whispered, “stay behind today, I
beg you. Your death is waiting for you out there. I saw it.”
Elathan knew that Ailidh’s gift of second sight was usually
unfailing, but he didn’t answer and mounted his war-horse, riding
off to the enemy lines. It was there, amidst battle later that day
that his stallion was hit by an arrow. Falling down, Elathan rolled
aside to avoid being crushed under his horse. He hit his head on a
stone and lost consciousness for a short time.

When the prince opened his eyes again, he
noticed a huge catapult in the distance, flinging a deadly rock in
his direction. Then, all of a sudden, Ailidh was there at his side.
To his surprise she wasn't a hallucination. Her eyes were full of
love and fear when she grabbed his wrists with both hands and
dragged him away over the stony ground, using all her strength. At
the same moment the giant rock crushed down right beside them,
leaving the air filled with smoke and dust.

When Elathan could see clearly again, he
found his cousin’s delicate body lying under the heavy stone,
unmoving and at a strange angle. She looked like a broken doll.
Only her head and part of her back were visible, a pool of blood
slowly spreading out under her. Ailidh's eyes were wide open; her
lifeless stare leaving no doubt that she was gone forever.

At first, the prince couldn’t comprehend what
had happened, so he knelt down at her side and tilted his head,
searching her face for a reaction. When none came, he took her hand
tenderly in his, trying to enter her mind. But there was nothing,
not even the solid wall keeping him away from her.

Nothing, only silence.

Elathan felt a terrible pain rising in his
soul, threatening to tear him apart. It dawned on him that Ailidh
had deliberately separated her mind from his just before the rock
hit her, cutting the invisible bond that held them together. So she
had known what would happen and didn't want him to save her. After
what she had told him before battle, he had been certain to die
today. Ailidh had deliberately taken his place.

Elathan was still trying to understand what
had occurred when he heard deep, ragged sobs, not realizing that
they came from his own chest. The elven warriors, finally having
driven their enemies away and basking in their victory, turned
around when they heard their beloved prince cry out his agony to
the heavens. When they joined Elathan, they found him crouched over
Lady Ailidh’s shattered body.

Laying down their weapons, one after the
other knelt down in a circle around the royal cousins, weeping with
their prince. They had never seen him cry before, not even when he
was beaten half to death at his own father's command. Now,
Elathan's newly scarred face was a mask of pain, but his eyes were
burning with hatred for the humans who took her from him. Raising
his eyes to the heavens, he swore to the gods that he would have
his revenge on every mortal who ever dared to cross his path.

Chapter 1: Blackfriars
Bridge

It was the end.

As Igraine looked down from Blackfriars
Bridge, her eyes tried to pierce the darkness to see the dirty
water below. The river’s surface was already covered with a layer
of fog that grew thicker with every minute, making it impossible to
estimate how long her fall would be. She doubted that the impact
alone would kill her, but the shock of it, combined with the icy
temperature of the water, would finish her off for sure. If she
waited until the Thames was cloaked into heavy fog, it would be
easier to jump, not having to overcome her fear of heights.

It would take just one small step. The grey
cloud would swallow her silently, and the world would move on as if
she had never existed. On such a night, only few boats were on the
Thames, so probably no one would fish her out of the water to save
her. She felt a sudden coldness spreading through her chest, and
she knew that it had nothing to do with the October winds that
swept over the bridge.

She had not planned this, not even thought
about it before. She had walked the streets of London for hours
this night after spending the evening in the National Portrait
Gallery. She had gone to one of the upper floors and visited the
large collection of Tudor paintings, displayed in a dimly lit
corridor. History had always fascinated her; faraway times and
cultures so different from this world, tales from people who had
lived and breathed, loved and died with passion although life had
been short and full of hardships.

The long-deceased men and women on the
paintings had looked down their aristocratic noses to watch her
while she moved about; their lifeless eyes following Igraine. They
seemed to mock her, a woman in her thirties, who was spending what
should have been her wedding trip on her own. She was walking the
silent, lonely corridors of the gallery at night while the streets
around her bustled and hummed with life.

Having left the gallery, her steps led her
automatically towards the river. Going east, following the
embankment, she saw the red-and-white wrought iron arches of the
bridge looming in the distance and knew that this was her
destination. Finally, she climbed the stairs to Blackfriars. It was
blocked off for traffic due to renovation works, but she just
ducked under the barrier and walked up the sidewalk until she
reached the middle of the deserted bridge. She went to the railing
and looked over at the nearby remnants of a demolished old railway
bridge. Pairs of massive red columns protruded from the river like
the teeth of a dead whale.

Maybe it was something she had read about
this bridge which had led her here. In Victorian times, it had been
a popular place for desperate women to commit suicide. Most of them
had fallen from grace, impoverished and without hope, often
pregnant with an unwanted, illegitimate child. The dignified
presence of the bridge had separated them from St. Paul’s, a symbol
of faith and purity.

Igraine looked to the north, where the
cathedral’s gloomy dome stood guard over the city. Suddenly, she
realized how many generations of people had come and gone here, and
she knew that it didn’t really matter what happened to her. The
world would have forgotten her very soon. She was nothing but a
light breeze that had moved the leaves of a huge old tree just for
a short moment, then vanished into the air, never to be
remembered.

She leaned against the railing and buried her
face in her hands, her ragged breath rapidly turning into deep,
painful sobs. There was only one question in her mind, growing
louder and louder until she wanted to cry it out to the night,
demanding an answer.

Why?
Why couldn't he just love me?
I did everything I could to make him. What is wrong with
me?

She knew how foolish this was, like a little
girl who couldn't understand why someone she loved had left her.
Rationally, she knew that it had not been her fault, that he simply
was a lying, betraying jerk who wasn't worthy of her love.

However, a little voice inside her head told
her otherwise; said that she was just not the type of woman to
attract a man’s love; that she would never be good enough, no
matter how hard she tried. And what was worse, she knew that this
belief was embedded so deeply inside her heart that it would always
end like that if she hoped to find love. Anger rose in her. She hit
the cold metal of the balustrade with her fist until her hand was
bruised and bleeding, a most welcome feeling. The physical pain
felt good; much better than the one burning inside her chest that
threatened to rip her apart. It hit her with the might of a storm,
wave after furious wave. She didn't want to hurt anymore. Feeling
nothing would be a blessing.

Igraine straightened her back and leaned
forward, looking down into the swirling fog. In that moment,
everything inside her knew how wrong this was.
No. Don’t let him
win. You’ll find a way to shield yourself, to survive this.
She
hesitated, starting to retreat to the safety of the bridge. It was
just at this instant that she knew that she was not alone.

Somebody was watching her.

She looked around, checking both sides of the
bridge. Nobody. But she was sure that there had to be someone. The
skin at the back of her neck began to tingle. Shivers of awareness
ran down her spine. The ice-cold wind brought tears to her eyes and
blew her long curls into her face, so she could hardly recognize
anything. Suddenly, she felt vulnerable; frightened like a small
animal, while a predator lurked in the dark, waiting for the right
moment to kill his prey.