Midnight's Song (48 page)

“Why did you really come back for me?”
I suddenly asked out loud, not even bothering to look down at the
paper. I could have sworn I heard Aurelian sigh.

“I made you a promise, did
I not?” The prince replied. After a few seconds of silence, he
spoke up again. “…There’s also nothing that has changed the fact
that I am deeply in love with you.”

“So what do we do from
here?” I quietly asked after another pause. This time, Aurelian
began inching back toward me. Though he was a prince of great
wealth and many titles, Aurelian didn’t stand up. He crawled around
the pews to my side of the room, never leaving the ground. When he
came into my sight, the prince slowly approached me. It was as if I
was a child again, shaken and terrified while I hid in the corner
of the room. Though I felt like I was now useless, Aurelian came to
me and softly spoke up. It was as if to say that despite the
trouble we were in, everything was going to be alright.

“It’s difficult to say,” he softly
began, taking my hand. “The portal is gone…but, it isn’t finished
yet. I’m here with you. At least we’re together.”

He tried to wrap his arms around me,
but in my pool of emotions and tears I quickly pulled away. Any
chance at my life having meaning seemed long gone. I was poisonous
and wretched – no good for anything but causing others grief. And
now my best friend might have been dead, all for the sake of
someone that was probably going to be burnt at the stake soon
anyway. Then I looked down at my paper.

Oh, that paper!

In my mind, this was the thing that
had caused the most harm. It was the reason I was here and
presently safe while my friends and family were not! I just had to
go back for it, didn’t I? I wanted to tear it into pieces at that
very moment, but something kept me from doing so. It was Aurelian,
gentle and docile as a ray of sun in my sorrows.

“What is this?” He asked; suddenly
intrigued as he read the words on the page.

“It’s a page from the book that I went
back for,” I sobbed. “It’s the only part I was able to get…this
useless –”

I crumbled it up in anger,
ready to throw it to the other side of the room. But, Aurelian
halted me. The prince quickly grabbed my wrist and took the paper
from my hand. There was something about it that he could see now,
something that couldn’t be neglected.

“No, Elissa. Please,
don’t,” he pleaded. The prince uncrumpled the page and placed it
back in my hand, though he still hadn’t read it. “If this meant
enough to you for you to risk your life, I trust that it has great
meaning. I know you, Elissa. You have a stronger, wiser spirit than
you’d like to believe. At least take a moment to read it again
before you decide to turn it into rubbish.”

Tears still clouding my
vision, I did as the prince said. Then, a miracle happened. The
tears stopped flowing and my heart began to hastily beat. I scanned
the words on this page and realized something that I had failed to
look at before. This wasn’t a page from some other miscellaneous
story in the book…it was from the story I had been reading. It was
the page that I had just read, the place that I had left off.
Though the back housed a new page in the story, this page still
didn’t hold the end of it all. It didn’t house the end of the story
– because we were supposed to live that out ourselves. Without
thinking, I tearfully began to read part of the first page
aloud:

“
The Curse came into him. It directed him to take everyone
else of his kind that had come to the Earth and return back to
their homes. The curse came and inhabited the king and cursed their
entire kingdom.

Greed overcame the
royal family, and the eldest son killed his father to steal the
throne. After many years of his reign, his children were overcome
with greed and did the same. For hundreds of years this continued,
turning to be their family custom. Since their kings could not die
natural deaths, the next in line would have to take it into his
hands to take the throne; becoming the new host of this ravenous
curse at the moment of their predecessor’s death –”

At the last word in my
sentence, Aurelian stopped me. In complete and utter disbelief, the
prince took the page hand and read it for himself.

“Where did you say that you obtained
this?”

“I’m not sure where it
came from. I found it in a church library. It’s just a book of
fairy tales... Of course the stories are a bit more detailed than
what a child would be told, but even I know some of the story
–”

“No, no, Elissa…” Aurelian looked down
at the page wide-eyed. “I’m sorry that I didn’t believe you before.
This is much more important than you and I could ever
conceive….”

“I don’t understand –”

“Elissa…this
is
the history of my
people; the means by which the King rules our world. This page
entails what happened to the First King, word-for-word. It’s the
very thing that has happened to every living heir in my family to
this very moment in time,” Aurelian told me in a
rush.

Now he realized that he
had doubted me, and I was beginning to realize that I had doubted
myself. Of course, Aurelian loved me and trusted my will – but just
like any other flawed creature, he didn’t have enough faith in my
words until now. He handed the paper back to me in
shock.

“This page might not have the ending,
but maybe it will have enough on the other side to guide us in what
we must do next,” he told me. “...By the way, would you happen to
know if this story mentioned anything about you?”

“I wouldn’t know, I mean…now it’s just
speculation, really,” I stammered. “But, if this is about us…I
would suppose that the next part of the story would apply to our
situation.”

I flipped the page,
though before I even so much as looked at the words I remembered
what part was always came next when my mother would tell me the
tale. The prince and the maiden would flee together and agree to
be
engaged.
Considering the complete seriousness of this situation, it
caused me to backtrack a little. Before I got into the next part of
the story, I needed to know more about Aurelian. I had to feed my
curiosity.

“Before I read anymore, I want you to
explain to me everything that you promised you would,” I told
him.

“What did I promise to tell
you?”

“You insisted that you would tell me
everything about yourself that I wanted to know. It was when you
were closing up the portal, remember?”

“I was under quite a lot of pressure
then…” Aurelian hesitantly let out. “And why is it that I must
always be the one to explain myself to you? I hate to admit it, but
with you it never seems to end…”

“I know I always ask you to explain
yourself. But, you still promised,” I softly replied. “I think I
know what part of the story comes next, so please tell me
yours.”

“Alright, alright. I will tell you
more about myself. This time I’ll try not to keep any secrets from
you. I can’t promise that I’ll remember to say everything, but I
assure you that I will try. Only, I have one condition.”

“And what would that be?”
I asked the prince in return, seeing a light grin appear on his
once-tormented face.

“You must tell me more about yourself.
There is so much that I can see in you, yet so very little that I
know.”

“You truly can’t see my past?” I asked
him in surprise. “I thought that you’ve always known…that your eyes
could see that sort of thing.”

“No…they can only see small parts of
it. Of course there are many things I know now…but it might be
refreshing to hear some of it from you first-hand.”

Aurelian gave me a deep, gentle look.
His hand was now in mine, softly and warmly inviting me to tell him
who I was. Now I can see that it wasn’t necessarily anything that
he wanted to know, but simply things that he could see I needed to
let out of the murky vaults in my heart. Realizing that I was safe,
I agreed. Though, I still urged him to go first.

“Do you recall the name you first
called me by when we met?” He asked me at first.

“Of course I do. You told me to call
you Rhys,” I answered.

“I asked you to call
me that because it was who I truly was then. It wasn’t a lie…that
name was truly what I felt I deserved to be called. I chose it
because in your world, it means ‘
running.’”

“You chose it because you were running
away from your throne,” I told him, the entire picture beginning to
make sense in my mind.

“Yes, that is indeed very true.
Though, I wasn’t always running like this,” Aurelian explained. “I
had a good life. I never knew my mother, but I was unusually
attached to my father. I had been born with a kind of peace that
few in my family had before me. Because of it, I was praised by
some for being a peacemaker and looked at as peculiar by
others.

“In my family, the
bond between father and son has been forever marred because of the
way that one party replaces the other. The heir spends his whole
upbringing learning how he might kill his father. As terrible it
may sound, it is tradition in my family…because…otherwise,
we cannot die.”
He
stopped for a moment, seemingly choked up. Then, he
continued.

“My entire life I was told that when
the time came I would have to slay him, but I could never even
fathom doing it. They tried to groom me in every way possible,
insisting that one day my greed would cause me to desire the curse
that comes with the throne. Though the Kings of the past had
welcomed it, as a child I saw the evil in it. It’s a terrible
thing, Elissa. It draws you in and tempts you to do horrid
things…then once you ascend to the throne, it takes your whole
being and controls you, making you into a monster that is so cold
and unfeeling that your soul becomes lost and your old self
completely unrecognizable…”

Aurelian stopped again, this time with
a look of despair on his face. I could tell now that he must have
seen things so terrible that he couldn’t help but keep it from me.
My heart sunk. Now I wished I hadn’t forced him to tell me all of
this! I reached over to comfort him, looking into his eyes with
peace and understanding. I begged him to stop, but I could tell
that even then Aurelian felt the need to continue.

“But your father had it,” I spoke up
before Aurelian began speaking again. “And you still loved him,
didn’t you?”

“I know that he did.
I still loved him, and I believe he must have loved me somehow…but
that doesn’t change who he was. I’d never known him before it,
though I could always see small glimpses of good in him through it.
Regardless, the evil of the Darkness consumed his thinking. If only
you would have seen what I’d seen…you’d know that his curse made
him into a
monster.
”

“I’m sorry…” I softly told him, gently
squeezing his hand. “I had no idea. You don’t have to go any
further, I promise that I’ve heard more than enough if it hurts too
much for you –”

“No, Elissa,” he interrupted. “I must
tell you. I made you a promise, and it is important that you
know.”

“Alright,” I whispered. “You can tell
me as much or as little as you need. I promise to listen.” After
that, he nodded at me and continued.

“I didn’t desire the
curse – but even more than that, I couldn’t imagine killing my
father. In my world, it is tradition that the next in line proceed
to clear the throne at the time of his 18
^th
or
19
^th
birthday, when the chief priests of the Darkness decide that
he is ready. I never stopped feeling as if this was cruel, evil and
unfair. Even if our people cannot die, we still have a conscience.
I didn’t want to participate in such an evil act as murder – not
even when the time came for me to do so. Even though it seemed to
be such solid tradition, I refused to think that it was the only
way. On the night I was told to kill my father, I threw my sword
down and ran away. I’ve been running around your world ever
since.”

“What about your brother?” I suddenly
asked. “I thought that he was the reason you left?”

“No, he’s not the single reason that I
left. Now, Faolan is one of the reasons I’ve been in hiding. All of
my life he desired the crown that I had. When I left, he saw it as
the perfect opportunity to take my place. I don’t know when…but my
father is gone now. Faolan has assumed the throne and seeks to
destroy me. He’s become so consumed with his insecurities and
jealousy that he is convinced that this is just some sort of act on
my part. He still believes that I will come back and steal his
throne…but I don’t want it. I never have!

“But, to answer your question…Faolan
isn’t the reason I left. The reason that I left was because I
didn’t want to do things in the same detrimental way that everyone
else does. Even if it means that I have to run and be seen as a
coward, I don’t want to become King through defiling
goodness.”

“So you stood your ground,” I finally
muttered in astonishment. “You refused to accept what was
unjust.”