Chapter 34: Chapter 34

There was a breezy wind and she could hear the sound of the waves of the ocean. A smile graced her lips, until the wind blew deeper into the room and forced out all her candles. It was pitch black. She knew there was a time that she loved being in the dark, so she could enjoy the fire that rustled in her body and there were times she played with the fire. She made it rustle to the point it will lighten her way. But tonight, nothing was visible, she was too weak to even breath, not to talk about lightening up the fire within her.

She stood up from the bed, pulling over the silk Lorcán had draped on her before he kissed her forehead and she watched as he reluctantly walked out of the room. She had to go and call him so he could turn the candles on, she didn't even have enough magic powers to turn them on and looking for matches will be the hardest thing she would ever set herself on. She couldn’t teleport either, so she walked silently out of the room and walked on the long and humungous corridor.

She had lived in Elfnour long enough to stop being mesmerized over its beauty and magnificent, but that was something she could never get herself from doing. Her hands on the railing didn’t feel like hers as she walked silently through the darkness and the faint illuminating light of the candles downstairs. She stopped in front of his room and wondered if she was doing the right thing. But she knew she couldn’t sleep with the lights off, so she knocked silently and the door was instantly opened.

“Do you need something?” She nodded her head as she looked up at him, “The candles in my room are turned off by the wind...” He was staring at her as she spoke, as if he couldn’t believe what she just said. Oh well, she hadn’t told him that all her powers were gone and that she couldn’t even teleport from her room to him, rather, she palmed her face. “I'm feeling weak and there’s this feeling that’s gnawing at me. Can you please turn the lights for me?”

He took her hands and felt her pulse, her heart beat weakly. “You haven’t told me that she’s taken away all your powers, Aranya.” It was a statement than a question, and he looked pained as he said those words. She wondered how he was able to understand what she was going through without her even voicing out.

She tried to retract her hand from him but instead, he pulled her into the room. “It’s nothing to worry about, Lorcán. I'm certain she’s just trying to punish me, she’ll bring back everything once she’s cooled off.” Should she tell him that sudden she felt uneasy and she wanted to go and see her even from afar?

“We’ll figure out another way to make you strong again...” He said as he guided her to his bed, it looked uncreased, as if no one had laid on it. “Or maybe, I'll give you half my powers.” She immediately shook her head as he gently made her sit down.

“You can’t do that, no one can give him his powers except Betla, if that happens, I'll die.” Her voice was weak as this uneasy feeling kept rippling through the folds of her heart.

“What about feeding you with my blood everyday? It will at least make you stronger, right?” She chuckled at how worried he looked before she nodded her head at him.

“You seem worried, Lorcán, it’s actually nothing to worry about. Bloods of power work, yours usually does wonders to my body, we should do that.” Before he replied, Aranya slowly laid on the bed and placed her head on his laps as she closed her eyes, she wanted to push this feeling away, this ache in her heart and this uneasiness. She wanted to see Betla, but she couldn’t even teleport to sneak to Zinambra and catch a glimpse of her.

“You don’t seem alright, Aranya. Is there something you want to talk about?” At first, she was silent but then she figured talking about it might actually be of help to her.

“I miss her, Lorcán. And I'm having this uneasy feeling in my heart, I wish I can go and see her.” She felt the way he raked his hand through her hair, slowly massaging her scalp and he spoke with the most nicest voice she had ever heard from him.

“We can go tomorrow, together. I'll make sure you see her, hug her...”

“But she’ll kill you if that happens, I won’t risk that.”

“It’s actually nothing if I die for you, Aranya. That’s for your happiness, isn’t it?” She looked up at him from his laps and smiled, even though she knew she was never going to agree to that, it felt good to hear those words from him.

“That actually sounds good. You talk way smoothly for a man and I wonder how you make me fall in love with you over and over in a single day. It’s like I fall in love 1000 times a day, and I love the feeling.” He was just staring at her, his mouth agape, not being able to believe what he had just heard.

Did she say she love him? He shook his head lightly. “You love me, Aranya?” She knew this would happen, and that’s why she hadn’t told him this, wanting to see his reaction.

She smiled brightly, her face glowing under the rustling lights of the candle that if Lorcán hadn’t seen her real fire, one will mistake it for her fire. She glowed with love, happiness and a little bit uneasiness. “I actually fell in love with you since Elara, it might the day I hugged you in the market, or knowing you were looking for a woman and unbeknownst to me, it was actually me. It might be the color of your eyes, or you being the most powerful elf I've ever seen, or that fight we had over the river...I can’t lay a finger on when or where I fell in love with you, Lorcán. But I do know that I love you so much that thinking you might be in danger hurts and...” He didn’t let her finish what she was saying when he pulled her face up and kissed the life out of her. What he did to deserve such an angel would forever be hidden to him.

He knew he could never be intimate with her so long as her mother lived and she didn't forgive them, but knowing that she loved him was enough. Being able to hold her as he did now as he kissed her was actually enough to last him a lifetime. And someday, if they were lucky, they might be able to produce a mini them in her womb. That thought alone aroused him and he kissed her even more passionately.

•

She woke up due to the tsunami that stroke her body, the kind that she had never felt in her entire life. It was a surge of fire and power threatening to break her down and she rolled and fell down from the bed. Her human body couldn’t be able to hold this much strength, this much power, this much darkness and evil! Fiercely, she began to change into her wolf form and howled, the loudest and horrific howl she had ever done in her life.

It was all too much, it felt as if all the veins of her body were adjoined to a power supply that surged into her in full force. And then she felt something hurdle into her body, Betla’s blood, her power, her fire...everything screamed Betla and she knew this wasn’t something of the ordinary. Betla wasn’t fine! Not minding the look Lorcán was flashing to her wolf form, both terrified and confused, she disappeared in a blink of an eye and found herself in front of their palace.

Then, she was able to change back into her human form, but her body was still yet to adjust to the power, the fire that was rustling unstoppable in her body. This was too much for Betla to give her at a go. She was aware of his footsteps behind her, but it felt as if she wasn’t thinking straight, as if it was Betla in her body not actually her. She walked directly into the huge humungous hall and found them there, staring at the struggling body of Betla as she had her hairpin around her neck, showing that someone had dived it there without her knowing and their knife, the knife she had killed all those men in her stomach. But from what she saw and felt in her body, Aranya knew Betla used that fire to transform all her fire and power into her body.

She howled fiercely and ran toward her laying figure, not even looking up to the three people that stood, watching as her dying mother howled in pain. She knelt in front of her she picked up her face and laid half her body onto her laps. “Mother!” She howled and when Betla winced in pain of a dying person, Aranya turned to see the ones that had killed her mother.

But two people had already disappeared, only one left and Lorcán stood by her side, talking. Talking! Even though he seemed angry, he was simply talking! She cried in an echoing timbre and the next howl that escaped out of her lips had them all thrown to the far end of the hall, pinned to the wall by her fire and power and she turned her attention back to a dying Betla.

“Mother, you can’t do this. We could actually save you with my blood, why did you put the knife in your stomach?” She was speaking with a voice so thick for her normal voice, and she knew it was the impact of what was happening to her in a rush.

Betla looked up at her and for the first time, Aranya saw a genuine smile on her lips, “I know this is the only way to bring you here, to transfer everything to you, Aranya. The hairpin she used, has your blood and mine, so our bloods couldn’t save us.” That was when Aranya’s eyes glanced at the hairpin that was perched mercilessly on her mother’s neck, and the remaining senses she had vanished. It was the hairpin Lorcán tried to kill her with! This only means one thing!

She was shaking her head, and when she wanted to cry, her fire burnt her insides and she found herself coiling in pain. “I have something to tell you, Aranya. At all cost, make sure you avenge on me, on us, on the kingdom on Zinambra...” Before she began to speak, Aranya casted a spell on her two captives, to block them from hearing anything.

She kissed her forehead, her body trembling in anguish. “Tell me, how can I save you, Betla? Should I kill him for you? Will that bring you back?” She asked, feeling as a bitter taste filled her tongue and she wanted nothing but to dive this sword in Lorcán’s stomach.

Betla shook her head and smiled, “It’s too late Aranya, I trust that you’ll do this more than myself. I love you, my daughter.” Aranya pulled her whole body and hugged her, and slowly, the tears even though feeling as though a molten magma, began cascading down her cheeks, forming a cloud of smoke. “I love you, Mother, I've always loved you.” And still holding her, she felt as she began dissipating into a cloud of smoke until nothing was left on Aranya’s hand but the hairpin and the sword. And when she howled, so loud and powerful that it shook the whole building, causing a few parts of it to crush down.

Somehow, everything went black after she had managed to make the two last things that had touched her mother to disappear safely somewhere she can always go for them. Because she knew, especially the knife, she would have to use it to kill from the first to the last person that had turned her mother into who she died as, made her live the life she lived and killed her the way she died. And this time, it didn’t matter that it was the man she loved, because the man she loved is the first person she wanted to knife this sword on.