Looked me in my face, said I was insane, playing all his little games. My boots clacked across the marble floor as he spoke. Twisted faces scowled at me on both sides as I walked towards him. Creatures crawled along the pillars carved with screaming faces, their expressionless faces blinking at me. They weren’t what I was here for.
He was. Dressed in glimmering green and black, his half armour glinted in the torches lining the walls. He smiled at me, a tug of his lips as he bore down on me from the steps of his throne. Brown hair slicked back from his face, a single thread of white gently waving and then curling behind a pointed ear.
Devil King. Dark Knight. Shadow Master.
My king had sent me to finish the job he wanted done. End the reign of terror that had started ten years ago.
I bowed dramatically, the heavy plating of my armour clattering as I lowered.
He silently watched me. From the way my neck prickled I knew he was watching my nape as I straightened. I could feel his eyes rake over my body. The way they had so long ago.
Long before we were good and bad. Hero and Villain. Saviour and murderer.
When he was just Julious. Wonderfully brilliant Jules. Those nervous fingers had gently splayed against my skin, curling under my chin to lift my mouth to his. A scribe and a young squire. No heed had been taken then. Nothing to ponder. Just summer flings and romances.
Not this one. That stoked fire had rippled through my body. A wildfire that had deliciously burned my soul.
Our paths had flung apart when Jules had been accused of burning a village down. Then another. And another. He had gone mad. Forsaken morality for information. Made deals with fae for forbidden texts, traded human souls for tomes. Demon clouded.
I had ridden out to see him. Terrified of what I would find, and yet desperate to lay my eyes on him. A horse the colour of porcelain stood stark against the flames. The rider turned his head, ripping his cloak off his head when he saw me. But his eyes. His fiercely intelligent brown eyes were now black. Blacker than coal. Blacker than a raven’s wing. No iris. No whites around the eyes. No emotion could be found within the rippling black.Demon the reports cried.
The last of that memory flickered behind my eyes. A river of knights streaming behind me and disappearing into the fog of moments past. The face of my love frowning, and then turning to ride into the smoke. Vanishing into it like a moth wing into a campfire.
I returned to those eyes, drawing my sword. The creatures stirred and then began to pound the floor in rhythm. The Demon King licked his lips, gliding down the podium steps as he unsheathed his ebony sword. No words but what he had greeted me with. Insane he had called me.
The audience screeched as we clashed, our steel screaming as he slid his sword down until I pushed him away. This close I could see the sweat bead and then travel from his hairline down his face. His black eyes narrowed as he beheld me.
“Where are your comrades?” He hissed, “you try my patience.”
He stepped into my attack, taking it and parrying my sword stroke with ease. I frowned, catching his return thrust and pushing it away. We danced, his charcoal eyes never leaving mine.
“They are on their way to the boats.”
The moment the words left my mouth the world… stopped.
Slowed.
“Alone?” he asked harshly, biting out the word.
“Completely.”
A popping sound echoed inside my head. The creatures melted away into the shadows. The screaming faces shuddered and melted into dust, leaving behind chipped wooden pillars. Slowly the room fell into disrepair. Even his throne, once menacing, was now but a single wooden chair upon a rickety stage.
His sword clattered to the floor, forcing my attention to my opponent.
“Ten years.” He muttered. His armour seemed to swallow him, the lime green now a beacon of unease.
“Julian.” I murmured, watching him tense. I held up a hand, curving it so I showed him the back of my hand.
“Kimia.” He whispered. It was a prayer. And a beautiful one. Stepping forward he twisted his hand so our palms lined up, guiding my hand to turn and then fold together.
“Did it work?” he asked me, his black eyes reflecting more concern than my king.
“Yes.” I breathed, “the only ones left in the kingdom limits are the king and his retainers.”
He smiled sadly at me, taking my other calloused hand in his. “They knew. They knew if they kept digging and taking they would unleash it. They’re days away, now. But they don’t care. They are bewitched.”
“I know. I know the gold sickness holds the king. But – ”
“Did you convince the heir?” He asked, snapping me out of it.
“She’s riding with my men.”
“What did you tell her? Is she touched by the sickness?”
“That there were monsters in the west I needed her help with. No. I kept her with me as much as I could. Training with me, keeping her away from the curse. Not a speck of gold rests in her eyes. She will be an incredible ruler.”
“Good.”
I nodded, but the nod was halfhearted.
If I hadn’t seen the claw marks down the cavern walls under the castle, I never would’ve been here ten years later. But Julien had seen them all those years ago. Julien had dug deep into the archives. He had searched deep and long and hard. Found a deep sickness housed in the skin of a direwolf that the elves had locked away with forgotten magic. Those same Elven texts explained the keylines that linked all life in our realm. Keylines linking villages. The same villages that had gone up in smoke. The same ones that monsters had appeared in as the darkness seeped into my homeland. Julien wasn’t the villain. He was the herald.
Julian gave up his eyes to see the keylines. Like spiderwebs creeping through the land. A gift and a curse as he read languages no man would be left unchanged from. He sacrificed his body and mind for the survival of thousands.
And now. Now we stood at the end of a decade’s worth of planning. Of gently convincing village elders. A secret spread of hope as we poured over maps, trying to desperately treaty, and then when that didn’t work, coup the land across the sea. Transporting our people into safety. Through secret messages Jullian had warned me, had made sure I was there to defend and protect. My brigade knew these messages as “words of the black prophet.” Never once suspecting I was in league with their perceived enemy. We had fought and killed monsters of every kind. Things of water and sky. Things that reeked of death, and others that grinned rows of daggers.
The king, his eyes bloodshot with gold lust slowly descended into madness. Crops began to wither. People were dying or worse, cursed. All the while the king dug deeper for the cursed jewels lining the lair under his throne room. The only things protecting his people. But the darkness had seeped into him long before we knew it.
Ten years of watching my love play the villain so our people wouldn’t be at the mercy of one powerful man’s greed. We learnt in horror, that once one stone is removed from the beast’s prison the crack formed could not be fixed. And the magic sickness would seep into the land as punishment. Death incarnate that would plunge the land into a barren wasteland as it howled our demise.
Julien pressed a hand to my cheek, pulling me back to him. That was our little game. Push and pull. He was the moon, and I was the sea. Forever yearning for each other. Forever apart to keep our people safe.
“You are so beautiful.” He whispered, “I wrote so many letters I never sent. You are my muse, my candlelight in the darkest of places. When the dead murmured, I would remember your face. Where others doubted me…”
“I never doubted you.” I promised, pressing a hand to his, “You are my wonder and my hero, Julian.”
The stars in his eyes leaked down his face, a silent memorial to his solitude.
“I mean it,” I said, pressing my forehead to his, “you are the hero of our story. I will follow you until the last breath leaves my body.”
I met his eyes. The sign of his sacrifice. “You will never be alone again.”
“Swear it,” he whispered, his voice cracking.
I reached behind me to rip the tie out of my hair. My hair cascaded over my shoulders, reminding him of a time long ago. Long before time had crushed us. A squire and a scribe. Age rippled away.
I gently kissed him, pulling him closer to me. Breaking through the decade of fear, solitude and darkness. He returned the kiss, his hands flicking past my cheeks to slide into my hair. He smelt of wood smoke and parchment. Of home.
“I swear it.” I said against his lips, “I will love you for more than a hundred lifetimes.”
“Dear Heart,” he cried, throwing back his head as he openly wept. Together we fell, our armour clattering as it caressed the floor. No more pretence lay between us. Only loving insanity.
I took his face in my hands, joining him in his relief. “I will love you in the beyond.”
He smiled, his black eyes shining like the darkest star. I watched them, mesmerised.
“As will I.” he vowed. “As will I.”
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