18

He stared at her while she told him of the only possible way to get him to Zinambra and Lorcán wished he could start crying by the time Desdemona was done. “Is that the only way to get to her?” He asked, wanting to scream when she began to answer him, “The only way to see her?” And Desdemona nodded her head in affirmation. He began to rake his brain to see if he could remember having something of hers with him, and he immediately remembered Portia.

He stood up almost as immediately as the thought crossed through his mind. “I think I have a possibility of having something of hers, I'll get back to you when I find a clue. And if I don’t, we will have to find another way, Desdemona.”

He rushed toward the door and was nearly out of her cave when she yelled back at him, “Just forget about her and your revenge if you don’t get anything that belongs to her, Lorcán!” He was out of the house when she yelled, loud enough for him to hear her, “Your dinner, you aren’t done yet!”

“Go to hell!” He shouted back and she laughed, so loud that the walls of her cave began to echo. If only what she was planning on doing would work, if it did, she would be the happiest woman on earth.

Lorcán rushed back to the inn and he didn’t wait to see whether Portia was there or not, when he barged into the suite Aranya had once been in. And when he got to her, knowing and hoping that he could find something of hers there, he met two people. A man and a woman, naked and in bed. “Oh my god!” The woman screamed at the pitch of her voice and he quickly palmed his eyes as they got the duvet over their bodies.

“What the hell are you doing here? Who the hell are you?” The man roared and Lorcán knew if that man wasn’t so much concerned about his nakedness, he would have had his throat choked by now.

“I’m so sorry, I was looking for the woman that has left this suite yesterday. I'm so sorry.” He bowed his head and immediately disappeared out of the room, but the man’s words got caught in his ear.

“Go to hell, idiot!” He laughed when he was back in his room. How could he have been so foolish to think that the inn’s management wouldn’t have some other people into the suite? It wasn’t solely built for her, was it?

Dejected, knowing he might likely not get anything and just like that, he would have to let go of the woman he had been looking for thousand of years. He went back to his room and sat at the edge of his bed. He hadn’t been on this bed since the last time they slept on it with Aranya. His hand involuntarily grazed over the spot she had slept on and he dipped his hand lower under her pillow even though that night, she hadn’t used any pillow, she used his chest.

And when his hand got in contact with something like a metal, his heart lost a bit. He didn't want to raise his hopes high but then he didn’t have a choice, he pulled whatever it was out and the hell, she left her anklet! The anklet he had first seen her left by the river. How did he felt that she left this for me? Even though he was certain that he wouldn’t know who she was, but she knew he would miss her and would look for her, so this was a message for him not to bother. She had left him something of her, and as much as he had this unquenchable desire to hurt her, Lorcán wanted to hug her for saving him from the stress and frustration of not finding a way out.

He didn’t have to wait for Desdemona, he immediately walked out of the suite and before he left the inn, he saw Portia in front of his suite. She immediately bowed down when she saw him and he stood straight. “What is it, Portia?” He asked, because he was certain she would never come to him unless there was something that had happened.

She handed him Aranya’s hairpin and looked at him, “She left this in her suite, the maids that were cleaning the suite yesterday found this and they wanted to throw it out when I told them not to, and I collected it. No one here knows her, but I know you have a connection with her and might as well see her again, so I decided to bring it to you.”

Reluctantly, Lorcán collected the hairpin from Portia and wondered if the gods decided to bless his life this time. How would everything be so easy on him this time around? This was a sign that he should really take his revenge on Aranya, and his personal feelings-which he wasn’t sure of yet, should never come between him and his revenge. “Thank you, Portia. You have no idea how helpful this is.”

Her eyes gleamed with happiness, “Whenever you see her, tell her that I've missed her so much. And no one appreciates my wings and morning chirps anymore.” There was a hint of sad smile on her lips when she said that, and he nodded his head at her, his attempt at smiling at her long lost.

He walked out of the inn and went back to Desdemona’s house, he knew he had found what she had said would be the only way for him to get to Zinambra, but he as well didn’t trust her enough to know that it was the only way. Something must be done again, you never fully trust a Durush.

He knocked on the door and from her living room, Desdemona magically opened the door for him and yelled, “Come in, I'm relaxed, can’t come to the door.” He walked into the living room and she smiled even before he spoke, “You’ve found her belongings, two actually. Let me see them.”

He groaned outwardly this time, he had almost forgotten how annoying dealing with a Durush was. He pulled out the two things from his pockets and showed them to her, “Which one do you recommend I use? Or I can take the two of them with me?” He asked, and the smile on her face didn’t go unnoticeable to him.

She took the anklet and began to caress her hand over the scriptures that Lorcán didn’t have a single idea of what they meant. “No, the hairpin is enough for now. I'll have to keep this with me, the anklet. Incase you need my help, you don’t know how dangerous Betla is, but I do. If you need some help, you just have to call my name out loud and I'll use the anklet to get into Zinambra, okay?”

He stared at her and how she was handling the anklet in her palm as though it were a treasure and doubted if he should let her have the anklet as she wanted. But when he weighed everything in his mind, he figured everything she said and did was to his best interest. “Okay, I'll leave now.”

He turned to his heels when she put the away from his sight and spoke, “Are you sure you can go now that the moon is full and the sky so dark? Zinambra isn’t a place for any random being, Lorcán.”

“She’s someone I've been looking for for so long, I can’t let the only chance I have to slip out of my hands. Like you said, I'll call you if I need something but if you dare cheat and make a fool of me, I'll destroy you, Desdemona.” There was a threat to the tip of his tongue and when their eyes met, Desdemona knew there was more to this man than any other person could understand. And not even a Durush could read through.

He disappeared out of her sight and he began to fly over the dark, chilly forests. He wasn’t afraid of anything nor anyone, all he wanted was to get to Zinambra, meet Aranya and take the revenge he had been looking for for thousand of years. With the hairpin in his hands, he flew tirelessly until he saw the river Desdemona had mentioned and he sighed, he thought she had been fooling him all along.

He slowly got down until he stood at the edge of the river and he saw the opening Desdemona mentioned, at the middle of the river and she told him he could not use his magic powers to get to the opening, he had to walk into the water and would have to live, not get drowned no matter how deep the river would feel and suffocating.

He dipped his feet into the river and the first thing he remembered was how Aranya looked whenever she went to the river, and now he realized she had a soul connection with water. How she smiled, how beautiful and relaxed she looked whenever she was in the river. He kept moving, pushing her beautiful face out of his mind and when he was a few feet away from the opening, he felt as something pulled him out of the river and he fell down with a thud. Damn it, Betla had set some guard and Desdemona tricked him into not being prepared.

He saw a monster, blood-eyed as fire dripped out of his mouth staring back at him, and how the fire wasn’t doused with the water they were in would forever remain a miracle to Lorcán. He didn’t get a hold of his thought when the huge, scary creature ran toward him and Lorcán knew he either had to fight or lose his life in this battle. But he knew he had to win, he had to kill Aranya no matter what it took.

•

Aranya stared at Betla through the mirror as she styled her hair the way she had always done, the day they had always killed her hunt and took the blood they needed to get the power Betla lived for. They hadn’t spoken a word, because this felt like a mantra in her life, the one thing that was certain in her life was her going for a hunt and her diving Betla’s magical sword into their chests as she watched Betla sucked up all their powerful bloods.

When Betla was done styling her hair, she got into her gown. Not the normal red gown she used to wear, this was a wedding gown, and from the way Betla stared at her whenever she wore this gown, she knew something always went through her mind whenever she saw her in the gown. Betla put the crown for her and they turned to the mirror to stare at their reflections.

“You look beautiful, Aranya. Jaromir is out, go to the Mourtzur with him, I'll come later.” Betla had never said she looked beautiful but today, and Aranya watched as she left the room before she turned to stare at her reflection in the mirror.

She knew she had looked beautiful, she didn’t know what had changed but she looked so beautiful. Maybe she had never stared at her reflection long enough for her to see the beauty? Or maybe, because this time she had someone on mind, someone she wished she was really getting married to, she had noticed the beauty.

She didn’t know why she was having the fantasy of getting married to Lorcán, but since she met Lorcán, she realized that she had stopped denying whatever her heart wanted. She wanted to get married to him, to live with him for the rest of her life-even though she wasn’t certain about her feelings for him yet.

There was a soft knock on the door and when she looked up, a dragon prince walked into the room in the name of Jaromir, and somewhere amidst the smile on his face and the love that swarm through his eyes, she felt regretful for what she was going to do to him in the next few moments they were about to share.