20

He kept wandering through the dark forest until he saw the tiny rays of the sun. He lifted his eyes up to the sky and wondered how he had been walking around Zinambra without knowing where or how to find Aranya. Did the two of them lived in this vast, abandoned place? It was so cold to be called accommodating and so dark to be pleasing to the eyes. He figured he didn’t have a place to go and there was no where he could find the abandoned palace of Zinambra.

Taking a turn back, he found himself in the river he once appeared in, yesterday at night. He had plucked a few fruits on his way back to the river and he sat at the edge, eating the fruits while he thought of the way out. He was done eating the fruits when he heard faint footsteps toward the river and he quickly hid behind a tree trunk.

Lorcán thought his eyes were showing him the wrong view, that the red he was taking a glimpse of wasn’t really what his heart was telling him it was. And the brunette hair above her head wasn’t who he thought it was, it was merely an illusion and his mind giving him what he had been looking for. But as she came closer, he realized she was indeed the one, and she looked the same as she looked in Elara. Beautiful, soothing to stare at, a fairy.

He didn’t know why he couldn’t take a step forward and make himself visible to her, a huge part of his heart knew he enjoyed staring at her from a distant as he yearn for her became too much. He wanted to hold her into his arms, he wanted to kiss those succulent lips until he knocked her out of her breath, on god, he wanted to kill her as well.

As he stared at her while she sat on a stone at the river bank, she sighed and took off her hair pin, raking her fingers into her hair. She sighed, and he had the perception of her being Dûsan’s fairy. The only woman his brother had ever loved and whom he died for. He didn’t know what he was feeling as he watched her play with her feet in the water but her facial expression was far from being relaxed. She always had a relaxed and happy expression when she was in the river, at least he knew that about her-but not today.

“Argh!” She howled softly, stretching her body back as she took in the rays of the sun on her porcelain skin. She tapped her feet roughly on the water and sighed lightly, “I want to cry.” She wailed silently, something she had never done in her life. Her chest was so tight for her, her heart so heavy that she wondered how she was able to carry something as heavy as her heart felt.

“You should, because this will be your first and last cry, I assume.” He spoke enigmatically as he came out of behind the trunk and she looked frightened, nearly fell into the river.

Aranya stared at him without being able to move her eyes away from him, was this real? She couldn’t believe this was real. Maybe she unknowingly created a clone magic and she was seeing the one person she had ever had a yearn for. She stared at him while he eyes fumed and the blood color of his eyes that always scared her deepened.

Reluctantly, Aranya took a few steps toward him and he watched her, patiently waiting for her to come close enough to the point he could easily dive his sword into her chest and that would be it. He had taken revenge for Dûsan. As she approached him, he kept telling himself that this wasn’t the woman he had missed, this wasn’t the woman he wanted to hold in his hand forever, this was a woman he was supposed to kill, brutally. But with each step she took toward him, Lorcán realized it was the hardest thing his brain had to assimilate.

Her whole body shook as she stood in front of him, staring into his eyes, even though his eyes unnerved her today for she could see not just the amusement she had always been in his eyes when he was together with her-there was hatred, a thirst for revenge. She had known those looks clearly for that was the only expression’s in Betla’s eyes since the day she was born.

“I can't believe this is real...” She let her words trailed off, her lips trembling because if anything, she had never wanted something to be real like she wanted this to be. On god, she had missed him more now that she was having an illusion of him.

She knew there was no way he could come to Zinambra, this definitely had to be her own illusions and she would love to have them forever. She stood in front of him and her shaking hands lifted up before she touched his right cheek. “Lorcán...” She wasn't able to complete her sentence when she felt something dived into her stomach, something sharp, painful and full of magic powers.

When she looked down at her stomach, she saw it was a sword, a magically sword that would have killed her if she wasn’t protected by Betla. Had it been she was a normal wolf, she would have been giving up on life already. But this could only make her sick, so sick that she might as well prefer death, but she couldn't die. Blood started dripping down to the sword and the wet ground. She looked up at him with her eyes painfully dilating and when Lorcán realized it had taken long for her to die, he pulled her hairpin out of his pocked and dived it directly onto her heart.

“This will ki...ll me...Lorcán...” It had her breath on it, her fire, it could kill her. She felt as the pain surged through her body and when her eyes involuntarily began to close, she felt wobbly and fell to her ground, a pool of blood beneath. Lorcán stared at the way she had her hand on the hole his sword made on her stomach and her hairpin that was still on her chest, right into her heart, he stared down at his dripping sword, and just then he realized what he had done.

With one swift movement, his word vanished and he lifted his hand up, there was her blood on his hand. He had finally taken his revenge for Dûsan, he could finally leave Zinmabra. He had done well, he calmed himself. She was the one that lured and kill his brother, what he did was right, he assured himself. He stared down at her, her dying eyes eyes were staring at him as her tears vertically fell down.

“Save me...” She didn’t know what all this meant, didn’t know how all this happened, but she wanted him to save her. She knew Betla could save her, but she didn't want her to know that Lorcán had killed her, she didn't want her to know that he was the man she was trying to protect because even if he wanted her dead, Aranya had only one wish which was to protect him.

He lifted his feet to take a step toward her but later on stopped himself, he wouldn’t save her. Only God knew how Dûsan wanted to be saved at the time, and she didn’t save him. He would have to make her pay, die slowly and painfully. And with one swift turn, Lorcán turned her back to him and walked away. He kept walking fast, not allowing his mind to assimilate what he had done and what it would do to the only woman he had ever wanted.

“Dammit, Aranya, you can go to hell!” He screamed out when her thoughts, mixed with his feelings for her were trying to bring an end to his life as well. He moved faster, feeling the way the wind was splashing onto his face and moving fast his ear and when he had a vivid image of Aranya smiling at him, Aranya running toward him in the market and how it felt hugging her, he didn’t know when he turned back and began running to the river.

“Don’t die yet, Aranya...” He frantically begged as he ran faster, he realized he had to hug her first. He needed to hold her into his arms before she could die, he needed to stare at her face while she smiled at him as she effortless won over the moon.

When he breathlessly appeared at the river again, she was where he had left her, her blood oozing out and he realized her blood looked more of fire than blood. He rushed toward her and pulled her to his laps. “Aranya...” He managed to utter and she looked up at him tiredly and her eyes closed back on their own.

“Aranya, listen, wake up. I need to hug you.” He screamed at the pitch of his voice and pulled her whole body to his chest and when he hugged her, she faintly screamed.

“The hairpin,” she quickly reminded and that was when he realized he had pulled it deeper into her heart.

Carefully, with his whole body shaking and his heart darkening with so much the realization of her being dead brought to him, he pulled the hairpin out of her heart and she stared long into his eyes, her tears rolling sideways in the most heartbreaking way he had ever seen. He placed his hands on both her cheeks and stared into her eyes.

“You can’t die, Aranya...” He said, devastated. “Tell me, how do I save you?”

She lightly shook her head, she suddenly wanted to die. After all, he didn’t want her the way she wanted him. And nothing had ever pained her the way what he did did, she wasn’t thinking about the physical pain he had inflicted on her, but Aranya was certain her heart ached more of the pain than the hairpin slowly killing her. “You can’t save me, only Betla could...” She stopped to take in her breath, it was getting painful which each second. “I don’t want her to know you’re here. Take the hairpin, dive into the river and it will take you out of here.”

He shook his head, placing his hand frantically over her face and her whole body. “I have to go and find her, you can’t die, Aranya.”

Her tears intensified as the pain in her heart did, “She’ll kill you if she knows you, Lorcán. Just leave.”

He cupped her face with his hands stained with her blood, “I won’t leave you here, Aranya. Tell me, there must be a way to save you, please let me know.” His heart was thumping so hard, and as he watched the way she was silently becoming weaker, he wanted to rip his soul out for her.

“Your blood, it can save me.” Bloods of power had always did magic, and she was sure as powerful as Lorcán was, he would be able to save her with his blood. She watched as he pulled his arm under his clothing while the sword appeared back on his hand before she weakly lifted her hand to stop him, “You’re going to hurt yourself, Lorcán.”

He stared deeply into her eyes, she didn’t have to tell him that she was in pain, because he could see it and what bothered her was that he was going to hurt himself? He lightly pushed her hand away and sliced through his arm, he squeezed his eyes due to the pain that surged through him. The moment blood started oozing out, he moved his hand toward her mouth and with their eyes locked into each other’s his blood dripped into her mouth until she got the dose that would save her and he sealed the wound up at an instant.

He lifted her face and she tried to smile at him but painfully failed at that, “Lor-” she began, but before she called his name out, he brought her to his chest and hugged her as tightly as he could until he felt her flesh squeezing into his.

“Oh god, I've missed you Aranya.” He did, he loved her even, but he had to be so sure of his words before he could say them out. Even though the thought of her dead and the sight of her dying was terrifying enough for him to know that he did love her.