The Lost Heiress (chapter 2)

 

Chapter 2 ---continued from Chapter 1(part 2)

The moonflowers were stark white in the afternoon sun, as if burning in silent grief in the sickly-sweet autumn breeze. Auram had taken a moment to just stop and look at the magic flowers his Lucia had once planted; it was how the flowers glowed on moonless nights that made her love them. It was how they silently reminded him of her absence that made him hate them. He felt his collar stiffen around his neck. The ticking of the clock overtook the silence.

 

“Master?” Goistree called out from behind. The two hundred years old dwarf spoke in the deepest of all his voices, “I suppose the rumours flooding the royal passages have reached the master’s ears?” Auram didn't answer.

 

Goistree continued, “There’s a rumour about good old Abner-”

 

“-Going to the Other Side and bringing back the lost heiress.” Auram's stiff voice cut through Goistree's. With his dark eyebrows knitted together, he was looking through the foggy glass window, as if at something very far away.

 

“Master, I really don't think Abner would break the sacred law”

 

“Anala is dead, Goistree.” Auram's voice echoed past the stone walls.

 

“Her body was never found, Master.”

 

“An entire forest in the east end had been burnt in that fire, no one survived.”

 

“We must not assume, sir.”

 

“I should've killed her, Goistree.”

 

But he didn't. The feeling that haunted him eighteen years ago returned. Like the stagnant air in the stone-walled room, it stuck on to him, suffocating. He felt it all over again- twelve-year-old, standing at the door, watching the baby princess being kissed and hugged, wrapped and unwrapped, loved and loved again. He was told to not enter, lest he should hurt her. A strange feeling of hurt had crept onto his shoulders that night as everyone said the princess' skin was melting gold. They said the same about him too, until they knew about the darkness within him, until it scared them and he was unloved and never loved again. In his memory, he was just a boy who cried himself to sleep on nights the darkness was too dark to bear- he still was – a solitary boy prince in solitary darkness, the gold-skin warrior in a never-ending war.

--------------------------------Sketch and story by Ritoja

------------------------------------ to be continued-----------------------------------------------------------