Bittersweet (35 page)

Beings surrounded us, patting Zanthiel on the shoulder and greeting me with bows and hugs. All the while Adrius continued to watch. I felt my blush deepen as his stare intensified. This look was different, so… uncomfortable. I wasn't Venus; it didn't bring me any pleasure to see either one of them suffer, especially because of me. Zanthiel's hand laced with mine and he brought it to his lips to kiss my knuckles. I looked up at him and he gave me a warning look. I was going to give it away if I continued staring at Adrius. I knew that. But for the first time that night, I saw something in Adrius' eyes. A flicker of his true self was still in there. Venus' spell hadn't erased it entirely. Which meant there was a glimmer of hope. He wasn't lost forever as everyone insisted.

He would never hurt me.

He could be saved.

“We have to do something. Tonight.”

Zanthiel narrowed his eyes. “And this is still for the sake of freeing the prince, not because you want him back in your life?”

I could hardly blame him for being skeptical. But I had to do this. I made a promise to break the binding curse no matter what. And, I might as well admit it, Zanthiel was right. I needed to know if what he felt for her was real, for the sake of closure if nothing else.

“We have a future already laid out for us,” I said to him. “But I gave my word to do everything I could to undo this. That still stands. You know it does.”

He nodded once. “Then I will speak with Hawthrin.” He took a few steps, then returned to my side. “Do try to keep out of harm's way while I am gone,” he said. Then he left.

I surveyed the room, so empty of the wonder and mysticism it once had the first time I was here, filled with amazing beings too unbelievable to be real. Yet today, I watched with another feeling entirely. It was no longer a magical place. It was a prison. A place full of people determined to enslave me to a future I wanted no part of.

Venus came to me with a glass in hand. “Here, a toast to wonderful beginnings,” she said.

I wanted to keep pretending. I did. To play along and act the part as Hawthrin had instructed me to. But something snapped. I felt like a guitar string stretched too tight. I took the glass and threw the contents in her face. “This is not a beautiful beginning for you, Venus. It's going to be your beautiful ending.” I dropped the glass on the floor. It shattered, bits of golden glass sprayed around me, catching the attention of a few beings nearby. They beamed and moved in closer, always hungering for bloodshed.

Several servants rushed forward to wipe her face with delicate napkins and she brushed them away. Venus sneered at me. “Is that what you believe?” she said under her breath.

“It's what I know. Once I'm queen, there will be nothing to stop me from coming after you and hunting you down.”

Julien arrived at my side just as Adrius came to hers. “Maybe we should take a little breather, princess,” he said, clasping my elbow.

Venus raised her hand, but then noticed the growing audience and restrained herself. After all, she was trying to convince Etienne, the elven king, she was a suitable partner for his son. Despite being a witch, she'd already gained his favor, having turned me in. I doubted she'd risk a scene in the middle of his Solstice Ball.

I let Julien lead me a little further away but then I stopped to listen to the rest of their conversation.

“Do you see what I have to endure from her, Adrius? We need to leave.”

“This is a gathering in my father's court. You know I cannot leave,” he said stoically, his gaze following me.

Her aura turned lethal. She lashed out at him, fury making her hands tremble as she yanked his face back toward hers. Dark magic flowed through her fingertips. “You would let her speak to me like that? Treat me this way in your own home?”

He didn't respond, his gaze fixed on the ground next to his feet. But I could see the vein in his neck pulsing, the muscles of his jaw clenching and unclenching. He was fighting it, but she was affecting him.

Adrius turned, slowly and mechanically. His eyes glazed over and an inky-like black liquid bled into the whites turning them onyx. Then oily blackness cleared and he set his cold determined glare on me.

“What have you done to him?” I cried. I rushed forward, but Zanthiel held me back. My breath caught in my throat. Adrius was gone, and what remained was unrecognizable.

“Adrius, you will leave this place with me now or I vow I will return to the human world and kill everyone that insipid half-breed cares about. Then I'll kill her too,” she shouted.

“No,” Adrius said in a hollow voice. The black liquid in his eyes swirled then disappeared once more as he blinked. He took a step closer, a slow wicked grin stretched across his face.

“You aren't going to kill her—“

“I am.”

 

 

Zanthiel led me away from them, but not before I saw the pure malice in Adrius' face. My emotions were on a merry-go-round. Common sense said I should be frightened. But I wasn't.
He didn't mean it. He couldn't mean it.
I refused to accept the boy I'd loved, who used to love me, would take my life. He'd fought it before and I had to believe he'd fight it again.

Thankfully, Zanthiel hadn't heard what he'd said. I couldn't imagine what level of destruction would have occurred if he had. We wove through the crowd, holding hands, playing the happy couple and pausing to receive countless well wishes. When we passed by the orchestra I pulled away from him. A young boy was playing the most exquisite music, and I was frozen in place by his tune.

“He's amazing.” I said, when Zanthiel returned to my side. Closing my eyes I lost myself in the melody, composing a counter melody in my head. I didn't realize I'd been singing aloud until Zanthiel put a cold finger over my lips.

“Do not do that. Unless you want to be lulled into a trance, and gifted to the highest bidder in a bargain,” he said in a hushed tone.

I shuddered but immediately stopped singing. I had enough problems to deal with, and I didn't need to add to the mountain. The boy wasn't from this world, that was evident, but as I studied him, I noticed his hands. They were raw and bleeding… as though he'd been playing for days. Which likely he had been. That cruel fate was usually given by the fey. It was strange to see it happening in the elven court of Mythlandria.

Like the rest of the humans, he was half-drunk from the music wafting through the room. Driven to madness by the intensity. It was easy to see why they had no capacity for this level of pleasure. No one of non-magical blood could survive that much pleasure at once. It was death by bliss, an overstimulation of pleasure hormones leading to shock and mental breakdown. I'd learned that, of those who returned to the mortal world, many committed suicide, because of never being able to recreate that feeling of pure euphoria. Apparently there was such a thing as too much pleasure.

My heart ached for him. He was probably not feeling the pain his body was going though, yet still, it was a horrible fate to live out, to play on command at the will of another until death. My eyes drifted closed. His music was lovely. It was no wonder the king favored him. “It's like a fairytale,” I whispered.

Zanthiel scoffed. “You must not put such faith in fairytales. They are make-believe. The fodder of legends and fantasy.”

“So were you not too long ago.” I reached over and pinched his arm, not too hard, but hard enough for him to pull back. “Yet you seem pretty real now.”

My gaze darted back to the boy. “We need to get him out of here. They'll make him play until he dies.” I turned in the direction of the musician, but Zanthiel stepped in front of me, blocking my path.

He narrowed his eyes. “You should not put your faith in me either,” he said.

“I'm not. But in spite of everything, I still have faith that good triumphs over evil. Know where I learned that? In fairytales.”

The boy continued to play his lyre, while droplets of blood dripped from his blistered fingers. I had to go to him. To demand his release. If I was going to be queen, I should have some pull in court. There had to be something I could offer in exchange for his freedom. He was a human. He didn't belong here. My world needed his gift. Music had far more magical powers in a world without magic than in one made of it.

But Zanthiel grabbed hold of my arm. “Wait.” He of course knew exactly what I was intending. I watched for a beat longer before yanking my arm away.

Suddenly, the king raised his hand, giving his permission to stop. The boy collapsed in a heap on top of his instrument, his arms raw and bruised from endless hours of playing.

I shrugged out of Zanthiel's attempt to restrain me and rushed toward the boy, but again he stopped me. “You are a future queen,” he hissed under his breath. “You do not run to the aid of an underling, nor rise to greet any being below your station at any time.”

I rolled my eyes and tried to pull away, but he held fast. If there'd been any doubt in my mind before, there wasn't any now. I could never be a ruler in this land. Not when doing so would mean exacting cruelty and punishments with a cold, unfeeling heart. It would never be something I could do. I would always want to help. To heal. It was who I was and who'd I'd always be.

The musician might never recover from his fate of eternal performing, even though his life had been spared. Experiences from this realm stayed with you, casting an indelible stain on your soul… like the people.

Elven nurses came to him, lifting his body onto a stretch of fabric before ushering him away. I recognized the one who'd injected me with a mysterious blue substance when I'd first arrived in Mythlandria. I'd feared all of them at the time, even Adrius, but eventually came to see them for who they were.

What sort of deal had that boy struck to break free of his fate? I'd be willing to try the favor tactic myself to be free of this prophecy, if I wasn't positive they'd demand the skin off my body, or my firstborn child.

***

“Well, well, I understand congratulations are in order, princess. Not the play I was expecting, but you outmaneuvered my father, so well done.” Julien handed me a silver goblet filled with frothy liquid that changed colors every few seconds.

“Thanks,” I said as I promptly set it down on the nearest tree stump.

“Where is your feathered half?” He smirked.

“Please don't make jokes,” I said, crossing my arms. “There is nothing funny about any of this.”

When I looked around for Zanthiel, I was startled by what I saw. There on the stage amongst the elven musicians sat Zanthiel.

“He's going to play with them now?” I asked Julien.

He shrugged, at least as perplexed, if not nearly as interested as I was. “It looks like your unification crusade is working, princess.” He lifted his drink to me and wandered off.

This wasn't my unification crusade, and I felt like a fraud for pretending it was. It was a means to an end, a way to be free of constant death threats and bounty hunters. If my impending marriage to Zanthiel united kingdoms in the process, all the better. But all I wanted was to restore things to how they were and go home.

Music swelled, filling the air with a palpable sensation. The song was a haunting lullaby. The more I tried to ignore it, the more it called to me, pulling me to it. Lilting. Pulsing. Irresistible. I drifted toward the sound, uncertain of what I'd find at its source. I should have known it would be Zanthiel. My angel of music. He was playing an instrument I'd never seen before, but it resembled a violin, only larger and with a different shape and a deeper sound. I'd heard his voice in my head for as long as I could remember. It was amazing, somber and clear. But that violin, that music like water rolling over your skin like waves, it was music that could make you forget yourself entirely.

I wandered trance-like to the edge of the stage. “You're amazing,” I said when he stopped playing. “I've never heard you play, well…
anything
before.” Aside from the melodies he put in my head, this was the first time hearing him actually perform them.

“I play a great many things, Lorelei,” he said without changing position. I'd hoped it meant he would continue, but he didn't. Instead, he set the instrument aside and climbed down from his perch.

“Are you still intent on destroying Venus' magic?”

I shook my head. “Wow. Okay, that was random.”

“Are you or aren't you?” he repeated intently.

Only with every fiber of my being.
“Yes. Why?”

“I have an idea. A way that you might be able to stop her.”

“I am all ears.”

“If we can obtain the Shaqua band, kept here in the Citadel, perhaps there will be an opportunity to lock it on to her and suppress her magic.”

“How exactly would we do that? I mean, isn't it under heavy guard?” With Adrius, his father and his brother here, not to mention dozens of Mythlandrian guards, stealing it would be next to impossible.

“I have an idea I need to explore, but it will require that you keep both Venus and Adrius occupied. Can you do that?”

“Of course.” I nodded confidently. Inside, my brain was screaming,
A
re you crazy?
The last thing I wanted was to play nice with the two people I least wanted to be around.

“Can you do that without getting yourself killed?” he rephrased, narrowing his eyes.

That was a different question entirely. How was I ever going to keep them busy enough not to notice he was missing? Then I spotted Julien.

“Not sure. But I'll convince Julien to help you find it. At least that way you'll have one elven prince on your side if you get caught.”

“I will not get caught.”

For all of our sakes I hoped he was right.

King Etienne approached us and clapped Zanthiel on the back. “Well done.” He turned to me. “Lorelei. I trust no hard feelings or lingering resentment remain.”

After such a great party, how could I not forgive you for trying to have me killed by the boy I used to love
?
“Of course not.” I smiled.

“Come, you must perform once more for us,” King Etienne encouraged.

Zanthiel glanced at me and I gave a brief nod. Whatever it took.

He rejoined the musicians on stage, playing their foreign and enchanting instruments.

Zanthiel's music was as evocative and haunting as he was, intoxicating in a way it had never been before, so beautiful it hurt to listen to it. It was a song of desire. Betrayal. More real than any dream I'd ever dreamed, yet equally as unattainable. I couldn't bear to hear another note, yet I couldn't force myself to leave. I found myself pulled into the tune, unable to turn away until I'd sung its seductive melody, one I didn't actually know, and yet the words formed themselves on my tongue. I could sense them, feel them, taste them. Every delicious word.

And so I sang as he played and the room fell into a trance, pulled under by our spell until the last note set them free. I opened my eyes to find myself in Zanthiel's cool embrace. He looked down at me with glittering eyes, brimming with unspoken emotion.

I pulled away, trying to regain myself, my center.

“That was... beautiful,” I said quietly.

He nodded his thanks, then turned to greet the others who were now swarming us to offer their praise and congratulations.

We must have put on quite a show, because there wasn't a soul in that hall who didn't buy us as the happy couple to be. It didn't matter if they agreed with our union or wanted it or not, they believed it. That was what mattered.

From the corner of my eye I noticed Adrius watching us. Again. He was exchanging words with Venus. I watched him sneak out through a passage deep in the back, normally reserved for servants. I managed to sneak away from the crowds to follow him. I checked behind me to make sure I'd remained unseen, before I darted into the night.

“Hello, Lorelei,” he said before he even turned to look at me.

I slowed my steps, not sure what to expect when he did turn around.

He doubled back and grabbed hold of my arm. “Are you following me?”

I started, and my heart leapt into my throat. “No.”

His gaze was empty and vacant, like someone else had moved into his body and taken over.

Zanthiel stepped out from the shadows and grabbed Adrius by the throat. “Release her,” he ground.

Adrius held on a breath longer, then he let go. My arm burned from his touch.

Zanthiel shoved him back. “If you touch her again, I will end you.” The words were low, uttered under his breath, but it was the promise behind the steely threat that made me vibrate with fear.