Midnight's Song (58 page)

“Oh no!” Orion exclaimed,
seeing my tears. “You’re crying! I knew this was a bad idea…I
shouldn’t have taken you here. Mrs. Dogberry’s gonna whip me now
for certain!”

I quickly wiped the tears
from my eyes and looked down at Orion.

“There will be no
whippings. Not as long as I’m here,” I firmly told him,
brightening. “I’m not crying because I’m upset, Orion. I’m crying
because I’m happy.”

“Oh,” the boy shyly smiled, running
his foot back and forth through the sand.

Orion bent down and fell
backwards playfully; drawing pictures in the sand in the same way I
had done when I was a child. Breath taken, I slipped off my shoes
and wandered closer to the waves. The sand belonged to a place that
was magical and foreign, yet it felt wholly the same as the sand on
the shores of the Katie Isles. I closed my eyes and buried my toes
into the sand, feeling them become pleasantly flooded by the cool
ocean waves.

When I opened my
eyes, I caught another glimpse of the crimson moon and smiled. Its
red aura was reflected on the ocean waters; water that was clearer
and more pristine than any coastline I’d witnessed in my life. The
waves were of a translucent and untarnished purity while everything
else in this kingdom was utterly blackened. It was almost as if
they were made of
crystal.

I happily opened my eyes
and walked back toward Orion at that moment, the little boy
grinning ear-to-ear as he molded balls of sand in his hands. Seeing
me there, he suddenly stood up and took his sandy hand into mine.
The little one led me up a hill that was a few feet away. Small
tuffs of sea-side grass had sprung up in little balding clumps all
the way up the hill, while the most beautiful apple tree sat at the
top. Its branches were coated in tiny red blossoms, all in full
bloom even at this time of year. The little boy took me and ran to
it, desiring to show me all of the spots where he and his friend
Helena practiced “sword fighting” while they bit into fresh apples
at the turn of the seasons.

In lieu of this, I
found a soft patch of ground at the trees base where I decided to
sit down and close my eyes. Before they winked closed, I saw
something that caused them to jet back open. Just a few feet away
from me, I could see the beginning of a field that was filled with
flowers that were of the deepest shades of
red.
I opened my eyes wider and
crawled forward just a few feet to investigate. When I came to the
first flower in my reach, I plucked it off of its stem and held it
in my hand. It was a delicate flower, rich in color and fully in
bloom.

As I examined it
again and again, I couldn’t help but realize its significance. I
cradled it in my hands and realized that this was a lily; a
scarlet lily.
In this
field of scarlet, something else caught my eye. Just a few more
feet away sat another lily. It seemed to be the only one in the
entire field of a different color. Before I could reach for it, the
curious child that had accompanied me plucked it off of the stem
and took a look at it himself.

“We have lots of scarlet lilies here.
I’ve never seen one like this, though,” he said to me as he carried
the bloom in his hands. The child briefly showed it to me before
pulling it away again, nearly discarding it on the ground as if it
was garbage. But, the very glimpse of it caused me to stop
him.

“Wait, wait!” I begged
Orion, quickly catching the bloom as it fell out of his hand. I
instantly caught it in mine. “Don’t throw it away. Just because
it’s different doesn’t mean that it’s unworthy. It could be a
treasure.”

“Oh, well…I guess that you
should have it then,” Orion told me, still apparently not grasping
the significance of this all in all of his childish
innocence.

I nodded and smiled,
motioning for him to go off and play as I fell back against the
base of the tree and examined the blossom in my hand. It was a
lily, just like the last. Only, it was a unique lily to these
parts. Perhaps it was even nonexistent. Orion’s words had just
confirmed it! Most of all, it was a rare lily that I had seen
blooming in an impossible place just once before.

It was a
white lily
. It was a
single, snowy flower that had poked through a sea of blood-red
blooms. Then, it did something miraculous. It opened up even more
in my hands, blooming again as I had never seen a flower do before.
Its petals became a glowing, even purer white. It did all of this
just as it sat in my hand without help of any
kind.

It bloomed without aid of any kind;
not even with a single touch of sunlight.

Scarlet lilies. Crimson
moons. Crystal seas. Darkened skies. It came to me all at once; not
too soon or too late. I thought of the time I sang beside the
Atlantic – then of the time that Aurelian and I sang under the
moon.

The song wasn’t about revolution or
requiem. It wasn’t about childish tales or propaganda. It was about
a tale that no one had ever been able to understand – a tale that
was seemingly unrelated to the song in the first place. My eyes had
finally been opened to the world that was around me, and I simply
knew that this was the answer I’d been waiting for. This was it!
This was the place that the song was about.

This was the Kingdom – the Kingdom
that sat under the midnight sky.

A second later I heard a
heavy shuffling in the sand. It was a heavier shuffling than
Orion’s small feet could have made, but I still looked in his
direction expecting that it was his doing anyway. When I opened my
eyes, however, I was met with temporary panic. Even though Orion
had been playing in the sand just a few feet away, now he was
nowhere to be found. I scanned the horizon, but I still couldn’t
find him anywhere.

“Orion?” I called out in
distress, unable to find him. “Orion!?!”

For a few moments I continued to call
out his name, panicking in lieu of the promise I’d just made him. I
had just told the boy that he’d be safe with me, and now he was
gone! What was he facing now? Could he be in danger or pain? Oh,
how could I have failed him like this?!

I nearly fell down on my knees in
despair before the figure making the shuffling noises came to my
aid and stopped me. Suddenly, my fears dissipated when I saw who it
was. The figure was trudging up the hillside in plain sight,
without a crown on his head or a sword in his hand. He came to me
humbly and simply as he was – the young man that I knew as
Aurelian.

“Elissa!” Aurelian called out, running
to my side and catching me clumsily before I fell on my knees to
the ground.

The King, quite
protective, imposed to help me stand up as if I was made of glass.
I honestly didn’t need the help. The joint action of his helping me
stand and my insistence that I try to stand up myself only caused
us to clumsily topple into each other while standing up. When we
had nearly untangled ourselves from the jumble, I looked into
Aurelian’s eyes and let out a small laugh. Seeing Aurelian standing
here, I knew that Orion must have been safe.

“The boy is safe. I just
sent him back in is all,” Aurelian assured me as we continued to
untangle ourselves.

“You really have a habit
of catching me, do you know that?” I remarked afterward, flashing
him a slight grin.

We both began laughing,
and for just a moment it almost felt like the Darkness subsided.
Silence fell upon us when we met eyes again. When I looked up at
him, it was from a different perspective. Not my mental perspective
– but my physical perspective. For a moment, I tried to ignore it
and ask him more about the children.

“Why are there so many child-servants
here? And why are they so afraid?” I posed.

“They are from the last reign,”
Aurelian darkly remarked. “They’re slaves from the families of
Faolan’s opposers – those who stood with the Light.”

“That’s horrid,” I replied.

“Every generation,
the King takes more slaves. It’s one of the ways that the Darkness
maintains its power. Take the children from the families of your
opposition and the entire land falls into submission! Today, I’m
freeing them all. But, my family’s crimes are many. I must repay
their thousands of debts. It’s one of the reasons I left this
wretched place…the one over which I am now
King
.”

Aurelian lamented on and
on, working his way up into the blackest of tones. I fell quiet as
I realized that the Darkness must have now belonged to him. He was
King – of course he had to accept it. Yet...I still didn’t sense
any of it in his true soul.

“You haven’t accepted it
yet, have you?” I murmured in disbelief, realizing that the light
was still evident.

“No…” he told me slowly. “I’ve been
fighting against it...”

I couldn’t believe
what he was saying. This curse had seemed to devouringly
monstrous…yet Aurelian had fought
it? What
kind of strength must he have mustered for that? I stared at him in
shock, quickly becoming lost in his eyes. Then, my mind came back
into reality. When I did, I quickly noticed our change in
perspective again. This time, it was getting bothersome.
Was I taller, or had he grown?
Everything that had once towered over me was now
closer to me than it’d ever been before! His eyes, his chin…it was
all at least a good four inches closer to mine.

It wasn’t much
difference, but in comparison to where I’d always stood in next to
him beforehand I could see that there definitely
was
one. Aurelian had
always been unusually tall for a person and I’d always been
unusually small for one. At least from where I was standing, it
seemed as if Aurelian had literally
shrunk
two or three inches. Either
that, or I’d grown – and I didn’t suspect that was possible at my
age. I stepped back a bit, feeling confused as I changed the topic
of the discussion.

“Aurelian, have you…gotten shorter?” I
asked, baffled.

The King hesitated. For a few moments,
I dwindled there with the flower still cupped in the palm of my
hand. Aurelian avoided my question all he could, quickly catching a
glimpse of the white lily in my hands and shifting the focus of the
conversation. All at once, he became engrossed in it.

“Where did you find this?” He asked
perplexedly.

“Blooming just a few feet from here,”
I answered.

As if desiring to display its
miraculous nature, the lily began blooming in my hand unaided once
more just as it had before. Truly, this had to be a sign of my
purity, Aurelian reasoned. Though, miraculous as it was it – like
the ring – actually made him feel slightly uncomfortable. If this
was supposed to help him dodge my questions, it wasn’t going to
help much longer.

“That’s…impossible,”
he murmured. “There hasn’t been a white flower in the entire
kingdom ever since the reign of the Curse
,
” Aurelian stared at the bloom that
was full of life in my hands. “They’re seen as symbols of
purity…but none have been able to survive here. When one tries to
bloom, the Darkness chokes it.”

Aurelian spoke as
though there were a ghost in the lily
.
I sensed his fear. Somehow, I now
had a strange connection with him that enabled me to sense these
kinds of things without even asking. That was when I became angry.
Why wasn’t he telling me the truth? What was it that he knew about
me that I didn’t, even now?

“Aurelian,” I eyed
him. “Why didn’t you tell me? This is the place my people sing
about. This is
Midnight’s
Song
, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it is.” He turned
away from me, clearly ashamed. The man acted as if I must have
found him reprehensible. It irked me to my core.

“Don’t be ashamed or upset
with me. I only want to know the truth,” I tenderly touched his
face. “No more games. You must tell me what’s going on here. Soon
we’ll be married – then there can be no secrets.”

At the mention of
our engagement, he shuddered. How could he tell me what he was
going to do? The King stared at the white lily in my hands and
shivered
.
Just as
the Darkness choked the lilies, it would choke me. Aurelian
couldn’t bear the thought of letting that happen
again.

“Elissa, there is something that I
must speak with you about…though, it is very difficult for me,” He
hesitated.

“What is it, Aurelian?” I posed in the
most understanding of tones. An excitement rang through my tone as
I spoke to him blissfully unaware of what was coming. “Please tell
me. Don’t wait another minute! I promise that whatever it is, I’ll
understand…”

“No,” Aurelian interrupted, pulling
away from me and looking downward. “I don’t believe you will. Not
this time.”

“Of course I will.
We’ve come this far. We made a
promise.
I’ve left
everything...”

“I’m the King now,
Elissa,” Aurelian coldly replied, the intensity rising with each
word. “I would’ve never chosen this. I made a promise to serve you,
but as long as I’m the King of this place…it’s a promise I can’t
keep.” My fiancé’s tone worked its way into a low, dismal whisper.
“I’m chained to this place until I die, or until the Curse is
broken. And it will never break.”