30. Kiaran
Kiaran
TWO NIGHTS UNTIL WINTER SOLSTICE…
A melie was a force. Since she woke up from whatever the fuck happened to her, she’d been speaking in riddles, plastering an everlasting, calculating smile on her face, and working furiously over her cauldron.
She’d made at least fifty vials of a bright red elixir, stashing them deep in her apothecary cabinet.
It was nearing the front and if she tried to stuff any more, I thought the shelf might collapse.
With the new found knowledge that Orla had the power to veil the curse and allow me to leave the cottage, I took to exploring the grounds around my home for the last two hundred years.
I felt useless to Amelie’s dreaming mind. Listening to her plan felt like a blip in the void I’d been in for two hundred years. Watching her have the same hope I had over and over again over the years was too much. There was also no telling her it wouldn’t work.
Amelie had studied magic over the last four months and absolutely knew more than I ever did in my hundreds of years of actually honing it.
But loopholes were strategically avoided, even when you thought you found one, it would be a dead end.
Witches were smart and cunning, they could manipulate fates to fit their perfect ideals and trick anyone into doing exactly what they wanted.
No mortal, even with Morgenstern and Bloch blood, would be able to best them.
Ethel had once told Amelie that her father’s blood was God sent.
Angels even. But I thought it was just her way of building up the good that was brought to the Forest by the Bloch’s.
Amelie went looking for answers, once again proving that she didn’t need my help.
But I hoped tonight she would humor me and go looking for more answers together.
I didn’t hold it against her that she’d made a pattern of leaving me in the cottage to worry for her.
When she was upset, she ran. She didn’t like talking to me about what was bothering her.
Maybe she felt like I wouldn’t care to hear her out, but I would listen to anything she had to say.
But recently, all she wanted to talk about was Solstice, and it was the one thing I couldn’t entertain.
We only had a few days left together and spending them on pointless tries would be wasteful.
I also didn’t want to spend it on the outs, she was different last night.
Every morsel of her body exuded power in a way I only knew of the High Priestess holding.
A confidence rippled from her that could bring a grown man to his knees. And it did.
After inspecting the ninth frog that floated around the pond today, I went back to the cottage to find Amelie still working away at the boiling pot in front of her.
At some point, you’d think my girl would learn to tie her hair back but as usual, it was falling into the cauldron in lush waves.
A few strands were stuck to her forehead from the sheen of sweat.
“Good! You’re back,” she exclaimed as I closed the door behind me. “So, as you know,” she looked up at me through thick, dark lashes, “because you’re snoopy. Orla’s journal had all kinds of spells in it. ”
“And?” I motioned for her to continue because she loved to pause to make sure I was listening.
“And there’s one in here about making your dreams a portal.
How to escape by dreaming, you don’t even have to fall asleep!
It’s essentially day dreaming, and if you do it right, you can bring people with.
She has all kinds of stuff documented on the Bloch…
magic .” She was so excited I worried she might fall straight into the goo she was stirring.
I took my place behind her and began to cross the strands as she continued.
“We can make it look just like what the sacrifice is supposed to look like. Then your curse will unlock.”
I got to the thin part of the braid and motioned for our Orla to tie it together.
“Amelie…” I rolled my eyes, wanting to never speak of trying to trick the curse again.
She spun around, swiping my masterpiece of a braid through the cauldron. I reached behind her, pulling it out and crossed it over her shoulder. Amelie smiled but was completely unfazed by her hair dripping with a thick red liquid.
“It’ll work, I swear!”
Her golden rivers were portals all by themselves, completely wild and full of hope.
She had to be as unsure of it working as I was that it wouldn’t.
She wasn’t practiced enough to even attempt it.
Since I told her the exact words the High Priestess used to curse me, she hadn’t let it go that there was a way to work around it.
A mirror, whatever the hell that meant. It was almost insulting that she assumed I hadn’t thought of any other way.
“Kiaran you have magic too. You are capable and–” I cut her off with a soft kiss to her lips. “Amelie, I won’t listen to any more of this.”
Her face fell, betrayed that my kiss wasn’t done with romantic intent but rather a way to stop her from finishing her sentence. The gold that I treasured in her eyes dimmed, nearly to a bronze color as if I alone deflated her excitement.
“I can’t just not try to save us,” she admitted, bowing her head and letting out a quiet whimper.
I cupped her cheeks and forced her teary eyes to look at mine.
Every time she cried, my heart cracked open.
The sapphire color emulated the deepest part of the sea in Avonya.
The tears began to fall looking like gentle waves rolling onto her sand colored cheeks.
“I won’t help you get yourself killed.”
“So you’re just giving up?”
No. I wasn’t. But I couldn’t tell her that. She’d never let me sacrifice myself for her.
And I didn’t need her to save me. My girl was always dreaming of someone saving her but if given the chance, I knew she’d never let anyone take her burden and bear the weight. If I tried to lift it off of her shoulders, she’d wrap herself back up in it like it was a precious childhood blanket.
I never wanted to be needed. I wanted to be left alone, no responsibilities, no one to depend on me.
Then I couldn’t disappoint someone I cared about.
The one time I took on a burden I was cursed to a cottage so far from home that even my loudest cries into the night for my mother didn’t reach her. Or at least she never reached back.
The High Priestess’ wicked words kept reminding me of how little I meant to this world, no one could love you .
But I loved Amelie, she swore she loved me back. She was everything to me. She broke up my dark clouds with her sunlight. Her presence alone could assure that if only for a moment, everything could be okay.
“I’m still here, pretty girl. You’re acting like you’ve already lost me.
” My heart thudded slow at the false reassurance I gave her.
Her eyes softened as she laid her hands over mine on her cheeks.
Stroking my fingers gently, she took a deep breath before steeling her features and retreating behind the iron shield she used to ward off anyone from getting too close to her.
“You won’t be in a matter of days if you don’t start helping me.” Then she peeled my hold on her face away and turned back to her boiling pot of spells. She was pushing me away. Again.
The last night before the Winter Solstice…
Dinner tonight might as well have been in an underground pit of snakes. I sighed earlier, more or less just breathed a bit louder than normal, and Amelie asked me if I could not do that, not breathe. I shifted on the bench and it made a tiny creak and she rolled her eyes.
I hadn’t even spoke a true sentence but I was sure if I did she’d take her fangs out and sink the venom straight into my blood.
The gold in her eyes was on fire and I decided it was a nice feature for her emotions to be on such clear display through her eyes. Even if it was petrifying to be on the other end of those emotions.
With my new found ability to leave the cottage, I hoped Orla might let us go for a night out in the Forest together.
“Finish eating and grab your cloak.” I wiped the sides of my mouth with my napkin and stood from the table.
“Can’t. I have things to do,” she replied immediately without looking up from her plate.
“Wasn’t a question. I’ll be back down in a minute.”
Amelie was stubborn. More stubborn than my mother, which was hard to beat. But I knew she liked me telling her what to do, even if she protested it. She was too curious to not follow along .
I took the stairs to the attic quickly and paced around my room for a moment to make it seem like I was doing something important. I wasn’t.
Silverware clanged against the plate entirely too hard and I smiled to myself when I heard her push back from the table with a grunt and stomp to her room.
Her footsteps slowly entered the kitchen again and the creaks back and forth told me she was waiting. Descending the stairs, I pulled my cloak around my shoulders and gave her a half grin, trying to keep my excitement for our outing tied up beneath my features.
I grabbed her hand and pulled her out the door with me.
“Absolutely despicable that Orla has apparently been able to do that the whole time.” I told her as we left the cottage together for the first time.
Amelie giggled to herself but when I looked back hoping to catch a glimpse of her smile, she shut it down.
I had a surplus of magic to use without the effects of Amelie’s veil or the added elixirs and I wanted to make our last night together something special.
“Do you trust me?” I asked, stopping her at the edge of the clearing.
“No,” she lied.
I tilted my head at her and shot an annoyed glance at her.
“Say yes.”
“Fine. I trust you.”
“Good girl.”
Taking her arms and placing them over my shoulders, I pulled out a move that would hopefully impress my girl.
Melting our bodies into one another, Amelie’s eyes widened as we disappeared and reappeared above the trees.
It’d been a long time since I’d flown, and never had I done it with someone wrapped around me.
I had to find my balance in the air, unlike the Fae or the clumsy butterflies who had wings, my flight was completely based on my own balance and focus.
Amelie had a habit of making me lose my focus.
So I had to try extra hard to not be distracted by her soft hair gently breezing across my face or the smell of vanilla and strawberry that surrounded me.
“Kiaran!” she shrieked as she took notice of our proximity to the ground below us.
“Just hold on.” I reassured with a kiss on her cheek and then took a smooth glide through the cool, winter air. The tops of the trees danced for us, their leaves and branches moving together in complete synchronicity.
Amelie sunk into my chest, squeezing her arms around my neck tight as she twisted her head to see the view below us.
“Oh my god…” she muttered. I smiled to myself.
I knew my dreamy girl would love this. The view from the top of the world was always better than seeing what was right in front of you.
It’s harder to notice mistakes, crying sounded like laughter, faces were masses of people, dead leaves were blended in with the bright greens so they seem less significant against the brush.
She preferred her dreams to reality because she designed them to be better. She curated a fantastical world to live in while she slept and found a way to make them a portal so they felt real enough to continue to matter when she woke up.
From up here, the cottage was small. The curse that tied me to it was a piece of thread rather than a tether between the curse and freedom.
Even I could understand why she so often dreamed of worlds so different than our own, but eventually, we would land.
The worries that walked with us on the ground would surround us again and escape would be only that.
The faint orange glow I was en route to grew brighter as we approached. The sounds of many men laughing and playful music sounded from below us as we hovered over top of the Lost Souls.
“Ready?” I asked her as I idled above the group of friends and family below. Amelie turned her head back to me with a shy smile on her face and nodded.
I landed us safely on the edge of the clearing, ahead of us all of Amelie’s grandfathers sat around the same fire tossing back mugs of ale and laughing together.
Her shy smile grew with joy as I placed a hand to her lower back and led her toward her family.