Chapter XXI
The Monster
Waiting for Cassandra to return feels like torture. Like I’ve been shackled by my wrists to hang and bleed, suffering every minute without reprieve for eternity.
Each second drags as I wander the halls of our home like a ghost without purpose—aimless, mind-numbed, left only to exist.
When my bride left, she took all color with her. My world is now shades of melancholy and desolation.
Cassandra is strong and vicious; I do not worry for her or what she sets out to do. She will become even stronger when she believes in herself, if she does not already. Cassandra will be unstoppable.
With this belief, I am sure that she will return. It feels like torture to wait, but I would suffer for her endlessly. She is worthy of my death.
With Cassandra’s presence, the castle feels alive, as if it has been returned to its golden glory—those days when splendor followed a royal court. Now, with candles refusing to stay lit, stony hallways darken. Every room is a crypt, the air damp and choked with misery.
Even I felt alive with her.
The rain pours hard, hammering angrily against the grandly arched window as I stare into the foggy distance.
A thick, grey mist engulfs the surrounding woods, rendering the towering trees of Deadwood Forest invisible. The weather joins me in mourning her absence. It is a wonder that I have managed to survive this long without her.
In the tallest tower of the castle, the cold air pierces through the cracks of stone and the turret gently sways, dangerously high into the sky.
The wind whistles. This is the place where I come to feel my mortality.
Against the sky, I am but a man again. Sometimes, this reminder is cruel and stark.
Other times, it is comforting to know there is a force greater than me.
The window opens with a creak, metal grazing against stone. From this height, as I stare down with rain and wind pelting my skin, I cannot see the ground.
I picture the last queen of this castle standing in this same arch, pausing before she throws herself from the tower into the grim fog, free-falling to her demise. Stories say she did so because she could not be with her lover.
Until now, I never understood her choice. But if something steals Cassandra from me—if something prevents me from being with her—I will choose the same.
A life without her is no life I want.
It could be hours or days before she returns. I do not know.
All I do is wait.
Movement in the castle breaks my slumber—a sound too loud to be a stray animal. When I turn, my bones crack after resting like an unchanging corpse, and my nostrils flare as I catch the faint yet undeniable aroma of blood.
It has to be her. My divine love has returned.
My chest shakes as if I can still feel the echoes of my frozen heart beating. My hand quivers when I press it over my heart, checking to see if she has somehow managed to revive a long dead man.
The moon shines through the glass as I call the shadows hiding in the turret to my fingertips.
Tendrils of them crawl up my arms, slithering around like whispers of black smoke as they consume my body.
My vision blurs, darkness surrounding me as I become one with it and I concentrate on my destination—the center of my universe.
I let the shadows envelop me until I arrive where I need to be.
The shadows retreat, curling back into the crevices where they belong, and my vision clears.
My world has returned.
Cassandra grins her bloody victory, a dark goddess perched on her throne, slick blood defiling the floor where she rests her bloody trophy—a decapitated head.
She greets me from where she lounges, impervious to the chilled air, clad only in her strength and beauty.
My eyes have never seen anything more beautiful, and if my heart could beat, it would thunder out of my chest from seeing the happiness that radiates from her. Her face I commit to memory, taking a second to immortalize this glorious moment.
Redness fills my eyes, blurring my sight, and I feel the wetness of tears splatter against my cheeks. I cry in joy, and satisfaction, that she has come into her strength.
I would say that Cassandra is ethereal, but even that word does not do her justice. No word in the human language can accurately summarize her beauty. She is everything. My everything.
Before her, I drop to my knees. “My queen.”
A lifetime will not be enough to give her everything she deserves, but I will try.