“I knew we would meet again, my Prince,” Aon said. His voice sounded deep and clear. “Have you finally decided that you want to know the course of your destiny?”
Elathan laughed. “You know that I prefer to choose my own destiny, my friend. Is it not enough that you told my father that he would die at the hands of his own son one day? He never looked at me with the same eyes again.” He stretched out his hand, slowly turning up his palm. “And yet my father’s blood does not stain my hand, after all these years. Will you still claim that your prediction was true?”
“Is that the reason why you went into exile, young prince?” the unicorn asked. Igraine presumed that Aon must be much older than Elathan, if he called him young, of all things. “Were you afraid that I might be right, after all? Did you deem it best to leave and choose eternal darkness over the company of your people?”
Elathan did not answer. Igraine felt a surge of pain ripping through her soul and instantly knew that it was not her own, but his. The prince let his hand drop to his side and nodded slightly to in her direction. “Look, unicorn. I brought a surprise for you. This is the Lady Igraine. You will like each other. She needs your old magic to protect her.” Then he raised his head and stared directly into Aon’s eyes. “But be careful, dragon’s son. If any harm should befall her, your horn will adorn the wall of my bedchamber very soon.”
The unicorn’s laughter sounded like a golden bell, echoing from the high walls of the cave. “As if you could surprise me! I already sensed that this human is precious to you, Sire. After all this time … A slave of pleasure, bonded in blood, united in body and soul. I never thought I would see something like this again.” Igraine shivered when Aon surveyed her with his slit pupils, silently praying that he had already eaten.
When he slowly lowered his head, the horn came threateningly near. Igraine felt Elathan’s body going rigid beside her. His hand touched the hilt of his sword, ready to draw it in the blink of an eye. But Aon touched her very gently with the sharp tip on her chest, right over her heart. Igraine felt the beast’s mind entering her, searching the very core of her being. At last he seemed to have found what he had looking for.
“You have a pure heart, human,” his deep voice whispered in her head. “Did you know that this is the only bait you need to catch a unicorn? The same way you caught the prince.” She heard him chuckle before he added, “But I feel that you do not only desire him, mortal woman. You love him.”
There was no sense in lying to a unicorn with clairvoyant powers, especially since it had decided to go for a walk through her mind.
“Yes,” her thoughts whispered. “I will love him forever, with all my heart. Even if he sends me away because he takes another mate, someone who is more worthy of him. Even if he kills me.” Her heart felt as if it would break, crying silent tears in the darkest corners of her soul.
“So you would die for him, human?” the unicorn’s voice asked.
There was no hesitation in her answer. “Yes,” she breathed, speaking it out aloud this time. She didn't notice that Elathan had wrapped his arm around her waist to hold her upright while the unicorn was speaking to her. He couldn’t hear what Aon told Igraine, but he sensed her pain and threw a reproachful glance to his mind-reading friend, letting him know that the human woman was under his protection.
“Then I will show you the future, Igraine,” Aon continued in her mind. “But are you ready to endure this knowledge? You might not like what you see. And you will not change the path of his destiny.”
“Show me,” Igraine answered. “I need to know this.”
“Then open up to me.” She felt the unicorn’s mind wander deeper into her soul, gaining even more power over her. “But to understand Elathan’s future, you will have to see the past first.”
There was no time to prepare herself for the unicorn’s attack on her mind and senses. He shut out the world and every other thought. The force of his old mind conquering her thoughts was so overwhelming she could hardly bear it. So she tried to concentrate on his powerful voice that conjured up scenes and images before her inner eye, making her feel as if she was right there, an invisible witness who could see and hear everything, but was unable to touch anything.
“The queen died shortly after Elathan’s birth,” Aon began. “King Bres was devastated by her loss, and his heart was broken.” Igraine felt as if she was actually there, at the elven court. She was standing in the great hall of a castle before the king’s throne that was set on a dais, covered with golden and silver leaves; she saw his cold, handsome face and his empty eyes that stared into the distance, void of emotion. The arrival of a noble visitor was announced. A delicate woman entered the chamber and knelt gracefully down before the king. She was not elf or human, but of another kind, reminding Igraine of the water nymphs.
“You are right,” Aon told her, reading her thoughts. “A woodland nymph, Breena. They are beautiful, but fickle and cunning, using what they have to get their way.” Her beauty was indeed otherworldly. She had midnight-black tresses almost reaching down to her waist, tiny flowers braided in. Little winged fairies played in her hair and arranged it neatly around her white shoulders while the king rose from his throne to greet her, enchanted by the nymph’s radiant smile when she looked up to the dais. Igraine could see the sudden desire in his face while he watched the nymph.
“Oh yes, he wanted her,” the unicorn said. “And he made her his queen.”
For the first time Igraine saw the two elven children standing beside the throne, partly hidden in the shadows – a boy and a girl, both of them very pale, and dressed in matching royal attire. Igraine gasped when she saw the nymph standing up and staring at the children with infinite hatred in her eyes while the king wasn’t watching. She was clearly telling them who would be their mistress from now on.
The little girl demurely dropped her gaze and retreated into the shadows, but the boy took a step forward, bravely looking the woman, who was to be his new mother, in the eyes. His face bore a stubborn, haughty expression. He boldly held the nymph’s threatening stare with his amber eyes, proudly raising his head. His face was young but strangely earnest, as if he had grown up too soon. I am royalty and your better, all of his demeanor told the nymph. She flinched before she finally turned away, having lost the silent contest against a mere child. But she would not forget the humiliation.
Igraine knew this child’s face. It was Elathan. And he had just made himself a deadly enemy.
Before she could ask what would happen next, the unicorn proceeded with his story. “If a nymph has once set her mind on something, it is hardly possible to keep her from reaching that goal. After Breena had been crowned queen, she soon bore the king another son. She named him Ruadan, and the king gave him all his attention. But Elathan, as the firstborn, was the true heir to the throne of Fearann. Ever since he was old enough to understand, Ruadan was told by his mother that he would be king one day. Elathan was in their way, and he still is, even after he left court and went into exile a long time ago. As long as he lives, no one can dispute his right to be king one day.”
Another scene appeared, with two young elven warriors training in an arena, both fighting with double swords against each other. They wore only black trousers and boots, their ivory skin glistened with sweat. One of them was Elathan, his face not scarred yet, his briskly moving body thriving with youth and strength. The other elf was his exact opposite; his long, ink black hair and beautiful exotic features marked him as the nymph’s son. He was lither than his older half-brother, smaller and not as heavily muscled. But that also gave him the advantage of being quick and more flexible; he whirled and twisted while Elathan countered him with mighty strokes of his weapon, obviously the more skilled swordsman.
Whenever Elathan turned away from his brother, Igraine could see the blatant hatred in Ruadan’s eyes. After a while his strength began to fade, staggering under Elathan’s heavy blows. As Ruadan went down on his knees, his brother stopped attacking hi
m at once, pausing to give him the chance to recover. At the same time Ruadan raised his right hand, quickly stabbing Elathan’s side with the sword. Igraine cried out. She remembered a long, puckered scar that distorted the prince’s skin there. It must have taken him a long time to heal. She had assumed that all the scars on the elf’s body were caused in battle by his enemies, not by his own kind.
Ruadan had not even enough time to realize that he had made a mistake. Elathan threw himself at him and knocked him down to the ground with his weight, his deadly blade pressed against the younger elf’s throat. “Now what will you do, coward?” he hissed at him, his eyes blazing with fury. “Poison me?”
Ruadan spat out. “That would be too easy for you, brother. Your death is inevitable, it is only a matter of time. Father already knows that you are secretly raising an army to claim the throne for yourself. He is just thinking about how to deal with a son who is a traitor.”
With one swift movement, Elathan pulled out a dagger from under his belt and sliced open Ruadan’s cheek. The wound was not deep but just enough to draw some blood, disfiguring the younger prince with a scar that would always remind him of this day.
“And this is how I deal with liars, half-nymph. If I ever catch you repeating those words, it will be your neck which is cut open the next time.” He held his sword closer to Ruadan’s throat, making him choke. “You know very well that I assembled my warriors because I learned that your own men had infiltrated the royal guard. Now why would you do that, I wonder? Methinks it is you who want to claim the throne according to your dear mother’s fondest wish.”
“Don’t speak about my mother,” Ruadan uttered disdainfully. He was so furious that he pressed himself up against the sword, not caring that the sharp blade dug into the skin of his neck. Small streams of blood emerged from the wound.
The older prince’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “I speak of whom I wish, brother. I am Elathan, heir to the throne of Fearann. You owe me fealty and subjection, never forget that.”
The image blurred and vanished slowly. Igraine just caught a glimpse of a dark-haired elven maiden who ran into the arena and shouted at the brothers to separate, begging Elathan to release Ruadan. Elathan turned his head, his posture visibly relaxing when he saw her. She was Elathan’s cousin, grown up now, and lovely beyond compare. Even if she resembled him, she seemed to be very different, dark where the prince was light, calm and contemplative in contrast to his passionate temperament. Igraine was surprised that a rush of anger ran through her. She did not like the thought that they had been so close, even if only as cousins. How could she ever compare with such perfect beauty?
She heard Aon’s laughter in her head. “Jealous, are we?” Before she could answer, he flooded her mind with a multitude of images, an overwhelming amount of information in an instant. “Stop it,” she whispered, but the unicorn ignored her wish, wanting her to see everything. Igraine's body went limp in Elathan’s arms when she was hit by the intensity of emotions he had once felt. Their connection was so strong that she shared the prince's pain while the king carved the initiation marks into his skin, knelt at his side as he wept over Ailidh’s crushed body on the battlefield. She cried with him, then trembled with hate when he cursed humanity and left his home in exile, separated from everyone he had ever loved. At last she felt a terrible, overwhelming loneliness that seemed to last forever.
“Human, you have to know that destiny has already chosen a path for Elathan,” the unicorn’s voice said. “He does not know yet, but he will return to the elven realms very soon. His people need their prince.”
“I need him, too,” Igraine dared to answer. Her heart sank with every word. She knew that he would be taken from her, but she didn’t want to know it. Not yet. Only one more night in his arms, spent in the tree-house that she had secretly enjoyed thinking of as their new home. It was the only place where he would ever belong only to her.
“And he needs you, Igraine,” Aon said. “You must stay with him until the end.”
“The end,” she whispered, wishing she could keep the unicorn out of her head if she just covered her ears with her hands. It had helped when she had not wanted to hear something as a child. But Aon showed no mercy, not caring if she wanted to know the truth or not. Her decision had been made when she had agreed to let him into her mind.
“Yes, Igraine. You saw it coming, in your dream. You always knew it was more than a simple nightmare, didn’t you? You knew it was real.”
And now the scene from her dream came back to her again, rolling over her like a wave she couldn’t hold back, no matter how hard she tried. It was just like she remembered it, but now Elathan was kneeling on a battlefield among fallen elven warriors, blood streaming out of the deadly wound where the arrow had pierced his heart.
Igraine began to fight against the vision. She didn't want to see him dying now. Not again.
“Look at him, human,” the unicorn commanded, forcing her to watch. “This is his destiny. He will be a hero to his people, praised in their songs and legends for as long as they tell them to their children at night, sitting at their fireplaces.”
“I do not care,” Igraine replied. “I will not let him die. I can’t allow this to happen.”
“It is true that the course of destiny can be changed, it has been done before. But will you pay the price?”
“I will,” she said. “What is the price, unicorn? Show me." Yet in her heart, she already knew the answer.
Before her inner eye the scene altered. This time, it was she who lay dying in the prince’s arms, a gaping wound in her chest. With his head bent forward, Elathan's face was covered by his moonlight hair that spilled all over her, drenched in her own blood. She felt the sudden urge to brush it back from his brow, to see if he cried for her.
“I can’t feel sorry for you,” the unicorn told her, “for it is not in my nature. But I wish I could have shown you something else. Now it is your destiny to choose. Will it be you … or him? I cannot see everything that awaits you, but I know that only one of you can live.”
“He will live,” Igraine decided, not hesitating for a moment. “If you believe that I even need to think about this, you are very wrong, unicorn. The storytellers will have to find another hero. I never cared too much about old legends anyway.”
“Then it is done,” Aon said. “You need some rest now, human.”
And her world went dark.
Chapter 17: Sleeping Beauty
Elathan carried Igraine out of the caves, cursing the damn unicorn with every step he took. She still lay unconscious in his arms, her head lolling against his chest while he walked. Her eyes were closed, her lashes throwing dark shadows on her pale cheeks. Too pale, he decided. What had Aon done to his human?
“Nothing,” Aon had said when a very angry prince had confronted him with just this question. “I only told her what she already knew.” When Elathan’s hand had moved to the hilt of his sword, fury blazing up in his golden eyes, the unicorn added, “The mortal woman will live for now, Sire. You have my word on it. But she needs to rest. The human mind was not made for the intensity of my visions.”
“What did you tell her?” Elathan’s lips were pulled back in a sneer, revealing his sharp white teeth. Aon didn’t seem to be very impressed, showing his deadly fangs in what was supposed to be a smile. “It was your choice not to know your future, my Prince,” he answered. “Your … slave,” he used the expression deliberately, grinning when the elf winced, “… it was her own wish to see what I offered to show her. So she alone will be the one who might tell you. But maybe you will never know, if she chooses to keep this in her heart.”
The prince had had enough of the unicorn’s cryptic answers. With a last warning glance to Aon, he swept up Igraine in his arms and walked away, feeling a sudden urge to leave this place, beautiful as it might be. Just because he had been living in caves for ages didn’t mean he liked them. He hated them, in fact. The forest was his home. He loved to walk under the
old trees that whispered his name whenever he came near, breathing in the fresh moist air smelling of moss and the earth, watching the animals busying themselves with hunting for food, mating and raising their offspring. Despite his immortality, having seen nearly anything, the elf never grew tired of watching the ongoing circle of life.
And he knew that he never would grow tired watching Igraine.
He directed his gaze back to her graceful, almost elven features. In her deep, exhausted sleep she looked as innocent as a child. Not even knowing what moved him to do this, he looked around to see if Aon followed him, then hugged her close and buried his face in her silky hair. Sighing, he deeply breathed in her sensual scent. Mine, he thought once again. She was his secret treasure, but much more than that. Igraine was a part of him now, she belonged only to him. And he did not intend to ever share her with anybody. He would never let her go. He simply couldn't.
Elathan didn’t need a magic flame to find his way back to the cave’s entrance. On their way into Aon’s lair he had kept everything in mind - every change of direction, every turn and bend of the tunnels. His sharp eyes could penetrate the dark well enough. When they had entered these dark corridors, the light had been for Igraine’s sake only. He didn't want her to be frightened. It brought a smile to his face when he remembered how her hand had felt in his while they searched their way through the heart of the mountain.
It was the blackest part of the night when the prince finally stepped out of the cave entrance. He was relieved to see the open sky above, glittering with stars. Elathan walked along the rock and crossed the slippery stones over the river with ease, despite the fact that he was carrying Igraine. He heard the agonized cry of a dying animal far away in the woods. It seemed as if his unicorn friend had gone hunting at last. He must have left his home of eternal darkness through other tunnels than the ones Elathan had used. Aon was the most dangerous predator in the forest, unpredictable when he went out to still his hunger. Elathan knew that the unicorn had tasted humans before, but only a few whom he had deemed worthless and impolite. The elf had kept his hand at the hilt of his sword all the time while the creature had searched Igraine’s mind. He had been ready to strike, even if he knew that a fight with the unicorn would very possibly mean his own death, too.
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