In my mind’s eye, I could see the miniature Violet pushing the eight-year-old me on that swing, pushing me higher and higher so that I could reach the heavens. I missed that feeling of infinite possibilities, the thought that anything could happen if you believed hard enough. I had really assumed that, if I swung high enough, I would reach the goddess. Stupid, I thought now, but what I wouldn’t give to feel like that again. I perched myself upon the swing, but it just wasn’t the same.
Clifton sat down on the other swing. “Is something wrong?”
“Do you ever wish that you could relive a chapter in your life?”
He thought hard for a moment before answering. “No. I didn’t have a good childhood, and after that I was working all the time just to scrape by.”
“There isn’t anything in your life that made you happy? Nothing you cherish in your memories? Or something that you look back on and you can’t help but smile?” I knew that there had to be something. It would be a shame if he’d lived his whole life and not experienced at least one moment of happiness.
The curves of his lips turned upwards. “Well there is this one thing that kind of sticks in my head.”
“Well?”
“One day, not too long ago, I was having a pretty bad day. I was sitting out on my front patio feeling pretty crappy about my life. And when I looked up I saw this beautiful woman moving all of her stuff into the apartment right above mine. There was something special about this girl. She called out to me without even saying a word. And I knew that someday she would feel the same way for me that I had felt for her on that wonderful day.”
I blushed. “So, what happened to this mystery girl?”
“Well, she blew me off every time I tried to talk to her. She made stupid excuses like I have to work, or my personal favorite I have to take a shower. I mean how many showers can a person take in one day? I think that her record was five.”
“So, how does this tragic love story end?”
“I think that she moved to Mexico to get away from me. There were words exchanged, something about a restraining order, I’m not quite sure.” He sounded as serious as he could, but he cracked a smile anyway. “You hungry?”
“I could eat.”
We sat in the comfy grass under the shade of the large oak tree to enjoy our lunch. The cook had outdone himself. There was enough food in that basket to feed three people for an entire day.
When we were done eating Clifton pushed me on the swing. It was nice. We talked for hours about my life growing up here in Kortis, and about my life in the human world. Clifton just listened for the most part since he didn’t want to talk about his crummy life. I was the only happy memory that he knew, and I felt a little sorry for him about that. Though my life had been no heaven, I at least had many fond memories to look back on.
An exhilarating idea occurred to me. I wanted to go for a swim. I stood up and walked over to the edge of the cliff and stared down at the crystal clear water some thirty feet below.
“What are you doing?” Clifton asked.
I turned just my head back to him and flashed him a big smile.
“You’re not going to jump, are…”
Before he could finish, my feet had left the ground. The free fall took mere seconds, but it felt much longer. Time seemed to stand still. The wind rippled around my body as I descended farther and then…splash. I hit the frosty water hard, and sank willingly into its depths.
Chapter Five
I felt content in every aspect beneath the surface. Two sea turtles swam next to each other a few feet in front of me. They glided without sound through the water then disappeared in the darkness beyond my sight. There was such beauty in this world, so much of it that I had yet to experience.
The light from above rippled through the water, making it sparkle with multi-toned facets of blue. I let the weight of my body carry me down further while staring up. The light was getting darker now. It was getting more difficult to see where the water met the sky. I touched down on the ocean floor and just lay there, feeling relaxed. I would have been happy to just stay there for the remainder of my days. Content to just marvel in the natural beauty of the ocean.
The water rippled above me as something hit the water. It was Clifton. I smiled as he swam towards me. He looked concerned. Perhaps he thought I’d drowned or something. I waved at him when he was close enough to see me well enough and his obvious anxiety faded away.
I grabbed his hand and pulled him to me, situating him behind me with his legs wrapped around mine. We sat there in silence—as it was impossible to talk underwater—just listening to the soothing sounds of the ocean and watched the fish swim by.
It is hard to describe how just being in the ocean makes you feel. Humans would never know the joy of it. Sure there are people who scuba dive and snorkel, but to get the full effect of it you needed to be free of all that. To genuinely experience it you needed to be able to open yourself up to it, be able to breathe in the crisp clean water and let it embrace you. I could understand why so many of my kind chose to live here. It was going to be hard to persuade myself to leave.
I spotted a large eel slithering through the water and my serenity dissipated a little. This, of course, was no ordinary eel. This was Kafkus in his other form. I held up my arm and pointed back the way he’d come. I was more than annoyed that he’d been following us, let alone the fact that he was now spying on us.
Kafkus didn’t take the hint. Instead, he continued swimming in our direction as if he didn’t see my rude gesture, which I knew that he had. Maybe he thought that I didn’t recognize him, if that was the case, he was wrong. I could have picked him out of a hundred eels, though I wasn’t sure why. He had no defining characteristics that made him stand out from the rest. Maybe it was just his powerful presence that I could feel.
Since he didn’t seem to want to listen, I thought I might torture him into leaving. I climbed onto Clifton’s lap, straddling him, and kissed him. Clifton hesitated in kissing me back. He seemed troubled by the approaching eel, though I was certain that he didn’t know why he should be. I grabbed Clifton’s hand and placed it on my breast, hoping to spark an interest in him. It worked. He began kissing me harder, with more enthusiasm.
Kafkus began to swim around us, circling us. I paid no attention to him. I focused my full attention on Clifton’s kiss. I got lost in it for a moment, and when opened my eyes Kafkus was gone.
I pulled away from Clifton and motioned to the surface. He took the hint and kicked off the ocean floor after me.
“What was that about?”
“Just trying to get rid of a nosy Zolera.”
“I had a feeling that the eel wasn’t what it seemed to be.”
“You will find a lot of that here. It’s always hard to know if you are really alone or not. We should probably start heading back.”
My mother was waiting for me when we reached the castle.
“Clifton, may I please have a moment alone with my daughter?”
“Yes, my Queen. I will just, uh, be in the living room.” He bowed and went inside.
I was getting pretty irritated with everyone leaving Clifton out of everything. He was my Zezka after all, and deserved to be clued in. If my mother didn’t look so distraught already I would have voiced my annoyance. But she did look upset so I kept my big mouth shut.
“What do you wish to speak to me about mother?”
“I fear for your safety, Quartessa. Your father has been acting very odd as of late, as if he knows something. He will not speak to me about it and I fear that it involves you.” Her voice was calm but she was looking close to tears.
“I don’t know what you want me to do about it. He wouldn’t tell me anything either.” I felt agitated as I remembered my previous conversation with my father.
“He wants you to stay.”
“Yeah, he told me that.”
Her sadness seeped to her eyes. “You know that he would not ask you to stay if he did not know s
omething big. He knows your reasons for leaving as well as I do.”
“It doesn’t matter. You may be happy here, mother, but I will never be. You know this.”
“I just have this horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach, Quartessa. It feels like death and decay.”
“It couldn’t have anything to do with the Ring of Eccus, could it?”
“I do not think so. It feels related somehow, but not entirely it.”
“Look mother, if you came here tonight to try to scare me into staying, your efforts have been in vain. I will be returning to the human world just as soon as we have received word back from father’s guards.”
She looked saddened, rather than angered, by my unkind words. “I only wish to keep you safe. You are my only daughter.”
I felt my anger vanish as I looked into her caring face and tear-laden eyes. “I know, mother. If I thought that I could be happy here, then I would stay. But we both know that will never happen. I can’t just stay here for you. I am a grown woman and I make my own choices now.” I hoped she could understand.
“I know, Quartessa. It is just that I worry about you.”
I gave her a warm, heartfelt hug. “I know, mother.” I could feel her body quiver against me in her anguish. I did hate to see her this way.
“I only wish that things could be different,” she whispered with genuine remorse.
If I could live the life that I wanted here, then I would never have to put my mother through the heartache that she now endured. If I had been free to make my own decisions, my own choices, things would be different. If Clifton could be accepted for who he was and not crucified for whom he shared his bloodline with, I would be more than happy to stay. But none of that would ever happen, and because of that, I would choose to leave. The only real choice that I’d ever had here.
She pulled away from me and dried her tears on her gown. “I am so sorry that your father has pushed you away with his laws, when all he has ever wanted was to be close to you.”
“I’m sorry for that too.”
My mother left without another word. I don’t think she could maintain her attempt at semi-composure any longer.
My mother’s talk had left me feeling down. I grabbed Clifton before heading up to my room. From the way my face was stuck, he didn’t pry into how the talk with my mother went.
I gazed around my bedroom, taking in the familiar atmosphere. Try as I might to escape it, this would always be my home. This was the room that I had lived in for the first nineteen years of my life. It was where I had had tea parties and sleepovers with Violet.
Why couldn’t I just be happy here? Why did I have to be so different from the rest of my family? Why did I have to be so free-spirited, headstrong and stubborn? Why couldn’t I just be happy with being a princess? Little girls, whether human or Zolera, pretend and dream of being princesses. Why was it so hard for me?
Sometimes I wished that I had been born to human parents so that I would know nothing of this place. Ignorance is bliss, so they say, and I could understand the meaning behind it. I was doomed to live between two worlds and never belong to either of them. I felt like an alien in my own skin, not fitting in anywhere, except with Clifton. Clifton validated me. He made me feel like there was at least one person in my two worlds who understood me, someone that I felt I truly belonged with. I felt so lucky that I had found him. My soulmate. My love. My Zezka.
“I’m going to grab a shower, you want to join me?” He smirked, and then followed me into the bathroom.
The astonishment on Clifton’s face when he saw the shower was amusing. It wasn’t so much a shower as a cascading waterfall that fell into a large pool of sparkling water. The walls were carved from rock by hand. This was a scene that you would usually find only outdoors. I loved this shower. I always wished that I could take it with me.
When we were all clean, I rummaged through my closet, looking for something to wear. I didn’t feel much like wearing my soggy clothes but I also didn’t want to wear what was in my closet here. All I had were golden dresses that looked like something the Romans would have worn. At least they were clean, right? I found a decent one and put it on. It was sleeveless and tight, falling just past my knees.
There was nothing for Clifton to wear though. I couldn’t put him in royal gold. My father would throw a fit. In the back of my closet, I found a long, white strapless dress and pulled it out.
“I am not wearing a dress.”
I couldn’t help but laugh at the indignant look on his face. “Trust me. It will not look like a dress when I’m done with it.”
I ripped it at the seam and wrapped it around Clifton’s waist a few times. The material fell past his knees. I pulled the remainder of fabric up and over his chest, tucking the material into itself at his butt.
He walked over to a mirror to check himself out. “I guess it’s ok. It is not too different from what some of the others were wearing.”
I stepped behind him and wrapped my arms around his waist, hugging him from behind. “I think that you look handsome.”
“Quartessa!” my father called up the stairs.
“What?!”
“My guards have returned! Come!”
I was instantly nervous with the news. Clifton turned around, staying in my arms and kissed me. “Let’s go down so we can find out how to save your life. Then, with your consent, I would love to make you my wife.”
I said nothing. I just tried to give him a passable smile.
I loved Clifton, and I wanted to be with him. But I didn’t think that I was ready for marriage just yet. To be tied down to one man for the rest of my life just seemed wrong somehow. The Zolera live for a long time, most over five-hundred years. My father was somewhere in his six-hundreds. That seemed an awfully long time to be trapped with one man. There were no divorces amongst my species. It was literally till death do you part (except in Drina’s case of course). But maybe if I got this ring off I would feel different. Maybe the prospect of marriage would be appealing after getting my life back.
I wouldn’t answer him now. I just grabbed his hand and headed downstairs.
********************
Everyone was gathered in the throne room. There were two large golden seats along the back wall and both my mother and father were occupying them looking annoyed. Quino, Barossa and Byron were kneeling in front of my father. Many others stood around the room. I didn’t see Gader anywhere, perhaps he was with Gwinny.
When my father spotted me, he stood, and everyone else rose with him. “Come here, my daughter.” There was sadness in his words that didn’t bode well with me.
“Stay here,” I whispered to Clifton and then left him before he could reply.
My father grabbed my hand and held it tight, talking only to me. “My guards have informed me about this ring that rests on you, Quartessa.” He sighed and gazed away from me for a moment before bringing himself to look at me again. “The spell that they use to bind the ring to you is complicated and it takes several weeks to complete. I am told you should have been aware of it, felt something. Can you think of anything?”
It didn’t take much thought for me to answer. “I’ve had horrible nightmares for the past few weeks, though I could never remember them. The last one happened the night before I was attacked. Could that be what you are talking about?”
His face fell. “Yes, that sounds like what my guards have described. That means the spell has fully bound the ring to you, and there is only one way to remove it.”
“And that is?” I didn’t care what it was. I would do it.
“You must kill the Boru who placed it on you, only then will you be free of it and regain your life. Though, I must warn you, Quartessa, no one has worn the ring and lived.”
My heart sank.
Kafkus took a step towards me. “I will accompany you back to the human world and help you all that I can, if you will let me.”
I eyed him with desperation. “You could kill him, right?
This ring has sucked my power from me. I won’t stand a chance against him.”
He frowned, his face full of understanding. “No, I can merely assist you. You must deliver the killing blow, only then can you break the spell.”
I understood, but it didn’t make it any easier. I needed Kafkus’ strength and expertise. I needed to put aside my annoyances with him. It was hard since I had resented him for so long. But he was offering himself to me willingly. I couldn’t say no. I placed a hand on his shoulder. “I graciously accept your help, Kafkus.”
I looked at my father, a plea inside of me that was easy to read. “I will accept the help of any who wish to join me.” I needed all the help I could get.
My father nodded and turned to face the other men with a voice of composed command. “Who else shall join my daughter? She needs protection of all willing bodies. While Kafkus is quite an able warrior the two alone will not be enough on Boru ground.”
Quino stepped forward and knelt in front of me. “I offer myself to you, Princess.”
Quino was a good man. He looked to be about thirty, but I knew he was closer to a hundred. His soft face was boyish, and would remain so for many years to come. He was tall, maybe 6’5 and bulky, not with fat, but with pure muscle. He didn’t look like one of those human bodybuilding types; it flattered him, making him look naturally strong. His eyes were a pale sky blue. His hair was also light and fell straight, just past his ears. It was almost white, yet it still emanated a light blue hue as if illuminated by his scalp. His skin was the exact opposite. It was such a dark shade of midnight-blue that it seemed black at first glance. Only the light reflecting off of it showed its true color.
I placed my hand upon his shoulder. “I accept your help, Quino.”
He smiled at me, showing off his straight and dazzling white teeth that looked even whiter in comparison to his skin’s dark hue.
My father scoped the room. “Anyone else?”
Clifton walked across the room to stand beside me. “I would give my life for you, Tessa.”
Royal Affliction (The Anti-Princess Saga) Page 8
