by Carli Castle
“I will do whatever I have to,” Father told her, still standing there next to her mother. “I don’t want to have to do something drastic, like have Lucas…” He stopped and made a face, blinked several times before he looked back at her with a blank expression. “If you want to save Lucas from having to deal with the law as it is designed, you will not see him again. I know it will be impossible to not see him at all, as he has to be coming here often, but you will not see him outside of official duties again.”
“And that’s it? You dictate what I have to do with my life, and I just answer to that,” she asked him, angrier than she’d ever been.
“You will do what is expected of you,” Mother said quietly.
“And if I don’t?”
“I will have him killed for defiling my daughter,” Father said with finality.
Hearing him say it was a whole lot different than knowing he was capable of it. She looked into his eyes, seeing them devoid of any emotion at all. And she knew he would. She knew he would have Lucas killed if she didn’t leave him.
She looked toward her mother, who stood by her father, her face set in angry lines.
“Why are you letting him do this to us,” Elle yelled at her. How could a mother stand back and let someone hurt her daughter this way? It was inhumane.
“Because we are here to ensure you don’t ruin your life,” she said. “Now, go to your room, and you are not to leave until I say so.” She went to the door, her back straight, her head held high, and opened it for her. Elle walked to it, numb.
It was like she was having an out of body experience. This could not be happening.
She went up to her room as they instructed and sat at the edge of her bed, shocked. Her hands were shaking when she lifted them to run through her still damp hair.
She could hear her parents’ words echo over and over in her head, as if they were standing right there in front of her, repeating them to her.
Killed… I will have him killed… killed…
Tears threatened, but she refused to let them fall. If her parents thought they could dictate her life and she was going to sit back and let them, they had another thing coming, because she knew what she had to do, she knew what her next step had to be.
Deep down, she’d known she would have to resort to this plan sooner, rather than later. She had known it would come to this, even if she didn’t want to admit it to herself.
Her breathing coming out in spurts, and still fighting back tears, she got off her bed and sat at her desk. It was time for a plan.
Chapter Eighteen
Lucas walked into his childhood home.
He was desperate.
Guilt had been eating at him since that morning. It spread through his chest, making his entire body shake with its force. What had almost happened that morning was something he would never be able to forget.
The things that could have happened, the ways he could have hurt someone. The ways he could have hurt Elle, and how he had given in to that horrible voice in his head. He wanted it gone. He didn’t want to hear it every again. He didn’t want to be the monster people were going to expect him to be. Because people would expect him to be a monster, to be evil, and to destroy.
He didn’t want to be that.
He felt like the world was caving in on him.
“Mom,” he called at the door, desperately needing her advice, but still having feelings of betrayal. He didn’t understand why she had never told him anything, despite the fact that his powers could kill him. He deserved knowing what he was up against from the first time he realized he had these powers.
Mom came to the doorway that led to the kitchen. She was wide eyed, probably because she had not been expecting him.
“Lucas.” She swallowed. “Hi.”
He stood by the front door with uncertainty. The struggle within him was too intense. There were so many conflicting emotions fighting in him that he wanted to cry, rage, maybe even laugh, all at the same time, but mostly cry.
She walked toward him and giving in to impulse, he hugged her hard. A sense of relief went over him when she rubbed his back, like she used to when he was little.
“What’s wrong, honey,” she murmured.
“I need your help, mom,” he said hoarsely, emotion bubbling to the surface. He hadn’t cried in a long time, ever since he was a boy, but he couldn’t stop the tears from forming in his eyes.
“Come with me,” she said, leading him to the kitchen and pushing him onto a chair in the breakfast nook. She moved her hand and a cabinet opened, two mugs shot out of it, and floated over to them at the table. She went to the stove and turned it on, putting a pot on the fire, but he went to her and stopped her.
“Mom, I don’t want tea, I need to talk to you.”
“All right.” She turned off the stove and followed him to the table where he went to take a seat.
“Something happened this morning, and it’s got me twisted in every which way,” he started, knowing she was the one person in the world who wouldn’t judge him. She knew where he was coming from, as she had already gone through the same things when she had been given all four powers of the elements.
He told her about his morning exercises and the fact that he had started to feel like he was beginning to control them. She listened intently, never interrupting him as he told her about his experiences that very morning. The voice that urged him to open himself and let the power curse through him, the strength he felt when he finally did, and how he had almost hurt Elle.
Her face changed when he mentioned Elle’s name. It was subtle, almost imperceptible, but Lucas knew she didn’t like the idea of him being with Elle in any capacity.
“And she helped you keep calm,” she asked him with keen eyes. He nodded his head.
“She did. I don’t know how, it just happened. But I can’t change the fact that I almost hurt her. I almost gave in to the darkness in me, and I could have killed her.” Tears ran down his face when he was done, because he was imagining the worst that could have happened. “What should I do,” he asked his quiet mother. Her face told him how concerned she was without her having to open her mouth. “Tell me what to do, please. I need to know where to go from here.”
“Lucas, I can’t tell you what to do.”
“But you know what this is like, at least to some extent.” He stood and started to pace, unable to sit still. “I can’t go around pretending this isn’t serious and that I don’t need help. I could kill more innocent people. I could kill Elle.”
“Those Shadows you killed were not innocent people, Lucas, they were killers.”
“That doesn’t change the fact that I’m a murderer.”
“You defended yourself,” she said firmly. “I, more than anyone else, know how this feels. I know what it’s like, which is why I need you to listen to me.”
He stopped pacing and looked at her.
“If you wouldn’t have done what you did, you would have surely died,” she said more quietly now. “And then what would have happened to your powers? Where would they have gone? Whoever’s behind all this is very dangerous, mostly for the fact that we have no idea who they are, and you are the one person that can protect the powers from them.”
“And how am I supposed to do that?”
“You learn to control whatever manifests until we can figure out a solution to…” she stopped, her lips wobbling a little.
“A solution to not letting them consume me,” he added.
They were in silence for a long time, with her looking outside at her garden, and him looking down at his shoes and wondering if this wasn’t more than a bad dream he would soon wake from. It sure did seem like a nightmare.
“Help me, then,” he said. She turned to look back up at him. The idea hit him, and he wanted to kick himself that he hadn’t thought of it before then.
“Help you how?”
“Teach me everything about them.” His breathing began to hitch. “There is no one more ca
pable than you, mom. Please, tell me you will help me.”
She said nothing for a long time, then she stood and smiled slightly.
“I will do my best,” she whispered. “But we have to get the approval of the council and the High Priests.”
“All right, I’m sure we can manage that. We can talk to Caleb about it, right?”
“Meanwhile, you need to do something that’s important to your cause,” she said and he dreaded her next words, because he knew exactly what she was going to say. “Because you’re volatile right now, I believe it is of great importance for you to stop seeing Princess Eleanore.”
He started to put distance between them, but she stopped him.
“Listen to me, Lucas. You would never forgive yourself if something happened to her, and she would be too much of a distraction.”
“You’re saying that because you don’t approve.”
“Yes, I am, but also because I don’t want to see her hurt,” Mom said. “I don’t know her well enough, but if you’re with her, that means she has to be pretty great.”
“She’s more than great. She’s amazing. She calms me, mom.”
“She does, but not enough that you could control yourself this morning.” He closed his eyes against the pain those words brought him. “It’s not worth it to expose her to this.”
“You don’t understand.” He shook his head, beginning to pace again, his thoughts jumbled in his head.
“I understand more than you realize.”
“No, you don’t, because you got to stay with the love of your life, but I don’t have that option.”
Mom closed her eyes. “You love her,” she breathed.
“Yes, I love her. More than life itself. I love her, and she loves me.”
Mom said nothing else for a long while, and he just paced around the kitchen, unable to be still. Because he knew she was right. He couldn’t continue to expose Elle to his powers and to his lack of control over himself. He couldn’t keep putting her in danger.
Yet, how was he supposed to end things between them? He couldn’t conceive of a world where she wasn’t his, where she didn’t come see him every night, and where he couldn’t kiss her lips.
He needed her to survive.
When mom finally spoke, she did so quietly, but her voice carried through the empty house regardless.
“When we love, we protect,” she began. “The way to protect her, in your current situation, is to stay away from her.”
He shook his head again, tears prickling his eyes, but mom was looking outside through the glass on the back door.
“I will talk to Caleb to set up a meeting for me with the council and the High Priests,” she said. “Stay put until I come to you.”
***
Lucas, where are you? I need to see you, I have to talk to you. Please let me know when you receive this.
Elle
He read her letter many times before he set it down on his desk. It had been waiting for him at the front steps when he got home from his mother’s house.
The urgency of her words reiterated to him that he needed to stay away from her. She didn’t deserve to live her life being worried all the time. She deserved to be happy, and if he was the one to make her happy one day, he had to let her go now.
He picked up a pen and a sheet of paper.
Can you meet me at the waterfall this evening? He wrote, hoping she would say she couldn’t, because that way all this would be delayed, even if for a moment.
He sent the letter via dove and waited, praying for strength to do what he had to do. It only took about fifteen minutes to get her response and his heart sunk when he read she would be there at seven.
He passed the time trying to stay busy doing housework, but it wasn’t happening. For some reason, when before he never had time to clean, now there was nothing to do. The laundry was clean, the kitchen was clear, the trash was out, the bathroom was clean. Even his office, which usually was filled with papers all over the place, was clean.
He sat to draw, trying to come up with a good sketch of a dragon, of which there were none in Esmeralda, but all he succeeded in drawing was a sad looking lizard with a warrior princess on its back. It was a quite a pathetic attempt.
Finally, when he realized he wouldn’t be able to do anything productive, he laid down on the couch with his arm over his eyes. Next time he opened his eyes, he realized he had actually fallen asleep, and looked up to see it was only five minutes until he had to meet with Elle.
He stood, steps, heart, and mind heavy with what he was about to do. He opened the little potion bottle his mother had given him. Something to block off his emotions so she couldn’t read him, mom had said. He drank it, not even tasting it, and walked outside to teleport.
When he arrived at the waterfall, Elle was already there, and she looked nervous, her eyes darting around the area. Her face showed her relief when she saw him and his heart contracted with pain.
She ran to him and hugged him. He couldn’t help that his hands went to her back and he held her close before she stepped back.
“I’m glad you’re here,” she said. Her voice was a little high pitched. “There is so much I have to tell you.”
“So do I.” He didn’t even know how the words made their way out of his tight throat.
“My father knows about us,” she blurted out, her eyes darting around again. He did the same as her, the bottom of his stomach dropping.
“What are you talking about?”
“He knows about us, and has known for a while, it seems,” she informed him.
“But, how?”
“My mother has been having me followed, or following me herself, I don’t know. She told father about us, and he told me I had to break it off with you, and I’m not allowed to go anywhere unless I have a chaperone.”
She was frantic, her hands shaking.
“But I have the solution,” she announced, before he pointed out that she was here without a chaperone now. “We can leave.”
He looked down at her until the meaning of her words registered. And he knew that was his opportunity. As sick as it sounded even to himself.
“Leave to go where?”
His voice was dry when he asked her and Elle just stood back, trying to muster the courage to tell him of her plan. She just wanted to get out of Esmeralda, go anywhere. Where they could be together, where they could make a life, and be free of all this.
“We can go to the sleeper realm, Lucas, just like you’ve always wanted. We can explore, and pretend we’re from there, meet those people you want to meet, learn how to live without magic.” She looked everywhere but at him, because she sounded crazy even to her own ears. “Just imagine what life would be like. We could start over, I could go to their schools and learn their way of healing.”
He said nothing, just ran his hands over his face. He was acting differently. She didn’t know what it was, but he wasn’t the same guy she’d left at his house that morning.
“Just say you’ll come with me.” It came out as a whisper.
“Where,” he repeated and she breathed out shakily.
“Anywhere, Lucas. If the sleeper realm doesn’t work, then we can go anywhere you want to. Somewhere where we can be together, where no one knows our names, where we can be happy.”
“And do what, Elle? Pretend I don’t have these powers?” He sounded angry and she looked up at him, startled with his tone of voice. He had never spoken to her like that.
“I can help you, like I did this morning,” she whispered, realizing her plan was not going to work. Because his attitude told her everything she needed to know. He wasn’t going to leave with her. “We can do this together.”
She didn’t take her eyes off him, and opened herself to him. There was nothing. There was nothing coming from him, just a void. She had never felt anything like it before.
“Lucas.” Her voice was shaky this time, and tears were beginning to gather in her eyes.
He neve
r took her eyes off hers for what seemed like an eternity, and he slowly shook his head.
Her breath left her in a rush, shaky, tears clogging her throat.
“Please say something,” she whispered, her voice broken, and she hated herself for begging. She hated herself for doing this, when he so obviously didn’t want the same things as she did. “Please tell me we’re leaving here. We can go tonight, tell no one, and just go live.”
His lips pressed tightly closed, and he lifted his eyes to hers again, and said:
“I can’t do that, Elle.”
She took a breath.
“Why not,” she asked, forcing some strength into her voice, because she would be damned if she pleaded and groveled.
“Because it’s not what I want.”
The words were like a knife running through her heart.
“Is this about this morning,” she asked, because she had to know.
“This has nothing to do with this morning, Elle, this has everything to do with me. I can’t do this anymore.”
She took a step back when the knife twisted, taking her breath away.
“But…” she began, but he didn’t let her finish.
“I know the things I said.”
She was so confused, none of this made sense.
“You’re doing this because of what happened this morning,” Elle insisted, because it was the only thing that made sense to her. “Lucas, you don’t have to do this. I am here for you, for whatever you need.”
“Elle, listen to me.” His voice was hard. “I don’t want to be in a relationship with you. These past few weeks have been great, and I really thought it could go somewhere, but I just don’t feel like it is. I’m sorry if I misled you.”
“Misled,” she repeated in a sob, despite working so hard to not let him see her cry. “You said you loved me.”
“And I thought I did. I really did, and I never meant to hurt you.”
