“You have to die a few times before you can really live.” – Charles Bukowski

My room’s shrouding darkness match the gaping hole I feel in the centre of my chest. Who knew that so many emotions at once could leave one feeling so hopelessly empty? Sitting on the floor, huddled up into a pathetic ball at the end of my bed, my infinite tears seep through my sleeves. Whenever I think about the events that transpired only hours ago, another wave of tears break free.

My wedding night has definitely passed by now, yet the sun fails to seep through the cracks between the boards on my windows. A few birds have chirped in anticipation of the coming day, yet their nervous chatter have now ceased, leaving my sniffles as the only sound stretching into the dark day.

I unclench my hand, only to stare at my wedding band for an eternity. Its weight has amplified, dragging me deeper and deeper into despair. Clutching it into my palm, I attempt to erase its existence, yet the metal, now clammy from my sweat and tears, serves as a constant reminder of my heartache.

For a fleeting moment, I allow myself to imagine aquamarine eyes smiling at me, but I banish the cursed image my heart conjured from my mind. Instead, I focus on studying the mountains of furniture I moved in front of my doors, wasting my precious energy to do that. No-one has even bothered to check on me – that is until Caith materializes in my room.

The silence stretches on as I desperately look at every cobweb and brick in my room in an attempt to avoid eye contact with my heart’s focus. Unfortunately, the inexplicable and unstoppable pull I feel towards him forces our eyes to collide.

My heart stops as all the pain that has been overwhelming me vanishes, leaving me with uncontainable joy at seeing him. My elation plummets as the small voice of reason whispers that he is the sole perpetrator that betrayed my trust – and my heart.

As he holds his hand out toward me, my only thought is that I want to be enveloped in his arms.

“You should come with me. We have but a little time.”

I feel circles of stone forming around my eyes as I formulate my answer. “Why did you not tell me who you were?”

He digs his other hand into his pocket and answers with a long sigh. “I did, so many times. I told you about my family. I told you about the events leading up to the First War. I told you everything about me, as I am – not as the image you have of me.”

Desperation – something I have not associated with him before – clings to his voice. My mind struggles to overcome the obstacle that have grown between us. Trust is a fickle thing. It takes so long to build, and then one deed or misdeed shatters it.

“Aebbé, please come with me. We only have until sunset.” The edge to his voice unearths a hollowness that can only be suspect of impending doom.

I don’t want to take his hand, but the nagging fear that this might be my last moments with him cause my hand to linger just above my knees.

“Please, trust me this last time,” he urges while emphasising his open hand with a single shake.

“I have already trusted you more than I did any other. Do you remember telling me that people are placed in your life for only a short while to better it? I believe that your time in my life has expired.” My eyes slide away from his, only to land on the bracelet he gave me.

“Aebbé, what I have done is in the past. I only have now to repair your trust, but time is running out.” Unmistakable fear edges his voice.

After a moment’s hesitation I reach out towards him. The moment the warmth of his hand engulfs mine, I know that I am not making a mistake in trusting him this last time. “Help me to understand.”

And I want to understand. He is worth understanding. We have something special. It is worth sacrificing a piece of myself if I can gain all of him in return. I am as fickle as trust.

“I will.”

My room murks away, fading to a dark cave with a curtain of water separating us from the rest of the world. The musty smell from the cave is perfectly balanced out by the revitalising water spray showering down on us.

Intertwining his fingers with mine, perfectly fitting his to the spaces between mine, he gives me a smile that makes my heart flutter anxiously.

“I cannot tell you anything I have not told you before. I can show you the forest and the trees, hoping that you see their ageless wisdom as a part of me. I can let you feel the water flowing though the rivers, intending that you'd understand how the blood of ArBrae flows through me. I can let you feel the sun warming up your skin, comparing it to how you have ignited me.

“Yet I cannot expect you to understand something I just started to begin understanding myself. I showed you everything, even when you did not see it. I told you, but you could not hear my voice seeping through the cracks in my lies. I touched you, but you could not feel the tips of my fingers brushing your heart. Many lives I have assumed in my millennia, yet all of them hold a fragment of me. My time as Caith is done. I am him, but I am also not Caith alone. I have to be who I truly am and fight this war. It is the only way that my family can defeat the darkness, and you, my love, are too pure to be a part of that.”

“You speak in riddles.”

“We only have this day for ourselves. Tomorrow the final battle will be fought. We might win, or we might lose. Only today is ours. I will show you everything that I can.”

When I fail to answer him, he looks at me quizically, and I can understand his confusion. I am unusually quiet. Usually my mouth and mind overflow with incessant questions.

He leads me to the curtain, the water parting to allow us to step through. We are met by the most magnificent of views. Standing almost halfway down the waterfall in a small alcove, the turbulent white water stretches up into the clouds, and reaches down into a pool of foamy water decorated with rainbows. A tapestry of green forest stretches out into the distance.

“It is beautiful. I have never seen anything like it.”

“You compared to a view like this when I saw you entering the hall, princess,” he starts to say.

“Please do not call me princess anymore, my lord. You outrank me by far.”

He rolls his eyes. “Aebbé, I am only Caith to you.”

“If you choose to deny yourself, I cannot. You are not. You are the Second One, Khairrim Cadeyrn by name, and warden of the Elves.”

“For you I am Caith, or Khai if you will.”

He doesn’t understand the enormous gap between us. We shouldn’t even be breathing the same air.

“But you are not! Do you not understand? You are more than even the elves. You have lived for thousands of years. People bring tribute to you. You have always been a myth, a story. Yes, the Council appear at times, but only appear. You are one of the Council. The Council!”

I can feel tears welling up. Great. Now I’m going to be all weak and cry.

I think that the thing that makes this betrayal this difficult is that I have fallen in love with him – and not the whole of him. I fell in love with the part that was shown to me. The whole of him must be frighteningly magnificent.

My greatest fear is that I will love the whole of him even more than I love the part that has been revealed to me.

I can’t love him. Not if it will hurt me this much.

I wipe my eyes with the back of my clenched hand before the tears escape.

“Then you married me! I do not understand why. What did you hope to achieve? And why did you save me? Why even befriend me? I cannot understand.” I throw the ring still cluyched in my other hand against his chest. It bounces off him and falls at his feet.

“Aebbé, your brother asked me to marry you. I could not refuse him.”

Of course he only did it because my brother ordered him to do! I thought that the marriage was at least something he agreed to. A part of me hoped that he really did love me and wanted to make me completely his, but I guess that my naivety ran away with me at a full gallop.

“So you married me because my brother told you to? That is even worse!”

I shouldn’t have come here. It was the worst idea in my history of horrible ideas. I can’t even remember why I came here with him. There wasn’t really a clear reason.

Khai squats and picks the ring up. He looks at it and then at me. He stands up and speaks: “Aebbé, I rescued you from the mountains, because your oldest brother refused to pay a ransom for you, because it would cripple the kingdom. I rescued you, because your second brother arranged your kidnapping. And then he poisoned Friduric. He became king.”

I open my mouth to protest. It cannot be true. Nothing can. My brothers betrayed me as well.

I wish that I could turn time back to the day I arrived at Raven’s Peak. I would have stayed at the castle instead of going to the hospital. There is a whole list of things I would do differently. I wouldn’t go into the woods to practice with Storm nor would I have showed up at the Second Order’s practice. Accepting Caith’s offer to join his order’s practice? No. I wouldn’t have desired to become his friend. I would have refused to go to Da-Nel.

I would have stopped this friendship the moment we got back to Raven’s peak and I would have begged Friduric to let me marry Renard de Berchelai - okay, perhaps not that.

I would refuse Caith’s gift and never kiss him. Least of all would I have agreed to our marriage.

But then I wouldn't be standing here with him, and here, with him, is where I desire to be.

“No, listen to everything I have to say. We already started becoming friends before the journey back to Raven’s Peak. At first you intrigued me in a way that I have not been fascinated before. You even agreed to come to my order’s weapons practice and then we talked for hours about the meaningless and the meaningful. I have never found anyone that I could share almost everything with. I started to think about you more often than I would like to. You must know that I am not without blame or blemish. I have had a string of children born to me without ever being married. I wanted to, once, but that is not important. Anyway, my point is that I am not flawless, yet I agreed to marry you, because I wanted to. I desire to love you completely.”

I cannot think properly. There is too much wrong, but there is one thing that is right: he wants to love me.

“I was foolish to think that it could have worked, even for a moment. But that is where I always make the same mistake: I cannot allow myself to dream. I always keep my word. I still stand by my last words at our wedding. I have sworn that I would take you as a wife. I told you that you do not bow down to the Council anymore. You are now my equal. I knew the possible consequences of marrying you, but I made my choice.”

I am very confused and hurt at the moment. I do not know what to say. I try to steer the conversation in a direction that will be easier for me to follow.

“Did Ferdaid really poison Friduric? Was it really Ferdaid? I cannot believe that.”

“That isn’t what you really want to know.”

“No. I want to shout and scream. I want to fight. I want to understand, because I don’t. I don’t want to feel this.”

Caith moves nearer to me. He puts his one finger on my lips, as if a sign to silence me.

“Shh, Aebbé.”

I want to kiss him, but I have to be sure.

My heart cannot survive another onslaught of betrayal.

“Aebbé, there is no time left. This is still our wedding day. You have also sworn that you would take me as your husband, but you swore to take Caith as your husband and not Khairrim Cadeyrn. So I understand if you cannot honour this vow. Aebbé, I want you, and I am begging you to be mine.”

Holding out his hand with my ring in the palm of his left hand, his wedding band still glints on his ringfinger. His magnificent eyes are lit up in anticipation.

He is looking at me expectantly, waiting for me to take the next step. This must be my decision. He won’t force it on me as he can’t be the one giving everything.

True love goes both ways. There is an equal amount of giving and receiving. It is to share your fears and failures and to find your successes in the other person.

My mind is still screaming out the reasons why I should turn around now and start walking away. My heart has already made its decision. My heart is waiting for me to accept it. There is a reason why I have made the choices I did since I met him.

“Khairrim Cadeyrn, Caith, or whatever your name might be. I do not care. I also always keep my word - and I could get a far worse husband than you.”

I laugh nervously before standing on my toes to give him a light peck on his cheek. These emotions are foreign to me, yet I realise that I have loved him from the moment I first met him, but it was a different love than what it is now.

“And I really like you. I have not kissed any other man before, but only you. I do not think that declaring love so quickly is wise, but I do love you. Regardless of your name, I have seen your essence in your deeds. You are kind, and honourable. No-one can explain love. All I can say is that I love you and I would be honoured to be your wife.”

He brings his lips down on mine, causing the world to drain away leaving only him existing to me. At first his lips just seem to tease mine, but then they grow firmer, convincing me that he needs this kiss as much as I need it.

His arms encircle me gently and pull me closer. Our bodies melt together. I barely register him slipping the ring on my finger. Reaching up to cup his face, my fingers find rest on his cheekbones. Barely a moment later they crawl up higher and nest in his hair.

There is nothing except us and there is nothing more important than us.

I feel his tongue prying my lips open. I let him in. He starts to kiss me more intensely. I grip his hair tightly. My heart hammers against his. His heart answers the knock of mine.

A warm feeling, like sunlight, spreads throughout my body. Kissing him is natural. It is all that I have ever desired. It is what I have always been waiting for. It is what he has been waiting for.

My fingers pull on his hair, saying that I want more of him.

He lifts me up and put my toes down on his.

Steps appear out of nowhere, but I cannot be sure. I am not sure about much at the moment, but I know one thing for certain: I love Khairrim Cadeyrn, and he loves me.

He carries me up the steps. The rushing of the water sounds more distant. I think we are now at the top of the waterfall.

He pauses at an enormous bed. He tears his lips away from mine.

“Aebbé, there is no going back after this. Are you sure you want to do this?” Khairrim asks nervously. His eyes are earnest, seeking my permission.

My heart explodes, shouting that I don’t want him to stop. I want him to continue kissing me.

“Be quiet for once, Khairrim Cadeyrn. I have already told you that I love you. Is there anything more you want to hear?”

He answers me by pressing his lips to mine and placing me gently on the bed.

A few minutes before sunset, Caith tells me to put my wedding dress on again.

“It is time to go back, but before we leave, I want to show you something,” he whispers in my ear.

“Can't we just stay here a little longer?”

He wraps his arms tighter around me and kisses my brow. “If we could, I would lay here with you until time has run its course.”

When we are dressed, Caith intertwines his fingers with mine and leads me down the stairs.

“It is time for the sun to set.” He draws me into his arms and hugs me tightly against his body. The green forest expands into all directions beneath us. A lake, golden from the last smile of the sun, glints in the distance. Marble cities bloom from the mountaintops on the horison. The sky explodes into warm pinks and oranges as the chatter of birds sing the day farewell.

Resting my right hand on the taut musckes of his arm, I am the first to break the silence “This is a moment that I want to hold onto forever.”

He responds with a kiss on top of my head. “I love you,” he mumbles into my hair.

I turn to face him, not once breaking the contact of our bodies. I look up into his mesmerising eyes before pressing my lips to his. “I.” I am not shy anymore. He has seen all of me, and he loves all of me. I plant a second kiss on his lips. “Love.” A third kiss follows before I say the final word. “You.” The fourth time our lips meet, they remain locked for a too short time before he pulls away in the heat of our kiss.

Wondering why he would break the kiss, I look at him quizically before seeing silent tears travelling down his cheeks. I wipe them off with the tips of my fingers. “My love, what is wrong?”

“I am sorry. The princess Aebbé can be no more,” is his reply.

His answer doesn’t make sense. “I do not understand.”

Something warm and wet runs down my nose. Embarassed at my nose deciding to produce an excess of mucus, I wipe it away with the back of my hand. My heart hammers to a stand still as I see crimson marring my pure wedding dress. The downpour continues as I cup my hands in a frantic attempt of preventing the blood spilling onto my white clothes.

Wondering why Khairrim isn't alarmed at the sight of my bliod or handing me his shirt to stop the blood, I look to him. A trickle of blood dribbles from his nose. I move toward him to wipe it away, but the salty blood spills into my mouth as the world starts to spin away. As I fall to my knees, Khairrim doesn't even attempt catching me. Clutching my head, the piercing pain in my head intensifies as blood pools in my lap.

“Khairrim! Khairrim, what is happening?” My panic is evident in the shallow breaths I have started to take, and the exhaustion remaining after uttering the few words. .

“I’m sorry! I’m really sorry, my love. But I have to!”

Have to what?

I collide with the grass that have now been soaked with my blood. The waterfall and forest blur away, leaving Khai as the only thing I see.

His collar is now stained pink - blood streaming from his nose, and tears pouring from his eyes. His eyes are set in stone - the same harsh look in them that he had when we first met.

“Khairrim, please, stop!” For a moment I doubt he would have heard my whisper, but his eyes meet mine for the last time before he closes them and starts rocking forward and backward. His shoulder slump as his once silent tears gain sound.

Curling into a ball, I realise that blood is pouring from my eyes and ears as well. Mustering my last strength, I turn my eyes upward at him.