⊰ chapter six ⊱

Sam clung to Dara's arm, tugging her cape as she shivered a bit, "If brother Jungkook finds out about our little adventure early morning, he is going to skin me alive."

"He can't skin you alive as long as I am alive. He is not that brave for that anyway," Sam's cheeks flared up into a tight grin when Dara glanced at him while humming and grinning. It was becoming difficult to remain inside the house as the entire family groused in private about Dara's presence. However, the ice perfectly captured the heat in the home. Even though the outdoors was stunning, Yoongi's scathing statements simply become more offensive due to the weather. She had lost all of her compassion as well. But she was still standing.

Dara was being patient. She was waiting.

Dara's triggers were set off by the long, shining black haired girl who had Jungkook's doe eyes and a nose that was just the tiniest bit similar to his, "You shouldn't have cut your hair. Did brother complain about it? He seemed quiet when I asked him why you cut your hair. So I assumed it must have something to do with him."

It's been two days since her tragedy. Dara's lips twitched, she touched her hair, "Do I look that bad?"

"What? No!" Sam said, gushing, "The length can be depressing since we have always heard about your unique hair but the change is great! I think you are pulling off this look very well too."

Sam had levelled the edges of her new, short hair. The red colour of her hair was now a bit faded.

On top of everything, she hadn't seen Jungkook's face in the past two days. The last time she did was his eyes turning two balls of hatred the other night at the yard before he left her alone.

Sam told falsehoods to comfort Dara, and she liked them. However, unlike with most people, Dara was unable to see past Sam's intuitions. She could see the compass in her right pocket and knew she had used up the majority of it. But ever since she got back from the West Courts of Ministry, she had been feeling weak about reading people's minds. She was unable to understand their intents or objectives in detail. It was concerning, or it would be concerning if Dara still had aspirations of escaping for herself.

All she felt was aimless.

And that had dragged her out to explore West thinking if she will ever get the chance to after today.

Their heavy steps on the ice brought them to the same street they had purchased their dresses from. Sam grinned at the shop's glass doors, and then back at Dara's, "Brother really made you the prettiest dress. How lucky you must be, to have a man be so indulged with your beauty and heart that he bestowed some of his gifted magic to save you from the mere gossips of the West?"

Dara blinked away, "He is the heir, Sam. He has a reputation. He had to save it."

"You are his reputation," Sam stated, almost whispering and admiring the core of their relationship.

The short haired sighed, "Anything else you wish speak about?"

The almond eyed girl smiled, her thin lips stretching furthest as she eased her shoulders before the two walked further down the alley, the crystal snow covering the empty streets. It was too early for people to be coming to the stores, and Dara was glad she chose such a time to roam around the city. Sam shrugged, "I heard Wineri was possessed by the Easterns, where you aware? When she revealed your identity as an Eastern?"

Dara nodded, "My mother, Illari, gave me a compass that was given to her by her sister Aevi. They are both powerful witches of East. My mother Illari, she did not have red hair...I get that from my biological father. The Southerns. Aevi wished to give the compass to someone else, but she saw great misfortune with that. Eastern magic is so strong, you wont believe the things it can do. Aevi and Illari, rumoured, had seen a past that none of us know of. Purposely, Aevi sent down the compass to Illari and permitted her to give it to whoever she thought was the righteous owner for it. After many years of the compass being not owned by any―the compass had previous owners. But it carries no memories of them as each of the owners had themselves killed by the wrong use of it―my mother gave it to me. To Arver, who kept it safe," Dara noticed the glum upon Sam's face upon the mentioning of the King they despised from the bottom of their hearts. The one who seized royalty from a very deserving bunch, "Eventually, the compass helped me read minds. Until I consumed the compass―I was almost there...until I am weaker day by day―,"

"Consumed the compass?" Sam frowned, not understanding.

"I am the last owner," Dara gave Sam a strict look and upon hearing those words, Sam's blood went cold, "The compass ends with me, or within me...or I end it and myself. Either of them. The spirit of the compass is a falcon. Lately, I haven't been sensing it much. Which is odd."

Sam's brows stayed arched before her eyes seemed more questionable, "Don't mind me asking this, but did you feel this way after your return from the Western Court?"

Dara's face went stiff. A thunderous wave of fear flew through her heart. Her blood became clotted at her throat as it went dry. With a hesitant voice, she opened her mouth, "Yes."

There was a silent intermission between the two. Sam's lashed looked up at Dara from her feet as she grabbed her arms quickly, "Come with me."

The market was getting busier and busier with every step of the run they took towards wherever Sam planned to drag Dara to. Dara held onto the hood over her red head, eyes lowered to avoid spaces of recognition as more and more people were gathering around the market. Sam almost tripped over before sliding into a darkened alley with Dara, slipping in between ice bergs that opened to an even wider alley. Sam carefully walked through the space, Dara walked with ease for the ice with her balancing body. Sam raised an impressive set of brows before going back to searching for her destination, and when her eyes found it, she freaked out, "Found it! Come on!"

As soon as the two appaorched the doors in the empty, unvisited alley, Dara witnessed Sam's eyes turning indigo as she looked at the doors of a....clockshop. It hit Dara's head like a brick when she realized it was not just any clockshop...it was the door to the elf's. The doors to the clockshop turned golden and silver-blue at once when Sam grabbed Dara's arm and placed it on the door bars. She wasn't surprised to find that her touch was opening the gates to a magical elf shop that belonged to the West, but she was surprised to see the same clock shop she had always visited at North. Did Jungkook know about this clockshop? With the same elf siting at the high pedestal stacked with books and clocks hanging all across the shop? Dara swore the fairies were the same ones she saw back at North.

Sam and Dara pulled themselves inside the warmth of the shop, closing the door behind them, their hoods down as the snow touched the ground. Dara's dry lips smiled once the Grand elf lowered his glasses to his nose, giving her a crooked smile, "I thought you would never come see me from this side of Zisk, my Queen."

My Queen.

Dara realized how she longed to hear that. But her smile died the minute she heard it. She let the Grand elf take his time down the stairs, and once he did, Dara grabbed his hands that longed to hold hers. The Grand elf kissed Dara's hands, and pressed it to his eyes, "Deborah."

The warmth in her smile made the clock shop pause for a minute. Sam stared with stunned eyes, stepping back to see the paused fairies, fairy dust glittering off their wings, the clocks floating in the air. Sam looked back at the two. The elf smiled, "You cut your hair..."

Dara looked down at their locked hands.

"This will create problems Dara," whispered the elf, touching Dara's shrewd hair, "When was the last time you cut your hair?"

She took her time to answer that, remembering the last time she let Meyrem's maids cut her hair so she could train better until she learned to tie her thick hair into big buns with ropes, "Seven years ago."

The elf's smile fell, he nodded, "Seven years ago, we Outerns felt the rule of the red hair's prophecy shake the grounds tremendously. It was the reawaken of an unknown Eastern on the Curve―like an invasion. It stopped, when the compass was passed down to you, Illari's powers had somehow blocked the way to the Curve as it came to you, the root of the red haired prophecy..., the touch of your hands to the compass created the shield from the invasion. Or else, we would be taken over by what is attacking North and the Blood throne―to get to you, a long time ago, Dara. You wouldn't even be here―we all would be dead. But now...you seemed to have brought the malice again by cutting your hair. What sort of rage made you do it?"

Her red haired. So it left traces that century too?

Dara ignored the question, "How is my hair...connected to what happens to the Curve?"

Sam was as confused. Or maybe more.

The elf nodded, "Time is near. Time is near, very near―you will know. You have access to the Curve for good reasons, you have seen the parallel realms for reasons, Dara. Do not forget...no one is born without purpose."

No one is born without purpose.

"And you, my girl," the elf grinned, "Are definitely not born without purpose. I can feel your heart disheartened, a failed friendship, a failed trust and many tears. But I believe more in you than the Deborah we had witnessed before you. Illari had prayed for your rebirth, Dara―that is all I can tell you. She had known you as the Deborah that we knew...the slave."

Dara bent on her knees, eyes floating with water as she swallowed, "What?"

"You are the outcome of hundreds of Outern's prayer for the slave we knew from centuries ago, who died with a sacrifice for her King," the elf said, "You are Illari and Aevi's greatest ploy for a better tomorrow. You are the King himself's last dream before he died for the Curve's dismiss. Only time has brought us to where someone else from the West, a very wrongful power, trying to rule it."

"Who was the King?" Dara whispered, "I feel like I see him, but I cannot remember him."

Dara was longing for this question to be answered. But she saw no future in it.

"You will not, we cannot too," the elf expressed, brows frowning, "I have tried. I have seen him. I have bowed to him. His ways of ruling were viscous, but he ruled like light in a dark pit. And you...Deborah, you were his wildest dream, the prettiest touch...they wrote tales about you."

Dara swallowed.

"I fear it is...not someone you wish for it to be," as if the elf read Dara's mind at once, "It may be the one you and I are fearing at the Curve. He used magic to dismiss himself from everyone's memories, and only a man of great power can do that. It may not be your guess that is true. But I am indecisive, it is not important. You are the only rebirth that we were told of."

"I do not understand it," Dara whispered, "Do you mean the Curve is being summoned again?"

"Yes," the elf said, "The low creatures of the earth felt it. The fairies felt it too. But the Curve is summoning you, Deborah."

"Because I am the rebirth." Dara's finger tips touched her lower lip, her eyes wandering as thoughts filled her mind, "What should I do? What happens to the Curve if I don't answer the summoning?"

The elf frowned harder, "You cannot avoid it, Deborah. You need to accept it. And you need to prepare for battle if you need to save Zisk from it's fall."

"It was never mine to save, Grand elf," Dara expressed her anguish, "I am not even the Blood Heir―,"

"Jeon Jungkook is the true heir, yes. But his nothing related to the Curve as long as we have known. He is Zisk's last straw, but Zisk is yours to save, dearest. And you do not need the blood throne to do that," the elf touched Dara's cold cheeks with his warm, crooked hands, his lips firm and his wrinkles visible under the gleaming light of the shop, "I don't know where it will take you. But I can give you the clues you need. The answers are where the red hair origins from. Write to your father if you cannot see him in person, the secrets that lie there are unknown to us as well. Time is short."

The elf was about to say more, but his lips tightened. The little man grabbed Dara's shoulders, forcing his eyes to look through the back of her―just by the glimpse. The elf let go, breathing oddly, "Deborah...when was the last time you performed magic..?"

Sam gasped, closing her mouth with her palms.

"B-before...before going to the West Court," her cheeks red, her eyes abrutly closing from the sudden pressure in the air, her throat throbbing as she stuttered, "R-right before they put the Magic Breaker into my―,"

"I cannot feel magic in you," the elf said, his eyes closing as he rubbed his wrinkled forehead with his thumb, "There is no magic left in you. It is defused. You must revive it to practice magic again!"

The sterness in his voice made Dara fearful of the situation more. No wonder she felt weaker ever since then. She couldn't read Sam's or anyone else's minds like she used to. Dara's body suddenly felt thinner than she already was.

"But...," Dara shook her head, standing up on her feet, "No."

Sam's face fell, "No? What do you mean no?"

The elf stared at the given up woman. Dara shook her head once again, "No. No. I can't." another smell of blood in the air, "I can't. No. This is not mine to do! I was never born for this, nor the blood throne!"

"Deborah, the blood throne's dismissal from your life may be hurtful to you but greater things―,"

"No," Dara cut the grand elf, "Forgive me but I cannot win something just because the parallels connect me to it. I dont care if my red hair has broken the strings and created more havoc on the Curve's plates but at this point...I do not care! I do not care."

She had had enough, it looked like it. Her eyes said it all. Her dreams were shattered and all that gave her relief was her power's dismissal.

Sam swallowed at the scene where Dara was stomping her foot abruptly, making a thud against the clock shop's surface. Dara breathed heavily, "You know what, I am glad my powers are defused and not revivieable. I am fine this way. Normal. Like every woman, like every husband would want their woman to be. Normal. Homely. I am no war no more and maybe it was for the better―,"

"The magic in you can be revived. You need one of the new spirits, either the Western or Southern spirit to bring you back from the clot. Deborah, you are what the Outerns have lived so long for, prayed―,"

And even if she had seen the yearn for her return in the Outern's eyes weeks ago, how they bowed to her at once and believed her with a heartbeat, Dara was not going to fool herself once again. Or at least that is what she thought so. She believed none. Not anymore.

Betrayal came in many shapes and sizes. This could be the worst one. And she wanted it to be the last one too.

"I kept seizing from people for years. I have seized royalty from this girl's family for years without knowledge of it," Dara pointed at Sam, "And I am in no place to seize the Curve to alas know that it does not belong to me―,"

"It does belong to you!" the elf exploded into a mad shout.

Dara was shocked. Maybe she was taken back but she looked down at him with cold eyes, "Well. I don't give a fuck."

Sam's jaw dropped along with the fairies before she ran behind Dara, following her out. She wanted to make a remark, an advice, a plea to change her mind but Dara ran out of the alley, throught the thin slits between the ice bergs and the Western shops like a thunder. Sam had a tough time catching up but once she knew she did, she bumped against Dara's back, stumbling back to see her paused in front of the Jeon residence.

It seemed like a massacre there.

Sam stood beside Dara, both of them breathing unevenly. Dara's brown eyes skimmed the front porch of the house. The Northern soldiers―two, bleeding from their ears and noses, wounded, their steel vests broken and the northern scarfs torn on their waists. They were encountered by an angry looking Jungkook, a dagger in his hands. Era stood behind Jungkook, so did most of his cousins. Wineri was a few steps away from Jungkook, tension spread across her face like a bed of roses. The Western eyes shifted to Dara, shocked at her sudden presence.

The Northern soldiers who looked mad with rage were settled on their knees upon seeing her. Dara felt the chills, her body hair straightened upon the sudden respect. She blinked, then looked at Jungkook who sighed and looked away from her. Must be her hair.

"Your Majesty, My Queen!" one of the soldiers said, "North is in grave danger. We have been invaded―,"

"It is not my business." Dara said, walking past the soldiers. Wineri stared at the girl with horror in her eyes, mouth gaped at her gesture. Jungkook did not look surprised, he knew this was coming. Dara was about to enter the house when Seokjin's voice was audible, and Dara saw him cornering the porch, distant from Wineri, "Is this what we crowned you for, Dara?"

Her jaws clenched, "Stay in your limits."

"If you are no queen, then there is nothing to stay in our limits for. You already said we are none of your business," Jimin said, running his fingers through his dyed red hair, looking fresh but flamished with anger, "Come save North―,"

"I am not the Queen," Dara gritted her teeth, "And if I am, my last command is to not burden me with your stupid problems no more."

I am a burden to him myself.

Dara was going to continue to walk into her house but Seokjin was already walking towards Wineri while speaking, "Taehyung is alive. I think you knew. He sent a letter."

The memories of the smiling guy she once plotted Theon's downfall with stopped her from going back inside the house and locking herself in her room. Dara faced Wineri now, fully. Jungkook frowned at the letter and then at Seokjin, "What is that letter? Why didnt you inform me?"