Some Sins to Bear Their Privilege on Earth

The scene was set no less than she expected. The room glowed of only candlelight, and the warm smells of scented wax filled the room. A wide selection of meats, breads, and roasted vegetables filled the space of the table, and the two chairs were not at opposite ends, but alongside each other. Rose petals filled the spaces on the tables that did not have food or dishes. The forced romanticism of this display made her irritated and resentful. She wanted to turn and strike him with whatever she could get her hands on. She could feel his fingers towards the puppet strings she had long since cut, but she feared the lengths he would go to try and reattach them.

She walked past the table slowly to the glass double doors of the room that led out to his courtyard. She looked out to the darkened night that was before her and watched as distant flashes of light sporadically light the sky. The storm that had been threatening for two days had sat heavy over the earth as far as she could see; it was coming closer to exploding. She could tell that it was going to be truly terrible.

Galen....

As she looked out into the black and the oncoming storm, she hoped and prayed within her heart that Galen was safe and secure wherever he was. She thought back to their last moment together and what was left unsaid. She resented the most that she couldn't have more time to ensure that he would be safe beyond what little she had already done. She kept thinking she could have done more, been just a little stronger, and protected him longer. She didn't know what would become of her, how she would find him again, or if she even could find him again. But she did know that no matter what happened, she would do her best to do right by him. Whatever the cost may be, she would …

She felt his cold hands on her shoulders then as she was lost in her own thoughts. She marveled how his hands could be so cold in a room so warm. He was like a snake. She endured his touch, and he ushered her to sit down to their meal together. Her heart had no appetite and pushed back at the thought of his offering, but her body was in desperate need of food. Pride and company aside, she began to take the food he had placed before her.

The meat was so warm and perfectly seasoned that the sensations sparked and danced in her mouth. She tried her best not to show how much she thoroughly enjoyed the food. She thought that an elegant display such as this had to take a cook a whole day of diligent preparation. She felt grateful to the faceless person who blessed her with it.

She ate steadily at everything, and Durai smiled genuinely at the sight of her contentment at the meal that she could not hide from him. At that moment, seeing her enjoyment and her guard down, he forgot all wicked intent, all motives of manipulation, any strategic moves he was making to place the pawns for his end goal. For that moment, he was just a man staring at the woman he loved enjoying what he provided for her. He was twelve years old seeing the bright eyes of his mother before she left; he was innocent to the world and the methods of men like his father. He was staring at the light again.

Althea enjoyed the silence in which she was allowed to simply enjoy her meal. When her stomach began to fill and could take in no more, she started to anxiously fear the beginning of a conversation or whatever else he had planned for her that night. Low rumbles could now be heard of the thunder steadily approaching. Little by little, she picked at small pieces of food to prolong any interaction and slowly placed it delicately into her mouth.

Lights started to flicker as the wind began to build up outside and come into their room from the fireplace. The shadows that grew and shrank as a result looked like miniature black beasts dancing around the room. Althea couldn't help but be uneasy at the sight. The most sinister of shadows were the ones that moved across Durai's face. When his face was cast in shadow, even for just a moment, the sinister nature of his eyes was clearly evident. Even in darkness, his eyes glowed and watched her. She kept finding it harder and harder to be brave and defiant. How easy it would be to just shrink away and not fight. Then he might have mercy. Then it could all be over.

"Don't let the darkness win, Althea..."

She closed her eyes only briefly to gather up all of her courage. She held tight to the image of her mother and her grandmother before her, and put down her utensils and began whatever it was that would begin. Durai noticed her signal, and the smile once again turned villainous. The pieces on his board were meticulously set, and the game began as lightning lit the room.

"Did you enjoy your dinner?" Durai asked her.

The deep and sensual voice that once made her quiver now simply made her heated and bitter. She had thought long and hard this past year that she was away on the snares he set that had trapped her before. She was more cunning now to fall for the same spells again. Instead of answering, she just looked at him with annoyance. She would not gift him any softness in her expressions or kindness in her eyes. Durai smiled some more as he had expected her not to be the woman he once molded so easily to fit his whims. Now she was a far stronger challenge and all the more desirable and valuable to win.

He looked out the glass doors then that were behind her. The flashes of light that could be seen behind Althea became more frequent and splintered out intricately across the sky and resembled a dangerous and deadly web more and more. How appropriate, he thought. Still, he decided to ask again and assert himself. "I asked you how dinner was, Dove."

"I would have enjoyed it more with better company. I want to see Mireya." Althea kept pushing him on this subject for more explanation. She was determined to get one now.

Durai sat back and interlocked his fingers and laced them across his chest. "My darling, I told you before. Your sister believes that you are dead. I had to do it to protect you, you see. And her, really. If you were to, say, try and run away again, I would have to do something very drastic. And if you had tried to illicit her help against me? I would promise you her death would be a painful one. Just for you." Something seemed to snap slightly in him, and Althea registered it.

"So," Althea clearly stated, "you lied to her that I was dead. Just as easily as that?"

"Just for you."

Althea bent her head slightly at the thought of what her sister must have felt having heard she was dead. She hoped that the love held between them was still the same, that she thought fondly of her in mourning, and she knew that there was another wrong to right in the end.

He spoke again feeling the need to add more. "You see, I stayed behind. I didn't run away. So in the end, what I said was the only story she was able to hear. If you wanted your truth, you should have stayed. Because you ran, I won."

She felt like fire would come out of her own eyes her venom towards him felt so strong. Before him, before now, true hate and loathing seemed so disgusting and unthinkable. Now it was all she could feel in this moment.

"The storm is getting closer. Whatever shall we do?" he whispered to her as he leaned in closer.

To his surprise, she leaned into him as well. He had expected her to pull back at his advancement. She matched his whispering tone and volume and said, "I think, I should bash your head into this table and run as far from you as I can."

He lightly laughed in a teasing way, "I wouldn't let you get very far."

"Then maybe I should scream."

"If you do, I will have to gag you. Wait," he said, his eyes lighting up, "maybe I'd like that anyway."

Althea felt the disgust swell in her throat at the mere thought of his perverse tastes and backed up from him then. From where she sat, he was between her and the door out to the castle. The only place she could run to was the courtyard that sat before a cliff – so a dead end – or the bedroom which was even worse.

She tried another approach; maybe just keeping him talking might give her more time to plan. "But if I get out even one good scream, people will come to investigate. People will know I'm here. And even if you manage to hide me away before one of those gossiping biddies finds me, the rumors will spread so quickly that your life will be a hell putting out the fires."

Durai simply leaned in further and stroked her hand left on the table. "When did you get so deliciously sneaky?" She tried to take her hand away, but he grabbed her wrist and held it painfully tight. Her face couldn't help but reveal the ache she felt in his tightening grip. "I can't wait to find out what else about you is new."

The pressure he held her with flashed her back to that night so long ago. She would fight with all she had before going through that again.

He finally let go of her wrist, and she was up and out of her seat in an instant to get as much distance from him as she could get. She looked down behind her to make sure she wasn't blocked or about to fall, and when she looked back to the table, he was no longer in his seat. The room was dark; somehow the candles had all blown out the instant she rose. The room was lit only by sporadic lightning, and in the darkness only slight outlines of the furniture could be distinguished from the rest of the black. She was breathing heavily as she lowered her gravity and strengthened her stance. She heard the loud and pounding beating of her own heart as if they were drums.

She slowed and quieted her breathing to listen out for any movement in the dark. As brave as she had tried to be, she was fully terrified then having been suddenly thrust into a dangerous cat and mouse game. She could feel the draft coming in from the fireplace. All she could hear was the relentless wind against the glass of the door and the walls of the castle. No matter what she tried to do, she couldn't help but feel afraid.

Suddenly she felt pain on the pack of her head as her head thud loudly against the wall behind her. She was pinned there by familiar hands and found that she couldn't move. More than just being held in place by his body and his embrace, she couldn't move anything about her. Even as she realized that, she felt her body be flung from the wall, leave the floor, and come crashing down to the floor. Loud crashes of the dishes were heard falling to the ground despite her not being anywhere near the table. She quieted her instinct to pant and moan in the pain she felt from her fall. Still she could hear nothing and could sense nothing of where he was in the room.

A flash of lightning raged across the sky and lit the room in pure, white light, and the embodiment of her nightmares was right before her face. She opened her mouth to scream at the sight of him suddenly before her eyes, but he silenced her as his hand struck across her face with immense force. A different white light shown in her eyes then, a hot white light of pain. She closed her eyes to it and felt her body being dragged slightly along the floor as his hands tightened around her ankles.

She felt her body being heaved into the air again and she braced herself to be hurled once again to the ground. Instead she felt pressure on her abdomen as she was slung across his shoulders. Her body bounced with the few steps that he took before she felt the hard landing from him dropping her body on the table now cleared of any food or dishes.

She then felt him claw at her body and turned her to face down onto the table. She tried to push up with her hands, but another flash of light seared into her head. She couldn't tell then if it was lightning or pain because all she could feel was shock and unrelenting terror. She tried to wiggle herself free or at least squirm enough to be a handful and buy herself time if she couldn't manage to escape.

She felt Durai place his knee on her back at that moment and pressed against her spine. She let out a pitiful sound of sharp distress then. In reaction to her cry, he pushed down harder and sharper into her back, and she put her hands up in a sign of surrender. She ceased movement and showed utter compliance, anything to get him to let up and show some mercy. Her pain was sharp and hot; she felt she couldn't even take a proper breath without it slicing into her. Silent tears rolled down her face as the lightning flashed again and deep, foreboding thunder rumbled shortly after. And for a moment she couldn't tell which booming shook her body more, the thunder or her heart.

As the last lightning flash darkened the room, a new light appeared and flickered its light in the room with a deep green hue. Althea turned her head only slightly as it was still pressed against the table and saw flames out of her periphery coming from Durai's left hand. He bent down closer to her still keeping his knee on her back. His movement put more pressure on her nerves and she couldn't help but let out a small, pathetic whimper.

"Don't let the darkness win, Althea...."

Though she could hear her mother's words, she couldn't find a way to see her face. All she could register before her eyes was her own pain and the villain at her back. She felt his hand stroke her cheek already wet with painful tears. His hand traveled down her face, down her neck, and traveled the length of her arm and pinned it down at the wrist. Althea was afraid, so terribly afraid.

She felt his lips at her ear and the heat from the fire in his hand as he softly whispered, "Shhhh, shhhh..." and reached for something he had secured under the table. She couldn't tell what it was. The only quick glimpse she had was of a long, metallic rod of some kind. He straightened his body, and the pressure on her back was relieved slightly. She took deeper breaths then to try and calm her racing heart, but it wasn't working. She noticed the flame grow brighter and cast their shadows on the wall in front of them. She saw her shadow helpless and trapped, and she saw his slender, graceful form move and bend above her like a snake gliding across the sand. She saw from his shadow the metal rod held in his hand be bent into the green-flamed fire he made.

"Hold still," he whispered in that same demonic voice she had heard before as if he had been taken over by the Devil himself. The sound was like pure, embodied evil. It entered her ears and spread like poison in her blood paralyzing her. She dared not move or disobey.

His shadow moved again as he took the metal rod from the fire in his hand. He then moved faster than she could register, doused the fire in his hand with a flick of his wrist, and ripped away a part of her dress.

She heard the sizzling of her flesh before she felt the pain on her exposed right shoulder. She felt his hand still warm from his Magic against her mouth as she screamed violently. She screamed in pain muffled against his hand over and over again.

When she collapsed utterly spent, she felt his lips at her ear one last time before blacking into unconsciousness.

"Mine!"