Irony of a Maiden

With the most honest smile he had ever worn, Michael turned to Alice and placed his hand atop hers. For a moment, the two stared silently into the other's eyes. Michael broke that silence with a single sentence that sent a wave of heat straight to her face.

"Thank you for being beside me all this time and please stay with me until the end."

With her face reddened more than it ever had been before, Alice broke free of Michael's gaze by dropping her view to their feet.

"You realize that makes it sounds like you're asking me to marry me, right?"

A light chuckle escaped Michael's lips. Until she pointed it out, he didn't think of it like that. Now, he realized just how right she was. Slightly increasing his grip on her hand, he decided to tease her a bit.

"Are you asking that because you don't want to spend your life with me or because you want to make sure I want to spend mine with you?"

Alice attempted to take a step back and remove her hand from Michael's. Suddenly, she felt her body being pulled forward. By the time she realized what had happened, she was already being held with Michael's arms wrapped around her and his words slipping into her ear.

"You don't have to answer now. I just hope that when the day comes that I ask you honestly, you'll be able to give an answer and not try to run away."

Hearing the gentle words that carried all of his feelings towards her, Alice's arms moved on their own and encircled his back. Words could not form in her throat so all she could do was bury her face in his chest and give an almost unnoticeable nod.

The two remained like that for a few minutes. By the time they separated, the Sun had already sunk below the horizon. Taking a step passed the woman who was still lost in thought, Michael again reached his hand out to her.

"It's late already. We should head home and get some rest."

Home. A place Alice had not had for many years. She occasionally slept on the street as a child when nobody would take her in that night. As she got older, she would spend several nights a week sleeping in the loft above the city's stables.

After she turned seventeen, she was taken in my Madam Gem. For two years she worked as a server in the bar owned by the Madam. Not long after she turned nineteen, she asked the Madam if she could earn more money to support herself.

It was that week that Duke Asher entered the bar and paid for her services. When she learned of the appointment scheduled for that evening, she began to plot how she could remove the duke from power. She blamed him for the state of the city just as everyone else did.

More than that, she blamed him for the death of her mother. After the city began to decline, her mother could no longer support the two off her current wage. To fix that, she began selling her body to any man that could afford her.

In the end, she became too sick to work. Even if she could have gotten herself out of bed, no man would have paid for her in that state. After a week, all of the money that she managed to save was gone. Not long after, the sickness consumed her.

Alice resented Duke Asher for what her mother had to endure all the way up to her death. For that, she took his life. To lighten the mood, she poured two glasses of wine when the two were alone in the duke's room. Before handing him a glass, she dropped a toxic powder in with the wine.

The poison took mere moments to take effect. Before he had even finished the glass, he was falling for the bed. The glass shattered on the floor beside the bed just as his full body settled into place. Seeing the duke dying before her eyes, Alice turned and left the room.

The next day, her body filled with terror. The man she had thought to have killed was standing before her once again as if nothing had happened. She was certain he was there to seek revenge for the attempt on her life.

To her surprise, he appeared calm and collected. An interaction filled with fear turned into what it is today not even two years later. Not once did she regret poisoning the duke. Not even the morning after when the weight of her actions sank in. If somebody learned what she had done, for better or worse, she would have been hanged for treason.

Staring at the man before her now, she was proud that she had killed Duke Asher. That simple act filled with hatred brought Michael into her life. Every day he was improving the situation of the city and the people in it. Compared to Duke Asher, Michael is God himself while Asher was the angle of death.

Taking his hand, all Alice could do was smile.

"You're right. Let's get home before one of the guards on patrol questions us."

Like that, the two set out for the estate. With their hands together and fingers intertwined, they leisurely made their way back into the warmth of the estate. All the way to the door leading to Alice's room, the two didn't separate until Michael spoke once again.

"As much as I enjoy your company and dislike the idea of parting now, I believe this is where we should end things for the night. We have tomorrow and many days after to continue like this. For now, goodnight."

With that, Michael released her hand with a soothing smile on his face. He wasn't going to blindly rush things further than he has already tonight. When his thoughts and feelings towards Alice began to change was unclear. What was clear was that he had never had stronger feelings for anyone.