Power over Love

      Celeste doesn't remember standing in her chamber and feeling like she was in an utterly different and foreign land. She doesn't remember startling by every single noise and voice she hears. And above all looking like this. Never. 

      A knock on the door has her squirming and clenching her hands on the dressing table. 

        "My Lady?" 

        "Come in." Celeste's voice is hoarse and scratchy, and she doesn't ever remember sounding like this. 

        "I'm asked to take you down to Your   Highness." Your Highness. Delian shouldn't be called anything near respectful as that. Yesterday night he called a parliament assembly and asked Celeste to Join— no, ordered Celeste to join. 

      He stood beside her and put her through all the misery of seeing him acting as her lover when once she believed he was living as one. 

      His father, the best adviser, and the worst person blatantly lied through his teeth about how he was in the depth of agony at the loss of our respected and cherished King and Queen when it's very much his own hands that were stained with the blasphemous sin.

            Celeste's eyes ride up to find her disheveled reflection in the mirror. The black silk robe she wore is smeared with the unhidden pain that she carries. Her white hair is let loose on her back in wild tangles.

      And through her red blood eyes, she finds the fury and injustice that haunt her to do the vicious things the Celeste she was would never dare to do.

          "My Lady?" Her head snaps at the maid in a flash and she can feel her eyes gleaming red. The maid, Jui, visibly gulps under her watchful eyes. Pale, pliant hands of her finding anchor in the fabric of her lace, maiden gown, fiddling with it. 

          "Take me to him, Jui." She nods. Does she ever believe he's the last person Celeste wants to see right now or ever? Probably not. 

         She leads Celeste through the hallway, and down the enormous stairs. Jui knocked on the parliament door politely, is there a way tho? 

       Delian opens the white door wide. A lot of curious heads from the vast arch table inside swirl toward them, temporarily abandoning their talks and discussion as they suddenly find the pair more interesting. 

         Delian leans in to press a chaste kiss on Celeste's lips. A hand of his smooths her hair falling over her face out of her vision as it travels down to the little of her back, drawing her in.  

           "Kindly do not bother my love with unpleasant questions as we know she's still having a hard time healing from the damage the Elyznh Kingdom had stormed upon us." Celeste's eyes cut from the middle-aged men before her to the eyes of a liar— the eyes of Delian. 

           "You nor your father come from the Elyznh kingdom. Nor are you a werewolf."  How much she tries to swallow those poisonous words they still barge out through her gritted teeth. Celeste felt Delian's nails digging into the flesh on her waist, the silk doing nothing to help in his assault.  

       "I'm not, honey. I'm your Del." He says it sickeningly sweetly making Celeste sick to her core at the reflection of all the time they had lived as Cele and Del. "She chooses to see everyone through the shadow of a doubt, even me. She's just not feeling well, I apologize." 

       "We can understand, Delian. So we can get into the matter real quick." One of Celeste's dad's counsel says with a nod of his white head, wrinkly eyes lingering on the delicate way Delian holds her. Only if he knows how it's suffocating her. 

       "Take a seat first, My lady." The groggy, old voice cuts through the silent air of the parliament and dares to raise all the hair on Celeste's body. Her wide eyes find the owner of the voice who she dearly loathes— Deyha, the father of the all-mighty Delian, the one she handed over her heart to, only to be shredded away into pieces that can't be arranged together. 

          She shut her eyes close to not see the ugly smirk etched onto his rusty lips. But all she can see now behind her closed eyelids is her parents' blood dripping down from his fags. 

     The deadliest way to extra a vampire's power and reduce the chances of their death. So as greedy as he can get, Deyha drinks her parent's blood dry and manipulates his only son into taking over this kingdom.  

         Celeste's body falls into a chair Delian shows her. His eyes never leave her form as he takes a seat beside her. For a fleeting second, her eyes lock with his, and something akin to concern flashes through his red eyes. 

    And for a fleeting minute, Celeste sees the Delian she loved through him. The Delian he killed and Celeste sees no ounce of regret in those eyes of his. Perhaps the love in his heart had been overpowered by the greed for power. 

         And by killing himself, he killed her too.