A hush fell over the room and the Elves began to look at one another questioningly.
“She is not an Elf,” someone shouted within the crowd.
“She doesn’t deserve to live,” another yelled.
“She is an Elf! She is my daughter. I claim her as my own,” she shouted, shocking the Elves.
“Blasphemy,” Callan uttered, leaning forward in his seated position.
“It doesn’t matter the circumstances of her creation. She is one of us,” Rosalyn told them. “Her life is not ours to take before the oracle has a chance to reveal her true fate. This is our law.”
Enraged, Callan rose to his feet swiftly. Through gritted teeth, he announced, “It will be done. To preserve our laws, Willow will be taken to the oracle, but... regardless of what the prophecy states, the sentence will be carried out.”
With those words, I was taken out of the throne room and plunged into my darkened cell once more.
* * * * *
NALIN:
Ignoring my sister’s command, I gathered a small group of four Elves with some combat experience. At my insistence, we traveled stealthily on foot into the forest. It was best not to ride horses, because their hooves would cause enough noise to alert the enemy.
Since the initial bloody battle in which thousands of Elven lives were lost on both sides, territorial lines had been formed. The Ljósálfar had pushed the Dökkálfar deep into the boroughs they created in the earth. Ljósálfar claimed the upper region. However, there were times when Dökkálfar tested the Ljósálfar’s hold on the land, sending small groups of soldiers to survey the area so that they can lay claim to the land. Smaller battles between convoys were common place since the Dökkálfar insisted on emerging from their rabbit holes into the land of their enemy.
“The forest is dense in this area. Stay alert,” I ordered, whispering while I adjusted my breastplate. “Keep at least twenty paces apart. I want to form a line and flush them out.”
Separating from my group, I scanned the snow-covered ground for footprints. After trekking for at least twenty minutes without incident, I didn’t find any. I continued to walk, breathing the frigid air into my lungs. Something was amiss. I smelled the enemy.
Suddenly, I saw movement in a clearing up ahead. I crouched down behind a bush, clutching the handle of my sheathed sword.
“Nalin,” someone called me in a low whisper. Without warning, the figure I had seen up ahead came out of its hiding place behind a tree.
I recognized the white robes which blended in with the snow that surrounded us. “Rosalyn,” I called under my breath.
She removed her hood so that I could see her face, freeing her pin-straight, black hair. In that moment, she reminded me of Willow. Her dark hair and blue eyes were similar, but she could never be Willow. I felt all sorts of emotions when I was with Willow. Standing here, near Rosalyn, I felt nothing, except the growing coldness in my chest which no woman’s love had been able to dissolve. No woman’s love, except Willow’s.
Rosalyn approached me cautiously. “Oh, Nalin, I have been trying to summon you discreetly.”
Standing up, I looked down at her, ready to wring her neck. “Your spells will not work on me,” I told her coldly, my spirit on fire. With my sword in its sheath, I clutched the handle of my blade eager to use it. “Why have you come?”
“I have come to speak with you,” she responded urgently, her blue eyes darting around the surrounding woods.
I hadn’t seen her since before the war was waged. She was nothing but a lovesick Elfling back then. “You have wronged me,” I said through gritted teeth. “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t end your life.”
Rosalyn took one fearful step back. “I know where Willow is,” she said nervously.
“Where?” I asked, instantly forgetting my anger.
“Callan has her,” she told me, appearing on the verge of tears. “He sentenced her to death for starting the war, but I convinced him to take her to the oracle first.”
Turning my back on her, I tried my best to hold back the darkness inside of me. Feeling rage grow inside my chest, my hands began to shake. “I will free her,” I managed to say before facing her once again.
“Don’t be foolish, Nalin,” she said, placing her hand on my arm. “You cannot free her by yourself. Besides I have a plan.”
I brushed her hand away. “This is your fault,” I told her, refusing to mince words. “You think I don’t know you took her from me to begin with. I saw you at the manor she lived in, pretending to be her mother.”
Rosalyn averted her eyes. “I’m guilty,” she admitted, appearing regretful. “You know how I felt―how I always felt about you.”
Clutching my chest, I felt numb. Her words didn’t move me. I felt nothing, but the anger I had harbored within me all of these years. “I cannot return those sentiments.”
She nodded sadly. “You never could, Nalin. Not with me. Not with anyone.”
“Except Willow,” I said bluntly.
“How can you be so sure? How can you be sure that you can feel anything but the hatred which continues to consume you?”
“Because, for a moment, I had,” I said, remembering my short time with Willow.
“I guess I’ve always known that you would,” she told me unhappily. “I swear that I never meant to hurt you or Willow. I love her as if she were my child.”
“Why did you take her, Rosalyn?” I asked, ignoring her babbling and trying to suppress the memories which her presence began to stir up.
“I used to follow you. I made sure you never saw me, but I saw the cabin you constructed from the willow tree,” she started, her eyes trained on me. “I went to the cabin that night with the intention of seeing what had captivated your attention. I found Willow.”
I nodded, silently urging her to go on.
“Things ran through my head. Things I wouldn’t have even contemplated in my right mind,” she told me, appearing horrified. “I was angry at her, because I knew that you could never love me the way you loved her. I was furious, because I was a Dökkálfar...and you were a Ljósálfar. I hated myself for being who I was, and I hated you for not loving me. But when I held Willow in my arms, I knew I couldn’t harm her. It did cross my mind to take her to spite you, but I didn’t plan on opening a portal and hiding her in another realm.”
“Then why did you do it? Why did you take her from me?”
Rosalyn eyed me levelly. “Soldiers approached the cottage while I was inside,” she said soberly. “I hid. They didn’t get to see me, but they weren’t planning on entering the cabin.”
“What are you implying?” I inquired, my mind flooding with old memories.
“They set fire to the cottage, knowing Willow was inside. Your own people torched that cabin,” she told me seriously. “I had no choice. I had to open a doorway to escape, and I took Willow with me.”
“Lies,” I spat furiously. “Every word of it is a lie!”
“It is the truth,” she said, her eyes pleading. “I thought you ordered Willow destroyed. I thought you wanted her dead, but then I heard your parents were murdered. Then I considered the notion that they ordered Willow killed, and you took their lives in an act of revenge.”
“I would never harm my parents,” I said in a low growl. “Your cowardly brother snuck into the castle and killed them in their bed.”
“Callan didn’t do it,” she said adamantly. “Despite what you think, my brother would never kill someone unjustly.”
“He sentenced Willow to death,” I retorted.
“I know he didn’t do it. We were in a truce then, and I am sure he honored it. But now he, like you, cannot see passed his vengeance,” she said somberly. “The two of you will kill off both races. Within a year’s time, both sides will be dead because of a war that never had to be. End it today, Nalin.”
“I can’t,” I muttered, the need to kill growing stronger within me.
Rosalyn’s eyes went cold. “Then you will
be the death of us all.”
A scream shattered the silence.
I realized Rosalyn had distracted me from my true mission, and I didn’t know where my convoy was. I ran blindly in the direction of the screams. I ran until I saw the snow stained red with the blood of my men. Then I saw them. I counted four Dökkálfar. Their swords bloody with Ljósálfar blood.
“Nalin,” the one they call Eberlein said. “So nice of you to join us.”
Enraged, I pulled out two curved, machete-like blades from their holder on my back, swinging them in a circular motion and slicing the air around me. The metal of the blades hummed as if ready for contact. Hungry for revenge, I slowly walked towards the Elves, ready to take on all four at once if I had to.
The Elf closest to me lunged at me clumsily with his sword.
I effortlessly blocked his sword with my machete. Thrusting his sword up with my weapon, I plunged the other one in his chest with one fluid motion. He choked out a scream before he collapsed on the ground at my feet.
I removed my blade from his chest cavity, feeling the hunger to kill more strongly.
The second and third Dökkálfar came towards me menacingly, encircling me while Eberlein eagerly awaited my demise. The second Elf leaped at me, and I knocked him over the head with my machete. He fell to the ground as the third Elf tried to attack me from behind. I turned on my heel in time to block his sword with both of my machetes locked in a scissor like fashion. I kicked him in the shin, breaking it with the force of my boot. With his bone protruding from an open wound, he fell to the ground wailing in agony.
I left him there while the second Elf rose to his feet, raising his sword. I shot a look behind him at Eberlein, realizing he was about to bolt back into the woods. I ran toward the second Elf. Jumping up, before his sword could reach me, I raised my legs parallel to my body. My boot made contact with a tree trunk in mid-flight, bouncing off of it and catapulting myself over the Elf. Flipping over him, I landed squarely on the ground and ran towards Eberlein at full force.
Our swords clashed as Eberlein was a better swordsman. He pushed the blade I blocked with my machete towards my face. When he realized he couldn’t decapitate me, he lunged at me with his sword, making our weapons clash again. I concentrated on blocking while he circled one of my machetes, slicing my hand and disarming me of a blade.
A chill ran up my spine as the blood that fell from my hand revitalized me. I lunged at Eberlein as the second Elf started to his way towards us. I moved my machete in a hacking motion around Eberlein’s blade, breaking the metal in half and disarming him. Gaining momentum, I spun around him with my blade above my head. Standing behind him, I severed his head with a single swipe.
By the time the second Elf reached me, Eberlein was dead. I lifted my other machete from the snow, swinging it in the air. He rushed me with his sword with a war cry that echoed in the stillness. I blocked his blade with both of my machetes, kneeing him in the stomach. As the air rushed from his lungs, I brought my blades to his neck in a scissor-like motion, decapitating him where he stood.
The cries of the third Elf brought my attention back to him. I placed my machetes to their sheaths and removed my sword, walking stealthily towards him.
“Have mercy,” he cried, crawling on his belly across the snow. “I beg you, Nalin. Have mercy upon me.”
“As you would have had for me,” I growled, standing over him within a few strides. I raised my sword over my head, focusing on my target.
“Nalin, don’t!” Rosalyn yelled shrilly, appearing in the trees with an expression of panic.
I ignored her, plunging my long sword into the Elf’s back and impaling him into the ground. I watched as the life drained from his eyes with pleasure, feeling myself grow stronger.
Taking in the sight of the red stained snow that was splattered across the ground, tears began to fall from Rosalyn’s eyes as she watched me in shock. Hyperventilating, her eyes darted from me to the bodies that littered the clearing. Quivering, I watched as she began to sob. “How could you―,” she spat out, her mouth agape. “What have you become, Nalin? Have you no ounce of compassion? Have you no soul?”
I removed my sword from the back of the dead Elf. It exited his body with a sickening pop. “I told you,” I said to her simply, raising an eyebrow. Breathing in the crisp air, I felt the hatred within me recede once more, leaving behind a wonderful numbness. “I gave it to Willow.”
* * * * *
WILLOW:
Glancing upward at the foreboding sky, I felt inwardly conflicted. What would the oracle say to me? Did I want to hear the message? What tactics would she use?
“I can’t believe this all started with a dream,” I muttered worriedly.
“Dreams are windows. Some into our own imaginations and others into other worlds,” my mother told me with her hand on my shoulder.
I scoffed. “I know that now. I wish I could have known that then.”
“It wouldn’t have changed anything. I realize that now,” my mother told me as we stood before the mouth of a cave. “You must go in alone.”
Silently, I nodded, looking at the entrance with trepidation. It was nothing but a massive black hole. I could not see within its chambers, and the not-knowing made me sick. What was beyond that void?
Reluctantly, my eyes swept over my escorts. Callan had commanded six soldiers to accompany me. They wore armor and carried heavy swords, appearing similar to barbarians. They were waiting for me to try to escape so that they would have an excuse to kill me, but I didn’t fall for that trap. I knew my mother had a plan, but she couldn’t tell me about it yet.
I turned my attention back to the cave. Without further hesitation, I stepped into the entrance, feeling as if there were an invisible curtain between the outside world and the cave. The outside curtain rippled like water as I crossed the threshold. I instantly felt as if I had entered another dimension. I turned back and saw my mother standing outside the cave. I knew she could not see me. It seemed this invisible curtain had a two way mirror effect.
I turned around, taking in the scene before me. Inside the cave, torches were lit, casting an eerie glow which contrasted to the brightness outside. The ground beneath my feet contained small fissures within the rock in which steam rose into the damp atmosphere. At the center of the cavern, there was a woman clad in white garments seated atop a large wooden throne. Her head was bowed and covered with a white mantle.
I stepped closer cautiously, my footsteps echoing throughout the room. Inhaling, I smelled something sweet that hung in the air like vaporous nectar. I recognized the smell as ethylene; a sweet smelling gas that is used as an anesthetic. I had made ethylene gas as part of chemistry lab a few years back.
As I approached the woman, I noticed that the few strands of hair, which peeked out from under her mantle, were bright red. Her skin was a wonderful shade of deep caramel. She appeared young, no more than thirty or so human years.
Standing before the seated woman, I watched as her breathing quickened and she gripped the arms of the chair until her knuckles turned white. “I have been waiting for you for nearly a hundred Elven years,” she said suddenly, her voice wispy and dry.
“Sorry,” I muttered awkwardly, not knowing what else to say. I watched as she lifted her head, her gaze meeting my own. I gasped when I saw her eyes were completely white, lacking pupils and irises.
“I am blind,” she told me calmly, her voice echoing slightly throughout the chamber. “But I can see far better with my mind’s eye than you can see with both of yours.”
I nodded, but then my brain registered that she couldn’t see me. “Okay,” I responded in a small voice, fidgeting. “Your hair...is red. I haven’t seen an Elf which didn’t have the dark hair of the Dökkálfar or the white hair of the Ljósálfar.”
Ignoring me, she reached for a small, blue velvet bag at her side. She loosened the taut strings which held the bag closed. “Pick a ruin,” she ordered, holding the bag out to me.
> I reached into the bag, feeling smooth wooden pieces inside that were about the size of dominoes. I pulled out the first one my fingertips grazed. I gazed at the etching on the piece of wood which looked like two triangles that met at their peaks like a flattened number eight. Without further delay, I handed it to the oracle.
“Dagaz,” she whispered, her eyes growing wide as she held the rune in her hand firmly.
“What does it mean?” I asked in a tiny whisper with some trepidation.
“Breakthrough. Awakening. Awareness. Balance,” she said, her voice bouncing off the walls. “Dagaz is the place where...opposites meet. It is the time to embark on that for which you have been born.”
I shook my head. “I was not born,” I told her, not wanting to offend her by doubting her prophetic abilities. “They say I have no mother. They say I was created.”
She noisily breathed in the fumes, letting her eyes roll back further into their sockets. Her lips quivered as she said, “Willow, creation of Nalin, rightful King of the Ljósálfar, and daughter of Rosalyn, princess of the Dökkálfar. We are all designed by a higher power which doesn’t distinguish us by title or race. As I am neither, Ljósálfar or Dökkálfar, so shall you be.
I nodded, forgetting again that the oracle could not see me.
“Your construction was no accident. Nothing which occurs in the larger scheme of life is ever an accident, but merely a part of a bigger plan which only I can foresee in glimpses,” she said with certainty in her voice. “Nalin knew pieces which he needed in order to drive him toward his ultimate destiny. Rosalyn knew pieces which pertain to her, but no one is to know it all.”
With an arched brow, I asked, “What did you tell Nalin?”
“A prophecy is for one person and that person alone,” she said sternly. “Since you are flesh of his flesh and spirit of his spirit, you may know but a piece.”
I leaned closer with interest.
“Nalin, son of the brave King Agenor and rightful King of the Ljósálfar,” she said, pausing to take a deep breath. She shivered as if she was high on the vapors which were emitted from the fissures. “Greatness cannot be achieved without sacrifice. A sacrifice cannot be made without heartache. You must choose. Become a great king, dying at the end of a long existence loveless and childless. Or sacrifice your crown for the greater glory of uniting the races.”