Black Knight

by Svetlana Ivanova

  "I know there's something you're not telling me," I said in a soft voice. "I have always known that it's there, and I could feel it eating away at you. It worries me seeing you not being yourself. Tell me what is going on."

  Allecra stared at me. Her look was like a sharply pointed icicle piercing deep into my soul.

  "Will you forgive me if I tell you something, Nina?" she said at last. My heart was pounding as I stared at her, immediately regretted that I had asked. I was beginning to get nervous and scared of what I might hear. The charming spell of the summer rain had vanished. The duck family was gone.

  "What is it?" I said as calmly as I could, but my voice quivered with dread. Allecra swallowed hard before she opened her mouth to speak again. I felt like a frightened deer, waiting for her words.

  "I lied to you about the pills."

  I could feel my heart sink deeply into the void of emptiness. My hands went back for her face to cover my mouth, yet a small gasp escaped my lips. For a long moment, I couldn't find my voice to speak. All I could do was staring back at Allecra through the brimming unshed tears. I thought I knew what heartache felt like. But there was nothing compared to this. The pain in your chest, the ache behind your eyes, the knowing that things would never be the same.

  "What...?" I breathed shakily. My face tensed with internal pain that coursed hot and cold inside my body. I felt a slight dizziness but tried to keep my composure.

  "I had to, Nina," Allecra said quietly. "I'm sorry."

  Something inside me had crumbled away, and nothing came in to fill the cavern. There was an abnormal lightness in my head, and sounds had a hollow echo in my ears.

  "You've planned it all along?" I struggled to speak through my tight throat. "All these trips and everything...to get what you want from me?"

  "No! It's nothing like that, Nina," she said in a panicky voice when she heard that. "Listen...you don't understand...I..."

  I turned away from her, not wanting to look into her eyes anymore. Then I buried my face in my hands. It felt like the weight of a mountain had dropped on my shoulders. My throat burned as I began to cry. I felt Allecra's hands reached for me, but I pushed her away. My whole body was trembling.

  "All those times I was a fool thinking I was enough for you, thinking you only wanted me and loved me for me," I said between sobs. "And all those times I thought we were genuinely making love."

  "No Nina, damn it! You got it all wrong!" Allecra cried, pulling me into her arms. "I truly am in love with you. When we were intimately together, it was all real and magical. I swear it over my life. I didn't fake a single moment of it. You can't disregard how I feel about you like that!"

  "Then what do promises mean to you?" I said in a trembling voice, "Something that you can break when you want to? You don't understand, it's not that I'm not trying. I try so very hard to change my mind about it, to be strong enough for your sake and deserving of your love, and all I ask of you is to give me time!"

  Allecra shook her head, closing her eyes in defeat. My breath was burning in my lungs, and I wondered when I was going to choke.

  "I know, Nina, believe me, I really do," she said. "I'm so sorry, but I had no choice."

  I had never seen Allecra crying, but now her eyes glittered with tears as she looked at me.

  "I can't believe you did that to me, Allecra," I whispered in disappointment. "I thought you would never hurt me again."

  "Do you think I wanted all this?!" she yelled back loudly. "I didn't even ask to be born the way I am, or carry the responsibility I probably couldn't fulfill!"

  "Right! Then go ahead and choose the greater good over my stupid feelings!" I cried and covered my face in tears again.

  A deep silence like the shadow of a cloud settled around us. The only sound I heard was my pounding heart and ragged breaths. We were quiet for a long moment. Then I heard Allecra took a deep breath.

  "I know you hate me now," she whispered. "But if you were me, you would understand."

  I wiped the tears off my face with my hand roughly.

  "And if you were me, if you killed your mother by being born and were scared senseless of the unexpected, you would understand me. You can't tell a depressed person to be happy or a scared person to be brave. But I don't hate you, Allecra. In fact, I can't even hate you. Not one bit, not even at all, but I do hate what you did to me. I was too intoxicated with happiness that I left no room in my heart for the unimaginable."

  Allecra winced at my words. Pain and guilt were written all over her face. I almost felt pity for her.

  "They insisted on knowing about you," she said in a low voice. "That whether or not you're the one."

  I looked up at her, but she dropped her gaze from mine. Allecra let the word hung in the air, and I just knew what she meant by the hopelessness in her voice.

  "But I'm not the one, am I?" I asked softly. Allecra didn't reply. "It doesn't work with me, does it? That's what troubles you all this time."

  I didn't know what was worse, being lied to by someone you valued above all else or being told you're not the one for them. I felt as if I had been walking through a storm, numb and soaked to the bones with emotions.

  "Nina," she said. "I could be wrong, maybe you need more time. I will ask them to wait a little longer. We just have to try harder..."

  "But I can't give you what you want now, you get it?" I said. "I just can't! I just can't!"

  "You don't know how long the Elders have been waiting for me," Allecra said, taking my hands in hers. "Their patience is wearing thin. I am powerless against my creators. They threatened me unless the breeding is done."

  It took a great deal of effort for me to say it out loud.

  "Are you going to leave me like the others, too?"

  She looked stunned when she heard it.

  "What on earth are you talking about?" she said. "All I know is I can't live without you. Everything that I did, I did it so that we could be together. I'm not giving up on you. I know we can make it through this. I'm scared too, but I trust you that you can do it. Don't let us go, Nina."

  I shook my head and closed my eyes, summoning all the strength I had left to speak.

  "What are they threatening you with?" I asked.

  "Xenon talked to the Elders and reported on our progress. They are not pleased with my inactivity. If you're not conceived..." she said and paused to look at me, and for the first time, I saw her face marred with distraught and fear.

  "If I'm not conceived, then what?" I whispered.

  "They will take me back to Arzuria."

  Like a tree struck by lightning, I sat dumbfounded with the buds of hope and dreams scorched and blackened to ashes. The thought of losing her already filled my heart with foreseeable grief. If Allecra was taken away from me, all things joyous and beautiful and bright would be gone with her. I could not live like this.

  One big tear spilled from my eye, ran down my cheek and splattered like a raindrop on our joined hands. The others followed in an unbroken stream. I bent forward and pressed my face into Allecra's chest, sobbing with an intensity I'd never felt before.

  Allecra held me tightly in her arms, rubbing my back and said nothing. I was physically and emotionally drained that no matter how hard I tried to cling to her, I could still feel as if Allecra was slowly slipping away from my grasp like a dream.

  CHAPTER 44

  Moonlight and the sound of wind ruffling leaves filled the dark quiet room. In the stillness of the night, I was lying in bed, not knowing what country or city we were in, but I didn't care anymore. My tears had dried up like an exhausted spring. No thoughts formed in my hazy mind. I felt as if my body was melting away, like a candle burned out with its own heat. The hysterical bouts of crying had driven me into sickness and Allecra into depression. Albeit the motive to secure the vestige of trust, things had taken a drastic turn after the whole truth was revealed.

  The Azurian Elders had found a new world for Allecra — a civilization whose people were more comp
atible with her kind than the humans. Allecra would be taken to that Earth-like planet, millions of light-year away from me. She could carry the hybridization and have a better chance of succeeding with the new race.

  It was one thing to lie to me, but to leave me after making me believe in what we had together was salt on the wound.

  Allecra was now sitting on a cushioned armchair by the open window. I hadn't spoken a word to her since we left the pond. The night-blooming jasmine floated in through the lace curtains. Her face in the moonbeam as stunning as it was, reminded me of the marble statue of a mourning angel in the museum.

  In the darkness, I heard her sigh gravely to herself. She was contrite and demented by guilt. Her breaths resonated in my ears every now and then. I could almost feel her heartbeat in the small empty space between us, waiting for me to forgive her for her faults, yet she knew she couldn't ask that of me anymore. What she did was too heavy to lift with my forgiveness alone. It needed time. But time was now slowly flowing like desert sand into a bottomless abyss.

  In the end, it was like someone had taken a gigantic knife and cut through our joined souls all over again. I thought I had known this girl, whose smile was as bright as the summer sun and eyes that twinkled like the winter stars. The way her hair looked like a field of golden wheat. How her face lit up when she looked at me. Her stare, solemn like a wise owl's at midnight. I thought I would recognize her by touch alone, by the way, she breathes against my skin, but that person I knew was gone, replaced by someone else new.

  Was there anything that could eclipse the stain of this betrayal and bring my Allecra back to me? A familiar forgotten thought crawled like a stalking beast from the darkness of my mind.

  Perhaps we were not meant to be together.

  The realization caused a pang of heartache to stir inside me again. Hot tears surged up from the back of my eyes, burning their way like unclogged pipes until they spilled ceaselessly down my cheeks. So many innocent moments of us spent in the pinnacle of happiness, crowding forward inside my heart but slowly dissolving away into dust. My shoulders shook despite my muffled sob.

  "Nina?" Allecra's voice came to me. It was as gentle as a river breeze upon my skin, but I didn't answer. Her calling was only a sound beyond range. She got up and walked over to my side quickly.

  Allecra cleared her throat. There were tears in her voice, but I turned away so that I wouldn't see that beautiful face. It would break my heart all over again. A heavy sigh issued from her lungs.

  "Please Nina, don't do this," she pleaded, "I could bear anything but seeing you broken and hurt. It makes me hate everything about myself even more. I'm so very sorry for everything I did to cause you this much pain."

  My throat burned from swallowing the lump that was still stuck there. Every part of my body felt limb and heavy and useless, as though it would turn to stone and crumble to dust in despair.

  Allecra came to the other side and sat on the bed with me. Her shimmering turquoise eyes searched for mine in the shadow. She put her soft hand on my forehead as if to feel me.

  "Nina, you're burning up," Allecra said worriedly.

  Then she swiftly got off the bed and went out of the room. She came back with a glass of water and two cold medicines in a small plastic cup. Allecra tried to get me to take them, but I pushed her hand away, spilling half of the water onto the bed sheet. She froze with a frown etched on her perfect face.

  "If you think this is a clever way of punishing me, well, it's working, Nina," Allecra said, her voice rose with frustration. "I receive it ten folds, hundreds of thousand folds! I don't think I could take it anymore. Tell me what I should do to make it stop! How can I make it up to you?"

  I was silent. All thoughts fell away from my mind like snowflakes dropping silently in the dark.

  "I know what I did to you was utterly selfish and unforgivable — because I am selfish," Allecra continued. "But this greed and selfishness sprang from my desire to keep you with me, to be showered with your love, your touch, your smile and laughter each and every day. I wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world. You have no idea how grief threatened to tear away at my heart. It blinded me with fear and drove me half-mad. When Xenon told me they wanted to take me back, I was shell-shocked. In my moment of weakness, I mistreated your trust and made that stupid mistake. But if I lost you, Nina, I'd lose everything in me too!"

  Her speech struck a sympathetic chord, but of course, my mind was numb. Her words, her touch, her eyes all spoke in different tongues at me, and all I could respond was an inscrutable stare as empty as my soul.

  "Nina, please, just say something," Allecra whispered pleadingly. She turned to kneel by the bedside, looking at me in the eyes. Her face was once I had not seen, full of pain and sorrow mixed with other unrevealed feelings. My heart faltered as I opened my mouth to speak.

  "I have nothing to say, Allecra," I said, my voice turned hoarse and scratchy from crying.

  "Why? Why do you look at me like you want me to disappear like you want to erase me, erase our memories?" she said. "You said you would always love me no matter what."

  "You can't use love as a chain to put around people's neck and enslave them to your will."

  I could feel my words bite at her heart like vicious snakes. Allecra's face contorted with instant pain. Her gaze flickered. Her whole body tensed like something inside her was breaking. I watched her face shone luminous and impossibly pale as if the moon had drunk color out of it. A moment passed in deafening silence then another and another.

  At last, she stood up and slowly turned away from me. Those glowing turquoise eyes were all glassy and distant. Without a sound, she walked back to the window again. Her face stared off into the black starless sky. From her reflection on the glass, I thought I saw a single drop of a tear rolling down her cheek, but it could have been just the night dew outside.

  "I thought what we had with each other was strong enough," she said softly as if speaking more to herself. "But maybe I'm the only one who really believes our love could free you."

  The wind blew and night birds fluttered their wings over the treetops. Then Allecra turned to look at me one more time. I wanted to run to her and hold her in my arms and kiss her, asking her not to go, but I couldn't.

  And she left the room.

  Silence shrouded itself over me like a black mist. I wanted to cry, but no tears came out, and all I did was staring blankly at the spot where Allecra stood, listening to my own heart breaking into pieces. It was the most painful cry I ever had. I didn't know hearts could feel so empty but so heavy at the same time.

  ~*~

  In the kitchen, the next morning, Allecra and I sat down together at the table quietly. In front of me, a white porcelain bowl of warm soup emitted steam in the air. It shifted about and drifted like little ghosts in the morning light. Tendrils of it swirled up into my lungs as I breathed deeply the good savory scent, a strong hint of ginger and cinnamon. Beside it, a small bowl of white rice and a cup of hot lemon tea. I relished in the warmth of it, but I wasn't hungry.

  Allecra sat looking at my face while I was staring at the food.

  "You can't go without eating all day, Nina," she said.

  I missed those mornings when we woke in each other's arms. When I was in her lap, kissing her, our bodies entwined skin on skin, memorizing the shape of the other's lips and getting lost in each other's gaze, and my fingers running through her silky hair, and when I pulled away just to see the ardency, passion, love and fire in her glowing eyes.

  Now we sat and talked like two strangers.

  I let out a low sigh and made an effort to pick up the spoon and began to eat. My hand kept feeding my mouth mechanically. Allecra's soup was a perfect blend of flavors as expected. Its saltiness immediately eased the rawness of my throat.

  "Where are we now?" I asked without looking up.

  "Somewhere no one could find us," Allecra said.

  I lifted my head to scan around the place for the first time.
It was a beautiful house with a nice and well-equipped kitchen. There was even a red vintage refrigerator. A wrap-around porch faced a lively garden outside. I could see the blades of grass glowed with a deep green luster. There were rose bushes and flowerbeds of white daisies and moonshines and sunflowers and even a row of tulips in the garden. The sky was blue, and there were little sheep clouds up high.

  Everything I saw was better than what I could have imagined. I wouldn't be surprised if we were actually living inside a painting of some artist. And I bet there was even a small library somewhere in this small dreamy house. But for some reason, I didn't feel enlivened by any of it. It was all too good to be true.

  Allecra reached over for my hand with her soft fingers. Her action was cautious as if she was afraid I would break from her touch.

  "We can stay here as long as we want, Nina, even forever," she said, "We can be here and create a world removed from reality, from all responsibilities and unwanted future."

  I held her gaze, staring into her sparkling turquoise eyes.

  "Tell me we're not hiding from them."

  She didn't answer me.

  "Allecra."

  "I'm doing everything I can. I'm willing to fight for us."

  "What's the point of fighting if we know we're going to lose anyway?"

  "No, I haven't lost you yet."

  "I'm not the right match for you, Allecra," I said in a hollow voice. "You've tested it for yourself, haven't you?"

  "Please, don't say it like that, Nina," she said. "You made it sound like everything we did was a pretense. What I feel for you is valid...every single damn emotion and thought of you."

  "But I can't be what you want anymore."

  "Screw everything! I don't care!" She snapped back, "I refuse to stand by and watch myself lose you. All I know is I'm not giving up! I will try my goddamn hardest to make things work for us. We're not broken yet, Nina. And I will mend us back again."