As if I could forget. His words were permanently etched into my mind. They replayed at the most random moments, always reminding me how I’d failed to keep his love.
“I stood beside him. He was ninety-four. With spells of healing, I’d prolonged his life, but I couldn’t grant him my same immortality. I held his hand, felt his grip grow weaker. He looked up at me, his eyes narrowed. For a brief moment, his strength returned and his fingers dug into my skin. He said….” I stopped to swallow. Then I forced out the rest. “He said, ‘How could you do this to me? Myl curse you forever, Klint.’”
I squeezed my eyes shut and pressed my face deeper into Yarling’s neck. His arms, which already held me, gently stroked my back.
“What do you think he meant?” Yarling asked softly. I could feel his breath stir my hair.
“Obviously he meant how could I live while he died.”
“No, my dear. Think about what he said. He knew you were immortal. You’d been together for so long, right? He knew you would survive him. So, what else could he mean?”
“He hated me because I lived.” The only logical explanation.
“No,” Yarling repeated, but not unkindly. “Klint, how do you think he’d react to knowing you have a new lover?”
I sat up, pulling myself from the prince’s embrace. “What do you mean?”
Yarling’s face was sympathetic, his eyes soft, his lips slightly pressed together. “Klint, it’s natural to distance oneself from a situation we know to be painful. Maybe he tried to save you the torment of mourning him. Trying to make you hate him instead.”
I gasped. “How could you even think he’d do that? I loved him. And he loved me.”
“I’m already finding it hard to look at my parents. I know what you experienced because I’m feeling the same. And I know your emotions ran deeper. You were with him for so long. He wanted to save you from the pain of his passing.”
“That can’t be true.”
“What makes more sense to you? He never loved you and cursed you with his last breath? Or, he tried to let you move on without him?”
I opened my mouth, but no words came out.
“Klint, I have the feeling he wanted to set you free. It might not have been the best way, but it was his only way.”
“But… that makes no sense. I spent decades mourning him anyway. It made me turn away from any potential love interests because I couldn’t stomach the pain a second time. Why would he treat me this way?”
“Because he loved you, my dear. He wanted what was best for you. He had no way to know you’d hang on to him despite the unpleasantness at the end.”
“He should have. If he really loved me.”
“I don’t doubt he did. It’s the sort of thing a person would do if they were in love. Sort of like almost making a love potion to force down a guardsman’s throat, just to make the one you love happy.”
“I… I…” I stuttered.
“We don’t always make the right choices. But I think you acted out of a place of love. So did Prince Vulten.”
“You knew,” I accused. “You knew all this time.”
“Of course, I knew. As soon as you mentioned living in Farlerotna, I had to dig through years and years of records. Don’t you see? From the very start you fascinated me. I still am enthralled. And I’ll continue to be.”
My heart beat a steady rhythm in my chest, unaware it had been healed. For so many years the weight of Vulten’s final words pressed me down. Now I could view them in a different light. Yarling’s interpretation might not be the correct way, but a new hope began to grow inside me. Perhaps Vulten had been trying to be self-sacrificing. Trying to get me to let go of my love. He would have done something like that.
I lay back down on the bed and Yarling put his arms around me again.
“Thank you,” I whispered.
The terrible anxiety usually filled me evaporated. He held me tight. As I drifted off into a peaceful sleep, my thoughts dwelled on those dreaded words: true love. I couldn’t say definitively I was a believer, but the concept didn’t seem so awful anymore.
About the Author
Foster Bridget Cassidy is a rare, native Phoenician who enjoys hot desert air and likes to wear jackets in summer. She has wanted to be a fiction writer since becoming addicted to epic fantasy during high school. Since then, she’s studied the craft academically—at Arizona State University—and as a hobby—attending conventions and workshops around the country. A million ideas float in her head, but it seems like there’s never enough time to get them all down on paper.
Email: [email protected]
Facebook: www.facebook.com/FosterBCassidy
Twitter: @FosterBCassidy
Website: www.Fosterbridgetcassidy.com
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Breaking His Spell Page 13