The Half-Hearts Chronicles

by Kealohilani

  The twelve sides of the room made the space feel almost circular. An elegant white marble column stood at each junction of the walls. Gold branches and leaves spiraled up the columns to Corinthian capitals, where the mysterious heart-in-heart-shaped design stood proudly as a symbol of hope and virtue.

  Between every two pillars were glorious, tall, etched-glass windows— trimmed with sheer-white drapery with golden ties. One of these magnificent arched windows was set into each of the walls, flooding the room with sunlight during the day. The walls themselves were made of seamless floor-to-ceiling mirrors, which reflected all of the light and elegance in the room— mimicking the vast expanse of eternity.

  This chamber had been left untouched by the evil that had overtaken the castle. However, it now contained twenty-four coffins— two in front of each window.

  Drakne guessed from the aura of the room that it must have taken great effort to get them in. He noticed that each coffin had been made from the same materials as the surroundings, and figured that they must have been charmed with the same good magic used to create the room itself.

  He was correct. A great deal of good magic had been required in order for the room to accept the coffins in the first place. Even more magic had been required to keep them in the room.

  Vranah had forced a good person to construct and charm the coffins with good enchantments. The man he had summoned to do this work was an exceptionally-skilled carpenter from the outlying village of Kellinsi, called Dustrahn.

  Dustrahn’s father’s side of the family had served the Trisaknen royalty for generations whenever new thrones or other unique and exquisite items were needed. On his mother’s side, they were known for their knowledge of healing and good magic. These coffins were proof that he had inherited both skills.

  Although Dustrahn hated the idea of working for Vranah, he dearly loved his wife and eight children and did not wish for his outward rebellion to create a fatherless family. He had worked all day and through the night, every night, for the last week, since Kellinsi had fallen to Vranah— while Vranah’s troops continued to amass and regroup in and around the town.

  And when he had been called, only hours ago, to bring the coffins to the castle and install them, he had made the trip in under an hour— arriving at sunset, just as the castle was falling. He focused on his family and his task, thinking of nothing else, and worked quickly in order to return safely home.

  Vranah had smiled at the spectacular craftsmanship and the nearly-perfect results of his new secret project and felt that Dustrahn deserved a great reward. Therefore, Dustrahn’s death had been instantaneous.

  Drakne took a closer look at the coffins. He observed the same raised pattern of gold branches and leaves wrapped around each coffin. The heart-in-heart seal on the center of the top of each lid.

  Again, he smiled at the irony. The crystal clear glass of the lids also had the same delicate branches-and-leaves pattern etched around the edges. White marble pedestals supported the coffins and were draped in the same sheer white material as the curtains.

  The longer Drakne spent here, the more uncomfortable he became. This space had such intensely-good magic coursing throughout it that it could not be removed by any evil. It almost felt as if it were somehow burning the skin on his face.

  A sudden desire to flee overtook him. At the same time he found the room captivating. He finally noticed that the two coffins he had been searching for were the closest to the entrance on the left side.

  He had passed them on his way in. At this exact moment, the full names of Keanu and Sarana were magically engraving themselves on each of the two gold plaques, which were affixed to the foot of each coffin.

  Prince Keanu Jhoran Marubain Kelamosakai Inihma

  Sarana Annea Kinartma

  Drakne motioned to the lids of the two coffins until they hovered three feet above the cases. With his other hand, he motioned the two bodies inside. The lids lowered gently until they sank into place.

  Drakne whispered the magic words for preservation and the bodies transformed as if they and their clothes had been cleaned and repaired. No marks defaced their bodies any longer. They were perfectly and permanently restored.

  Drakne took a final look at the faces of the fallen Half-Hearts— unsure of what he expected to see. His eyes widened. Their faces had changed! It was a deeper change, beyond that of the obvious repairs. One that greatly disturbed him. Their final looks of anguish had been replaced by peaceful and serene expressions, as if they had died during a wonderful dream.

  Troubling thoughts raced through his mind. What if they had found each other in the next life? That was a possible explanation as to why their faces had changed— but how?

  Could they affect his master’s plans here? The idea was more than a little unnerving.

  He finally caught hold of a thought that comforted him. No— they must marry while still in their physical bodies or the foretold magic could have no effect on the physical realm. They could be happy together now, but that would not affect this world. Still, one thing bothered him. They were happy.

  Drakne frowned as he looked at them. He could not stand for people to be happy in any way. He made a promise to himself at that moment that he would not only endeavor to kill all of the Half-Hearts before they could marry— but that he would also ensure that when they died, they would not die in love with each other as these two had.

  No.

  They would die alone and in misery, with no comfort to take with them into the next life. Contention. Despair. Neglect. Suspicion. Forgetfulness. Infidelity. Every possible form of self-centeredness would mar their lives before they ever left this world— alone and bitter.

  He exited the room quickly and slammed the great door behind him with an echoing thud and one final thought.

  Two down, twenty-two to go.

  Arch-Nemesis

  Chapter Two

  “End of chapter one,” Lani marveled aloud as she typed the last words of her book’s first chapter on her computer.

  Lani smiled as a warm sensation spread through her heart. Focusing on the positive and finding something to pour herself into, had been the right choice. If this was how it felt to finish one chapter, she was sure finishing the novel would complete her emotional healing.

  She had just been through another horrible break-up. There had been many in her life. But this time things were different— this time she was sure that her apparent bad luck in the guy department had cost her the love of her life.

  A soft glowing light came from a lamp on a nightstand— next to a window seat, which was nestled in a large bay window and filled with cushions. On the other side of the window seat was an identical nightstand and lamp. Two matching pearl-white wrought iron twin beds stood next to the nightstands— one of which Lani was currently perched upon with her MacBook Pro balanced carefully on her lap.

  Elegantly designed in a purple and white color scheme, Lani’s bedroom had Victorian-style furniture neatly and symmetrically arranged around the room. Two cherry wood dressers. Two matching bookcases. And two golden-framed mirrors, which hung on the wall opposite the foot of each of the beds. Between the mirrors was a large closet with white louver doors.

  On the wall on Lani’s side of the room, hung a valedictorian medal from high school, several academic awards from UCSD, and a couple of fencing medals. All understated in their display.

  Most prominent were the pictures of her friends and family— and her books. The bookshelves were filled with the works of Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte, Agatha Christie, and a large volume of the complete works of William Shakespeare. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, at least three translations of Gaston Leroux’s The Phantom of the Opera, and many other classics also had a home in her overcrowded bookcase.

  There were several modern books in her collection. Some of them were personal growth books and business books. Among these were her favorite gems— written by Tony Robbins, Napoleon Hill, Dale Carnegie,
and Robert Kiyosaki— all of which she considered essential reading. But the majority were fiction— chief among those being the entire set of the Harry Potter series and The Chronicles of Narnia.

  On the bottom shelf of her bookcase lived a large, light-blue, suede-covered box with a matching lid, adorned with elegant brass-reinforced corners. At that box, she rarely looked. She knew what was in it— remnants of her shattered heart.

  Three engagement rings, two dried corsages from Junior and Senior Prom, a few sentimental pieces of jewelry, love letters, and a stack of photos of fading, nearly-forgotten memories— all from those who had long since gone— waited inside the powder blue walls like emotional jack-in-the-boxes.

  The box caught her eye for a moment, but she looked away. It wasn’t time yet… or was it? Lani’s gaze moved to a picture of her and her latest boyfriend, Josiah Harding, which still stood framed on her nightstand.

  They were both wearing jeans— but she wore a black short-sleeved shirt, and he wore a white designer T-shirt. Josiah was giving her a piggyback ride in the picture, which was taken from his waist up. Her arms were around his neck and the two of them were beaming with so much happiness that it could have been an engagement photo. She sighed as she realized she still hadn’t taken it down.

  Lani set her computer aside and picked up the frame, staring at it intently. She studied his deep brown eyes, his brown skin, his white smile, and his shoulder-length, somewhat curly, bleached-blonde hair, which made him look like the surfer that he was.

  He reminded her of a six-foot-three Tongan version of the Versace model, Tuki Brando. She had always thought Josiah looked better with black hair, his natural color— but she had a deep love for who he was inside, so she thought he was handsome no matter what he did. And that smile! Oh, how she missed that!

  Actually, she missed him. She missed how Josiah would talk to her for hours when he wouldn’t talk to anyone else for more than a minute. She missed the sweet and inexplicable innocence that exuded from him. The way his honesty was matched only by his intellect, making it easy to put faith in any advice he gave. And, she missed the way he had encouraged her to reach for the stars— rather than competing with her, trying to slow her down, or trying to change or control her.

  It was all so irreplaceable! There had always been such an extraordinary feeling of peace and bliss whenever they were together. He was her shelter from the storm of life and she was his.

  Lani shook her head to pull herself out of the downward dwelling cycle, but she still couldn’t take her eyes off of the picture. She knew it belonged in that upholstered box of shattered promises, broken dreams, and lost hopes— but this boyfriend had been different from all the others.

  He had accepted all of the love she had to give and, in the beginning, had returned it all. She remembered when Josiah read her English 315 paper on The Phantom of the Opera. He smiled at her and gushed, “This is so rad, Lani! You should totally think about getting it published!” His genuine support and the sincere tone of his voice had given her the strength to believe that maybe one day that kind of thing would be possible for her.

  And that wasn’t an isolated incident. He was always telling her how smart she was— always building her up. Josiah hadn’t cheated on her. He hadn’t emotionally or verbally abused her. He hadn’t even tried to “put her in her place” or to “leave her for her own good.” He hadn’t done any of the horrible things the other guys had done— so how could she relegate him to that box?

  Lani jumped from her musing state as her younger brother Tyler walked into the room. She hadn’t even noticed the door opening. He was just suddenly there— all six feet of him— wearing a peacock blue T-shirt and black board shorts. In her surprise, the picture frame slipped from her hand to the carpeted floor with a quiet thud and her now-empty hand flew to her heart.

  “You scared me!” Lani squealed.

  “Sorry,” Tyler laughed. “I knocked.”

  Lani sighed in relief as her heartbeat slowly returned to normal. Tyler cringed as he saw the picture of Lani and Josiah where it had fallen, face up, on the floor.

  “You’re not still hung up on that jerk, are you?”

  “Don’t call him a jerk, please. We were perfect for each other.”

  “Not even!”

  “We were! We could do anything together.”

  Lani sighed, picked up the picture and replaced it on the nightstand.

  “Give me one example.”

  “Okay, I’ll give you one of my favorites. We had the most magical date one day. It was nothing special or planned— it just happened. We went to the beach and played all day— laughing and tickling each other while we raced across the sand. Josiah kept chasing me back into the water where we splashed and laughed even more.”

  Tyler couldn’t help but smile a little as he saw his sister’s face light up in the recollection— but he shook his head slightly and his smile was quickly replaced by an incredulous look and then a frown as he remembered what Josiah had ended up doing in the end.

  “After the sun went down, we came back here and he greeted Mom and Dad respectfully and sweetly, like he always did— which I love in any guy— and then he and I sat on the couch to watch football.

  “After the game, Josiah channel surfed until he happened to find a historical program about Julius Caesar. He asked me what I knew about him. I answered honestly that I didn’t know that much about Caesar, other than what had been written about him in Shakespeare’s tragedy. Do you know how most guys get when I even mention Shakespeare?”

  “I can imagine,” Tyler answered with an impish smile, knowing how he would react if a girl started prattling on about Shakespeare.

  Lani smiled at his tone. “My point exactly. But you know what Josiah did?”

  “I’m totally on the edge of my seat,” Tyler teased. Lani batted him on his shoulder.

  “He asked me if he could see the play! He actually cared about what I was interested in! He wanted to share it with me. I ran for my copy and the two of us sat side-by-side as I read it aloud to him for over an hour. He told me later that it was the first time that he had ever understood it because I brought it to life for him. He loved it so much that he wanted to see it and so we streamed the old 1953 version on Amazon.”

  “Okaaay. So he liked Shakespeare. So do a lot of really preppy elitist snobs at your college. But you don’t like them.”

  “Josiah wasn’t like that! He was interested in it and saw it in a new light because I was passionate about it. That night when he went to go home, he said goodbye to me mimicking Shakespeare’s language! So romantic!”

  “So, so, romantic!” Tyler laughed, batting his eyelashes and clasping his hands underneath his chin. Lani playfully hit his shoulder again.

  “He brought things to life for me too. He loved football like nothing else. I had never hated it, but I was never really into it before either. But with him, I could watch it for hours on end. I’d go with him all the time to his nephew’s games at his old high school where he used to play.”

  “Yeah, I’d like a girl that would watch football with me too!”

  “I know you would,” laughed Lani. “But that wasn’t the point— I liked who I was with him. And he liked who he was with me. Whenever we were together, we were the best versions of ourselves.

  “And we could be happy just doing nothing but studying together for hours. Sometimes he would just sing to me for no reason. Everything was so easy. We could just flow from one thing to another with no difficulty. Grocery store. Washing dishes. Rock concert. Surfing. Hiking. It didn’t matter. We were the perfect match…”

  The sparkle in Lani’s eyes dimmed as they stared at the photograph without really seeing it. Tyler noticed. As he looked at the picture again his hands slowly clenched into fists. Hasn’t Lani suffered long enough?

  “Lani, you broke up with him for a reason. I may not know everything, but I saw enough to know he wasn't treating you right! I should’ve kicked his sorry
—”

  “Tyler! Watch your language.”

  “You’re giving him too many excuses, Sis! Stop blaming yourself! You treated him like a flippin’ king and saw only the good in him. But he started taking you for granted two seconds after he finally got up the nerve to ask you to be his girlfriend! And, you totally gave him like a billion chances to change before you dumped him.”

  “That’s true… But then I found out I was his first girlfriend! How was I supposed to know that? He’s five years older than me for cryin’ out loud!

  “I thought he didn’t love me as more than a really good friend, but it turns out he was just scared and didn’t know how to tell me how he felt. I found out from his brother later that Josiah was going to ask me to marry him! I ruined everything!”

  “Could he be a bigger wuss?! So what if you did the breaking up?! Come on, Lani! You tried to get back with him like a million times over the last eight months and all he ever kept saying was, ‘It’s over,’ again, and again, even though you guys never cheated on each other or anything big and so it would have been easy to fix things. He should have been begging you for another chance like a real man!”

  “Yes it would have been very easy to fix, but—”

  “But nothing! Everyone saw that you two should get back together and he was just stubborn. Lame! He should have gotten over it and come back after you instead of acting like a little girl! No offense to girls. AND, he was stupid enough to go get a new girlfriend when he was obviously still in love with you!”

  “But that’s just because I made the mistake of pointing out that neither of us had been able to move on since our break-up. The next day he held this girl’s hand right in front of me. She knew it too. She kept playing it up and moving her hands all around his chest and shoulders just to show that he was hers now and not mine!”