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Image used for the chapter heading is my own photo :)
Written by 
"Please, sit."
It was not as though Vaithe had a choice. She was held bound as an observer within her own body, control was beyond her grasp, and her heavy thud reverberated through the courtyard as her body collapsed into the long grasses that overran the grounds.
Darien had led her to the ruins of the once pristine courtyard. The gardens were wild, overgrown; the King's statues of his revered plainscats lay in pieces, shattered; the cracked fountains were coated in viridian vines, the colour out of place in their autumnal world, and the stagnant waters were naught but a breeding ground for the various insects. All that remained whole from the memories of the past was the distinct, ethereal music that sung from the broken fount.
It was once a beautiful hymn that instilled a tranquillity into all who listened. It was now an eerie melody that drifted about the sundered ruins, a ghostly remnant of another time in another world, a sad tune that would have brought her to tears were she able to summon them... oh, how she wished she could enjoy this music once more.
Her dull eyes stared at Darien as her raging mind screamed at him. He walked about the overgrown gardens with a familiar step and ignored her as she lay bound by his blighted magic. The minutes seemed as hours as she inwardly glared at him; if only her mind could set him ablaze. Her soul glowered at him through every pore of her incapable body, and for the first time in all of the lives that she remembered, she wished that she were a mage.
The setting sun had lit the rainbow skies on fire and the abominable mage stood silhouetted against the bright gleam, he was a black shadow the shape of a man as he ran his hand along the cracked remains of the central fountain, and finally he chose to sit delicately upon its edge.
"Oh, calm yourself, Viffy. I'll give you back in a moment. Even if you were a mage I doubt you could disentangle yourself. I was unable when it happened to me, and I am... significantly stronger than the average mage."
She could hear the ego drip through his voice and she could scarcely wait for her freedom, she desired nothing more than to punch his smirking face, and she knew that he was smirking; his sneer was clear within his tones.
An invisible tendril of his magical essence tightened about her as she mentally assailed him, and he held her further from her body as he sighed through the ethereal melody. "I see. This is exactly why I chose to bind you; you refuse to listen."
He snapped his fingers, a sharp click that echoed against the dull stone, and long, illusory, red hair sprang up about her body and twisted her to its will. She inwardly screamed as the ringlets curled tighter about her and forced her body onto its back, and she found herself face to face with an unexpected woman. The woman held a regal demeanour that amplified her elegance, her delicate countenance appeared unworthy of the fabled auburn strands, and Vaithe's horror vanished as she fell deep into the woman's smiling emerald eyes.
Her eyes drowned within the endless depth's of the woman's enchanting stare and she was perplexed by the distinct familiarity that swam about her mind. A confusion that disappeared as the woman stabbed at her body with a silver blade and the equally powerful realisation thrust itself into her thoughts; the woman had been the dark entity, and Darien had been both the medium used as well as the source.
Painful vibrations coursed through Vaithe's body as she felt Darien's agony. The woman attacked him over and over, flashes of silver as the knife stabbed and sliced, her magic wove within his blood and pulled his essence from him. Dark halls, dead bodies, the lava ponds that surrounded Vaelon... that had been her home! The long-abandoned Serin house on the outskirts of the city, a dwelling both daunting and beautiful, that had been where it happened.
The long strands of the impossible red hair vanished along with Darien's faint binds. She was free. Breathless and panicked, she could still feel the knife's edge, and beneath the rising the moons she curled herself into the fetal position amongst the overgrown grasses, the courtyard melody magnified within herself as she trembled by the broken fount and despaired at the onslaught she had experienced.
Darien's overly gentle voice interrupted her racing thoughts. "Well, I couldn't just say, 'Lo! It was me!' I assumed control to curb emotion, not increase it."
His hand fell onto her back and she cringed, near expecting the delicate yet diseased touch of the beautiful, red-haired woman. It was surely a fantasy! The long held belief of the educated masses was that the red hair was cursed. As far as she had known and seen within her many lives, was that the fabled red hair had never existed. Blonde, brunette, black, and silver... the occasional blue... but never red.
Twisted tendrils tightened about her body, they shackled, squeezed, and strengthened their inflicted suffering. No. The tale was truth, and it was indeed a curse. The red hair was real, the curse was real, and she had been an unwitting victim of the witch.
"Vaithe, I apologise... perhaps there may have been another way. Though, the knowledge was necessary; it was why I accompanied you here. Your life and mine were intertwined."
His voice was soft and no longer held the smug undertones she had grown to despise, and curled as a babe within the overgrown masses of the unkempt courtyard she could not respond. Her lost vocals were as strangled as the memories Darien had forced upon her.
Speechless, her eyes finally glimmered with the tears she had wished for earlier, and as the twin moons rose overhead she wept into the grounds of her broken home. She could not face the abominable mage while this agony remained fresh... she would deliver her full-fisted punch in the morning.
