Tales Of A Canyon Heart

Chapter 1

They say that falling for the hero will leave you heartbroken because they will sacrifice you for everyone else, but, the villain would sacrifice everything for you. But no one told me that loving the hero would make me the villain. I am the villain of my own story. 

My days as a free-wheeling teenager have long passed, but for you to understand me now you must see where it all began...

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"Fallon" I yelled up through the maze, "Fallon, where are you? The guests started arriving 20 minutes ago" I wandered through the maze looking for my closest companion. She always escaped to the maze in the castle grounds when she wanted to quiet her thoughts. "Fallon, please come out" I pleaded, knowing that I would be in trouble being late to my own debut, but I refused to show up without my best friend beside me. 

Being the only daughter to the longest-serving battalion chief in the nine kingdoms meant something. That something was that I was to debut to society as a young lady without the reckless abandon and free will that I still held onto so tightly. I was to marry for status, not love, and my time now was to find a husband and not be chasing after my friend through a dark maze in a ballgown, but here I was. MY father was a mightly man that commanded armies but he never tried to control me and I loved him for that. But things were changing. I was growing up and society expected me to settle down and no one cared what I wished for. No one asks the girl with power standing behind her, what she wanted.

As I turned the final corner of the maze, I saw the silhouette of a girl I have known my whole life, just staring up into the sky. I reached for her and noticed the single tear falling down her cheek. Her pain caused me pain. But why did Fallon feel pain on this night?

"Fallon," I whispered trying to stop my voice from breaking, "Talk to me, what has happened to cause such silent distress?" 

As Fallon turned to me I noticed the silver tracks that stained her painted face as they glistened in the moonlight. She had not shed just a single tear, but several drops of liquid sorrow. 

"I do not wish for you to marry a man for power, wealth, and status" she whispered her return, afraid to catch my eye. What was she not telling me?

"But we knew this day would come. This does not mean we have to part. Every wife needs her truest confidant" Was all I could reply with. My eyes could no longer hold back the pain I knew she felt.

"Amaya, I know we will remain friends but you cannot tell me you are going to turn off everything we have felt and shared these past 2 years?" Fallon's desperation and pain leaked into her words. 

"I love you Fallon, and I can never turn that off. You are my first love and that will never change." I sobbed "I would spend my living and dying days by your side if I could make you my wife, but we all know that no matter how accepting society is, they would never let two women have the power that my hand in marriage gives." 

"I know but I cannot stand there beside you this evening and watch men trip over themselves to win you like you are the trophy, without saying a word of my dislike of the situation." Fallon's words resonated with me. I did not want to marry someone I did not love when I had found my love in my childhood best friend.

My mother and father had always supported my relationship with Fallon but they have always expressed the opinions The Council had on my 'Situation'. They told me I could love who I wanted openly until I turned 18 and then my true feelings must be kept behind closed doors. Hidden by the false show of a marriage I was about to embark on.

Fallon grasped my waist and dipped me as she pressed her lips onto mine. The passion we had always had felt more intense under the moonlight. Her lips had always felt like home and her body my sanctuary, her arms my refuge. This kiss was different. It was not the home I knew and loved, this was a goodbye. 

As we parted I held onto her hands, looking her in the eye. no words were spoken but we both knew what must happen. I leaned in and kissed her cheek.

"Goodbye, my love," I whispered. As I turned to leave the maze, I could no longer hold in the tears. The tears rolled down my cheeks silently. I never saw Fallon again, but the pain and heartbreak I had stayed. As I left the maze, I wiped away my tears, took a deep breath, and stepped onto the path towards the castle. I knew what had to be done. I turned any feelings off. I was now numb and nothing would make me feel or address the pain I was crushing down.

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"My dear! There you are!" My mother yelled as she saw me enter the building through the kitchen and head up to my room. "Where have you been? And have you seen Fallon?"

My mother had always loved me and she loved Fallon like she was one of the family. I knew this would upset her to hear but I would not acknowledge my own feelings enough to care how my next words would hurt her.

"Fallon has gone." my voice, monotone "And she is not coming back." I continued up to my room to change out of the once white ballgown, intended for my debut. I shut my door behind me. stripped the dress off as fast as I could. My hands shaking from the evening's events so far. I stood in front of the full-length mirror that took residence in the corner of my room. Staring back at me I saw a naive young girl standing in nothing but her corset and petticoat, with her hair, pulled into a bun. 

Gone was the girl who had only the best memories. Gone was her innocence. Gone was her love. I pulled out the clip that was restaining my long black hair. The tresses fell around my shoulders. I went to my vanity and reapplied my makeup. No one will see my weakness. I decided that white was no longer the way I wanted to be represented. I walked to my dress-box and pulled out a dark green silk slip, that hugged the curves that my petticoat had previously hidden. I was no longer a child that had the reckless abandon to do as she dreamed. I was now a daughter of the Battalion Cheif. I was a woman who knew how to break a man with a single look. I was a woman who knew the game of war and had been playing it since she was a child. I was Amya. 

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"Alistair, we need to talk" My mother was distraught by what she had seen, return from the maze. She did not recognize the emotionless woman who had climbed the stair in the dress her bubbly daughter had left in mere moments before.

"Adela, what has happened? Can this wait, we have guests?" My father was confused by the desperation in his wife's voice while her face gave nothing away. The panic he sensed radiating from his visibly calm wife raised alarms with him. "Give me a moment" he pardoned himself and broke away from the group of government officials he had been welcoming to this evening.

"Adela, what is wrong? Where is Amaya? She is late for her own debut." Alistair walked his wife into the hallway to avoid any eager eavesdropping from his guests and colleagues. 

"It is Amaya, she left to find Fallon, and when she returned she looked," Adela did not want to tell her husband what she saw in her daughter's eyes when she returned. "She looked like she had been crying but her voice showed no emotion." the panic was starting to set in. Alistair's face dropped, he knew what this meant. He knew he had lost the daughter that he once knew. 

"She has changed. I hoped we would never have to tell her what she really is but it seems we were too late." Alistar began to pace back and forth in the hallway, trying to make sense of the new news he had just heard.

"She is our daughter still, but now we can't let just any man marry her. We need to choose wisely for her, and we must discuss with her what has happened and what role Fallon has in this." Adela was trying to calm her nervous husband. 

Alistair had seen many battlefields and may a war but nothing had prepared him or his family for what they must now face. My family had a secret but how much longer could it stay quiet.