The TwiceBorn

Awake My Soul

"Awake my soul...for you were made to meet your maker..."--Mumford and Sons

The brothers had grown silent. Islinn watched Kenric and her fear of the unknown was replaced with despair, small painful beats of her heart that were nothing but grief rolled tight and thumping its way through her veins, moving along an endless path.

She'd taken a chance and hoped...that Kenric would understand but she'd bought too easily into the smile that was now gone, and the kind eyes which were now a stormy dark blue. Again, she had allowed herself to be duped but she had no anger. She wished there was one person...who understood why she felt the way she did. Because sometimes bearing the burden of such tremendous love was difficult when done all alone.

"Islinn...you are saying you will not denounce?" Kenric's voice was quiet. Islinn looked up at him and knew she had crossed a line she couldn't take back. Those cheerful blue eyes were flat...something in them was gone. Absent.

Some crazy part of her wanted to grab on to his words and try to tell him how it had been with Alora... and believe that someone who had been so compassionate only moments before would surely understand why she felt the way she did.

But what she had seen...had never truly been there to begin with.

A Mummers' Play.

"No. I will not denounce." She hated the tremor she heard in her voice.

Kenric shook his head with sorrow.

"You are still enthralled, and powerfully so. The Twiceborn...she is dead now, is she not? The boy you came in with...did he kill her?"

"Yes he did. And then you killed him."

Lord Kenric faced her and spread his hands.

"If she has passed on, the enthrallment should not be that strong. Fight it, Islinn! Fight it and return to us!"

Islinn detected the zeal in his voice and knew what road Lord Kenric was headed down. He hadn't even acknowledged the killing of Aubery. She was already shaking her head.

"No. I'm not enthralled. It has nothing to do with if she's here...or has gone. This is my choice."

With a howl of anger, Lord Kenric dropped his arms and, with two quick steps, was on her. Gone was the patient man who had explained the brothers' carvings, gone was the man who had been concerned about her injuries, his hands descended upon her shoulders, slamming down like a thunderclap and the chair she was seated upon was kicked out from under her. 

 She fell to the floor and bit down hard on her injured lip to keep from crying out. Fear thrummed through her body but a small corner of her soul was relieved because she sensed Lord Kenric was now being honest, no more plays to the crowd, no more swaggering, this was the real Lord Kenric she was seeing now.