Before Blue Twilight

Chapter 7

The price for the cure...is my companionship?"

"Not for the cure. For the knowledge. For the secrets." My eyes were growing heavy, my body languorous. "If you don't wish to take the cure —"

"Why would I refuse it?"

I closed my eyes. "You didn't want to live at all, only a short while ago."

She nodded. "I suffered this illness for the sake of my family. The weakness, the dizziness, the sick feeling in my stomach — all of it. Now that they're gone, I see no reason to go on suffering, when only death awaits me at its end. But if I could be well, if I could be cured, and...and if I could be with you... " She nodded firmly. "I would not refuse the cure."

"You very well might," I said. "But that's for later. Later, 'Beta. If you refuse the cure, you must stay with me until your mortal life ends. And if you take it, you must stay with me forever, for that is how long you will live."

She lifted her head, her eyes not quite believing, and with a trembling hand, she brushed the hair from my forehead. "Does that mean you've decided not to end your own life?"

"If I can share it with you, Elisabeta, perhaps it might be worth going on."

Tears filled her eyes as she threaded her fingers in my hair.

"I've known you only a few short hours, my prince. And I cannot fathom why a man as glorious as you would want a peasant girl to make you such a promise. But I tell you now, I do make it. I will stay with you, for all my days, be they few or be they countless. And I make that promise without any need for your secrets. I make that promise freely. You owe me nothing in return. No secrets, no cures. It's a promise you cannot buy."

My heart swelled. It made no sense, I know, for I barely knew the girl, and yet I felt, for the first time in my memory, something warm filling my body besides the freshly drawn blood of a living being. It might have been hope. It might have even been...love.

"I'll tell you the cure, Elisabeta. When I wake."

"Then sleep, my prince. Sleep and I will do the same."

And so I slept. And she did, too, I believe. It was peaceful, and I was more content than I had ever been. But I worried, deep inside my mind. I feared what her reaction would be when I told her the truth. That in order to live much longer, she must accept the dark gift that had been forced upon me by a demon who wanted an immortal slave in a time near the dawn of history.

What would she do when I told her what I was? Would she believe me? Would she flee from me in horror and disgust? Or would she embrace me still?

I slept. I slept like the dead. And yet I remained, somehow, impossibly, aware of what went on without my body. I knew when someone entered the cave, a man, who called her name in a voice that was impatient.

"Elisabeta! What do you think you're doing there! By the Gods, girl, who is that man?"

I felt my beloved stir, and tug herself from my arms. "It's not what you think, Uncle. I...I nearly fell from the cliffs, and the prince saved my life. He was injured in the effort, and I only —"

"The prince?" The man's voice conveyed both surprise and fear. "Move aside. Let me have a look at him."

And I felt the man's breath on my face, his hand, rough with calluses, on my chest as he felt for signs of life.

"He asked me to stay with him until he wakes."

"Oh, he won't be waking, girl. He's dead. The prince is dead, God help us all."