Enchantment of Sorrow

Chapter 07

HE watched you while you slept even as the dawn streamed through the windows spilling pink and golden light on both of you. He made a vow, and he intended to keep it. He squeezed you tight. Did you really know the truth of how much time you has *really* spent at his court?

He, himself would have to See. He knew he has to reorder things which had he turned you out once you had awakened the next day you were there, he would may not have to do. But he had to give you time to make it...

His heart ached at the thought of you going. In fact, the idea made him physically ill. Yet he knew he could no longer use trickery to keep you there any longer. If too much more time passed the magic it would cost him to set it right would tax him into a sleep for centuries at a time.

He slid his arm out from under you, say up gingerly to avoid waking you, quietly slid from beneath the blankets and grabbed for a robe to put about himself. It had fallen to the floor from it's usual place at the foot of the bed due to the prior hours pleasure making.

As he tied it around himself he turned his gaze to your sleeping form longingly. He wished nothing more than to find a way to push the memories away so you would never leave. But he could not - he was the guardian of this realm. More was at stake and under his care than his own feelings and desires.

The forest's time and space, it's actual natural order were in his charge, and he had to be subject to them as well as his as those he guarded.

He did not hesitate as he normally did when he turned and exited - he knew what awaited him outside his door. She had been chased out by the sheer power of light that emitted from your union with him. He had little care for her sarcasm and belligerence. The seething cold eyes of the creature who once was his wife met his.

He held a hand up with a look of warning, just as predatory and cold. He made his way through the hallways to the gardens. The phantom followed him only to the doorway of it's sunlit paths. It held too much light, and too much golden power for her to bear it.

"What is it you intend to do my liege?" She asked to his back melting into a shadow nearby.

"What I must", was his curt reply as he continued inside without looking back.

He made his way to the stairs that led to the Moon Roses above. He stopped when he reached them, his gaze drawn upward and a sigh came from his lips. The weight on his heart grew, for he knew it was not a mere dream you had seen, but the echoes of memory through time itself trying to right what he had, again, done wrong.

As he climbed, he contemplated it. Perhaps it best, for he could not bear to keep you there via deception forever. Besides, when you received your crown, if you choose to accept it, your mind would have been reawakened to them again. No, you had to be willing to leave all human ties behind you, and as long as you held on to something in the mortal world, you could never truly be his queen and consort.

You had been chosen by whatever fates to either make or break him. Even he could not fight that.

When he finally reached the path that led to the bent arches of the magical flowers his pace dwindled. After some time he reached the flowers. When he approached he put a finger to his mouth to hush them as they all began to uncurl their sleeping blooms. He came to the one that had pricked you, and fished out a crystal vial, (something he had kept on his person by habit at all times), and held it under the sole awakened flower. He whispered an incantation.

Once the last word caught the wind, the blood it had drawn seeped out, draining into the bottle. He reached out and cradled the bloom in his palm as you had done, and bent down kissing it's cool leathery petals. It curled up about itself for a moment then opened wide in response as if blushing and flattered.