HOLLOW

AGÁPE, FALLEN KALOPSIA, Spring, 1838

Reverie pulled her hands back from the man's face, and the rush of lightness that filled her was almost unbearable. It was so horrendously good, tears threatened to spill from her eyes. But she only met the man's surprised stare and said, "The key is inside the hollow tree."

The man nodded after a second of what seemed like frozen astonishment.

"You..." he started, but his words were cut when, to their left, the vultures appeared, their energies like leeches in a quiet river.

Reverie looked one last time at her mother, father and sister's face before leaping into the man's body.

The life essence was like a drug, but Reverie did not let herself get addicted to it. Determined, and with only one wish in mind, Reverie saw her family through his eyes and there was surprise in the glint of their semitransparent vultures. But she did not waste a second before opening the palace doors and making the man run up to where she knew they would stop being a threat.

Reverie felt her family's pulls and wickedness as they appeared in front of the man, and she stumbled, but managed to side-track them and did not stop running. Reverie crossed the barrier they would not be able to. Alone she would not have been capable, but because she possessed the man, her odds changed. The threats now behind them, she ran and ran until the hollow trees, taller and older after so many centuries.

Tears burning her insides, she pulled away from the man and the goodness of the life essence. Immediately, she felt herself start to vanish. Truly vanish. Like she never had before. It was cruel that the sole thing she had to do to move on was to let go of her memories, to tell someone. That no matter the atrocities befallen upon a soul, the only way to move on is to acknowledge and let go. But it was hard now to find a place in her soul for anger. She would see him. Excitement and happiness were like a flood in her inexistent blood. The tinge of fear that this new feeling was a result of being outside the soul barrier of the palace and she would be taken back threatened to swallow her whole, but Reverie did not let herself think about that as she gave one last look at the man who was astonished, staring at her.

"Princess Reverie... you..." the words left him like a whisper. "I was right."

"Yes, you were." She reached her hand to touch his face and found her translucent skin starting to disappear, "What is your name?"

The man coughed, as if surprised.

"Ergon, Your Highness."

Reverie's smile was that of the goddesses in her people's lore, the smile of one touched deeply by pain and tiredness.

She spoke through it, "Be the king I wanted him to be." The princess looked down at her hands as they vanished from existence, and the most peace she ever felt flooded her soul. She could only manage to look at him one last time and say, "Find the queen I should have been."

Reverie thought, at that moment, that she could have stayed possessing the man, fed on his life strength and taken her life back. She could have used his birthright to claim Sigrún's throne and move troops to take old Kalopsia and build the biggest kingdom in the world. Reverie could avenge the moment Hiraeth's father had stripped him from his title as prince and claim a right to decide whose queen she wanted to be. Just as she and Hiraeth had planned from the start. Taking down their kingdoms and uniting them as one.

It was a second chance.

But all hope died... because it was not.

Hiraeth had been gone long ago. She would not do this without him.

With a steadying breath she did not feel, the last thing Reverie saw was her lover's smile in that man. Though she was afraid of being taken back to the palace, that did not happen.

Her soul was taken to the stars.