Twisted Worlds

Chapter 19 - Choices

Oh my, I kissed him; what have I done?

"You are really saying that you don't care; that I may be an assassin but you would still want to be around me?" He said pressing his forehead against mine; the whole world zoned out and It was just me and Kailen standing in the doorway of the Tavern, completely blank to the rest of the world.

"I am, because I have seen that you are good Kailen; I always believed an assassin to be cruel and vicious but, you're not"

He took a step back, the low lighting in the Tavern giving everything a golden glow.

"But Ella; I don't want to hurt you, and If someone tries to hurt me through you, I would never forgive myself." He walked away slowly, back to the table we had been sitting on; his head clutched in his hands, "Ella I never want anything bad to happen to you"

Walking back to the table I needed to reassure him that everything would be okay; because right then I felt my heart pull. "Kailen, everything will be okay; I have magic, I am not a mortal, I can look after myself even if you don't believe it..." His head was turned away so his mop of scruffy brown hair fell across his eyes, shielding them from view. "Kailen look at me" I touched his right cheek, forcing him to look back at me, "It will be okay..." I had to work hard to believe it myself but I sounded convincing enough.

He pulled me up from my position stooped on the floor so I sat back up onto the old cracked wooden bench, he said nothing but pulled me into him, my head resting on his shoulder. After what felt like an age of comfort, he lifted my chin up gently, before leaning in and kissed me again. A deep powerful kiss, that was full of all the pain and misery he had been through, but it was warm and open and real . And all around us I could see candles flickering wildly; their flames reaching high up towards the ceiling; as though a sudden burst of wind had increased their flair. The room flushed with heat and finally when we did pull away, the room was hushed. There was no clapping, no, cheering; the entirety of the tavern was just watching, eyes teary and damp. Then someone sitting at a table in the far end of the room, lifted up his huge metal beer mug, raised it to the sky and simply stated, "Now that, is some truly powerful love" Before everyone around us raised theirs to the sky and took long gulps of the smoky ale. 

We joined in too; lifting our glasses of orange to the sky before downing them whole. Soon the candle light returned to normal, and we sat there talking about everything that had happened in those past few days; everything that had driven Kailen to become an assassin, and me to come to Earth (Although I left out the details of me being the Princess). 

"So the Serentali are after you? But why?" We had moved from our seat near the bar, to a table right infront of the fire; so close you would have thought it would catch alight, but we sat there anyway, his arm wrapped protectively around me and me close into his chest.

"Because I did something wrong; and now they want me dead, so I ran"

"And now your here..."

"And now I'm here...." I returned before relaxing into his chest. 

Watching the flames was entrancing; they were never boring or Earthly, instead they would dance for you. In the flames you could see fairies dancing a song around the fire; or storm waves crashing on the West beaches. A busy night market in the village or fish playing in the weeds. It was magical and enthralling and when it was final call I never noticed people leaving....

............

"Sorry guys, its time for you to go home" It was the lovely lady behind the bar; she was sweeping with an old twig broom, and looking around everyone else had cleared out. The siren had dived back into her pool and out to sea, the elves had retreated back to the forests for the night and even the drunk fairy had zig-zaged her way back to the blossom trees they called home. We stood up lazily from the fire, not wanting to leave its warmth, but we stayed close; Kailen never removing his arm from around my waist as we walked for the door. 

"Mamma, I am going to walk Ella home" He called over his shoulder as we reached the doorway.

"Okay pet, just make sure when you get there be nice to the family, we don't want them thinking your some kind of criminal" she chuckled as she walked away, and into a back room. But thinking about it, Kailen was a criminal; he just didn't act like it. 

Opening the Syltyn doorway home you could see the outline of the red portal that brought us here; Kailen saw me looking as we passed through the deep blood red light and he pulled out his pendant from around his neck and said the most self depreciating thing I had ever heard, "Blood red; that's the assassins colour, seems rather fitting doesn't it". He was about to put it back under his shirt when I reached out to touch it. As I did red sparks flared up out of its depths, sparks so bright they took my breath away. "It has some of the most powerful magic in our world; its how I get around, I can open a portal anywhere in the entire universe, even bypass the Twist if I need to." I was frozen admiring it when he took my hand and we began walking the long, cold journey home. Turns out the hot, clear days always lead to freezing, starlit nights; my shorts and strap shirt that seemed such a good Idea this morning ended up being my downfall. 

Ambling through the park, we took a detour back through the willow forests; they reminded me so much of the day we first met. The glowing blue light from the canopy and pool lighting up our faces. But pushing through the other side brought us back into the cold wind of the early autumn night. We hurried the rest of the way, walking hand in hand for the entire journey till we reached the front door of grandmas house.

"Well then; do you want to come inside?" I reached for the door-handle seeing no light through the glass window pane.... it must be very late if grandma had gone to bed.

"No, I had better not, mamma has me on clean up duty." 

I pushed open the door to find the hallway suddenly come to life with the orange flames within the Arabian lanterns and saw it light up the street outside. "Ella, thank you for understa-" and he stopped dead in his tracks. His face looking ghostly in the orange light from the lanterns. He just froze and for a minute I thought he had turned into another statue, but when he did move again, he became someone I did not recognise....someone dark.

"Your eyes...they're black" I sucked in a deep breath, the magic had disappeared when I had kissed him; obviously the low candle light was enough to stop him from noticing till now.

"You, you are not Ella are you.....you are Princess Arabella?" I took a step back over the threshold of the house. The anger in his eyes was more than any I had seen; not even King Diorten could match it. "No, you can't be, because if you are, I gave my word to the King that I would kill you..."

He didn't get a chance to finnish his questioning; I grabbed the pendant from around my neck wripped it off the hook and chanted the only thing I could think of, "Transportantes me deinceps" as quick as I possible could and then, he was gone; in a blinding flash of sea blue a potal closed around him and he vanished from the street. And I was left alone in the doorway. I stepped backwards even further and collapsed onto the bottom step of the stairs without even closing the door and broke down in wave after wave of excruciating tears, and misery......