A KINGDOM OF DEAD HEARTS [COMPLETED]

CHAPTER 28: A SURPRISE GUEST

Xander became more alert.

"Who is that?" Airin asked and she did not take her eyes off Xander.

"It is Prissa with your extra blanket, Miss!"

Airin sighed, still without taking her gaze off Xander. "I do not need it!"

"Are you sure, Miss?"

"Yes. You may go and rest, Prissa."

Prissa was quiet, before bidding her goodnight from the other side of the door, and left.

Xander breathed easier, and so did Airin. For a moment, they did not say anything even though for Airin, the quietness was killing her. She wanted to say many things, asking many things to Xander, but she could not even begin to ask them.

"I heard you live in a half-burned palace ..."

Xander nodded without looking at her.

"Why? What has happened with you in the past, Xander?" a question that came more like a whisper, almost drowned by the howling of pouring rain outside.

But Xander heard it, and he thought for a while before finally answering,"I have done something horrible in the past. If you are scared of me being the assassin of Halgard, I am not sure how you would think of me if you know what I have done. I am a terrible being, Airin ..." his voice shivered. He looked down to the floor, looked up again to Airin, and Airin was taken aback when she saw how much sorrow in those eyes.

"I am not ... who you think I am, Airin. I am not strong enough to let myself be vulnerable ... like you did that night when you broke down and cried in my arms."

"Xander?"

"I have told you this before, and I will tell you again: I have never known what freedom was until I was in your universe. Freedom from my past, from guilt, and grief and from who I am, from part of me that I do not want to be ..."

Airin remembered what Xander had told her that night in her apartment.

Xander nodded. "Please be careful, Airin," was all he said before taking his leave.

Airin stood for some time in her dimmed room. Her mind slowly began to understand: There never were two Xander versions. There was only one Xander, a wounded one, the one who tried to do what was required of him, what was expected of him, despite his wounds, his grief, his past. In her universe, he could not falter, he could not give up, he simply had to do whatever it took to protect Lyanna and her childhood. Xander, suddenly, became so familiar to her.

<<<>>>

Xander walked through the rainstorm. The rain fell on his head and dripped all over his face and his body. His clothes were drenched completely by now. But Xander did not care. His mind was heavy, bogged down by concern that weighed him down like a rusty anchor of a boat.

His past followed him, the blood, the massacre, the loss. That one fateful night.

His hands were tainted by the blood of his parents. He caused their deaths. He killed them.

It was all his fault.

But was it, really? Was it really all his fault?

The dark secret made him do it. He was just a child. A child consumed by rage and stupidity. And now he paid for it with his life of service and allegiance to his kingdom, his brother-king, his people. Those he had robbed of their beloved king and queen, his parents. He hoped it was enough as an atonement.

Xander shook his head.

He hated himself so much he could not even care about what he had to do to show his allegiance to his king, his brother, to Halgard. His life so far had been an atonement to the grave mistake he made in his childhood. And he was fine with it. Either he lived this atonement, or let guilt kill him. He was not ready to die. Not yet.