The Cruel Crown (A Young Elites Fanfiction)

Adelina Amouteru ❦

Some of us die long before our last breath. We perish in the inferno of love, reduced to ashes in the consuming blaze. No, we do not die when our hearts cease to beat, but when they start beating the first time for somebody else.
—Letter from Princess Bellamy to her former lover, Prince Lucien

The Reaper stands directly behind me, gently placing his gloved fingers upon my shoulders. His hands were occupied before with the twirling of both his daggers, and even now—however they are hidden—I feel his killing intent. He stands too close for propriety to be in order, but since when did a cruel girl and boy care about proper behavior.

Being deemed unable to evade any impromptu attack leaves me susceptible and, to my annoyance, anxious.

"Welcome, Adelina Amouteru, to Act I, Scene II of reconciliation between two former lovers," he whispers in my ear like this is some clandestine tryst. The better part of me blushes at the notion, and the other half withers in despair.

"Oh, really? A part two of more silly repartees. Please allow me leave from all of the miserable lights glaring down on me and from this insufferable costume. I shall take my bow and exit stage right." My lips form a perfectly calculated smirk and my feet continue to feel like a pile of bricks is stacked atop, but my tongue is perfectly capable of lashing harsh sarcasm. "And if you keep this ridiculous act up, I'll slice out your tongue so you'll have nothing to recite your shortsighted and trivial monologues with."

"Oh, Adelina, you wound me and my pride." He let's his grip on me loosen before it is no more and proceeds to step back and dramatically clutches his heart.

I've no idea what's come over this boy who was the epitome of stoicism. Instead this is an outlandish facsimile of the Enzo I once knew. It's as if he swallowed an opiate which altered his personality and replaced the blank streaks with new tropes.

"This isn't a melodrama."

"Huh, I rather believed it was because after all you and I would make a perfect stage couple."

"A couple who plots to kill one another," I scoff. "How about poison in your cup, a knife to the throat, or to be strangled in your slumber?"

"Oh, and which would you choose?"

Enzo failed to reimplement his grasp on my shoulders so my feet have full reign once more. I covertly remove the last dagger from my cloak while my mind ferociously conjures a tactic to use against the boy who taught me them all.

I twist away, and in the blink of an eye I'm no longer. I'm not as quick as that girl, but nonetheless the element of surprise succeeds. With the aid of my illusions, which I am no longer using sparingly tonight, a semblance of speed is created, and I become the blur of color on the black and white background.

The dagger that flies

- —————

Blood begins to roll down my arm. His dagger slices me on my upper shoulder. It had all transpired at once.

"Enzo," I snap down on my jaw hard. "What are you doing here."

"Oh, Adelina, that's how I always remembered you—stubborn and naive, young and ignorant. But I loved you enough to look past all of that, I thought you were better than the monster everyone else made you out to be. I was wrong. And now you are a tyrant of a ruler, cruel and full of malice, undeserving of that title."