The Cruel Crown (A Young Elites Fanfiction)

Adelina Amouteru ❦

Beware that the light is fading; beware if the dark returns.
This world's unforgiving, even brilliant lights will cease to burn.
―This Will Be the Day score, by Jeff Williams

We were deemed to live young and doomed to die young.

Those words haunt me because they are the truth that I wished I never heard.

Teren's face is thrown into a vicious snarl to me. I return a coy smile and shut my eye envisioning his inflicted punishment.

"Chain his wrists tight against the wall," I snap.

I am fully aware that if Teren wanted to, he could kill the guards in one blow with his fists, but that would be an unnecessary act.

"You sure you want to chain just my wrists?"

"Hold you tongue, Teren." The cuffs and chains clink and clank hard against the stone behind him. "I should kill you outright right now, but I have been waiting very impatiently to see you find pain. I will be the one torturing you next time. You should hope you are dead before that."

"I wish to die. I wish to die and take you plunging with me."

"We don't always get what we want, Teren."

I reminisce in the memory that I craved to obviate from my twisted mind. I remember and see Raffaele stealing from me my former beloved, Enzo. The Daggers stole him from me after the midst of battles when we clashed with words and weapons. I sense the rain drowning us from the sky, baliras flying through the chill air, and carnage as the scent of blood was released. Now Enzo and I are enemies wishing for the other dead. Once awoken, Enzo stood by me and aided my side before he was convinced that I was the villain.

I discern still the tether that links his lifeline to my own, it glows faintly inside my veins and pulls me into sorrow. This is a dangerous game being played on a fine-line among daggers and roses. I will never be able to have the portrait of Enzo ruling beside me enter through the portal of reality; he will never be the king to my throne and I never his queen. All hope has died and that death was washed away by tears.

"Mi Adelinetta, your ignorance has no end." He ridicules me and wakes me from the memory. "This era we live in? is corrupted by those defiled by abnormal markings. Can you not see that we are sins, that you should want to expedite your death as you are not a blessing?"

"Teren, we all stare vacantly into the future of inevitability, we do not know if our demise will come soon or will merely be delayed. We are not fortune tellers, we do not know of what the future holds, so do stop trying to pretend like you can."

Time will confiscate many opportunities for Elites, but how many? will be for time to answer us.

I flick my hand in signal and the slap of coiled metal of raw flesh mixed with the scent of iron and blood overwhelms my senses. I smile out of joy, a feeling I have not felt in too long. Nyx has no personal relation to this man, but she can't help but intently keep her eye on lash marks as they are executed.

Teren's face is twisted into a clear sign of pain.

I feel something flutter inside me, though I can't discern what.

An agonizing scream bounces in the tight space. The first slash mark has already begun the healing process. Teren will not be invincible to me.

"I've had my fill of enjoyment for today." I smile and throw my head back into a fit of laughter. Teren says nothing in response.

"Take him back to his cell," I order.

My death is near. My whispers have made that clear as the stars on a cloudless night.

I lock eyes with him. I almost shudder, I can hear Teren's power at work, his skin mending itself. "Your demise is near, Teren Santoro; even I feel sorrow for that I willn't be able to see your soul become stygian of Styx and corrupted by death itself and watch you catch flame in the inferno of Hell. But I'll see you there." I smile mischievously, my eye glitters when I open it. I turn and saunter out, Nyx on my tail.

I hear the thudding footsteps as I exit. The metal bars close on the light of Teren. He won't die, I can assure that; he won't die because he's not finished with me yet.

Somethings flutters inside me again. Nyx and I approach the iron door emptying into the corridor.

"Adelina," a familiar whispers faintly. The distant voice shakes my senses and awakens my mind, it brings angry thoughts with it.

"Enzo." My pulse jumps out of my skin, chills sheet up arms. "Why are you here? What is your purpose?"

"I greeted you on my own accord. Why do you look so apprehensive? White Wolf. After all, I'm in your empire."

"Have you come to start another battle? Have you just come to sought me out to end my life?" I enjoy toying with people. But I hate being in the dark about information that is kept from me.

"Delays, delays, my whole new life has been full of poignant regrets and delays. I regretted following you until I realized I was manipulated, and I only delay your death because every time I lock eyes, I can't seem to kill you." His voice is wistful.

He feels the same as I. Even he were to spring to puncture my heart, I could order him back. I control Enzo. I'm not a violin string, I won't be manipulated. But Enzo is my small instrument, beautiful and fragile.

"I can quell your powers and order you silent. Your resilience might be great, but it cannot compete with my hand. And when that time comes, I won't hesitate."

"Adelina, you have hesitated my passing for a long time." A minor pause. "I contain a soul - even as I am dead, I harbor one - and you hold one too. Since we are not dead, we are weak and unable to kill one another. I am here in the place I was supposed to rule over for one reason, to execute one thing." Enzo's face is still in a swirl of darkness hidden and half highlighted by torchlight.

"I still loved you and you loved me. I no longer cherish those childish thoughts, but I can still feel the pain it causes me when I am alone and let my thoughts flow. You have helped feed my whispers. I keep ordering myself to forget your warmth, but it's a hard feelings to erase." I try not to let my pain seep through my facade.

"If your weapon is your love, Adelina, then I will never surrender. I savor no feelings toward any former love."

"That's not what I meant," I snap, turning a fiery glare his direction.

"Loving someone is dangerous, Adelina." Is he warning me? "I can clearly see your passion for Magiano. But to love him is to be suspended somewhere between life and death, while being forbidden from either realm. Don't let love be the death of you, I still wish to kill you."

"You know, Enzo, as I reach into the future, I can almost picture you weeping tears for my death once I am gone whether by your hand or by explosion."

"I will feel no remorse for you or any other." He leaves through an odd exit.

This city of Kenettra has an intricate system of intertwined tunnel networks and waterways - almost as the Labyrinth, winding and spiraling.

I hear Enzo's voice lost in the air, but somehow it reaches my ears and fills them up with his melodic, chilling tone. "Loving you was the most exquisite form of destruction."