The Treasure *Phantom of the Opera* (sequel to The Quest)

Chapter 42

***Chapter XLII***

My heart, which is so full to overflowing, has often been solaced and refreshed by music when sick and weary.

Martin Luther (1483 - 1546)

xXx

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Erik knelt on the stones of the darkened room, heedless of their chill, feeling as if hell, itself, had opened up and swallowed him within its merciless flames. His own personal suffering of an entire lifetime had been tolerable compared to the three months of torture he had often endured in fearing for his beloved Angel's life.

As had happened on the night Christine lost their child, he was faced with his total helplessness and need to depend on others, a state of circumstances he abhorred. He felt useless, inept, a failure – he, the great protector and guardian of his Angel had not seen beyond her fool servant's mistakes to the crux of her jealous tyranny. He should have seen! Had he not isolated himself from the gypsies' lives, he might have questioned why the hapless girl kept so many secrets and why the rest of her band so often scorned her.

He had paced, wept, and knelt in the light of one lone candle the entire night, begging a God he wasn't sure would listen for the life of the woman he adored. This marked the first occasion Erik willingly sought the distant ear of heaven since all hope had been ripped from him as a small boy, whose tearful prayers to be normal and accepted and loved went unanswered. Only Christine had restored in him that hope.

When last he'd seen his gentle wife, she lay at death's very door, having purged the contents of her stomach while he sat behind her and held her upright. Delirious, she had fallen back against him in a numbed and feverish state, her skin as cold as ice then hot as cinders, her pleas for his forgiveness making no sense. Upon seeing the Drabarni's grave countenance, he refused to hear the vile words she would utter and carried his Angel to the villa, to gently lay her on their bed, as she had become insensible again, then stormed from the room before the gypsy could speak. With no chapel, it belonging to the wing that initially burned, he had sought respite in this small bedchamber he'd taken only hours before ... the place where it all started.

Here, he had sought Christine's God in earnest, desperate entreaty, much like the boy he'd once been, who knelt on the cold rock of his underground lair. If only he could go back and repeat the minutes, the hours, the days. And yet, if he had been given that wish, Christine might have already been dead.

"You must come at once, sire!"

Barely able to comprehend the urgent words, Erik looked over his shoulder and stared with bloodshot eyes into the cheerless ones of Narilla. She retreated an involuntary step. A distant part of his weary mind imagined how the horrors of his face must be magnified after the unconscionable strain he'd endured.

"She is dead," he rasped, the quiet stillness of such excruciating words hardly able to reflect the extent of dark anguish that ripped his heart asunder as he knelt, immobile, on the stone floor.

"No –I –"

"She is alive?" The smallest flicker of hope gentled his tone.

"Si – I – your presence is requested," Narilla again said nervously when Erik made no move to rise.

A wave of thundering relief began to ease the terrible pain in his chest. "I said I would see no one. Kindly follow my orders in the future. Who dares to ask for me at such a time?" His words came fatigued but no less authoritative.

"Your Queen."

Erik staggered up from the ground, as swiftly as he was able, with legs numb and stinging as if needles jabbed into his skin. He grabbed the back of a chair in an effort to steady both his physical balance and his ragged emotions.