The Sun's Awakening

Chapter Two

All her life. Lingering to seek out trouble and–

Ele shook those thoughts out. It wasn't her thinking or indulging them.

Only a door and a descent awaited her now. The larger of the keys worked on the outer door, and she dragged it open. The stairs creaked beneath her every gentle step and the further she descended, the more it felt like she was headed to the deepest place in Sepulchre. It was as if the stairs multiplied; with every step that disappeared behind her, one appeared at the end to stretch out her journey. 

Eventually, the descent came to an abrupt end and opened into a long hallway that housed a handful of cell doors on each side. Except three doors down, on the left hand side, was one door that stood out amongst the rest.

For one, it was a standard door. Not bars. It had scribbles of some language she didn't recognize all over it; all in varying fonts and clearly done with some urgency by how messy it appeared. 

More than that... It had a heartbeat. 

Something thudded on the other side of the door; dull and methodical. The door didn't shake but she felt it in her bones.  She numbly fiddled with the keys until she found the second one and slid it into the metal doorknob. The deadbolt gave her some resistance until she put more muscle into twisting the key and the darn thing eventually broke away from the congealing rust. It popped open the door only by half an inch, forced by the pressure of the air in the sealed room. 

Her heartbeat began to sync to the tender thrum of the room. Now that the door could be easily pushed open... She hesitated.  

Wise words her father once told her during his lessons suddenly came to mind... "You can be daring without being reckless."

This was reckless.

While she left the keys in the door, she gave the wooden slab a nudge with two hands placed flat against its surface. A gust of cool air raced to greet her and tickled up her arms. Even if she had a voice, she'd be silent while entering this room. 

Although it was dimly lit, she clearly saw something in the corner... A shadow-

"Have you discovered my innocence and come to free me? Or are you only here to add to my suffering?" The shadow inquired from its perched position against the back wall. He came forward, just where the edge of the flickering candle reached his face. "Oh. How unexpected."

The feeling was mutual. 

Ele starred at the man responsible for getting her in this mess. The very one responsible for dragging her to the castle with blackmail and then abandoning her, leaving her to clean up their mess. If not for him... Where would she be?

Davient smirked, pulling himself out of the shadows even more to get a good look at her. 

"The wings suit you. I think they look even better now that you fought for them and earned them upon your back. You carry them as much as they carry you."

However nice that sentiment was, Ele kept her guard up. She looked for a barrier between them or a sign that he was being held back. Except there were no chains attached to his wrists or ankles, and nothing keeping them apart. Until she looked down to find a line of sand just a foot in front of her. It circled off a small area near the door. 

"Hm." He studied her panic that steadily turned into relief. "Why are you down here alone?"

Thinking he forgot her deformity, she patted her throat, her go-to sign. 

He rolled his eyes. "I remember your inability to speak. I also remember the vampire so obsessed with you that he managed to break through a curse years in the making. His entire life lead to that moment and you ruined it."

If only his love for her had done the trick. It took ancient strength and powers within her to stop the monster from destroying the castle and everyone within it. Even his own siblings came close to death and that was not enough to wake him. 

'Did you really save anyone?' The voices mused. 

While she struggled to tune them out, a notepad and quill were tossed at her feet. She looked up to find Davient had moved about the room, but never got much closer to her. Now that the candle illuminated most of his features, she saw how tattered his body and soul was. The satyroid looked to get one hour of sleep per night at most. All of his primitive features were exaggerated, as if their species had not gone through centuries of evolution...

"Mm, you see it too?" He turned his hands around that had almost entirely morphed into hooves. "It's the curse they put on this room. You're immune, so long as you stay on that side of the sand. But soon... I'll be an animal. No piece of me will have thought, comprehension, or my former memories. I've heard of this curse."

Ele leaned down for the notepad but keep wary eyes trained on him at all times. Even if he was unable to cross the spell's threshold, he could still throw objects across it. The first thing she chose to write down was supposed to be the first question she asked Kaanan.

'What happened to the faenixes?' The question on the paper nauseated him. Not any more than it sickened her... 

He swallowed, "From what I'm told... That is all my brother's doing."

Before she could even write down the follow-up question, he divulged more.

"In his mind, you took everything from us. From him. He hates you and wants nothing more than necessary bloodshed to even the grief you put him through. My brother is... Rightfully unhinged. But his blame is misplaced. It's not your doing, you were simply a pawn. I blame my father. I blame the vampires who rule. I blame your mate..." He hesitated then, choosing his next words carefully out of fear.

"He's the one who had me captured, thinking I was the one behind this madness. And for that, I don't blame him. Except he refuses to listen. He put me in this barbaric cell and it's only damaging the potential relationship our species could have. We have resources he could use!"

She scribbled when he finished his exasperated rant and pointed at the paper, tapping it twice. 'You share borders with my people and yet we've never had pleasant relations.'

"That was my father's doing. He was obsessed with faenixes and wanted to keep them in a bubble at a distance, admiring but never intervening. He certainly never foresaw one falling in love with a vampire." The snub against her falling for the supposed 'enemy' could not be hidden.

Davient's inquisitive side perked. "I can't imagine that same vampire willingly allowed you down here... Without a guard."

'I can take care of myself.' She hastily jotted and turned the paper around, fighting the urge to throw it at him. Then she tacked on a note, 'And besides, I've proved myself against your kind before.'

Gloating about murder... This was not the same woman he encountered on the streets of Sepulchre all those moons ago. The reason behind her glaring change of character managed to evade him. 

"Did the prince break your heart?" He pondered a possible reason aloud. "Mm, scratch that. You don't scream 'heart-broken female' to me. However, you seem more... Confident. And although my brother had it coming, you were once far more demure and conservative."

Now she radiated heat; drawing people in like a moth to a flame. 

'Boredom got the best of me. Nothing is going on between Kaanan and I, and he's no longer the prince.' She thought that piece of information would be common.

Davient looked over the words with a grin. "Oh, is that so? It's nice to see a small part of my father's plan succeed. Since I can assume the manic queen is acting as regent until those twins of hers are grown?"

Ele hesitated before responding. This man, cursed or not, was still the enemy. 

He laughed at how she refused to give up information to a man with a sentence. "Scared to tell me too much? What do you have to hide?"

Only everything.

The two cursed beings shared a knowing look. One had accepted their fate. The other was fighting it.