They spent the rest of the day searching the area surrounding the pond. Tarin did not sense anybody; in fact, he did not even sense any animals, and any water or tree nymphs that had once lived here had parted ways with it long ago, which did not bode well for the history of this place. Anywhere that magic had been especially disturbed or misused was somewhere that the animals of the Realm tended to avoid. However, no matter how hard Tarin searched, he could not find Serena's trail, or any signs as to where the Infernals that had attacked him had come from.
Once the moon hung among the stars, Ambrose returned to him and told him that he had not had any luck either. Tarin raged on and on about how there must be something; she did not just vanish into thin air. However, the strength of his will was not enough to make her simply reappear, and no miraculous signs made an appearance either.
To return to Azure without her seemed like sacrilege to the duty he considered to be sacred. He could not shake off the feeling that she was in that area somewhere, but without any idea of where, there was not much point in remaining there. The Infernals would not just hand her back over, but he was sure that they would have some sorts of conditions regarding the situation now that he would need to hear if he would have any hope of killing them all once and for all.
They did not exchange a single word on their return trip. They plunged through the forest at each other's side, but the tension between them was palpable. It was clear that Ambrose blamed Tarin for what had occurred (Tarin could not bear to think the words), and Tarin, for his part, would never be able to forgive that Ambrose had gone along with Serena's ridiculous plans because of the feelings he had for her.
Tarin had hurt her, and that would haunt him for the rest of his days. But Serena should never have been out there in the first place, and the fact that Ambrose was more susceptible to her charms than he was loyal to Tarin's instructions regarding her safety was nearly as deplorable as Tarin's own actions.
They reached the city before daybreak, in the earliest hours of morning. Tarin raced from the southern gate to the castle, and Ambrose, internally stewing, evidently had no better idea of what to do than to follow. The only people they ran into were guards, who saluted as Tarin breezed past them, though their faces betrayed their concern at what must have been the horrible mess of emotions latent in his expression and manner.
Tarin used his magic to propel him up full sets of stairs at a time. He landed atop the fourth set in a crouch that he pulled out of immediately, rushing around the corner of the hall to reach the princess' bedroom.
When he saw the twins guarding the door, he stopped in his tracks with a snarl. They blinked at him simultaneously.
"Sir?" Vice asked cautiously. "Sir, was your trip successful?"
His teeth unclenched only to let loose a small growl before he was in Vice's face, and she tensed, as if willing herself not to cower in the face of his rage.
"How could you have let this happen, Vice?" he hissed. "How could you have been outsmarted by this imbecile?"
He gestured towards Ambrose, who just chuckled darkly, stepping up beside Vex with his arms crossed. The twins glanced between them briefly, and while Vex continued to study Ambrose's posture with a thoughtful expression that usually indicated that she was doing a magical scan, Vice focused on Tarin's, which was still only inches from her own.
"Oh, I'm an imbecile now?" Ambrose asked with a sneer. "Tell me, Wulf: is it just me, or would every single other man who ever spends more than a few minutes with the princess also fall into that category?"
Tarin placed his hand on the hilt of his sword threateningly. "Don't you dare assume--"
"What? That you're obsessed with her?" Ambrose taunted, his eyes remorseless. "I think we all already knew that, Sir. But you aren't her keeper; just because you're jealous of me doesn't--"
Tarin could not believe he had held himself back for as long as he had. After all, it felt so good to throw himself at Ambrose, to tackle the Fae to the floor. Ambrose was strong, obviously, and he was more than just a decent fighter, but he was not prepared for Tarin. Nobody was ever really prepared for Tarin.
He was not even sure what he was doing; just that he was angry, and that he wanted to cause Ambrose more pain than the Fae had ever known. Ambrose was acting high-and-mighty, as if his experience of life was greater than Tarin's, as if he knew the impact of the things he was saying, as if he had any right to speak to Tarin the way that he was. As if his adolescent crush on the princess was of any importance to Tarin, who cared for her in a way deeper than his own levels of understanding.
He knew that there was blood, and he knew that it was not his. He had not drawn his weapons; there was an immense sort of satisfaction that came from beating somebody with one's own hands - though he was sure that his magic came into play as well. Ambrose cried out in pain more than once, but each time he attempted to retaliate for the injuries Tarin had inflicted, Tarin batted him aside and struck him again.
There was only one person that could have gotten him to stop at that point, in that state. Vice and Vex were obviously trying, but nobody was a match for him. Nobody but the one person he would do anything for, who held his heart in her hand.
Nobody but the person whose magic he sensed immediately as she grabbed his arm.
"Tarin, cut it out," Serena ordered sharply.
Tarin stared at her for a long time, and Ambrose managed to squirm out from under him while he was distracted. It was clearly not a trick; this was Serena. He could feel it, he could see it in her eyes. She was wearing a thin nightgown, and there were goosebumps on her skin. Her hair was slightly mussed on one side, as if she had just been sleeping. She was looking at him with concern in her eyes, but the lines in her face also indicated irritation.
She was here. But...
He turned to face Ambrose, who was staring at the princess with similar degrees of shock. His lip was cut and bleeding, and his right eye was swollen closed. He held his right arm close to his side with his left, and his clothing was torn in more than one place. Tarin did not feel bad about any of it; he could have inflicted much worse on the Fae.
"Explain this to me, Ambrose," Tarin commanded, his voice soft and dangerous.
Ambrose opened and closed his mouth like a gaping fish, and Tarin felt Serena press closer to him as she grew uncomfortable under Ambrose's stare.
Tarin moved, and had Ambrose pressed up against the wall of the hallway in less than a second. While he heard the three women speaking urgently behind him, he tuned them all out. He squeezed slightly, and Ambrose spluttered as more pressure was applied to closing his throat.
"Apparently, the story you told me has some holes in it," Tarin stated, his muscles straining after all the exertion of the day. "How about you give me the truth now, Ambrose?"
Ambrose tried to shake his head, which was turning redder by the second. "I--don't--und--erstand..."
"Tarin, let him go."
Tarin's nostrils flared, but he turned and threw Ambrose down the hall like a sack of flour. Ambrose shouted, but went silent after striking the opposite wall and sinking to the marble floor.
There was a sigh from behind him, and he knew that it belonged to his princess.
"Unnecessary," she said under her breath, but she too fell silent when Tarin turned around to face her, his gaze taking all of her in as if he might never see her again. After believing that she had been stolen from him yet again, that he had failed her yet again, he could hardly believe his luck. She was standing in the doorway of her bedroom, unharmed, looking as beautiful as ever in the pale pink satin that reflected the moonlight shining through her unshuttered window. She was fine; she was here. She was safe; she was with him.
"I need to talk to you," he said. She blinked, but he had already turned to Vice and Vex.
"Place Ambrose in one of the cells," he ordered them. "Something is off here, and he is involved with whatever it is. I'm going to figure it out, but for now, I want him locked somewhere he can't cause any trouble."
The twins seemed unsettled, but they nodded to him and headed down the hallway anyway to hoist Ambrose's unconscious body up between them. Meanwhile, Serena stepped aside to allow Tarin through the door, and after he had strode into her room, she shut it tight behind him.
"Okay," she said, without wasting any time. "What was that about?"
Tarin's shoulders rose and fell as he sucked in a breath. "Have you been here ever since I left you last, Princess?" he asked.
Her expression darkened perceptibly. "Have I kept myself locked up in my room ever since you deserted me and stuck me behind your magic force field, you mean?" she retorted, and her tone was so cold that he had to fight back an actual shiver. "No, Tarin, I haven't. I got up yesterday morning planning on going down to the fields to train while they were emptier than usual, but I couldn't find my bow. So then I decided just to wander the gardens instead, where I ran into Pevana, who asked me to take an early lunch with her. I ended up having a nice discussion with her."
"And then what?" he asked, storing all of her answers away in his mind.
Serena was looking at him as though he was crazy. "Is there a reason you need a play-by-play, Tarin? Look, I'm sorry I avoided your stupid guards for so long, but I never even left the castle, and the twins caught up with me after lunch anyway. What's the big deal?"
I couldn't find my bow, she had said. Tarin pursed his lips, hardly aware that he was pacing. "Did you see Ambrose at all while I was gone?"
Serena raised her eyebrows. "Is that what this is about? You don't want me seeing Will?"
"No, Princess," Tarin answered, trying to keep his temper reigned in. "This is about trying to see whether Will is a complete traitor to your Realm."
Serena's blue eyes narrowed. "No, I didn't see him. The twins didn't know where he was, either, so I just assumed he had gone with you, though they kept telling me he hadn't. I suppose I was right after all."
Tarin was silent for long enough that Serena actually stomped her foot to get his attention. "Tarin, what is going on?"
"You were here all along," he murmured to himself, trying to paint the situation in his mind, still wearing a path along her floor as he paced. "Ambrose either followed me to the spot or he had already known where it was. He had stolen your bow and your cloak. He hid in the tree and he shot me with your arrow, but he missed the killing blow. He got away before my magic snatched him, but staged your fall with your own cloak. He made up the story to disorient me... but then, what was his ultimate goal? Is he working for an enemy, or just on his own?"
Serena stared at him for a moment, her hands planted on her hips, before exhaling loudly. "Well, that really cleared it up for me, thank you, Tarin. Now, if that was all you wanted from me..." She pointed towards her door.
Tarin tugged himself out of his thoughts, finally allowing himself to place all of his focus on his princess; something he tried to avoid lately, as once he gave her all of his attention, it was very hard to pull himself away.
"You're angry with me," he said, in no more than a whisper. Serena crossed her arms over her chest, causing the satin of her dress to ripple like water.
"Of course I'm angry with you," she replied, not even trying to withhold the harshness from her tone. "I begged you not to go on that stupid trip alone. I showed you how I felt, and you responded by shoving me away and casting a spell to keep me from following you--"
"The spell was to keep me from coming back to you, Princess," he corrected in a rush. He did not blush, as he was not embarrassed by what he was saying, but he did swallow hard after admitting it. "I knew that unless there was a physical barrier there to keep me away, I would have returned to you and stayed there, and I couldn't afford to do that."
Serena wrapped her arms around herself and parted her lips to let loose a long breath. She looked him up and down, as if trying to analyze whether he was hurt, or perhaps if he was lying to her. It hurt him, to think that she might not trust him fully. He would never seek to do anything that would go against her best interests; he wished she would believe that.
"I don't understand you," she said eventually, and the flame of hope in his heart flickered as she turned her back on him. "And I'm tired. It's the middle of the night. I'd like to go back to bed."
"If that's what you want," he responded gently. Nevertheless, his feet moved him a step closer to her. She must have heard him move somehow, or perhaps she just sensed the nearness, as she looked back over her shoulder and gave a scowl.
"You can't have it both ways, Tarin," she snapped, whipping back around, though she was close enough to her bed at this point to collapse into it and send him away if she really wanted to. "You can't push me away but keep telling me things that pull me closer at the same time. I know how I feel. I thought that you might have felt it too, but with the way that you act--" She cut herself off for a moment, her chest rising and falling with rapid breaths, her cheeks flushed and lovely despite her agitation.
"You didn't want me with Will, but when I tried to be with you, you told me you couldn't. You ran from me. You sprinted headfirst into a completely unnecessary and dangerous situation. Do you know how I would have felt if you had been killed?" Her eyes began to glaze over with tears, and Tarin could do nothing but watch her, but absorb her words in horrified silence. "You act like the only thing that matters to you in the whole world is my safety, and yet you don't even consider what it's like for me, to worry about you all the time. And what's worse, I can't even tell if you care about me the same way I do for you, or if it's just because I'm the heir and you feel it's your duty to play along--"
"Princess, princess, princess," Tarin interjected, her tears and splotchy neck and cheeks enough of a drive to get him to glide towards her and cradle her face in his hands, like he wanted to do so often but always held himself back from. He brushed away her flowing tears with the pads of his thumbs and noticed the way in which she slumped towards him, as if his nearness provided a physical means of support even when she was this upset with him.
"Princess," he repeated. She was looking at him, and he was struggling to find the right words to accurately depict the way he felt. It agonized him that he had created such a conflict in her without even realizing it. He had pulled away because he was not right for her; his life was one of blood and madness; hers one of ancient duty and power. She was and always would be an integral part of his life, and the dearest part of his soul, but it would not be fair of him to ask her for more.
However, if this was how she was feeling, he had to quell her despair as much as he could, whether the long-term consequences would be for better or worse. He tried to consider her best interests in all things, yes - but sometimes, selfishness won out.
"Princess, I want to be with you with every ounce of my being," Tarin finally proclaimed, and the words sounded loud in the room, though he was aware of how quietly, how earnestly, he was speaking the words meant only for her; for now, for before, for forever. "With every pump of my heart, I want to pull you into my arms and keep you there. With each breath that I take, I want to tell you how much I love you. You mean more to me than you could ever know. Please, believe me in that."
She was staring at him, her eyes wide and soft with the words he had just given her. He had not realized that she had grabbed hold of his arms, but he noticed it now, as her grip tightened. The goosebumps on her skin had disappeared; in fact, her hands seemed hotter than he would have deemed normal as they touched him, even through the fabric of his tunic, but with the mint-and-raspberry smell of her so close, he was not bothered by the fact. Even without the gloss on her lips as she slept, he could easily detect the lingering notes of raspberry that he knew he would taste if he were to lean in three inches... two inches... one inch...
Kissing his princess was an experience he could not put into words. There was no poetry suitable enough to explain the feeling of her lips moving against his, of holding her against him, of the tickle of her hair and the feel of her satin nightgown under the guiding force of his hand. He could say that it was like a firework going off, but this time it was not such an explosive kiss as it was gentle, yet still deep and desperate. He could say that kissing his princess was like to when the spirits of magic inhabiting his body first opened his eyes to his true life as a Fae; but then again, that had been partially dutiful. That was when he had known he was meant to serve, both the Realm and the magic that had created it and made their race what it was. However, while kissing Serena, he knew he was actively going against his duty, or at least not adhering to it. He was providing himself with a pleasure he had never known was possible, without a care in the world as to what might be happening around him. She was all that there was.
He knew that he had to be the one to pull away, though it was the last thing he wanted to do, especially because he worried that it would give Serena the impression that his words were not the full truth. He cupped her face once more and used just enough pressure to push her gently away. The moment he did so, every cell in his body, every particle of magic seemed to screech at him, as if he was cutting away part of his very life source.
"I never want you to doubt any of that, Princess," he said softly, "but I don't see how this will do either of us any good."
Serena was flushed a dark red, and his words did not seem to help with it. Her eyes flashed, and her hands darted up so fast that they blurred to grab handfuls of the front of Tarin's tunic. Perhaps she was preventing him from running away again, or perhaps she was just trying so hard to get him to understand her that she would feel the need to shake him into a state of comprehension.
"Was it not just obvious?" she demanded, her voice incredulous. "I can't live without you, Tarin. I've always known that."
"You lived in the human world--"
"And felt empty and alone the entire time," she snapped, dropping her hands as her temper rose. "To the point where I hurt myself just to feel something, just to see if anybody around me would notice my pain.
"You know, I clearly remember having the full intention of ending my life at one point, but that same day, before I was able to put the plan into action, the Infernal social worker came by to take me away. They wanted me alive and miserable. They knew what that life was like for me, Tarin; so it shouldn't be too hard for you to understand. You, who feels the bond we have just as clearly as I do."
Tarin clenched his teeth so hard that he was worried he would shatter them. Hearing about these kinds of things... 'unbearable' was an understatement.
"I don't want you to think that way. I'm not everything," he hissed back; not angry with her, but angry at the thought of her destroying herself in the ways she was describing. The fact that it was because of him that she was saying these things just made it even worse.
"As if you don't understand it," she said scornfully. "Tell me what you would do then, Tarin, if I were to be killed. Go on: tell me what you would do."
He could not open his mouth. He could not tell her the answer, because it was exactly the one she was waiting for. He would not make it long. He only survived those eleven years because he had hope that she was out there somewhere, that he could save her, bring her back, get his revenge on all of those involved in her capture, and then give her the chance for eternity in her home, amongst her people. If she was dead, there would be nothing for him. He loved the Realm, but he had served it for longer than most lasted, and with more dedication than anybody before him. They could not hold a grudge against his abrupt retirement of his job, his life, after all that he had done for them.
"That's what I thought," she said, a smile threatening at the corners of her mouth. She was smug; she knew she was winning this argument, that her reasons were more valid than Tarin's mere insistence that being together would not be in her best interests.
Being together. Even just thinking the statement was music to Tarin's ears, but he could not wrap his mind around the idea of it actually coming to fruition. Not when he knew that it was wrong. Not when he has known since Serena was born that she would someday be married to someone in an alliance meant to strengthen the Realm in one way or another. Not when he had so much blood on his hands that would never completely wash off. He did not deserve someone so pure, and, though he was certainly someone with a reputation, he was not of a high enough status to ask for her hand.
"Well," Tarin replied after a while, "I suppose it's good that I have no plans of leaving your side anytime soon, then. But that doesn't mean we should change the nature of our relationship, Princess."
Serena gave a huff and spun on her heel to move away from him. She glided like a spectre in her nightgown over to the window, where she lay her hands on the sill and leaned towards the pane, as if she was considering simply allowing herself to fall through it. He could see her breath fogging up the glass in front of her, and wondered briefly how her skin had been so hot, if it was so cold outside. She did not have a fire going, and was not wearing any layers...
"You know that if we don't tell my mother how we feel, she'll soon hand me off to some other suitor," Serena stated softly, the words painting a foggy picture on the window that made Tarin's heart clench up.
"I've known that that was your destiny forever, Princess," Tarin responded gently, trying not to give away how much he was hurting inside. He was a dutiful servant; it was his job to say these words; it was the right thing to do. But he did not want to. Perhaps, if he was someone used to treating himself to things that would make him happy, he would have overlooked the long-term consequences of pulling Serena back into his arms. However, for better or for worse, he had never allowed himself to engage in such selfish actions; at least, not ones so risky.
"And you don't mind?" Serena asked. She still did not turn around, and due to the way her whisper carried itself over to his ears, he could tell that this was some sort of test. He was in dangerous waters.
"Of course I mind," he said, astounded that she would even ask such an obvious question. "I will envy the man who gets to call you his wife my entire existence. But so long as you are alive and happy, I will be there to protect you, and I will do my duty to the Realm."
Serena slowly lifted a finger and began to draw swirling patterns through the lake of fog she had created on the glass. Her reflection was hidden from him in those clouds, and he wished he could see her face, her eyes - through their bond, he could normally tell how she was feeling when he was able to study her expression. However, she seemed as aware of that as he was, and was clearly not willing to give him that assistance in deciphering her feelings.
Only once she leaned her head against the glass, angling herself even further from his gaze, did she speak again. "I think you should go, Tarin."
Tarin stepped towards her desperately. "Princess, please don't send--"
"Please leave."
Tarin's eyes followed the lines of Serena's waves of hair for a long moment, trailing them from the roof of her head down most of her back. For that moment, he hoped that she would turn around, that she would change her mind. He could not stand being on bad terms with her. He did not want to leave her upset again.
However, his desires were not paramount; hers were. And so, Tarin turned and left the room, shutting the door as quietly as he could behind him.