Page 12 of The Night Prince

Aquilan did smile genuinely then.“Weren’t you?”

Elasha rolled her eyes.“Of course, he wasn’t!There’s no chance in all of the planes that you’ll ever marry, Rhalyf!Who would put up with you?”

Rhalyf put a hand on the center of his chest.“I am a very attractive marriage prospect, I’ll have you know!”

“Oh,really?What do you have to offer? A wandering eye and a sharp tongue?”Elasha shook her head in dismissal.

“What you call a sharp tongue others recognize as scintillating wit.Not to mention my skill in the bedroom, on the battlefield and in the kitchen,” Rhalyf pointed out.“Countless people would marry me!”

“If you say so.”Elasha rolled her eyes, clearly unconvinced.

“But that is the problem,” Rhalyf went on as if she’d said nothing.“There are so very many to choose from.And who wants to choose?Better to just have them all!”

“I’m sure you will have them all, Rhalyf,” Aquilan chuckled.

Few could resist his best friend’s considerable charms.Aquilan had many lovers in his time himself, but, like everything else, it had become more complicated since he had ascended the throne.Anyone he even showed semi-interest in was presented to him on a platter regardless of their own desires. No one could deny him if he wanted them and many might only want him for histitleand not hisperson.Andthatleft him cold as a long dead hearth. Better to remain single.With his friends and family, he was hardly alone in any case.Romantic love was something that he’d be fine doing without.

“I will find you someone at the Dawn, too, Aquilan,” Rhalyf assured him.“Many someones!You’ll see.”

“You will not!”Elasha cried.“If Uncle wishes some companionship, we will find him someone discrete and–”

“I am looking for no one.Both of you may rest at peace at that,” Aquilan cut in.

Truly, he could not imagine being interested in anyone at that time. His thoughts were clouded.He needed to be busy rebuilding this world not catering to a single individual.They rode in silence for a few more moments.Elasha was chewing her inner cheek and Rhalyf was fussing with the wineskin.

“Why did you choose to come through the Selanor Gate rather than the Tyrael one, Uncle?”Elasha asked softly so that his Protectors–over two dozen mounted Battle Mages that had served him in the war–could not hear.“Was it to delay coming to the palace?”

Yes, it was.But he could not explain why.His guilt over the start of the war would haunt him no matter where he was or if it was logical or not.But he was, especially, not looking forward to returning to Tyrael because of someone there.And it wasn’t Vesslan.

Or it wasn’tonlyVesslan.

It was in that city where he had first faced off against the Leviathan.Even though there had been little delay in coming to Earth, almost all of Tyrael–or Lightwell as it had been called by the humans–had been destroyed and everyone had died before they had arrived.

Not everyone.Three people survived.

He remembered seeing those three.For a moment after his light had washed over the land for the first time, a darkness had risen up.It was so strong that, for a moment, he had thought it would push his magic back.He’d turned in the direction of that growing darkness, expecting some Leviathan king or queen to be standing there, but instead, he’d found only three humans.

A young man and a much younger girl had been crouched down on the ground, but a second young man had been standing tall.The only darkness there had been the standing man’s shadow.Nothing else.But humans had no magic so it couldn’t have been any of those three who had affected him yet he named the standing man the Shadow in any case.

The memory of the Shadow had stayed with him. The Shadow had been like a sketch in black and white.All black clothes, a shock of black hair cut short on the sides, but long on the top, and a pale face set with startling green eyes.He’d had an ordinary kitchen knife in his right hand as if that could have done anything against the Leviathan.Yet the black-haired Shadow had not looked afraid or defeated.No.His expression was a mixture of awe and something else.

Disdain.That’s what it was.His look seemed to ask me why it had taken us so long to get there.Why had I allowed so many to die?

This likely was an interpretation that had come from his own guilty heart.Yet he irrationally believed that the Shadow had somehow intuited his failures and reflected them back at him.

The Shadow was, undoubtedly, still in Tyrael. Humans rarely left the Aravae cities they’d been assigned to at the beginning of the War. Travel was getting much less dangerous, but it was still much safer to remain within the magical domes.So with him and the Shadow both being in Tyrael, they would likely run into one another.

Aquilan yearned to meet him and feared to do so all at the same time.The Shadow was like a talisman for him.The night before every big battle with the Leviathan, he would dream of the young man.The Shadow would just be standing there, staring at Aquilan, that study in black and white.The bone white moon would reflect in those burning green eyes.

“Iefyr,” the Shadow would whisper, but it would sound like a shout.

It was a Kindreth word, which no human would know.It was one of the few Aquilan understood.It meant “to the end.”It was a battle cry that the Kindreth shouted before attacking forces much greater in strength or number than their own.When such a word was spoken, they would not stop fighting until their enemy was destroyed or they were.

We drove the Leviathan back to the Under Dark.It was not an utter rout.Not Iefyr, but we won nonetheless.

The thought of meeting the Shadow’s eyes, of hearing him speak for real, and perhaps having him put thatdisdaininto words was perhaps the deepest reason that Aquilan didn’t want to go to Tyrael. It was absurd, of course. This young man would be a normal human, not some augur of the Sun’s approval or disapproval of his actions or inaction.Yet his heart beat harder as he pictured those green eyes in his mind.Sometimes they shifted tored…

I should seek him out to put my heart to rest, in any case, Aquilan thought.But, also, to see if he is not only surviving, but thriving. He deserves that and likely much more from me.I will find the Shadow and assure his future.No matter what.

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