Page 35 of Zel
“I am not going to sing it for you.”
Zel laughed. It amazed him how often Ulrich could cause that reaction. “You don’t have to sing it, but I would love to hear it spoken. Come, tell it to me.” Zel took Ulrich’s blackened hand again and led him to the chaise. They sat with Ulrich’s hand in Zel’s lap to keep it soothed. He could feel the grooves of the bisected circle carved into Ulrich’s palm, which he was still curious about. Zel even deliberately pulled his braid into his lap, so it too touched Ulrich’s hand, plumping it to near normal life.
Ulrich sighed deeply. “Do you know the tale ofThe Bard and the Fairy Prince?”
“I do not.” Zel honestly didn’t and wondered how old that story might be. Perhaps it even came from Ulrich’s elven homeland.
“Then you, little cabbage, are in for a treat. How does one begin such things? Oh yes. Once upon a time…”
Zel listened with rapt attention to the deep, resonant tones of Ulrich’s voice telling him a love story. He was continuing to earn Ulrich’s favor, as was his mission, but in doing so, he was forgetting to not allow Ulrich to earn his.
ULRICH
“Once upon a time… a prince was born to an elven queen and a human king—or so the prince thought. Some called his mother queen of the fairies for all her magic, but she was neither fairy nor honestly an elf. She was from the depths, the unknown, born of wild and dark magic, and when the prince learned of this, it darkened his heart to match his heritage.”
Part of that fairy tale was very personal to Ulrich. He didn’t know if it was based on anything truthful, but he did know what it was like to be the cause of one’s own demise in the pursuit of power to defy one’s birth.
The fairy prince, who just as easily could have been called a half-demon, went on a journey very similar to Ulrich’s, amassing magic even if it meant stealing it from good, kind people from other kingdoms who had never wronged him. The difference between the prince and Ulrich was that the prince had a warriorbard he hired to protect him who eventually tried to convince him to give up his quest for power and choose love instead.
Such an option had never been presented to Ulrich. Love of family had meant little. He lost them too young. Love of friends had never been enough to sway him. He had swayed most of them. There was never a true love in Ulrich’s life, never any connection to another that could have prevented his downfall once he realized too late it had all been for naught, and none of his pursuits had ever led to happiness.
Happiness, it seemed, was the quelling of the ache in him that had persisted for centuries. Happiness was touch he had not realized he had been starved to know again. Happiness was found in these brief, pain-free moments with Zel.
Which he had to strive to not give into.
This was not how the month was meant to go. Zel’s willingness to touch and be touched was welcome, but Ulrich had always known willing companions. He had slain many in his long life, but he had never wanted nor needed to take anyone unwilling into his bed. Everyone who had ever ended up there had asked for it, wanted it, offered themselves wholeheartedly, whether for power, favor, or simply the pleasures he could provide. His magical scales to weigh intent had helped ensure that.
Zel was willing too, even to listen to a love story that Ulrich had never dared imagine he might mimic. Zel, who it seemed sometimes forgot, had the goal of assassination while here. But if killing alone was enough to condemn someone to what Ulrich had originally planned for Zel, then the tale ofThe Bard and the Fairy Princewould not move Ulrich as it did. The story gave hope when Ulrich had long since stopped believing he could have any. That anyone could.
He was continuing to gauge Zel’s worth for the month’s end, but in doing so, he was forgetting who each of them was to theother and that the outcome was never meant to be marriage, even if Zel passed every test.
“And they lived happily ever after?” Zel asked once the story had reached its end.
“Yes,” Ulrich said, “I suppose they did.”
Eight
ZEL
Sometimes, Zel would look out toward the kingdom of Hallin before bed and spot the shadow of Ulrich walking into the wood for who knew what—likely for a soul or possibly to hunt game, since they never went without meat each day. Sometimes, Zel would see Ulrich catch his prey around the perimeter of the grounds when some foolish bandit came upon the tower—or if a deer did. Sometimes, Ulrich would even look up, and rather than ducking out of view like the first time, Zel would smile, imagining that Ulrich smiled back at him, even if he couldn’t see Ulrich’s face clear enough in the dark.
Whenever Zel spotted Ulrich outside the tower like that, he would take to his bed imagining the sorcerer ascending andclimbing in through the window to join him. He never did. He never snuck into the washroom either, and Zel believed Ulrich did not watch him while there or in his bedchamber, or he would have already known Zel’s secret.
One of them anyway.
Zel had learned many things in the subsequent days since the tale ofThe Bard and the Fairy Prince. He continued to keep Ulrich’s interest and continued to feel interest of his own, much as it pained him when he remembered his true goal. Most interesting, at least for Zel’s mission, had been a couple nights after Ulrich shared that favored love story.
They had dined together for the evening meal, but later into the night, they had still not left the dining hall. The wine flowed, more than any night before, as discussion turned to each of their first teachers.
Ulrich talked of the first person to teach him magic beyond the minimal amount he had been born with—thankfully not the same as the one whose soul sealed the magical book on the main room’s shelf—and Zel reminisced not of his parents but of a different teacher, one who had taught him the basics with the blade before his parents honed those skills.
Sadly, she passed away during a mission.
“Mission?” Ulrich had inquired.
“Um… we call any order for a particular theft a mission.” Which wasn’t a lie, but it was if implying Helga had died from anything other than a failed assassination.
Ulrich eyed Zel with a glassy haze.
