It was simple really, as he had told me once. The everlasting memory of love brought forth from death had the power to change the world. But just as that love could change it for the better, living with the knowledge of it not returned, could no doubt change it for the worst. A sacrifice is all it takes for a leader to be reborn, but one truth dragged back through the lies left in its wake and it could all come crashing down like the sands of time it took to put it there.
And it had come crashing down into dust at our feet.
Sacrifice gone, prophecy over.
Chosen One no more.
I stumbled away from him and when he tried to catch me I screamed,
“No!” I managed to catch myself so I only half fell to the floor, but the pain was excruciating enough for me to want to stay there.
“Keira I…”
“No! For the love of God don’t say another word! Not unless you finally want to kill me!?” I said making him wince as though I had struck him. He looked close to saying something but with one glimpse at the pain he’d inflicted, he must have thought better of it. I got up and looked where to put my bare feet in the mess that scattered the floor as I was certain I would find the pieces of my heart down there amongst the wreckage.
“You know you could have saved me of all this, if you…if you had only said those very words to me instead of…. Goodbye.” I couldn’t stop the tears, Hell it felt like they would never stop! If I thought I knew pain before then I was wrong. That couldn’t even touch on what I felt now and how I was still standing I didn’t know.
But I was.
And not only was I still standing, but I stood tall and strong as I turned to him, knowing this was the last time. The apple had fallen and I, like Eve, had been cast out, only this time there would be no Adam to follow in my damned footsteps back to a harsher reality. Because Adam was the traitor to my heart and had been ever since that first day he ever spoke of his love for me.
Because love wasn’t supposed to be damned or cast aside like it no longer mattered. Love wasn’t supposed to be so easily turned into something you loathed to find staring back at you. But one look at Draven told me all I needed to know…
This was the end.
Only now it was my turn to finish it.
I walked up to what was still left of the door and with a strength that no longer surprised me, I ripped the hanging panel from its bent hinges, casting it behind me. Then I turned to face the picture of a broken man stood in the mess he’d created. He needed to know one last thing.
“I want you to do me a favour, Dominic, any time you try and convince yourself you did all this for me…” I swallowed my tears back just a little longer and said,
“…just remember it wasn’t only the ‘damned’ love I had for you that brought me to find you…” I saw him frowning as if readying himself for a truth that would change everything to him but nothing to me…not now.
“….it was the Oracle.” And with that I reached up to find the necklace he gave me and snapped it off, knowing that now that connection was dead, there was no reason left for me to wear it.
So I left it, letting it fall from my hands and leaving it where it now belonged, in the rubble, right along with the…
Broken pieces of my heart.
Chapter 65
Our Demons Speak at Last
I would have liked to have continued the story, saying this wasn’t the end and walking out of that room was followed by Draven running after me, sweeping me up in his arms and begging for forgiveness…but, that didn’t happen. What did happen was me walking away from that room to the sound of roaring pain drowning out the rest of the world. Draven’s cry was a hard thing to hold on to as my last memory of him, but he gave me no other choice.
I held on to my now bare neck, feeling as if a piece of me had been taken by the wind with no luck of ever finding it again. I felt like a walking, wandering dead girl, just hanging around waiting for one last hug from a loved one. I needed to get out of here and that’s when I started to run. I had no clue where I was going, but only stopped when I looked behind me and ran straight into a massive body.
“Keira?” I looked up and up, to find a Viking looking down at me.
“Ragnar!” My shouting his name was the only warning he got before I threw myself into him and cried as my world ended.
I didn’t remember much about what happened next but if I was to try and think back, it would start with Ragnar picking me up and cradling me in his massive arms like a small weeping child. The next thing I knew was finding myself in a different room and being handed a bag with some clothes in it.
“From Sophia.” Ragnar said before pushing me gently in the direction of a bathroom. This was where I was now and looking at myself for the first time since Draven had destroyed me for the second time. It was like being transported back in time, as I found the reflection of a girl with soulless empty eyes of grey blue and long limp hair that had once known the touch of an Angel’s love. And what was I now?
I suddenly punched the glass until it cracked, needing to see myself the way I felt.
“Now you are just you, Keira.” I said to the pieces of the girl in the mirror that finally reflected back what Draven had done. Then I did the only thing I could do…
I left my Hell behind.
When walking from the house in clothes I had barely looked at when putting them on, I found Ragnar following me.
“You’re leaving?” I turned to look back at my friend to see concern and frustration mingle as one.
“I want you to give him something from me.” I said not answering his question but giving him his answer all the same. I had the idea after I had changed and Ragnar had given me back my bag that still had in it my passport, purse, cards, everything it had before, including the Ouroboros book. So, looking down at the book and its empty pages, I thought about all the people who had gone against Draven and helped me through this wasted journey.
This had me quickly realising the danger of Draven’s wrath I might have brought to people’s doors, which I had to prevent and I knew just how to do it. So, in a turnaround of events taken place, I wasn’t the only one now leaving Draven instead of him leaving me, but I was also the one writing a letter.
I was just amazed that the book let me rip a page from its spine to use for my letter. But that might have had something to do with the faded snake on the front. I ran the tip of my finger around where the serpent used to be raised, only now it just looked like a burnt part of leather with the shape of the missing snake. I couldn’t help feeling a little sad looking down, knowing this was not only the end of my journey, but also so many connections I’d made along the way.
Which was why I spent the time in writing Draven that letter, one only made more powerful by what it was written upon. I pulled the letter from my bag, which I would have left with the man at the gate had Ragnar not followed me out.
“Give him this.” I said and then passed him the folded piece of thick paper that contained my very last wish from Draven.
“You won’t say goodbye to the others?” He asked taking it and then folding his arms over his chest. I looked back up at the house to see Vincent stood by the window with Sophia by his side, one arm around her shoulders in comfort.
“No, there is no need, not unless Draven refuses the last thing I ask of him.” I nodded back up at Vincent when he gestured the same motion down at me.
“I don’t think that will happen.” Ragnar said and I managed to give him a small smile before agreeing,
“Neither do I.”
“So, I guess this is it, but before I go…can I ask you a question?” He nodded and I took a deep breath before asking,
“That day I saw Sigurd standing watching my house, the day he wasn’t alone…it was you with him, wasn’t it?”
“Yes.” It was a simple answer, one that only managed to bring on greater confusion.
“But why?”
“Why?” He repeated and when I nodded,
he lost some of his tough man stance and dragged a hand over the lower part of his face before nodding to a stone bench, one that was curved around a landscaped flower bed that mimicked the shape. I followed him and sat down next to him, making our size difference near comical.
“It is not well known but a Viking can only hope their death will mirror their life. To die in battle to those who fight, to die in child birth to those who cherish bringing life to the world…but when a life is saved then it must be offered back in return.” I shook my head and said,
“But what does that have to do with me?”
“When I lost myself to the Demon within me, you risked your life to bring me back. For me to have died how I did not live my life would have only meant greater shame on my family name…just like the first time.” I felt the weight of his meaning after he’d told me when he was my bodyguard how his wife and daughter had died, only for his own death to be thrown into a pit of snakes…which only just made me wonder, did that have something to do with why his son held the snake as a mark?
“Lodbrok is my proud name and you risked your life to keep it so. I owed you a life debt and seeing that my niðr Sigurd owed me one, I passed his debt onto you.” His chestnut coloured eyes looked down at me with beaming pride and I knew it wasn’t just for his son, but for me also.
“niðr?”
“It means ‘son’ in my native tongue, old Norse.”
“And let me guess, Viðara means father?” He smiled and nodded. I felt like smacking myself on the head as I remembered when Sigurd had been in my hotel room, on the phone to Ragnar calling him that, and I hadn’t had a clue!
“So that life debt…it’s been paid off now…right?” I asked making Ragnar chuckle, which sounded like it first came up through sandpaper.
“I would say my niðr did well in his duties, given what he had to work with.” He said full of humour and I nudged him, or at least tried to and said,
“Hey, I’m not that difficult!” At this he raised a disbelieving eyebrow, which made me give in,
“Alright…so I can be a little stubborn.” Making him once again chuckle.
“Speaking of your niðr, can you give him this for me?” I pulled out the book and was about to pass it to him when he looked over my head and said,
“Why not do so for yourself?” I followed his gaze to see Sigurd pushing his bike around the corner, which was where the garages must have been.
“I will.” I said standing, making him do the same.
“I will see you again…right?” I said feeling the lump in my throat form at the thought of not seeing my Viking Guardian again.
“Oh, I have no doubt about that, lille øjesten.” He said leaning his massive bulk down enough to grip my head gently in his giant paws and tilting my head up enough so he could kiss my forehead. Then, before I got chance to ask him what that meant, he left me with yet another tear falling down my cheek.
I turned round to where Sigurd was lifting a long leg over his bike and I found myself running to him, just to stop him before he went roaring off.
“You leaving, for good?” I asked him, making his hooded head look up from the front of his bike. He leant back and did a slow inspection of the old Keira.
“Well, well, look whose back.” He said whistling and I was surprised I had a smile for him, not because it was Sigurd but surprised that I had one for anyone right now. It was as though something was giving me the strength needed just to get home.
“What can I say, I have hung up my super hero Goth cape for the foreseeable future.” He looked up at the Heavens and said,
“Oh thank you God of Chaos for reining in one of your children!”
“Ha, ha!” I said hitting him on the arm.
“So, I gather from your heart warming meeting with the old man that you’re leaving too?”
“You saw us?”
“I didn’t want to impose on the gooey moment.” I rolled my eyes and he purposely pulled his hood back to show me him doing the same, making me laugh. It was strange, but just being around him and his father was helping with the pain I knew was ready in the wings, waiting for its chance to strike.
“You’re not by any chance going to an airport are you?”
“To get you back where you belong, I will give you a ride to any damn airport you want, darling.” I couldn’t help but agree with him. I really needed to get back to where I belonged and it was no longer with any of the people I had left in the building behind me.
“Thanks, big guy.”
“Hop on little pain in my ass.” He said winking at me with his snake eye, making it spin a little as if excited. He handed me a helmet, letting me figure out the clasp as he kicked the bike into life. This time I was no longer scared of the ride to come, but I had to put that down to the ride that had brought me to this point.
And after that one, I didn’t think there was anything left for me to be afraid of anymore. So, with one last look behind me as we pulled away, because I knew with a certainty I was right, there was nothing left to fear because…
All my nightmares had already come true.
Draven
As I watched the other part of my soul being taken from me, I felt the wood of the window’s frame give under my hands as I crushed it into splinters. I wanted to tear the room apart until there was nothing left for me to stand in…fuck that, I wanted to tear this whole Gods be damned house down to the very foundations until I finally felt enough pain physically to spare me a moment of the bitter agony that was tearing me apart!
I wrenched my tortured gaze from the window before my rage hit levels that would equal an 8.5 on the Richter scale or before I did what every molecule in my host wanted to do. My hands cracked into fists at just the thought of pleasure gained from ripping that Viking’s hands from his body, just so he could never touch her again.
Watching her leave made the brandings on my skin itch and burn just like it did every night I fought to stay away from her. They had been fighting the bindings and invisible chains I had forged to Tartarus, ever since her arrival, like a Legion of Zagan’s army. Sometimes I welcomed the irritation, giving me something other to focus on than the world of things that reminded me of my Goddess. But right now, they only aided in proving once again why I had no other choice but to give her up.
I thought on all the things she had told me of what she went through to ‘save me’ and I knew with the last words she said to me that I had been played by the fucking fates! The lies told to both of us were mounting, but with her life still hanging in the balance, I couldn’t risk acting on my doubts…no matter how much it destroyed me not to.
No! First I needed to look into all that had transpired in the time she had been without my protection. Why had I listened when I knew in my gut that leaving her with nothing but her human fate to guide her was not enough?
When I think about what could have happened…what did happen, reasons why I wanted to annihilate those involved, reminding my people of the very reasons they feared me! I wanted to prove my Hell’s heritage by making them beg me to let them claw their way into the inner ring of the seventh circle of my home in Hell! But this just brought on thoughts about my own father, who would not be out of reach in his castle from finding my wrath at his gates. Maybe I should take Sophia with me this time, she always did love to play Devil’s advocate.
When I heard all Keira had to say, I was stunned by the sheer level of love the girl could have for me. I didn’t think it was possible for the strength of her love to match my very own and my pride was overflowing for the power she possessed. Of course, it was also over ridden by the murdering desire that raged through my host like a hurricane needing to destroy everything in its path, but the girl in front of me.
Keeper of my heart and soul.
And what had I been forced to do…damn that keeper and love she displayed with her very life. But what choice did I have? After all I had been forced to do to her, she still looked up at me as though I was her whole world
, when in reality I had ripped her fucking world apart, leaving her left with nothing more than the pieces twice trampled on. No wonder she tore the necklace I gave her from her neck as if it was burning her flesh wearing it any longer, and by the Gods had it killed me to watch.
I crossed over the vast space that was my personal suite on the grounds, after having to first fix the damage I inflicted to the adjoining room that Keira had stayed in. I couldn’t let her see the level of my obsession that looked more like a shrine to the girl. I’d had every picture I could get hold of printed onto large canvas that covered all of one wall. Some of which were just enlarged pieces of her that I needed to see on a daily basis. One of her at home baking in her sister’s kitchen, sweet mixture on her face, reminding me painfully of teasing her about licking it off when her sister wasn’t looking. I still remember seeing the blush that never ceased to get me battling my host for control of an erection that wanted to remain in her presence. The damn thing was like a homing missile where she was concerned!
There was another one of her taken at Christmas, when she sat in a pair of those adorable pyjamas, trying on a woollen knitted hat someone had given her, that would have been a preferable size for my chief of security, Ragnar. She had pulled it down her face until her little nose was peeking through and although it was the only one where most of her face was hidden, the smile she had graced the camera, made my heart ache every time I looked at it.
I would sometimes find myself just staring at this wall for hours, trying to piece together enough to hold onto the details as I remained locked to Tartarus, my prison of choice. I would have Palladio blasting through the speakers as I geared myself up for another night in my personal Hell, the very one Keira had been trying to free me from.
But having Keira back, just having that sweetness there in my life for what would be considered a fleeting moment of time in the endless years of my existence, had been ambrosia coated agony. It had been all that was needed to keep me going and yet never enough to get me through. Seeing her body laid out beneath me once more, writhing in the pleasures only she had the right to ask of me, was my Heaven’s paradise. I hadn’t lied when I spoke of her being my apple’s sin. The very reason I would choose madness over logic, just for one taste of that honeyed core that is my Keira.