Draziel
I had always thought I could feel nothing, that I was one cold bastard whose heart was unreachable. Yet, when I saw her cry once again—Zarek pointing it out to me—something struck my heart, crumbling my heart so hard, I felt it constricting inside of me—my heart thrashed hard against the force. I thought it would burst.
I jerked forward a bit, my teeth biting hard into my lips as I tried to hold back the pain. I didn't know how it happened, but I was before her the next moment. My lips crumbled into a gentle smile for her, my thumb brushing off her tears.
Why was I so miserable because of this woman? I had never felt anything before for any woman, human or demon. But why did she have to make my heart beat so hard that it hurts? Was she truly from the future—my future?
Then it happened: her body was glowing, her consciousness slowly lifting from her. Hell. I screamed in my head, retreating back to get a better view, my eyes doubling on her. How could this be happening? She had been telling the truth. She was from the future.
Father had always said, Two same souls that can never survive in the same timeline. One is either consumed by the other, or they both wither away. That her soul was lifting off her meant it was fighting to merge with the one from this timeline so it wouldn't wither.
I shifted fast to Zarek when he appeared beside me. "Get Varin, quickly," I screamed at him. He could be naughty and stubborn at times, but now, he read the urgency and disappeared fast to fetch Varin.
Just as soon as Zarek disappeared, she snatched my sleeves, pulling me to turn back to her. It was hard to discern her expression with the glowing—her soul lifting slowly from her. But I thought I heard her whisper 'no.' I wasn't sure. It was just too faint to discern even for my sharp hearing.
Then, as abruptly as it started, the glowing flicked off, as if switching itself off on her. Her eyes swirled for a very short moment, her eyelids droopy and low, and the next thing I knew was her falling fast to the floor.
My body snapped with alertness. I rushed forward and caught her in my arms. I let her settle comfortably, stirring dreamily in the warmth of my arms, and she moaned softly. It was a sound so endearing, it soothed my mind. I smiled, staring down at her beautiful face locked in a dreamy sleep. She purred like a kitten, continuing to stir gently in my arms.
I wanted to keep staring at her, watching her stir soundly in my arms. But I was reminded that she was in danger—suffering from ill-attempted time travel. I teleported fast to the guest room in the castle, arriving with a gust of wind due to my speed.
The wind brushed the items on a drawer, and they spilled to the floor with loud cries, clattering noisily.
I bit a curse at myself, blaming myself for the noise, but when I stared down at her face once again as I laid her on the large bed, there was not even a dent to her sleep. But slowly, I began to watch the dreamy smile turn fast into a frown, tightening her face—casting a slight dent on her beauty.
"Draziel," she moaned carefully, her frown tightening harder and harder. "Please don't die," she whispered, a bit hysterical in her sleep. She tossed and turned a bit—a little restless.
Varin and Zarek appeared just as I turned to get them.
"What do you think, Varin?" I looked across to him on the other side of the bed. He had worked closely with my father. No one in the whole universe knows more about time travel than he does. "There should be something we can do to save her."
Varin was quiet as always, taking his time to answer the question. He stroked his long white beard, twitching it between his chubby fingers as his eyes roamed her features, observing her carefully.
Zarek and I watched Varin. Zarek didn't say it, but I could feel his anxiety, felt the rush of his blood sizzling inside of him as it did mine. His eyes kept darting to Varin while he fingered his horn.
I wasn't so patient. "Answer, Varin, what will happen to her?" I snapped at him. I was probably a moment away from rushing over to him and punching the answer out of him.
He eventually looked up, raising his eyes in that same irritating slow motion that always gets on my nerves. His face was blank, devoid of even an ounce of emotion. "She will die," he said casually, leaning back completely to his feet.
"What do you mean by she will die?" Zarek inquired, beating me to a response. He walked forward so he could stare straight at Varin.
"Prince Zarek," Varin sighed. "This lady is an aberration in this timeline. Nobody can survive for long in a particular timeline, not even we, immortals. We just have a lot of fortitude to bear the wrath of time. As a human, she doesn't. It is only a matter of time before she fizzles out of existence in this timeline, unless she returns to whence she came."
"That cannot be happening soon," I said, remembering her repeated attempts to return using my hair. "She needs a piece of me after I must have mastered the secret of time travel before she can leave. So basically she is stuck here until then."
"Then she will die, my king," Varin answered casually again. "The best she has is six months, if extremely lucky, then a year. And even if we find the scroll today, it will still take you nearly half a decade to master the skills. So no matter what you do, my king. She is bound to die."
My jaw tightened so hard with how emotionless he sounded that it ached. He sounded like he cared nothing if she lived or died. We were talking about a life here. How could he sound so cruel?
"There must be something we can do, Varin." I snapped at him. It wasn't his fault that she was dying. Yet, I couldn't help myself from hating him for how nonchalant he seemed about her.
"Come on, Varin. There must be something we can do to preserve her life until Draziel can find and master the time-traveling technique and return her to her timeline," Zarek asked, petting Varin up with a friendly grin and a jab at his flabby arm.
Varin grunted loudly, hustling his big body away from another of Zarek's friendly jabs. "Stop it, Prince Zarek." He snapped at Zarek, yet there was nothing princely about the manner in which he addressed him.
Another time, I might punish Varin for that lack of respect. Now, I didn't seem to give a damn about that. Why? I don't even know.
"Just tell us what we can do to save her life," I said, staring down at the human again as I spoke.
The dark frown kept stealing every bit of smile from her sleepy face, and she kept mumbling my name, tossing and turning gently on the large bed.
I still wouldn't believe my future self would be so foolish as to love a human—a creature with a fickle source of existence. Still, every fiber of my being wanted to save her. I could feel she meant something important to my future self.
Varin eventually sighed, twitching his white beard again, the ones along his ears. "She will wake up soon, and when she does, let her have a cold bath. It'll calm her fever and make her more useful to herself until she dies." He said. "And if you want her to live longer, then you both will have to go into the real world and start searching for her other self in this timeline. The sooner they merge souls, the better. Else you are practically holding a corpse in your hands."
Then he dropped his big body low for a bow, not waiting for my order. "I'll take my leave then, my king," he said, his tone crisp.
My fists pulsed beside me. But I held back, as I have been doing often for a year now. Stopping myself from punching a hole into his face. Since Father died with the rest of his advisors and he became the only advisor alive, he has completely changed, disrespecting our hierarchy as he wishes, as if our roles were reversed, as if he were the king and not me.
The only reason he was still alive and in my palace was because he had been instrumental in my mutiny against Father, and he was far more experienced about the kingdom and every aspect of a demon's existence—letting him go would bring me down faster than the rebels could.
Like always, I watched him huddling his big self out of the room, without an order of dismissal from me, and I could do nothing.
The lady's eyes abruptly snapped open, as if her senses were suddenly turned on. She gasped loudly as she sat up.
I bent low to ask how she was faring. But her eyes were fastened somewhere above my head—at Varin. She jumped off the bed before I could even get a chance to speak, charging fast for him before I could stop her. Her body tensed, her small arms quivering with murder. She moved like she wanted to kill him.