In A Lovers Fate

• Athena Tatnell, Grade 10, Queechy High School
• Short Story
• 2011

Excellence Award in the 'Step Write Up 2011' competition

“Go on take it! As you have done my heart! Do as you please your majesty…” I glared under my lashes the dark shadows of my haunted eyes playing tricks with his as the tears lingered softly in my widened eyes. Even with his tightly clenched jaw and his face closed to all emotions it was easy for me to see in his amber coloured eyes the pain my poisoned words caused him.
“Please?” I beg with my voice only drifting in the air, “Please Claude? Kill me… what is worth more to you? The fate of one whom you loved yet you will love another in time or the lives of your people whom you will never regain?” His face stiffened and he flinched with the slight mockery my words held as I spoke, the thought of death was not welcoming to me in any situation yet this was the most painful because to die at the hands of your true love is the most ironic. “Ondine?” he whispered his voice tight with the grief that over powered him, his tears made mine break there barriers and with my throat tight I yelled in agony “Oh Claude my love! Do you think that I’m so morose because of losing you? It is the fear of death and yet death itself that makes me weep!” his anger and pain, disbelief and horror played across his face like an open book.
The flickering of the torchers on the dungeon walls gave my body the illusion that it was warm but as the snow slowly drifted through the bars of my dungeon window my body convulsed at the Antarctic weather. He brought what I had said to him and now my doom is at my feet like the shackles around my ankles, he has brought me here to die and he has not even sent a priest to me, all mercy gone from his soul. In the distance I can hear footsteps echoing down the harsh, cold stone floor and the in the dimly lit shadows I see his face and the words he whispers to me determines my fate…
“My sweet Ondine you lie to me to save the souls of thousands, but I could never kill you my love be you a witch or not. I have organised for a horse and a small pack of food that should last a few days. But let you remember this my love, we will meet again, I will keep on looking, no matter how long it may take me you are my soul.”