Chronicles of the Kiridians

For it is written in the Chronicles of the Kiridians:

Words are not black and white.

Words are colorful and vibrant.

Some people use their words carelessly.

Hurling them at you and leaving any amount of colors behind.

Be careful about what you paint with the colors you have.

“Sit down, Lena,” he says motioning for me to sit down in the recliner across from him. He purses his lips the same way Raina does when she has a distaste for something, only this isn’t a charming or humorous trait on him.

“Actually, I go by Kara now,” I retort to him trying to sound as bold as possible.

He chuckles to himself and with an eye roll, he sits back down onto his chair and faces the fire. “Very well, Kara,” he says. “Please come take a seat.”

He motions for me to take a seat, but I am frozen in fear as I stand in the doorway. This wasn’t something that you can really prepare yourself for. Everything that I’ve heard about King Delmund has been evil and filled with treachery. I can’t imagine anything this man has to talk about will be pleasant.

“Today, Lena,” he says. “Before I die of old age,”

I slowly make my way toward the chair. Each time I take a step it seems to get farther and farther away. It feels like an eternity before I finally get to the chair and sit down on the plush cushion. King Delmund’s eyes pierce into me from the other side of the fireplace as he looks me up and down.

“How’d this happen?” he asks me.

“How’d what happen?” I respond confused.

“You. You’re, what, sixteen?” he asks. “Just 16 years ago we were the same age, Lena. How is it that a woman who was my age, is suddenly under half?”

It’s weird to think that I had a whole other life before this. The realization of King Delmund having so much knowledge of who I used to be while I have none is scary. There’s no telling what he could tell me. The truth is, I don’t even know if I want to know my relationship with the King. He isn’t a good man. What kind of a person wants to kill his kids?

“I’ll take your silence as you don’t know?” he asks me.

“That would be correct,” I say honestly. “Today has been a whirlwind. It’s not every day you get kidnapped by an intergalactic King, after all.”

He chuckles and crosses his leg not taking his eyes off of me. “There’s that wit that I remember so vividly. I assume you have a lot of questions. I’m eager to answer them for you, but I need to hear a couple of things from you as well. How do you feel about a trade of information, Lena?”

“I would be more inclined to it if you called me by my name,” I retort.

I’m unsure where this sudden burst of confidence is coming from, but I feel all of the nerves slowly leaving my body. I can’t put my finger on it, but there is something familiar about him. I don’t think that the dream I had where I get stabbed was a one-time meeting. I think I knew him. Like actually knew him.

“Very well, Kara,” he says with a sense of annoyance. “Tell me, how has your Earth life been?”

“Seriously?” I ask him confused. “You have anything in the world that you can ask me and you want to know about my Earth life?”

“We always had pleasant conversations, Lena,” he explains. “It’s not uncommon for us to be polite. Manners don’t go away just because you’re in the presence of someone you have a distaste for.”

I squint my eyes. This really isn’t helping anything. I was hoping that the more I came closer to Kiridian people my memory would start coming back. All I have is a few dreams and an admission from my not-parents-parents.

“You really don’t remember anything, do you?” he asks me. His eyes light up as he asks that question. “Well?”

“No,” I whisper. “I don’t remember anything,”

“Allow me to remind you of who you are, Lena,” he says standing up and walking over to the fire. He places his head on the stone and closes his eyes. A ball slowly starts to form in the base of my stomach as I wait to hear what story the past me created.

“Sixteen years ago, my wife died,” he says. “She was the greatest woman I knew. She was beautiful, talented, the kind of woman that would light up a room just by laughing. I was the envy of every man in Kiridia.” The way he talks about his wife makes him seem almost human. It’s like I’m going up to his house and peeping through the window when he thinks no one is watching.

Yet, as he talks and opens up to me, it doesn’t seem hard for him.

“When she died there was a hole in my heart that couldn’t be filled,” he says. “I searched high and low for the way to get over a lost love, Lena,” He turns to me and has tears welling up in his eyes. “The more I looked for it, the more I couldn’t find it. Then the answer came to me, Lena. It hit me like a ton of bricks in the face, and I sat there in awe of why I didn’t see it before! Eternal life was what I needed! Eternal life meant no death! There was nothing that could come between me and the things I loved again! Just life.”

He runs over to the table next to his bed and pulls out a book. It’s leather binding is old and tattered. The small writing on the book reads Chronicles of the Kiridians. He comes back to me and opens it up to a specific page. “Written in this book is the secret to eternal life.”

He walks over to the chair and sits down again. “This is the kicker. You’re going to be really surprised,” he says with a chuckle.

The more of the story he tells he seems to grow more and more manic. His eyes light up as he anticipates me to talk, but I can’t find the words to communicate what I’m thinking. I’m growing more and more anxious for my safety the longer I’m in this room.

“You came to me,” he burst out finally. “I can’t believe you don’t remember! But you came to me. Clear as day flew through my window one night. Told me how great of a King I was, and how you didn’t want to see me sink into the abyss of depression. You asked how you could help me and we grew a friendship, and from friendship,” he says looking away from me. “We became lovers,”

My jaw hits the ground as I stare at the King who has now started to laugh uncontrollably. My heart stops as I hear the word lover escape his lips. I haven’t even given thought to the idea I could have had a lover as Lena. That seems too grown-up. “You’re lying,” I say.

“I knew you would think that!” says the king. “I’ve been wondering how I’m going to give you this bit of information, but we were. For months we were consumed by each other. Confessed love for each other, were each other’s rocks. Anything that bothered us throughout the day we would confide. You were my everything for a period of time. I never wanted that time to end.”

He gets up and kneels in front of me taking my hand in his. He looks at me with a gentle expression as he strokes my face with the back of his hand. “But Lena, you weren’t my love.” he goes on. “I needed you though. You were like a bad habit I couldn’t kick. Every thought consumed with you. We were after the secret of eternal life, and making great headway, but all I could think was how I wanted to hold you, or kiss you, or hold your hand. We spent countless nights researching this legend until finally, you made the crack we were looking for. Sacrifice wasn’t a metaphor. In order for this to happen, we had to actually sacrifice someone we love. Of course, I didn’t know about the knife, or the ceremonial location to do this, so I jumped for it.”

“That’s why you tried to kill me,” I whisper as tears start to fall down my face.

As the words escape my lips a flood of memories come into my head. The king and I lying in bed. The king and I studying and stealing secret glances at each other, the king and I watching the kingdom from the balcony of his window.

So many things I had forgotten. So many things I wish had stayed lost forever.

“You remember,” he shouts jumping up from his kneeling position and sitting back down on his chair. “Lena, you were my thing. My sacrifice. You the woman that stole my affections from those whom it rightly belonged to! When it didn’t work I almost gave up hope, before the elders and I started to research with me. I realized how carelessly I treated your life. I should have waited before just jumping to conclusions. I apologize for that.”

“Gee, I’m so grateful you’re apologizing for not waiting to kill me,” I say dryly as I get up from the chair and back away from him. “I want to go back to my cell this is to much.”

“But you’ll miss the greatest part of the story,” the King quips from his chair as he gets up and walks back to the fire. “The more research I did the more I wanted to continue to find the secret. I found the knife. I found the ceremony location, but who to sacrifice to make me get the gift?” he turns to me with sad eyes. “My children were the only option, but how do you decide which kid you love the most?” he asks me. “It had to be all of them.”

“You’re disgusting!” I scream. Rage is boiling inside of me as my hair starts to lift around my shoulders again. He looks alarmed as I start to raise my hand and see a lime green light forming in the palm. “What kind of father thinks it is okay to kill his children so he could live forever! You’re disgusting and the idea of me ever loving you makes me sick!”

One of the green lights shoots into the ceiling, and the king quickly runs to the bed and dives next to the bedside table. Guards storm the room but the king screams for them to fall back, as he stands up next to the bed with a gun.

Greenlight continues to randomly shoot from my hands and hitting random things around the room. The sound of glass breaking and wood splitting is all I hear before I feel a sharp pain in my neck. My hair starts to fall back into place as I pull an empty syringe out of my neck and sink down to my knees.

“You’re a monster,” I manage to choke out as it gets harder and harder to speak.

“Lena, don’t you get it?” he asks me as he walks over to me and puts a pair of handcuffs on my hands. “It was never about me getting eternal life. It was about finding a way to bring my wife back,”

Whatever he shot in me overcomes me and my eyes close shut as he orders the guards to take me back to the cell. “Don’t worry, my former love,” he says to me as I feel the hands of the guards pick me up. “We will talk again soon.”