The Contradiction
Rafayel's gaze drifted back to the lit window, to the silhouette still moving behind the screens.
She was probably getting ready for bed now, carefully hiding the beacon somewhere her servants wouldn't find it. Thinking about the beautiful stranger who had shown her the festival, who had made her feel seen and valued and free, if only for a few hours.
Planning their next meeting with the innocent excitement of someone who had no idea she was marking days on a calendar that counted down to her death.
She's probably thinking about you right now, a traitorous voice whispered in his mind. Replaying every moment, every word, every smile. She's probably lying in her bed, clutching that beacon, feeling safe because she thinks you're her friend. Her protector. Her escape.
She has no idea that you're the greatest danger she's ever faced.
The fishtail mark pulsed again, hot and insistent against his chest. Rafayel pressed his hand harder against it, as if pressure alone could make it stop, could make the bond dissolve, could free him from this impossible choice.
"I need this to go away,"
he whispered to the night, to the mark, to whatever cruel gods had decided this was his fate.
"I need to stop feeling this. I need to be able to do what must be done without—"
Without what? Without caring? Without it tearing him apart from the inside out? Without feeling like he was the villain in a story that shouldn't have villains, only victims?
You are the villain, that voice reminded him.
You're planning to seduce a lonely girl, make her fall in love with you, and then cut out her heart on a stone altar. What else would you call that, if not villainy?
Necessity, he argued back. Survival. The choice between one and many.
Cowardice, the voice countered. You could choose differently. You could refuse to make the sacrifice, could let your people face the consequences of your love rather than make her pay for it. You could be the one who suffers instead of her.
But that would mean watching everyone he'd ever known dissolve into foam. Every child who had ever looked up at him with trust.
Every elder who had taught him the old songs.
Every friend, every subject, every soul who had done nothing wrong except be born into a dying kingdom with a king too weak to do what needed doing.
How was that better? How was choosing her over them anything but selfishness wrapped in the pretty language of love?
There were no good choices here. Only terrible ones and worse ones.
And he had already decided which was which.
Hadn't he?Rafayel thought about next week's meeting. The plans already forming in his mind—taking her to catch gerbils in the meadows beyond the city, making it an adventure. Bringing her back to the lake to release more lanterns, to create traditions between them.
Slowly, carefully, weaving himself into the fabric of her life until she couldn't imagine existing without him.
It would work. He knew it would work. The bond was already there, already pulling at her even though she didn't understand what she was feeling. He just had to nurture it, feed it, turn that unconscious connection into conscious devotion.
Make her love you, the plan whispered. Make her love you so much that she'd give you anything. Everything. Then take her heart—literally and metaphorically both—and use it to save your kingdom.
Simple. Clinical. Necessary.
Monstrous.
"I have to do this," Rafayel said aloud, testing the words to see if they felt true.
They felt like ash in his mouth.
But what other option was there? Let his people die? Let ten thousand souls pay the price for his inability to sacrifice one? That was unconscionable. Unthinkable.
But so is what you're planning, his conscience whispered. So is looking into those trusting eyes and repaying her kindness with betrayal. So is taking the first person to make her feel free and using that freedom as a weapon against her.
Rafayel closed his eyes, his hand still pressed against the burning mark on his chest.
He remembered her face in the lantern light. The pure joy there, unguarded and beautiful. The way she'd looked at him like he was something precious instead of something dangerous.
The sound of her laughter, bright and clear as bells, unmarred by the knowledge of what he planned to do to her.
He remembered the boy he'd been, trapped under that fallen tree, certain he was going to die. And the small girl with determined eyes who had refused to leave him. Who had dug and pulled and worked until her hands bled, until she'd freed him, a stranger from the sea she had no reason to trust.
She had saved his life once.
And he was going to repay that kindness by ending hers.
"I'm sorry," he whispered, though he didn't know if he was apologizing to her, to his people, or to the boy he'd been who had promised to wait forever for someone who never came back. "I'm so sorry."
But apologies didn't change anything. Guilt didn't absolve him of duty. And the water was still receding, day by day, hour by hour, his people still dying while he stood in the shadows of a palace and fought a battle with himself that he'd already lost.
Or had he won?
He wasn't sure anymore. Wasn't sure of anything except that next week he would meet her again, and the week after that, and the one after that, until she loved him enough to willingly place her heart in his hands.
And then...
Rafayel forced himself to imagine it. The stone altar deep beneath what remained of his sea. Her body laid upon it, peaceful in enchanted sleep. His hands—these same hands that had rowed her across the lake, that had bought her candied fruit, that had given her the beacon—holding the ceremonial blade.
The strike would have to be swift. Precise.
She wouldn't suffer, at least. The ritual demanded she be willing, but willing didn't mean aware.
The enchantment would keep her dreaming right up until the end.
She would never know he had betrayed her.
Somehow, that made it worse.
"I can do this," Rafayel told himself, forcing steel into his voice. "I will do this. For my people. For my kingdom. For—"
For survival. For duty. For all the right reasons that felt wrong in every way that mattered.
The light in Nana's window finally went dark. She was sleeping now, probably dreaming of freedom and festivals and the beautiful stranger who had appeared in her life like something from a fairy tale.
Like a prince come to rescue her.
If only she knew that in this story, the prince was also the monster.
Rafayel turned away from the palace, melting back into the shadows that had become more home than any underwater kingdom. He had preparations to make. Plans to refine. A heart to win and then break.
The fishtail mark gave one final pulse before settling into a dull ache—a constant reminder of what bound him to her, of the connection that should have been beautiful but had become a curse they both had to bear.
Two years, he reminded himself. You have two years to do this. Two years to make her love you. Two years to become everything she needs before taking everything she is.
Two years before you become the monster everyone already thinks you are.
He vanished into the night, leaving only shadows and the ghost of regret behind.
Above, the stars looked down with their usual indifference.
The moon continued its arc across the sky. The festival lanterns, those vessels of hope and wish and prayer, finally winked out one by one, their flames dying, their light fading.
Leaving only darkness.
And two people bound by fate, by love, by a promise made and broken and made again, moving inevitably toward a ending that would destroy them both.
But not yet.For now, there was still time. Still hope, however false. Still the pretense that this story might have a different conclusion than the one already written in the receding tides and the dying coral and the mark that burned against his chest like a brand.
Next week, Rafayel thought as he disappeared into the labyrinth of city streets.
Next week I'll see her again. And the week after that. And the week after that.
And with each meeting, I'll bind her more tightly to me.
Until the only freedom she knows is the one I give her.
Until the only salvation she seeks is from me.
Until her heart belongs so completely to me that taking it will be almost effortless.
Almost.
Somewhere in the distance, the ocean that had once been his called to him—or maybe it was just the wind, or maybe it was the cry of his dying people, or maybe it was his own soul screaming at what he was becoming.
He didn't stop to find out.
He just kept walking, kept moving forward, kept telling himself that he was doing the right thing even as everything inside him insisted he was making the worst mistake of his immortal life.
But what choice do I have? he asked the universe, asked the gods, asked anyone who might be listening.
The universe, as always, had no answer.
Only the sound of his footsteps echoing in empty streets.
Only the memory of her smile, bright and trusting.Only the weight of ten thousand lives pressing against one heart that still, despite everything, beat only for her.
I'm sorry, he thought again, though he wasn't sure if he was apologizing for what he was going to do, or for the fact that even now, even knowing what he had to do, part of him hoped he would fail.
Part of him hoped that somehow, impossibly, there would be another way.
But hope was dangerous.
Hope was what had kept him waiting on that beach for a hundred years.
Hope was what would destroy them both if he let it.
So Rafayel locked it away, buried it deep where it couldn't interfere with what needed to be done, and focused instead on the cold, clear path ahead.
Two years.
Make her love you.
Save your people.
Become the monster the story demands.
Simple.
If he could just convince his heart to agree.
.
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🐚🐚🐚
To be continued __