A Shadow Of True And Heart

~Acquaintance~

King Nicholas Alveston's POV.

New characters in media.

Back in my study room, I am left unstable as I try to hold myself up with anything that could possibly hold my weight. I'm in distress—a state of unstopping trance that keeps crowding my mind.

My memories keep flashing back to the scene earlier, thinking of Liliana.

Her existence is such an affection that I recognized—one from my past, and the more I'm running away from it, the more my heart bleeds and craves to be nursed.

I'm torn between the feelings of rage and affection, unable to find equilibrium. The bender in me doesn't want to think about the pain we've felt from this same feeling that we remember clearly, but I myself and the darkness within me wish otherwise.

"Aura, my light," I whisper to myself and clutch my own heart.

I could almost swear to still smell her scent as I inhaled sharply and held my breath for a few seconds.

The door flings open abruptly, with an angry Lucas at the threshold. The frame breaks from the collosal effect, and the edges of my eyes wrinkle in calculation.

My hazel eye glows gold with a white freckle on the lens as I turn to raise my gaze across the study table onto Lucas' frame.

His posture is menacing, cold-hearted, and bloody. His monster is ready to play on the outside. I could smell its presence. He's pissed and palm-twitchingly mad, but still, I am unworried about any ounce of what might have caused his sudden chide-y behaviour.

My own anger is a puff of cloud roaming above my head, and I wouldn't like to be interrupted like he's done.

As Lucas walks towards me with glowing, threatening crystal blue eyes, the clouds darken with a rumbling sound of rage. Rain starts forming.

The clicks of his shoe creak on the broken fragments of the shattered wooden door.

The darkness in me is haste to awaken.

"What is this madness?" My voice is not my own. "You'll apologize now for these insolent actions."

My words don't reach him. He's not listening, but he knows better that my position is not to be disrespected.

On my own part, my emotions are controlling me. I'm a fool to my past, still affected by how much of a recollection the human girl reminds me of. A recollection that was the start of all these ruins in my life, and this isn't the perfect time for Lucas to be angry at all.

My monster roars, but I caution him. If he's to have his way, not even Lucas, the strongest water bender ever known, would win. He would be having his head roll down his shoulder with a mashed brain.

"Where is she?" Tautly asks Lucas, slamming his fist on the table.

"What is she to you?"

"A presentation that I thought you'd appreciate." He says. Seeing as he's possessive over Liliana, my body itches to let out my utter anger.

Fixating my eyes on Lucas, aiming into my mind, I try to find out what he sees important in the girl, but he slams the mental barricade of his mind against mine harshly. It leaves me with aches, causing me to groan.

"How dare you deny your King access?"

Lucas chortles before he disregards my words with a question of his own. "Where is she?"

Dashing like the speed of light, I'm hovering over the table with my fist brawled for a punch on his face while Lucas has dried water from the air into his left hand to form a dagger, which he's pointed towards a joint at my hips, which would paralyze me for a moment, enough for him to overpower me. Felix runs into the room with a whoop of happiness.

"Rise and shine, Europeans. The Lord of Australia is here!" He recedes when he sees the scene before him. "Oh, am I interrupting something?"

Lucas rolls his eyes as he turns the dagger back into water. "Yes, interrupting my attempt to leave our brother limbless for a while before I beat some senses into him."

"Well, don't you sound too sure of yourself?" I speak before I pull my shirt back from wringling. Outside, rain platters, and my brows raise as I know he caused it. Woah, Lucas really meant business earlier. He's smart.

Felix stomps into the room recklessly with quite a fashionable pair of sneakers, chuckling right before Lucas pulls him into a hug.

"So, yo! Tell me. What's the blazing fire all about?" Felix asks, curiosity lacing his tone. And he is yet to change, too.

"I'm out of here, brother." Informs Lucas. He puts his hands behind his back and proceeds out of the room.

But then, before he could disappear out of my sight, I stated, "I checked the drawings. I faced the past."

"You stun me." Is all he leaves me with.

Felix is shifting his eyes from me to Lucas and back to me. "Is somebody going to ever tell me what the heck happened?"

Liliana Roslyn's POV.

13 years ago.

One moment, there was a bright smile on my face as many kids of my age surrounded me while our foster parents sang for me. "Happy five-year-old birthday to you, Liliana Roslyn. May the darkness of this world never stain your light."

And in the next moment, we were ambushed. Their screams that fill the air; their wails as they cry from separation; their blood that washes the ground like a pool of water; the growls of those monsters; the agony in the wind.

Our foster parents were killed instantly, murdered in cold blood right before our eyes. And the ones who tried to escape—all of them caught—were assembled.

"Let this be an example to you all that you are owned by King Nicholas Alveston. If you think that you can escape from him, then you must be ready to die a filthy death. And this is an example." The guards' voice remained clear to my ears to this day.

I could still hear the echoes of their wails as they begged for forgiveness, but it wasn't given to them. They plead and cry.

The guard uprooted a boulder from the earth, large enough to form a huge shadow over those kids, and without hesitation, without blinking an eye, he dropped it. Like crunching a piece of popcorn, their bones sounded as their blood splattered on our faces.

I knew that day that we were the legal property of these foreign creatures, and they were unapologetic about our pain.

***

The heat from the sun awakens me to reality, and I shift the bedsheets away from me. Taking in the view of the room that I'm in, I wonder with a gasp. "Holy s**t. Where in the heavens is this?"

The luxuriancy in my gaze met with agape in my mouth. Unfortunately, this is nothing a human could own. I mean, we don't even own our own bodies, so it's no complication for me to realize I'm in a Bender's room. What bender, though?

My skin's soaked in sweat, as is the bed I've woken from. I hope the leech that owns the bed doesn't get pissed at me.

I tuck some strands of my hair to the back of my ears while a sweat from my jaw drips down onto my thigh.

I am about to admire the wondrous room, in case it's an imagination that'll soon fade when a familiar, modulational voice of whom I don't ever in my life want to see, especially not after just waking up from a bad dream to a good one, utters. "I used to hate them too. I mean, benders. Just like you.

Uh?

I tilt my head slowly toward the shadows behind the curtains, and my body trembles uncontrollably in anticipation of what the callous, cold-hearted Lord Lucas looks like.

I know I'm not scared of death, but I've never seen any of the lords or the king before.

During our time at the academy, the rules forbid us from seeing any of the lords or the king unless it is the harvesting period.

Mrs. Rogue often uses this as a threat to frighten us. She'd say, "the day you meet eye-to-eye with your superiors is your doomed day."

Now! I'm one-on-one with Lord Lucas, the most frightening of them all, although his facial features are the opposite: attractive and intoxicating.

My gaze is locked on the European ruler's frame. A deep blue eye that's almost a duplicate of mine. A well- parted to the right, full curly dark blonde hair, a neatly thin chin beard that excludes the jaw, and a sand-neutral undertone skin that brings out elegant features.

Biceps and hefty muscles reveal themselves under his plain green vintage short sleeves.

The smell of cinnamon, grapefruit, and mint citrus activated my olfactory lobe impulses as they diffused.

I'm staring at him like a god, and suddenly it ticks in my brain that that's an offense. A human has no right to stare at a Bender but to look down when we are in their presence.

"Did you..." My throat hurts.

Lord Lucas bends water from a jug into a glass cup and, with his powers, makes it float in the air over to me. I have no idea how he did that, but seeing as the cup jiggles up and down in the air amuses me before I grab it and drink up.

"So, you were saying?"

"Did you save me from Mrs. Rogue just so that you could kill me yourself?" My courage is at its peak because, once again, I'm staring at him.

"Well, technically, that's sort of what I came to do. Your record calls attention. Since childhood to growing into an adult, while some think you are a failure as a student, I see that you're strong-willed, unrelenting... I had to see you." His tone is cold and flat, utterly unapproachable.

So, he isn't going to kill me? I don't know why that calms my mind. "Put your s**t together, Ana! Never trust him. He's the callous brother of the king. Don't ever let your guard down!" The terrorist part of me resurfaces.

"Yeah, never let your guard down." He leans forward on the armchair and whispers. "Its dangerous." Then he laughs.

Did he just read my mind? Like he f*****g knew my exact thoughts? Oh, man. That's some high crack!

For an answer, Lord Lucas made a satisfactory wink at me and then walked over to lean on the white side table by the bed.

An artwork of smirk paints his gorgeous face. He straightened his position on the table before leaning on it again.

"I thought you might be hungry, so I ordered a breakfast for you. It will soon be ready."

As he nears the door, it opens automatically. "I am an impatient lord. Don't keep me waiting."

"Jerk!" I say when he's left.

"I knew you couldn't hold back that fierce part of you for so long, Flamethrower." His voice rings in my head, and I jump on the bed, almost slamming my head against the headboard.

"Holy Mary!"

It's a while later when my ears pick up on the sounds of footsteps. I hate the fact that the door doesn't need to be knocked on.

"Hello, Mistress. Lord Lucas ordered that I bring you breakfast." Sitting up, as she picks her words with precision, I recall how much these benders have trained us to be so perfect as slaves.

She has a warm, golden undertone to her skin that is sharpened with her hair dressed in a lob. Her curvy frame clings to the seductive feline fine mock neck bodysuit of a tiger skin top and a black skirt rhyming with a polished black leather ankle boot. A white glove on her hand, too.

Smiling at her, I whisper, "thanks."

She drops the food on the bedside table and says, "You should change soon, ma'am." There's a smirk on her face, which in turn raises my brows in confusion.

"What?" Then, I look down at whatever I'm wearing, and I see it's a baggy shirt—one that's three times my size. Wait, when did I change?

I'm mentally smacking myself for not knowing. "I changed your dress when you were brought in. The old one is torn." As she explains, I pick up the shirt to perceive the scent. Something about the fragrance is alluring to me. "It's King Nicholas' shirt. Figuring you're his bleeder, I had to change you to one of his shirts."

My eyes are still widening, and she seems to be having fun with that when she completes, "I'm Anne, by the way. If you need someone to talk to, I'm always at the slave's quarters."

"Thank you." My voice is little as I blink profusely, instantly hating that I once thought the king of all benders' scent was lovely.

For a minute, I thought she was leaving, but she walks over to a wheel full of clothes. "This and this are specifically chosen by the king. What do you say?"

The skin on my forehead creases at the person who chose the clothes for me. I won't wear anything that the devil chooses. "I want to choose what I'd like to wear."

Anne smiles so brightly that I see her teeth shining outwardly. "Now, I see why Lord Lucas asked me to bring the wheel, knowing you wouldn't choose from these two dresses." They are both gowns and beautiful to the eye, but I know my style.

"He better." I may be feeling too proud of my terrorism, but well, let a girl shine.

Heading to the wheel, I fiddle through the dresses and stop at one. It's the weirdest of them all, knowing that not even Lord Lucas would expect me to have chosen such a thing.

Turning to face Anne, I can see that she is fighting between a facial expression of laughter and surprise. I pick a long sleeve shirt that's cut so low only to reach the navel area and long baggy jeans.

"A very unexpected choice, Ana." She calls me by a shortened name, and I want to groan aloud in happiness. For once, there's a normal human who would address me like a normal human too, not like these benders who act like some sort of artificial intelligence.

Anyway, f**k them. "Um..."

"I'll leave you now." Anne's smile is sweet as she finally leaves the room.

A few minutes later, I finish the food and get myself ready. The shirt doesn't hug at all, which I like because it showcases the necklace I have on—the last thing I have to remember Rita. For a second there, a feeling of sobriety seeps in.

Sniffling, I adjust the jeans properly, watching as they stream down my frame so that they cover my sneakers.

Unknowing what to do next, I begin with my surroundings, starting with the white walls with dark inset, dark hardwood floors, and white accents that consist of side tables by the bed and a drawer placed on the right that fascinates the room.

There's the monochromatic master bed, where I'm sitting, filled with huge pillows and duvets. The room looks simple in design and cozy. Up the glassy ceiling is a glass-beaded decor with lights fixed to it. I imagine how beautiful it would look at night when it's turned on.

Suddenly, the door opens, and an angry bender walks inside. "Are you done?" His voice doesn't leave any space for argument, and who the f**k does he think he is?

"Hey, you don't get to talk to me..."

Gravity changes course, and in a second, I feel the air hitting my face, sprawling my hair around, forced to close my eyes, and in another, I'm outside. The sun shines on my face, causing it to wrinkle.

I was in the room a second ago.

"The hell? How?"

"Benders are talented beings. You'll catch up." From behind me, Lord Lucas appears.

What the f**k is he talking about? They enslaved my race when they don't even belong here. They are bastards on this land and are supposed to perish in the darkest and hottest part of hell.

Lord Lucas flips to look at me. "You hold so much hate in your heart. I was once like that. Regret usually ends such feelings, so find peace in that clogged mind."

My brows furrow more at his indirect insult. I'm gritting my teeth at him, and he speaks, "please, go in."

It's not until he directs that I see there is one Mercedes-Benz and an SUV behind it. He's pointing to the Benz before he goes ahead to open the door for me.

My lips open in surprise, but just as quickly, I hold my head high, not wanting to show him any expression. It's enough that he can read me like an open book, and I hate that actuality.

"f**k you." In my mind, I think as I step inside.

Inhumanly, he's on the other side and entering by himself. "You don't ever chill, do you? Always hot-tempered."

Wait, he's insulting me again?

"I didn't ask..."

"I was expecting such an outfit. This is...it's very free, humane, and simple." He seems lost in the way he stares at my dress, which someone inflicts on me with silence as well. Then, his eyes raised up to my face, where he squinted his eyes as he tilted his head to one side.

"I am right. You will change everything." I'm trying to understand what he means when he clears his throat. "We have much to discuss now that we are acquaintances."