Death-Bound

Reality

Chapter Eleven

“W-when? H-how?” I asked rattled with surprise. I know he sensed my shock.

“The day you woke from his punishment…the day that you met with Solom.” He informed me. “The day he finally realized he can never have you.” He opened the doors to my quarter, “I am so sorry to bear you this sad new, Jem, but you will be the one to choose amongst those virgins.” I tried my best to keep a hold of myself. To give a straight face as if this news is not affecting me. 

“Are those his wishes?” I looked at his face, he looked down and nodded. “Then I guess, I had no choice.” I smiled weakly, almost in tears.

He grasped both of my shoulders, I felt the frustrations he had. “You don’t feel it do you?! Why are you so stubborn! You could have easily stopped this nonsense! The Emperor loves you! Can’t you feel his pain?! Every time you would talk, I know that he is in pain knowing that you—the one he loves most in the world, is his death-bound. A death-bound and his master are connected in ways no one can explain, Jem!” he was now in tears. “He loved you more than anyone could. He loved you more than I could, Jem.”

“Yet, he is still my Master, Rave. And you wouldn’t understand my state being his death-bound.” I said, I had to be strong. I couldn’t show him how I truly feel. “Tell him this, I shall choose him a bride. But in one condition,” Rave looked at me anxiously. “tell him that, I have to meet all these virgins first.” I took Rave’s hands from my shoulder and looked at his eyes. “A slave can never love, much more it is forbidden for a death-bound to do so. Rave, even if he loved me that much, as you said he did, he will never let his name be stained with a death-bound’s filthy blood.” I smiled. “I wish to rest now.” He nodded with a sullen expression  and closed the door as he left. The pain came once again. Reality hurts, and it is crushing all of me right this very moment. I collapsed on the floor as tears finally fell endlessly from my eyes. I was breathing hard. Why am I feeling such a great loss when I had already lost him in the first place? I started sobbing. My heart is being ripped from me, like I am dying. I didn’t know what to do. I wanted it to stop. Please let it stop! I screamed in my head. “Please…please…let it stop…” I whispered in between sobs. I walked slowly to my bathroom like all the weight is pushing down on me. I felt like a filthy soul, like how I felt the days of my enslavement. And no matter how I tried to take all the filth off, I couldn’t. I scrubbed and brushed my body until it was red. But then, I know in my soul that I can never be clean…not in his eyes. Never. I rubbed and bitten every inch of me. Blood came rushing out from my wounds. I sobbed as I sat in the corner of the bathroom, the water still flowing from the ceiling, when Margaritta entered the room. She placed the tray on the corner table and rushed to me. She embraced me, making it sure that I felt her with me. I was murmuring words while I was looking at the ceiling blankly, “He’s gone…gone…”

“Who child?” she asked tightening her grip on me. “Who?”

I looked at her and cried. I was like a child lost in an unknown world. Sadness was pouring out of me, the once I had kept for so long trapped in me! “He’s gone! He’s gone!” I bit my lip. It bled. I cried harder beating my wounded fist on the bathroom floor. I shouted, I wanted the pain to be gone from me—heart break.

Margaritta took a hold of my face and looked at me in the eyes, searching for something. Anything that would give her answer, “Who?!”

I sobbed and cried, “My soul…my treasure…he’s gone.” she embraced me once again. We stayed in that position until I calmed down. She cleaned me up. She then made me wore a new dress. She made me sit in front of my dresser. She painted my face, making my wounds covered up. She placed new bandages on my wounds and painted my nail into bright red. Perhaps, she knew whom I was talking about. I looked blankly once again. As if my emotions had fled from me, she looked at me with such care. I looked like a fragile Marionette ready to break any minute. She sent a message for someone, and minutes later, she received a reply.

She made me eat my meal, I couldn’t do it myself. I didn’t know why I was so weak, was it perhaps connected with the emotional outburst. After my meal, she held my hands and lead me to the Emperor’s garden. So this was the message about earlier. “I asked the Emperor to let you stay here for a while. Good thing he said yes.” I never replied. It was like the first days of me being a death-bound. I wouldn’t speak to anyone. I was like a fragile animal, which will kill itself any moment. Even my love for nature couldn’t take me out of my depression. Margaritta pressed my hand, “Please Jem, I need you to be strong. I know it is hard for you to stay in this castle, but if you want to I can request a cottage in the outskirts of town.”

“All I want is to go home.” I said tears again flowing, “He took me from my family, promising them my happiness…I tried my best to be contented in being like this Margaritta…” I sunk my face on my palms I was crying again. “I want to stay away from here, Margaritta. Please, take me away from here.” She just embraced me tight and comforted me.