Accursed

No child should ever have to endure abandonment at the hands of those who birthed them. Rhaiz was that one exception in the spirit realm of Djual, where elemental spirits of various nature were created in a perfect pair of light and darkness, an ethereal representation of the pristine duality of existence as we know it. Light and darkness, order and chaos, good and evil. And then there was little Rhaiz, the lonesome offspring of the sprite King, Hadjis Gizoo, whose greatest setback in life was spawning an accursed singleton in a realm that only had place for twins. Born on the night of a solar eclipse, Rhaiz, drew his first breath alone in his father's arms, who held him while anticipating the birth of his pair but was disappointed by the nerve-recking realization that his mate had spawned only one child than the standard two, a phenomenon that was entirely rare in the ancient history of Djual. King Hadjis rose to his feet with trembling limbs while staring down at the pale face of his dark-haired spawn whose glowing dark crimson eyes mirrored that of his Darkling father, his bright red lips parting open to reveal his small toothless mouth, announcing the onset of a piercing baby cry. "Unbelievable!" yelled his disoriented father in disbelief, casting a vicious look at his feeble mate, whose crippling despair was palpable in her dazzling silver eyes. "What have you done?" he muttered while surrounding the crying infant into the hands of his Lightling mother, her pale tender arms holding him close to her heart despite the ocean of despair pulling her into a relentless void of sorrow. The infant instantly kept quiet at once, comforted by his mother's soothing warm embrace. He reached out his small hand at once to touch his mother's long silver hair, which glowed a bright white color upon contact, imbuing boy's pale olive-skin with a little bit of color. "My darling little boy," said the mother with tear-filled eyes, while cradling her little Darkling in her hands. "You can't bond with me," she uttered despairingly. "I am already bonded to another." Her glowing hair flickered slightly as she said so before returning to its original gray color. "Our world is a terrible place to exist in alone." "Well, that won't be a problem," said King Hadjis decisively, while pacing about in his mate's pristine white chambers, his flowing black robe sweeping the smooth gray surface beneath him as he wandered through the expansive wide bedroom, pondering his words carefully. "He won't have to live, as I refuse to accept a singleton, not in my castle and certainly not in this kingdom." "Hadjis!?" yelled the queen cautiously, draping the kid over her chest as she made a feeble attempt to rise to her feet. "I'm not giving up Rhaiz—" "Don't call him that!" he thundered with a heart-reching yell that caused her to lose balance while rising, sending her feeble form sitting back down on the majestic gray mattress. "We decided to name our son after your father—" "And our daughter after your mother, but here we are with a singleton!" "Stop calling him that!" she yelled, springing to her feet vibrantly, propelled by her motherly instinct to protect her child. Her long transparent white tunic trailed behind her as she approached her husband, placing one foot in front of the other despite the overwhelming weakness and the crippling fear of losing her first child to her husband distaste for the uncanny, as the birth of a singleton was nothing quite heard of in the history of Djual, yet she remained firm in her resolution to protect her darling Rhaiz as she confronted the king. "He is your son. And I'm going to raise him to become the heir just as we originally planned," she said, halting merely a few inches away from the king's face, unperturbed by the ferocious look in his hateful eyes. "Singleton or not, I'm not going to let you harm him—" "You don't get to have a say in the matter after your failure to fulfill your motherly role of providing me with two potential heirs instead of one," he snapped impatiently, reaching forward with thick muscular hands to take Rhaiz from his mother. "Now, give me the accursed child and I'll get rid of him before dawn. It's midnight. No one knows about his birth and I'd prefer it stays that way." He'd barely wrapped his hands around the child's sleek figure when his mother held him away from the king, taking a few cautious steps away from King Hadjis. "You will not lay a hand on my son," she muttered with a trembling voice, her eyes betraying her anxiety as they began to fill up with tears at the thought of what the king was asking of her. The night grew more quieter by the second, the cold winter air blowing through the cracks in the shut windows, sending the lily-white curtains into an eerie dance as the queen backed up towards the nearest window, considering every option available that ensures her son's survival. "You are my Light, Gheeza," said the king with a predatory look in his eyes, matching his mate's hasty retreat with his slow advance. "You know how bad I get when I don't get what I want." "And you are my Shadow, Hadjis," retorted the queen. "You know how far I'll go to fight for what is right." She came to an abrupt halt against the smooth brick wall of the bedroom, standing merely inches away from the large spherical window. Her heart raced with panic as she considered escaping the castle with Rhaiz to avoid his impending demise at his father's hands. "Let's talk things through, my love," said the king lowly to Queen Gheeza, his expression softening as he hesitated administering his nefarious plans. "We don't have to resort to violence." "There will be no negotiation, Hadjis," she said through gritted teeth, bracing herself for the worst to come while stepping three feet sideways to approach the shut window to her left. "I won't let you harm my son, our son—" "He's an abomination!" he thundered viciously, reaching forward in a flash to collect Rhaiz from his mother. Queen Gheeza acted on instinct, as she raised a foot high and kicked him in the abdomen, channelling her mystical energy to enact a deadly strike that sent the king spiralling into the air like a ragdoll, crashing into the adjacent wall with a devastating force, incapacitated just long enough for the queen and her son to make a run for it. Yet she had barely gotten the latch off the shut glasses when her husband came to on the sleek gray floor, relying on the cracked brick wall to regain his footing before charging towards the queen in a blur, grabbing her arm just as she succeeded in pulling open the latched glasses, sending in a biting gust of wind into the chambers that sent her child shivering in her arms. "Let go of me, Hadjis!" yelled Queen Gheeza with a cracking voice. She was sobbing helplessly now while struggling to break free of her husband's firm grip, deciding to harness what little energy she had left to fly out the window and wander as far as she could into the woodland. "That boy is an abomination," said King Hadjis through gritted teeth, pulling the queen close to his manly chest. "Letting him live would bring bad luck to us and the whole of Djual. This is the Sole testing us. He cursed us with singleton to see if we are well-suited to handle the affairs of our realm. You've heard the legends—" "The legends are made up for all we know," cried Queen Gheeza helplessly, surrendering to her husband's relentless grip when the struggle to break free proved fruitless. "No living soul has ever encountered a singleton. It's a myth, something made up to make twin-borns feel special and favored by the Sole. We don't know for sure if their claims about bad luck is true—" "And we won't make the mistake of finding out," he said, reaching forward to take the shivering boy once again. "The sprites of Djual look up to us as a source of inspiration. We won't be the reason they start doubting everything they believe to be true. Now hand over the accursed singleton before I descend into chaos and do something really horrifying." Faced with the reality of her situation, Queen Gheeza decided to be strategic in her dealings with the king, especially in his agitated state. Experiencing the peak of panic and hopelessness, she stared fearlessly into his dark crimson eyes, not bothering to think twice as she spoke. "There's no greater horror than losing a child on the day of his birth. Ridding me of Rhaiz would strip away an essential part of me, Hadjis. If there's even a part of you that loves me, please, don't kill him." The king's eyes conveyed the depths of his determination, showing no sign of empathy to his mate's plight. "He's our first. But no less an abomination. We'll make another Rhaiz, a better one that doesn't have to withstand the harsh reality of a world that has no place for his kind, a society that would never accept him." King Hadjis smiled faintly as he finally seemed to consider his mate's dismay, mirroring her immense disappointment. "Killing this child would be mercy, letting him live, would be torture. You're a Lightling, naturally drawn to goodness. Left to your own device, you would keep the singleton without bothering about the consequences. But you have me, your Shadow. I'm here to help you make difficult decisions you can't get yourself to do. So allow me to relieve us of this burden and craft a better future for ourselves and the kingdom." "Hadjis—" "Please, Gheeza. You know it's the right thing to do, deep in your heart," insisted the king determinedly. "Surrender him to me or I'll be forced to rip him right out of your arms. The Sole will bless us with many more progenies, none of whom would be accursed, I assure you, so—" "I'll do it," said the queen, breaking off eye contact with the king as she glanced out the window. "If he has to go, I'll be the one who does the deed." "Come on, love, we both know you're incapable of hurting a bug, talk about a spawn of your own," he said, placing a hand tenderly on Rhaiz's back. "I want to make this easy for you, for all of us. It doesn't have to be complicated. "Then let me do it," insisted the queen, sobbing heartily as she broke free of her husband's grip, taking slow gentle steps towards the open window. "If you want to make this easy for me, then let me be the one who ends what I've spawned." She finished the statement without bothering with the king's approval, taking the shivering boy off her shoulder and holding him carefully in her palms before stretching her hands outside the window, letting out a ragged sigh as she did so that betrayed her conviction. Yet the king failed to notice as he nurtured the thought of his mate finally coming to see reason. "I am glad you understand, darling," came his soft whisper from behind her as she quietly considered letting go. Her limbs trembled with anxiety at the thought of a rescue plan gone terribly wrong, yet she remained positive through it all, calming her agitation with a much more relaxed sigh before finally deciding to let go. "Excellent," said the king triumphantly as he watched the queen release her grip on her child. His joy was short-lived however as the queen swiftly propelled herself our the window, chasing after her plummeting son out in the foggy atmosphere clouding the castle. "NO!!!" screamed King Hadjis wrathfully, unleashing a concussive blast of dark mystical energy out his hands at Rhaiz, who descended a few dozen inches below his determined mother. The queen negated his missile with a contrasting blast of her own, causing a thunderous explosion as her silvery beam of energy clashed with her husband's midair. She kicked her feet in the air, releasing propulsive beams of silvery energy that quickened her descent, enabling her to grab her shivering son in her hands at a terrifying pace of twenty feet from the hard flagstone ground, pressing him tightly against her chest as she changed cause in the wind, propelling herself skyward on beams of vibrant silver energy and aiming for the clear eclipsed sky to escape the wrath of her husband. Yet she'd barely evaded the ground by a mere ten feet when the next concussive blast of energy from her husband struck her in the back like an intense lighting bolt, paralyzing her at once so that she descended wightily to the ground like a lifeless corpse, her arms still holding on to her precious little gem for whom every ounce of pain she'd endured seemed totally worthwhile. She barely felt the impact of her landing on the ground due to her paralysis. However, seeing her little one in one piece as she lay sprawled on her back was enough to bring a smile on her face despite the smashed bones and bruised flesh she'd endured from her fall. She watched his pale face, watching the color stream in once more as he gripped a fine lock of her gray hair, sending it glowing with the usual white glint which never lasted long enough to sustain him. "I'm sorry," she mumbled inaudibly, her lips barely allowing the whispers through as she observed Rhaiz with eyes that had lost all hope. "I have to die for you to live," the last part of her statement was accompanied by a brisk whooshing noise that announced the king's soft landing on the space next to her on the castle grounds. His eyes filled with immeasurable despair, he stared into his mate's feeble eyes, watching the life drain out of them as he crouched beside her on the flagstone floor. "You'll give your life up to save... him?" the disbelief in his voice was palpable, breaking through the howling wind in a mere whisper. "Why?" "For love," she responded weakly, feeling the life force drain out of her. "Love transcends all..." Her last words echoed through the wind like an imprint of her essence imbued into his mind, compelling all prejudices out of his being as he slowly considered his mate's reckless sacrifice. The grieve of her loss bubbled inside of him like a raging tornado before exploding out of his throat in a piercing loud scream that resonated through the wind like a thunder crack, awakening the residents within the castles who knew nothing about the tragedy that had just unfolded within the castle grounds. Yet before they could approach the garden area where his mate's body lay lifeless with a shivering child still clamped in her arms, King Hadjis swiftly ripped the little boy out of his mother's dead hand, taking into the air with lightning speed, leaving a trail of fading black mist in his wake as he left yards of distance between himself and the castle, floating through the wind like a dark fiery spear, swift and unstoppable, heading down south from the castle to fulfill his mate's calamitous wish to sustain their son's accursed existence. He didn't put much effort into fulfilling this wish as he laid the naked little Darkling on the bare cold front steps of the home of the eldritch widow who was the only sprite in Djual brave enough to lead a single life after her husband's tragic demise. He was kind enough to knock on the hard wooden door of the small black bungalow before taking to flight, easing himself the guilt of the accursed singleton freezing to death out on the front steps of Harwalda's house, never caring to look back to ensure Rhaiz's wellbeing as he flew through the raging storm, heading back to his castle.