After a few days, Prince Ciaran recovered from the weak poison that had been put into his wine. He immediately knew who was responsible. And he was angry. He was furious.
"Amaya!" he shouted, his voice was carried through the entire palace.
"Amaya!" he searched for her.
He found her on the terrace drinking tea. She basked in the afternoon sun. She didn't seem bothered by the prince's anger.
"Amaya." Ciaran glared at her.
"Ciaran." she gave him an indifferent look. "I'd appreciate it if you'd keep your voice down."
"What did you do to me?" he asked irritated.
"You insisted on going to fight Arawn, so I had to make sure that won't happen," she replied.
Ciaran grabbed her by the neck. The cup of tea slipped from her hands. It broke when it hit the ground. It startled the guards. They took a step towards them to prevent him from doing something stupid. However, it did not faze Amaya at all. She seemed used to it.
"You had no right to do that," Ciaran told her.
Amaya pressed the blade of her dagger against his side. She had a cold expression on her face.
"Touch me like that again, Ciaran, and I swear I'll be the one to throw your corpse before the Keres," she told him.
Ciaran backed away from her. Anger flashed from his eyes. "How did you do that?" he asked her. "I was watching out for you."
"Probably not enough," Amaya replied.
General Marcellus approached them. "She didn't do it herself," he spoke.
Ciaran laughed. "So you were helping her." he couldn't believe it. "I thought you hate her."
"She's trying to save you," Marcellus said. "I'll always help her with that."
"Your plan is officially falling apart," said Ciaran. "Tell the soldiers to leave as soon as possible, Marcellus."
"General Marcellus, I am afraid that Prince Ciaran is not well. Lock him somewhere he won't be able to escape." Amaya said.
"Of course, princess," said General Marcellus.
"You won't do it," said Ciaran.
"It's for your own good," Amaya said.
The guards obeyed the order. If it meant they could save his life, then they obeyed the order Amaya and General Marcellus gave them. Their loyalty and devotion were so strong that they imprisoned him to protect him.
"I preferred it when you hated each other," Ciaran said from behind the dungeon bars.
"If you had listened to me, these measures wouldn't be needed, Ciaran," Amaya told him.
"You'd do it anyway because you like it, don't you, little goddess?" Ciaran told her.
"How long will he have to stay locked up here?" General Marcellus asked her.
"Until I make sure that Fate no longer has power over him," she answered.
"You kept telling yourself that fate can't be changed and now you want to do it?" said Ciaran.
"It is possible to avoid your fate. I've done it once before." Amaya said. "That's why the gods don't really like me."
"How is that possible?" asked the general.
"Simple. It's basically a barter. A life for a life." she said.
"What?" Ciaran was horrified. "Let go of me now, Amaya!"
"Everything will be fine, Ciaran," she assured him.
"Let me go, now!" he shouted after her as she left. "You must not do that! Amaya!'
⸸
Amaya sat in the darkness of her chambers. She couldn't sleep. It had been several days since she last closed her eyes and allowed the dreams to pull her into their realm. She was impatiently waiting to see if her plan would work. She couldn't afford to fail. She didn't want to lose Ciaran. She was tormented by the idea that every beat of his heart could be the last.
The room immediately cooled down. The cold crawled over her body. Her breath could be seen in the air. Amaya turned to the creature that had visited her. Her skin was sickly gray. A tattered white dress hung on her bony body. Thin, white hair fell in her face. Her cheekbones jutted out until they seemed to cut through her fragile skin. Her eyes were white, empty. Every time she took a step, she seemed like she was going to fall to the ground.
"Your offer has been declined." A husky voice came out of her mouth.
When she heard those words, she was overcome with terror. That was exactly what she had been worried about all those days.
"Why?" she didn't understand.
"Fate decreed that King Mael was destined to die even without your intervention. His sacrifice was rejected," said Keres.
"I'll find someone else," Amaya insisted. "You can't take him from me. I will find you a thousand other souls."
"You've softened, Amaya," Keres said. "You care about that person."
"Yes," Amaya admitted. "And that's why I'm begging you not to take him from me."
"Your feelings for that person will not change his fate. Death is calling him to her." Keres refused her.
"She called me too, and we managed to find an agreement with my Keres." she showed her her signs. "I can certainly come to an agreement with you as well. What is the price?"
"I'm not your Keres," she retorted. "I will not make any unsaintly deals with you. Only because it's you, Amaya, I'll give you time to say goodbye to him, but as soon as the sun rises above the horizon, he'll die.''
"No." Amaya refused to accept it. "You won't take him from me. I won't let you do that. No."
"Used to you would kill him yourself."
"But now I'm going to kill you to save him," she said, drawing her dagger at her.
You might think that Keres would be weak just because she look so frail, but they actually had great strength. She flung her across the room with a swift movement. Amaya crashed into a stone pillar. It took her breath away. However, she did not let herself be stopped. Fury burned in her, a lust for blood that she suppressed for a long time. She let it out. She let go of the chain. She rose to her feet and rushed at Keres with fierce anger. Keres cut her skin with her sharp claws, deep into her flesh, but her wounds healed instantly. She couldn't die. Nothing could hurt her. Amaya's dagger hit her. The whiteness of her dress was stained by her black blood.
Despite Amaya's determination and motivation to protect what she holds most dear, despite her nature as a bloodthirsty monster, Keres was stronger. She pulled her to the ground. She was banging her head on the floor. Amaya's eyes became blurry. Keres grabbed her by the neck. She dug her claws into her skin. She tightened her grip. She denied her air.
"You don't deserve the honor the gods have given you," Keres told her. "You don't deserve your life."
Amaya felt her claws cut into her skin. She felt the blood running down her neck.
"Even the Shadow King would be disappointed at how weak you are."
"You're forgetting that I'm just like him," Amaya told her in a choked voice.
Her shadow materialized from the darkness that surrounded them. It towered over them like a mighty darkness. There was a hint of fear in Keres' blank stare. The shadow tore her throat from her neck. Her black blood splashed Amaya. Keres caught her wound. Blood spattered across her bony fingers. She grunted. Blood was flowing from her mouth. She was in mortal convulsions. She tried to take one last breath. She coughed up blood. Her corpse fell on Amaya and crumbled into dust.
The moment Keres died, Amaya felt a sharp pain. She couldn't suppress the scream that escaped her lips. It was like being burned by fire. The symbols adorning her skin faded.
Amaya stayed lying on the ground. She was shaking. Her heart was pounding. She couldn't catch her breath. She lay there suppressing the pain and letting the darkness comfort her.
⸸
Amaya walked down the long corridor to the dungeons. Her footsteps echoed. They multiplied and disappeared into the silence. Ciaran was immediately awakened by the sound of her arrival.
"You finally decided to let me go?" he called out to her with a scornful tone. "You didn't even show up here for days. Couldn't you look at where you locked me up?'
Amaya was silent.
Ciaran peered at her through the bars. In the glow of the fire he saw her covered in blood. When she took a step closer to him, so that if he reached out he could touch her, he saw that the blood was black. He was horrified.
"Amaya, what happened?" he asked her with fear in his voice and panic in his eyes. "Are you alright?"
"Let him go!" she ordered the guards guarding the prince as if she did not hear him.
The guards unlocked the lock that kept the prince imprisoned. As soon as the door opened, he immediately grabbed her in his arms. He shook her. She looked like she was in a trance. Her eyes were eerily white.
"Amaya!" he tried to bring her back to him.
"The rose has blossomed. The rose rotted away. The spilled blood turned black. The swan is singing for the last time." slipped from her lips.
Her eyes regained their hazel brown color and she blacked out.
⸸
Amaya was sitting in the bath. The clear water turned black from the blood she washed off her skin. She sat there looking at the black water as it rippled like darkness. It did not reflect the world above, it absorbed it.
"Amaya, what happened?" Ciaran demanded an answer. "Why your signs are gone? What did those words mean?'
Amaya carefully ran her fingertips over the only symbol she had left, the one that bonded her to him like it too could fade away any second.
"That I won't say goodbye to you, but you will have to say goodbye to me," she replied after a long moment of silence.
"What does that mean, Amaya? What did you do?" Ciaran did not understand.
"It's a long story, Ciaran," Amaya said.
"I have time to listen," said Ciaran.
"You have all the time in the world," she said.
"Remember how I once said that just because people think I'm blessed by the gods, they'll believe anything I say?"
Ciaran nodded.
"I am born of Death just like Arawn. However, there is a fundamental difference between us," she said. "He was a man who died and Death gave him life, gave him power. He got out of the control of the gods and they couldn't control him or kill him. Subsequently, the gods decided that they would not repeat the same mistake. I was a child that should never have been born. Death gave me life and gods raised me in their image. But there was a catch. I only got the allotted time. Sixteen years."
"But you..." Ciaran didn't understand.
"I'm still alive?" Amaya said. "When my time came to an end, I made a deal with my Keres. Twelve lives in exchange for mine, every year, exactly on my birthday."
"Those sacrifices were not for the gods," he remembered the rumors of a girl blessed by the gods sacrificing people to the gods.
Amaya nodded.
"I said they were sacrifices for the gods, but in fact, they were sacrifices for me, for Death to keep me alive for another year. I was buying time," she explained to him. "I didn't want to die, Ciaran. Please, don't hate me. I need you."
"There is nothing in this world that would make me hate you, my little goddess," Ciaran said.
"However, the agreement I concluded had its conditions. Sacrifices will only be accepted if they are sacrificed with my dagger, and only with that dagger can I be killed."
"That's why it was so valuable to you," Ciaran remarked.
Amaya nodded again.
"And another condition was that I must never kill any dark creature again," she said. "When Fate decided that you must die, I wanted to exchange your father's life for yours. However, Keres refused. At night she came to claim your life. I now know why they say that loving is the most dangerous thing in the world. I lost control and killed her. I broke the deal," she explained to him. "Now my Keres will come after me. The hunter has become a hunted animal."
"I won't let anyone hurt you, Amaya. I'll take care of you," Ciaran assured her. "If it was possible to kill my Keres, we will kill yours."
"You should try to stay alive yourself, Ciaran," Amaya told him. "Your time in this world is up. It won't touch you again. But you are still mortal. No agreement protects you. Fate can still find a way to kill you."
"You can't expect to sacrifice your life for mine and I'll stand idly by as you die, Amaya," Ciaran countered. "Not just Hiraeth, but the whole world I will burn in flames to save you."