Daughter of the Night [A Twisted Wonderland Fanfic]

Chapter 7

"Malleus?"

Lilia slowly pushed open the door to Y/N's room, upon seeing it cracked open. He stepped over the threshold and halted before he took another step, his hand resting on the doorframe. Standing by the hearth at one end of the room was the prince of the Briar Valley. His hands were clenched tight around a piece of parchment that was ripped at the edges, one end blackened as if it had been burned.

Lilia shut the door quietly behind him and stepped into the room, slowly approaching Malleus.

"Malleus?"

"She's gone," Malleus breathed, hardly able to contain his emotions. "She left."

Lilia glanced around the room and realised how all of Y/N's personal things had been removed.

"It's my fault," Malleus continued, though Lilia hadn't requested an explanation. "It's all my fault."

"No it's not, Malleus," Lilia said, placing a gentle hand on the prince's shoulder. "It's not your fault."

"I kissed her."

Lilia sighed. That would explain why Y/N had acted this way. But he couldn't tell the prince... she would be furious if he betrayed her...

Unable to say anything, Lilia left the room, pausing to say that he would tell the professors to excuse Malleus from classes for the day.

Once Lilia had left, Malleus rose from the chair, still staring at the writing of his lost love. He didn't even know where she had disappeared to. Most likely she had fled back to their kingdom to be by her fiancé's side, and though Malleus was heartbroken at the thought of her marrying another, he couldn't help but understand. He had forced her away. He shouldn't have kissed her. He shouldn't have given into the raging passionate inferno bubbling in his heart, longing to reach out and embrace his love. He had made a mistake. A mistake that had chased away the love of his life, undoubtedly forever.

He walked out to the balcony of Y/N's room, staring out into the gloomy darkness of the dorm. Diasomnia was always dark and gloomy, but it seemed as though the charcoal clouds overhead had heard the sorrow of his heart, for they clouded overhead, dripping with melancholy as he stood beneath them. Rain streaked down his face, following the angles of his cheeks and jaw, down to his neck. He cared not. He couldn't. Not when his thoughts were otherwise preoccupied with how the world seemed to despise his happiness.

"I know you... I walked with you once upon a dream..." His voice carried across the vast expanse of brambles like a phantom. "I know you... that look in your eyes is so familiar a gleam and I know it's true, that visions are seldom all they seem. But if I know you, I know what you'll do. You'll love me at once, the way you did once upon a dream." His despairing melody swept through the twisted branches, and down to the cracked soil beneath, seeming to lead the rain as it bled into the world.

Students looked up from their papers as the voice entered their minds, curious as to who could be singing. They had never heard a voice like this, nor had they heard a song that had broken their hearts beyond repair. While the words were sweet and loving, the tone in which they were spoken shadowed them with its cloak of anguish.

Candles burned and flickered, before losing their glow, leaving nothing but a trail of smoke as the dorm slowly succumbed to the darkness. Even the fairies in the hearth seemed to lose their glow as they sat on the logs of the fireplace.

"But if I know you... I know what you'll do. You'll love me at once, the way you did once... upon... a... dream..."

The sensation of slumber rippled across the dorm, and one by one, the students lowered their heads to their desks, allowing their eyes to flutter shut as they listened to the haunting, yet comforting, song.