I Followed Fires

XLI. Adèle

Adèle was not even able to look at Bash during the exchange of vows.

Instead, she played with her hands, and isolated herself from the crowd. As she heard Bash and Kenna spoke their vows, she looked at the ground, and swallowed her fear. But whatever she did, she was still filled with a strange form of sadness. To prevent this from happening to her, she walked outside, and ran towards the exit.

When she was running away from the wedding ceremony, she had caused a particularly loud noise, which attracted the attention of many guests and members of court. But she was not aware of this, nor bothered to care. Tears did not flow down her cheeks. She felt the familiar feeling of freedom, for which she has experienced for many years. She did not worry about Bash, of the wedding, of Kenna, of anyone, nor did she worry about herself. There was a blissful feeling in her heart when she ran out of that room.

"Adèle!" she heard him, Bash, call out her name. She did not even turn her face to look at him. She did not want to know that she brought him pain and suffering once more. And so, instead of trying to solve the problems and issues she had with Bash again, she ran away from them.

She ran to the stables, greeted Midnight with a hello, and quickly mounted him. There were a few guards who were following her behind, but she simply laughed at them as she dashed away into the night. The cool air against her skin, and the stars twinkling above, were the only things that comforted her now.

She did not even give the slightest bit of attention to the guards who were charging behind her, calling out her name. Although she did look back and then laughed, her eyes turned back to the calming French landscape that set before her. The guards who were after her rode faster than she expected, and so she took a turn to the Blood Wood, a place where Mary and Francis once warned her about.

This was another foolish thing that she did that evening. Adèle was unaware of the dangers that went on inside that place, and as she entered the Blood Wood, she walked straight into a trap. The guards stopped immediately as soon as her horse charged into the Blood Wood, and she could not help but think why. Surely, she thought, if they did want to bring her back to the castle, they would have kept on going. But they did not, and that was the last she thought of it.

Her legs grew weary and so she dismounted herself from Midnight, and let themselves rest for a while. There was a small lake nearby, and this would be her resting place for the night. Adèle panted as she sat on the ground. Her legs were bent and her head rested on her knees. She glanced up at the dark night sky, and waited for the distant sounds of a merry wedding music.

"I guess it's just you and me again, Midnight," she spoke to her horse. "Thank you for accompanying through this stressful evening."

Her eyes began to shut when she sat near the lake. The tranquility of the Blood Wood was what made her wanted to slumber and lie down on the forest floor, covered in fallen leaves from the tall silhouette of trees.

But strange things were to happen in the Blood Wood that she did not know of. Adèle could have sworn she had heard a man whisper into her hear when she was falling asleep. She also heard the sounds of Midnight becoming distressed, but she thought it was just a wolf in the night, and forced herself to wake herself up from her sleep. When she awoke, the man, whom she assumed was whispering, was touching her face, and held the point of a sharp dagger to her neck. Naturally, she panicked.

"What do you want?" asked Adèle, trying not to seem as if she was distraught with fear. She conjured up a plan in her head, as the man grinned.

His teeth are sharpened, she thought. Oh God.

"How does a young woman like you find herself in the Blood Wood at this very evening? Are you lost?" His grin almost made her shudder.

"I'm not lost," she stated. "Who are you?"

"You should not be in the woods once the darkness has come," he said, emphasizing on the word darkness.

"I don't know who you are, nor do you know who I am. I mean you no harm. I came here to the woods to find comfort, and I now know that I have disturbed you. Please, just release me," As she said this to the man with the sharp teeth, Adèle began to realize something.

She knew exactly who this man was, even though she believed she had not even met him once in her lifetime. There were conversations, talks, of him between Bash and few other people. She heard these conversations, but she never bothered to listen, for she figured that it was something that was best kept private, and a secret. But she did not know the name of the person Bash keeps talking in whispers about with several castle guards. But now she was even more frightened, but not because she kept hearing Bash talk about the crimes that this man has committed, but because this man who stood before her, had a very familiar face; one that she definitely have seen before.

I'm sure I have heard it once or twice before, she thought to herself. Why can't I seem to remember?

As the man with the sharp teeth grasped her jaw tighter, and dug his fingers into her skin until a small drop of blood came out, Adèle spoke in a soft voice and said, "You are the Darkness. You.. you are the man who feasts on men, women and children. I know the things you have done,"

"So you do know me after all," he replied as he wiped her blood of his fingers on her cheeks. "Well, I do hope you will allow me to let me have you as my dinner." Adèle panicked as she realized their faces were now inches apart. She could feel his breathing on her skin. His face leaned closer to hers, and his sharp teeth almost sunk into her skin..

But Adèle gave his arm a hard hit, and she now stood before the Darkness. She remembered that she hid a small dagger under Midnight's saddle. It was a dangerous thing to do, she knew, for it could kill her horse, but she kept it after she was advised by Bash to do so. "Danger will come to us all sooner or later, and you have to be prepared," she heard his voice say in her head, one afternoon, when he was polishing one of his swords in the royal armory. Adèle removed the thought of Bash from her mind and quickly ran to Midnight, and grabbed the dagger out of the saddle. She figured running away from the Darkness would be a silly thing to do, for she would be letting evil continue to spread, when she could have taken the chance to fight this evil and finish it once and for all, even it meant risking her life and only possessing a dagger as her only weapon.

"You want to fight me?" the Darkness asked, and a roar of laughter escaped his mouth. "You could just run away with your horse now, you know that, and leave these damned woods forever. But you chose to stay. How perfect,"

"I am not going to let you continue having the freedom to slaughter innocents, because you are a religious fanatic and a man who knows no mercy. You're a cold-hearted murderer, and I am going to fight you, to the death, if that is what I have to do to stop you from spreading evil throughout France,"

The Darkness laughed again. "And how are you going to fight me? With a dagger? You have no fighting skills. You have no army."

"And nor do you," She grabbed him by his shirt, and let the tip of her dagger touch chest, near his heart, to make sure that once she stabbed him, he would die quickly, with one blow if she could.

"You cannot kill me," the Darkness spoke. Her dagger sunk nearer into his skin, as a few drops of blood trickled from the inside of his shirt. "For if you did, very bad things would happen. You wouldn't want to kill me if you know what would happen to France, to the king and queen, if you struck that dagger further deeper into my chest and killed me."

"And what very bad things would occur if I did kill you?"

The Darkness laughed. "Curious little girl. Why do you want to know?"

"Tell me, or this dagger will not only pierce your chest, but your head and every single place where I could stab you as well."

But the Darkness did not reply. He merely.. laughed. "And now who is the cold-blooded murderer between us? Me.. or you?"

"Tell me!" Adèle shouted at his face, her face turned red. It was the first time she had truly yelled at someone in the face, out of pure wrath and anger. "Tell me." she said again, with now a much quieter tone. Unexpectedly, her mind went into a daze, and her vision turned blurrier than usual. She could not think properly, nor could she comprehend what the Darkness was saying.

There was blood on her hands, but it was not the blood of the Darkness. It was hers. 

He had sunk his teeth into her neck.