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Description
Chapter 4- Startled to Flight

The first stars began to dance in the sky as Night wrapped her velvet arms about the world.  Rain took her time getting to the cemetery, mostly because she had a lot on her mind, and also because she enjoyed the velvet quiet of the evening.  After living in the small town for almost three months, Echo was the only person who had tried to be her friend after her initial coldness.  Rain had been able to efficiently rebuff the hollow attempts by her other classmates when she had first arrived, and had indeed been invisible to them after that.  It was the way she wanted things.

“Because if you let people in, they can hurt you, can’t they?”  Came a soft voice from above her.

Rain came to a halt, shocked.  She looked up to see someone sitting atop one of the beautiful Victorian crypts, hidden by the embrace of the shadows.

“How… how did you… who…”  She began to draw back, left hand reaching for the knife she always kept in the front pocket of her school bag for just such occasions.  She was not scared, just surprised.  Whoever this was had been waiting for her.

With an inhuman, catlike grace the figure detached himself from the shadows and jumped down to land perfectly on his feet about ten feet from where she stood.  Long raven hair streamed about him, as did a long equally black duster.  He was tall, and there was something in his manner that was so eerily familiar it gave her the chills.  Rain took a few steps backward, giving ground before the tall, graceful stranger.  He did not advance upon her as she expected, however, but remained in the shadows so that she could not see him properly.  She could almost feel his eyes upon her, sense their appraisal.

“What do you want?”  She asked, finally freeing her knife from the front pocket.  She held it in her hand, hidden at her side so that he could not see it.

“Want?”  His voice was like a soft caress, lilting and ageless.  The sound of it gave her goose bumps.  “I want many things.  I think perhaps you ought to be a little more specific, my lady.”

Rain’s eyebrows knit in concentration, and more than a little irritation. Here was this stranger, after sunset, in her cemetery bothering her with riddles.   “How did you…”  She was going to say ‘know what I was thinking,’ but responded with “know I would be here,” instead.

“Because you come here most nights, my lady, alone with your thoughts; walking among those who have gone beyond this mortal realm and can touch you no longer.  I think perhaps you prefer them to the living because you fear the living will break your wounded heart.  You seek shadows as any other might sunlight, for I have never seen you here while the sun yet holds sway over this realm.”  There was no malice in his voice, no expectation.  His was the voice of one who might deliver a pronouncement of salvation or doom in much the same way.  His was a voice full of… of what?   Was it understanding she heard?  Wistfulness?   His voice sounded much like the voice of someone who knew deep sorrow.

The stranger took a step into the light cast by rising full moon and she drew in a sharp breath.  “You… the boy with the penny whistle!”  Her jade eyes were wide, and the pocket knife fell from her nerveless fingers.  He raised a delicately shaped dark eyebrow when he saw it, but said nothing.  “Why did you leave when I called after you?”  Rain demanded in a firmer voice.  “And where did you go?  It’s like you just vanished into thin air, and I know full well that that’s not possible.”

“Isn’t it?”  He asked, his perfect mouth curving into a ghost of a smile.  His beautifully dark emerald eyes held laughter.  “Who says so?  You have seen stranger things, even if you do not remember them,” he replied.  He pressed on when he saw her eyes narrow, “I left because I had overstayed my welcome and felt myself called away.”

She crossed her arms in irritation.  “Called by whom?  I heard nothing, and I was only a few feet behind you.  I neither heard nor saw anyone.”  She wasn’t sure why she was so irrationally mad at him for having left her the night before, for she did not even know this boy.  By all rights and she should be running home and forgetting him.  After all, he admitted he had been stalking her.  “Who are you?”  She asked after he was silent a moment, seemingly unwilling to answer her questions.

“I have been called many names by many peoples, but there was a name you always liked best.  Velorum, Vel, for short, and at your service, my lady.”  He bowed deeply, sweepingly.  When his eyes met hers they held something unfathomable; something which pierced Rain to her very core.  She could not still the trembling which overtook her and she felt herself begin to fall.  All she could see was the endlessness in his dark emerald eyes.

He sprinted into action, catching her in his strong arms before she could hit the ground.  How he could have closed the distance between them so quickly she did not know, nor could she guess.  However, neither did she care.  He held her there a moment, their faces but scant inches apart.  “Thank you,” she whispered, eyes never leaving his face as her senses began to return to her.

“I will always be here to catch you,” he answered softly.  Almost reluctantly he let her go as she regained her footing.  She blushed pink and ran her hands through her hair, not looking at him.  When he had looked at her that way, something had overcome her, like a flood of repressed emotions that she could in no way understand or of which make sense.  For a moment she had wanted to kiss him more than anything, but she could not imagine why.  Sure, he was the most beautiful guy she had ever seen in her life, but that did not explain the attraction.  It had seemed so much deeper than that.  For a moment it had seemed like he was the only real thing in her life, and that being with him was as natural as breathing.  Perhaps even more so.

“A person is more than the name by which they are called,” Rain said sitting down on the nearby bench.  She looked at her feet, and not at the beautiful Velorum who had moved the lean upon the wall of the crypt across from her.  “Though I am grateful for the name, I want to know how you know I come here, and why you were waiting for me tonight.  If I had any sense at all I’d just walk away and go home, or better yet, call the cops.  But I want to hear what you have to say.”  She finally looked at him again, pale jade meeting dark emerald.  “Or stranger still, need to hear what you have to say.  Ever since I saw you a few days ago I just can’t seem to get you out of my head.  How is that possible?”

He met her gaze for a while, neither speaking nor moving.  After a long time he began to walk toward her, reaching into his pocket.  Out of it, he drew a beautifully carved jade amulet upon an intricate silver chain.  The amulet was silver carved in the shape of a Celtic triscallian and set over a disk of pure jade; the same color as her eyes. Runes she could not make out were carved into the silver of the triscallian and delicate silver filigree surrounded it.  Velorum handed it to her.  “I was waiting to give this back to you, as you left it in my keeping when last we parted.  It was a hard parting, that, but I am true to my vow and I return it to you as I promised.”

Rain stared at the beautiful thing he had placed into her hand, even more confused than before.  “Vel, or whatever your name is… I’ve never seen this before in my life.  Nor have I seen you.”  She held out her hand wishing to give the lovely necklace back.  “You must have me confused with someone else, because you and I do not know one another.”  She seemed to take some comfort in her assessment of the situation.  Velorum, however, would not take the necklace back.

“Keep it.  Please.”  There was a measure of desperation so deep in his voice that it made Rain look up at him in concern.  There were lines of sorrow upon his brow she had not seen there before, and something even deeper in his eyes which she could not even begin to define.  “It is clear to me that I have come too soon, but still I fear it too late.  You have so many questions to which you fully deserve the answers, but I do not have them to give you presently.  Please, please keep the amulet.  If you will not wear it, at least keep it upon your person.  I beg of you, grant me that one wish and I will trouble you no more.”

Rain drew back her hand and looked at the necklace, still wondering why this seemed so very important to him.  With a sigh she put it on, if for no other reason than to see that look of such concern leave his lovely face.  “There,” she said with a smile.  “Does that please you?”

He smiled.  “More than you can know.”

She blushed and looked into her lap, suddenly very interested in her hands.  It was hard for her to meet the bright eyes of Vel and not feel the heat rise in her cheeks.  So much of her wanted to ask him the question which had been plaguing her since her talk with her father.  She knew he would only laugh at the lunacy of the inquiry, but something in his manner, in the brightness of his eyes, and in his antique way of speaking made her think he just might take her seriously.  Then there was the moment they had shared, the moment her world had seemed to shift.  There was so much more to this strange and lovely boy than he let on, if only she could gather up the courage to ask him all the things she desired.

“Do you live around here,” she asked lamely, searching for a way to ask her more pressing questions.  It seemed as good a place as any to begin.

“Sometimes,” he replied simply.

She raised an eyebrow.  “Sometimes?  What does that mean?”

“That sometimes I live here and sometimes I do not.  There are many places of which I make my residence, though of late I do spend most of my time here.  This is a quiet town, and I enjoy that.  There is a stillness I find here which is like a balm to my soul; though I fear there are few places where I can truly find any rest, at least not yet.”

She looked up, hearing the exhaustion seeping into his soft voice.  She rose from where she was standing and went over to him, placing a hand on his arm.  “And why can you not rest?”  There was concern on her pale face, and truly she felt for him.  It was less in what Velorum said, as in how it was that he said it.  There seemed so much there, though the words were simple enough.  Rain could not fathom why she was so affected by him, yet she was.  More than anything, she was drawn to him, wanted to take that sorrow and tiredness from him and make the dark boy smile.

“Because,” he said, once more meeting her gaze directly with those depthless bright eyes, “There is something I am eternally sworn to do, and I cannot rest until my charge is safe.”

“Eternity is a very long time,” she replied softly.

“It is.  Longer than anyone but you could imagine.”  Velorum sighed, but then a hint of a smile brushed against his lips.  “Although, eternity with the right person can be a blessing, and indeed salvation…”  He raised a questioning eyebrow.

“I… I’m Rain, Ránëv, in case you didn’t know my name.”  She thought it strange he would think she could fathom eternity.  “And I don’t think I could ever really understand eternity.  None of us can.  People don’t live that long.”

“Ránëv,” he said and his lips quirked into a grin.  He seemed to find something in her last comment amusing.

“What’s so funny,” she asked, mock punching him in the arm.  He leaned forward to whisper something in her ear, but she was alarmed when she saw the look on his beautiful face change from laughter to sudden fierceness. He acted more quickly than she had time to register what was going on, and pushed her to one side as something large and black came lancing between them.

She cried out in anger, but the anger turned quickly to fear.  Where she had been standing only a second before was what looked like a wickedly barbed, black javelin.  Her eyes turned to Vel, whose entire visage had changed.  Gone was the infinitely compassionate and sad look from his beautiful face.  Now it was cold as a tomb and a fire like the pits of hell burned in his eyes.  She gasped, for out of no where that she could see he had drawn a long sword and had it poised before him.

She followed his line of sight to where he was looking and her heart froze.  Standing on the hill, about twenty yards from them, were two creatures which were in no way human.  Though they had the outward form of men, they were too thin by far and of an odd deathly color somewhere between decaying green and pallid white.  Their hair was stringy, thin, and white, their eyes like a cat’s and golden.  Long fingers ended in claws, in which were grasped another set of the death delivering javelins.  Some strange armor of an antique look served as clothing and wicked smiles exposed sharp teeth.

“The Dark Child is ours,” one of them hissed in a thin and unearthly voice, looking at Velorum with a vicious smile.  “Our Lord has received your message and says he will take her now, whether you will it or not.”

“You’ll not touch her, not lest you vanquish me first,” Velorum replied coldly, unmoving.  His eyes did not leave them, nor did that cold lift from his face.  Every muscle was tensed and he stood between the creatures and Rain like a dark guardian angel.

“As you wish,” the second hideous creature replied as it threw its javelin at him.  The tall Velorum dove to the left, nearer to Rain.  He covered her with his body, muttering something in a liquid language she did not understand.  Suddenly all sound vanished.  He looked at her, taking her chin in his hand.  “Rain, you have to run.  When I tell you, you have to run home as fast as you can and don’t look back, no matter what you might hear.”

Tears started to form in her eyes.  “No, I can’t just leave you here alone… not with those things!”  She grasped his hand, fearing to lose him now that she had just found him.  It seemed to her that all time had stopped and they were alone in the entire universe.  A feeling of déjà vu descended upon her heavily, and it seemed to her that she had been here before, in a moment so like this.  She could see the same look of devotion and defiance upon this boy’s ageless face; feel the power of his strength radiating from him like heat.

He smiled very softly, running a hand along her cheek in a soft caress, and that too was familiar to her.  “I shall be well, and we shall meet again, I vow.   I have not just found you only to lose you to the likes of them, I assure you.  Just do this for me, please.”

Rain nodded, a single tear falling.  “Only if you promise that you’ll meet me here again.”

He closed his eyes a moment and lowered his head.  When he looked up there was relief and gratitude written clearly upon his face.  “I promise.  Though all the armies of the enemy might stand between us, still I would be here for you.”  He leaned forward and kissed her softly upon the brow.

In that moment he threw off the spell with which he had been protecting them and the sounds of the world returned.  Now the deformed creatures were almost upon them, and both had swords of some kind drawn.  Velorum looked at them, a truly dark smile on his beautiful face.  “Run!” He yelled as he charged them, sword raised.

Rain did as he asked and did not look back.  Behind her she heard words in a tongue she did not know, and the receding sound of a sword fight.  When she got home she ran straight to her room and collapsed upon her bed, staring up at her constellation strewn sky.  “Please, if anyone’s listening… let him be safe.  Please… let him be safe,” she whispered.

Back in the cemetery the battle was ended quickly.  Though they were two and Velorum alone, still they had not even a tenth of his power and skill, which well their master must have known.  With a grace and speed no human could ever have managed, he beheaded the two fell creatures of the Unseelie Court in a few strokes.  They fell at his feet and their twisted corpses vanished in an acrid smoke.

The Ruby Prince means to draw me out and force my hand… force me to Awaken Rain before she is ready and risk driving her mad. Velorum shook his head as he looked about the now empty graveyard for any more unwanted visitors.   This is a bold move, even for him, and it will not be long before he goes after her directly.  If the Unseelie get Rain and turn her to their side, we’re all damned, he thought with a grim frown. I must warn Devon.  He closed his eyes a moment, then opened them, heading for the nearest shadow into which he vanished from sight.

Description
Chapter 4- Startled to Flight

The first stars began to dance in the sky as Night wrapped her velvet arms about the world.  Rain took her time getting to the cemetery, mostly because she had a lot on her mind, and also because she enjoyed the velvet quiet of the evening.  After living in the small town for almost three months, Echo was the only person who had tried to be her friend after her initial coldness.  Rain had been able to efficiently rebuff the hollow attempts by her other classmates when she had first arrived, and had indeed been invisible to them after that.  It was the way she wanted things.

“Because if you let people in, they can hurt you, can’t they?”  Came a soft voice from above her.

Rain came to a halt, shocked.  She looked up to see someone sitting atop one of the beautiful Victorian crypts, hidden by the embrace of the shadows.

“How… how did you… who…”  She began to draw back, left hand reaching for the knife she always kept in the front pocket of her school bag for just such occasions.  She was not scared, just surprised.  Whoever this was had been waiting for her.

With an inhuman, catlike grace the figure detached himself from the shadows and jumped down to land perfectly on his feet about ten feet from where she stood.  Long raven hair streamed about him, as did a long equally black duster.  He was tall, and there was something in his manner that was so eerily familiar it gave her the chills.  Rain took a few steps backward, giving ground before the tall, graceful stranger.  He did not advance upon her as she expected, however, but remained in the shadows so that she could not see him properly.  She could almost feel his eyes upon her, sense their appraisal.

“What do you want?”  She asked, finally freeing her knife from the front pocket.  She held it in her hand, hidden at her side so that he could not see it.

“Want?”  His voice was like a soft caress, lilting and ageless.  The sound of it gave her goose bumps.  “I want many things.  I think perhaps you ought to be a little more specific, my lady.”

Rain’s eyebrows knit in concentration, and more than a little irritation. Here was this stranger, after sunset, in her cemetery bothering her with riddles.   “How did you…”  She was going to say ‘know what I was thinking,’ but responded with “know I would be here,” instead.

“Because you come here most nights, my lady, alone with your thoughts; walking among those who have gone beyond this mortal realm and can touch you no longer.  I think perhaps you prefer them to the living because you fear the living will break your wounded heart.  You seek shadows as any other might sunlight, for I have never seen you here while the sun yet holds sway over this realm.”  There was no malice in his voice, no expectation.  His was the voice of one who might deliver a pronouncement of salvation or doom in much the same way.  His was a voice full of… of what?   Was it understanding she heard?  Wistfulness?   His voice sounded much like the voice of someone who knew deep sorrow.

The stranger took a step into the light cast by rising full moon and she drew in a sharp breath.  “You… the boy with the penny whistle!”  Her jade eyes were wide, and the pocket knife fell from her nerveless fingers.  He raised a delicately shaped dark eyebrow when he saw it, but said nothing.  “Why did you leave when I called after you?”  Rain demanded in a firmer voice.  “And where did you go?  It’s like you just vanished into thin air, and I know full well that that’s not possible.”

“Isn’t it?”  He asked, his perfect mouth curving into a ghost of a smile.  His beautifully dark emerald eyes held laughter.  “Who says so?  You have seen stranger things, even if you do not remember them,” he replied.  He pressed on when he saw her eyes narrow, “I left because I had overstayed my welcome and felt myself called away.”

She crossed her arms in irritation.  “Called by whom?  I heard nothing, and I was only a few feet behind you.  I neither heard nor saw anyone.”  She wasn’t sure why she was so irrationally mad at him for having left her the night before, for she did not even know this boy.  By all rights and she should be running home and forgetting him.  After all, he admitted he had been stalking her.  “Who are you?”  She asked after he was silent a moment, seemingly unwilling to answer her questions.

“I have been called many names by many peoples, but there was a name you always liked best.  Velorum, Vel, for short, and at your service, my lady.”  He bowed deeply, sweepingly.  When his eyes met hers they held something unfathomable; something which pierced Rain to her very core.  She could not still the trembling which overtook her and she felt herself begin to fall.  All she could see was the endlessness in his dark emerald eyes.

He sprinted into action, catching her in his strong arms before she could hit the ground.  How he could have closed the distance between them so quickly she did not know, nor could she guess.  However, neither did she care.  He held her there a moment, their faces but scant inches apart.  “Thank you,” she whispered, eyes never leaving his face as her senses began to return to her.

“I will always be here to catch you,” he answered softly.  Almost reluctantly he let her go as she regained her footing.  She blushed pink and ran her hands through her hair, not looking at him.  When he had looked at her that way, something had overcome her, like a flood of repressed emotions that she could in no way understand or of which make sense.  For a moment she had wanted to kiss him more than anything, but she could not imagine why.  Sure, he was the most beautiful guy she had ever seen in her life, but that did not explain the attraction.  It had seemed so much deeper than that.  For a moment it had seemed like he was the only real thing in her life, and that being with him was as natural as breathing.  Perhaps even more so.

“A person is more than the name by which they are called,” Rain said sitting down on the nearby bench.  She looked at her feet, and not at the beautiful Velorum who had moved the lean upon the wall of the crypt across from her.  “Though I am grateful for the name, I want to know how you know I come here, and why you were waiting for me tonight.  If I had any sense at all I’d just walk away and go home, or better yet, call the cops.  But I want to hear what you have to say.”  She finally looked at him again, pale jade meeting dark emerald.  “Or stranger still, need to hear what you have to say.  Ever since I saw you a few days ago I just can’t seem to get you out of my head.  How is that possible?”

He met her gaze for a while, neither speaking nor moving.  After a long time he began to walk toward her, reaching into his pocket.  Out of it, he drew a beautifully carved jade amulet upon an intricate silver chain.  The amulet was silver carved in the shape of a Celtic triscallian and set over a disk of pure jade; the same color as her eyes. Runes she could not make out were carved into the silver of the triscallian and delicate silver filigree surrounded it.  Velorum handed it to her.  “I was waiting to give this back to you, as you left it in my keeping when last we parted.  It was a hard parting, that, but I am true to my vow and I return it to you as I promised.”

Rain stared at the beautiful thing he had placed into her hand, even more confused than before.  “Vel, or whatever your name is… I’ve never seen this before in my life.  Nor have I seen you.”  She held out her hand wishing to give the lovely necklace back.  “You must have me confused with someone else, because you and I do not know one another.”  She seemed to take some comfort in her assessment of the situation.  Velorum, however, would not take the necklace back.

“Keep it.  Please.”  There was a measure of desperation so deep in his voice that it made Rain look up at him in concern.  There were lines of sorrow upon his brow she had not seen there before, and something even deeper in his eyes which she could not even begin to define.  “It is clear to me that I have come too soon, but still I fear it too late.  You have so many questions to which you fully deserve the answers, but I do not have them to give you presently.  Please, please keep the amulet.  If you will not wear it, at least keep it upon your person.  I beg of you, grant me that one wish and I will trouble you no more.”

Rain drew back her hand and looked at the necklace, still wondering why this seemed so very important to him.  With a sigh she put it on, if for no other reason than to see that look of such concern leave his lovely face.  “There,” she said with a smile.  “Does that please you?”

He smiled.  “More than you can know.”

She blushed and looked into her lap, suddenly very interested in her hands.  It was hard for her to meet the bright eyes of Vel and not feel the heat rise in her cheeks.  So much of her wanted to ask him the question which had been plaguing her since her talk with her father.  She knew he would only laugh at the lunacy of the inquiry, but something in his manner, in the brightness of his eyes, and in his antique way of speaking made her think he just might take her seriously.  Then there was the moment they had shared, the moment her world had seemed to shift.  There was so much more to this strange and lovely boy than he let on, if only she could gather up the courage to ask him all the things she desired.

“Do you live around here,” she asked lamely, searching for a way to ask her more pressing questions.  It seemed as good a place as any to begin.

“Sometimes,” he replied simply.

She raised an eyebrow.  “Sometimes?  What does that mean?”

“That sometimes I live here and sometimes I do not.  There are many places of which I make my residence, though of late I do spend most of my time here.  This is a quiet town, and I enjoy that.  There is a stillness I find here which is like a balm to my soul; though I fear there are few places where I can truly find any rest, at least not yet.”

She looked up, hearing the exhaustion seeping into his soft voice.  She rose from where she was standing and went over to him, placing a hand on his arm.  “And why can you not rest?”  There was concern on her pale face, and truly she felt for him.  It was less in what Velorum said, as in how it was that he said it.  There seemed so much there, though the words were simple enough.  Rain could not fathom why she was so affected by him, yet she was.  More than anything, she was drawn to him, wanted to take that sorrow and tiredness from him and make the dark boy smile.

“Because,” he said, once more meeting her gaze directly with those depthless bright eyes, “There is something I am eternally sworn to do, and I cannot rest until my charge is safe.”

“Eternity is a very long time,” she replied softly.

“It is.  Longer than anyone but you could imagine.”  Velorum sighed, but then a hint of a smile brushed against his lips.  “Although, eternity with the right person can be a blessing, and indeed salvation…”  He raised a questioning eyebrow.

“I… I’m Rain, Ránëv, in case you didn’t know my name.”  She thought it strange he would think she could fathom eternity.  “And I don’t think I could ever really understand eternity.  None of us can.  People don’t live that long.”

“Ránëv,” he said and his lips quirked into a grin.  He seemed to find something in her last comment amusing.

“What’s so funny,” she asked, mock punching him in the arm.  He leaned forward to whisper something in her ear, but she was alarmed when she saw the look on his beautiful face change from laughter to sudden fierceness. He acted more quickly than she had time to register what was going on, and pushed her to one side as something large and black came lancing between them.

She cried out in anger, but the anger turned quickly to fear.  Where she had been standing only a second before was what looked like a wickedly barbed, black javelin.  Her eyes turned to Vel, whose entire visage had changed.  Gone was the infinitely compassionate and sad look from his beautiful face.  Now it was cold as a tomb and a fire like the pits of hell burned in his eyes.  She gasped, for out of no where that she could see he had drawn a long sword and had it poised before him.

She followed his line of sight to where he was looking and her heart froze.  Standing on the hill, about twenty yards from them, were two creatures which were in no way human.  Though they had the outward form of men, they were too thin by far and of an odd deathly color somewhere between decaying green and pallid white.  Their hair was stringy, thin, and white, their eyes like a cat’s and golden.  Long fingers ended in claws, in which were grasped another set of the death delivering javelins.  Some strange armor of an antique look served as clothing and wicked smiles exposed sharp teeth.

“The Dark Child is ours,” one of them hissed in a thin and unearthly voice, looking at Velorum with a vicious smile.  “Our Lord has received your message and says he will take her now, whether you will it or not.”

“You’ll not touch her, not lest you vanquish me first,” Velorum replied coldly, unmoving.  His eyes did not leave them, nor did that cold lift from his face.  Every muscle was tensed and he stood between the creatures and Rain like a dark guardian angel.

“As you wish,” the second hideous creature replied as it threw its javelin at him.  The tall Velorum dove to the left, nearer to Rain.  He covered her with his body, muttering something in a liquid language she did not understand.  Suddenly all sound vanished.  He looked at her, taking her chin in his hand.  “Rain, you have to run.  When I tell you, you have to run home as fast as you can and don’t look back, no matter what you might hear.”

Tears started to form in her eyes.  “No, I can’t just leave you here alone… not with those things!”  She grasped his hand, fearing to lose him now that she had just found him.  It seemed to her that all time had stopped and they were alone in the entire universe.  A feeling of déjà vu descended upon her heavily, and it seemed to her that she had been here before, in a moment so like this.  She could see the same look of devotion and defiance upon this boy’s ageless face; feel the power of his strength radiating from him like heat.

He smiled very softly, running a hand along her cheek in a soft caress, and that too was familiar to her.  “I shall be well, and we shall meet again, I vow.   I have not just found you only to lose you to the likes of them, I assure you.  Just do this for me, please.”

Rain nodded, a single tear falling.  “Only if you promise that you’ll meet me here again.”

He closed his eyes a moment and lowered his head.  When he looked up there was relief and gratitude written clearly upon his face.  “I promise.  Though all the armies of the enemy might stand between us, still I would be here for you.”  He leaned forward and kissed her softly upon the brow.

In that moment he threw off the spell with which he had been protecting them and the sounds of the world returned.  Now the deformed creatures were almost upon them, and both had swords of some kind drawn.  Velorum looked at them, a truly dark smile on his beautiful face.  “Run!” He yelled as he charged them, sword raised.

Rain did as he asked and did not look back.  Behind her she heard words in a tongue she did not know, and the receding sound of a sword fight.  When she got home she ran straight to her room and collapsed upon her bed, staring up at her constellation strewn sky.  “Please, if anyone’s listening… let him be safe.  Please… let him be safe,” she whispered.

Back in the cemetery the battle was ended quickly.  Though they were two and Velorum alone, still they had not even a tenth of his power and skill, which well their master must have known.  With a grace and speed no human could ever have managed, he beheaded the two fell creatures of the Unseelie Court in a few strokes.  They fell at his feet and their twisted corpses vanished in an acrid smoke.

The Ruby Prince means to draw me out and force my hand… force me to Awaken Rain before she is ready and risk driving her mad. Velorum shook his head as he looked about the now empty graveyard for any more unwanted visitors.   This is a bold move, even for him, and it will not be long before he goes after her directly.  If the Unseelie get Rain and turn her to their side, we’re all damned, he thought with a grim frown. I must warn Devon.  He closed his eyes a moment, then opened them, heading for the nearest shadow into which he vanished from sight.