XII — Desire

The imperial capital was bustling with merchants and stalls all around. Everyone was looking to buy anything, and illegal deals and beatings happened everyday across dark alleyways. It was a yin-yang of a city, but the yin felt lively and bustling enough for the capital’s main ruling house: the imperial family, not to do anything about it.

Through the streets of the capital, and the hustle and bustle of everything, a shop remained silent except for sobs of a velvety-rose woman who was pleading for a younger man, in his teens, to stay.

“You cursed me,” he started.

“But I didn’t mean to hurt you!” she cried, her potions in the apothecary shop appearing to glow as much as her emotions flared in desperation. Tears fell from her eyes as she pulled his arm towards her figure.

“Please, stay,” she cried, softer this time. “I’ll give you all of me. Please…”

The sun shone towards the young man and the woman, who appeared to be lovers. It was Sam. And the young woman looked to be like “Vera”, except Sam knew her real name from this memory.

“I don’t take kindly to people forcing my soul for my past.”

“Cherry pie,” she started, before sobbing.

Sam gently removed his arm from her bosom. “Sorry, Vexia. This is goodbye.”

And just like that, Sam had disappeared to the crowd. The young woman, Vexia, knew she had done something wrong to him. She had remembered how Sam caressed her and cared for her. How she helped him through magic potions every time she saw him enter his shop to ask for some. She remembered how she had cared for him after Byleck had gleefully killed, and how she had comforted him when times got too tough for him.

She knelt down defeated, placing her hand on her arm. She had remembered a passionate night they had, but Sam had hesitated because she had been too eager, or so she believed.

She placed her hands on her face, trying to stop herself from crying, but the tears never stopped falling.

She had been a prisoner of love.

She’d tried to take Sam as a prisoner herself.

She’d done wrong, and she wanted to make it right.

As Vexia kissed Sam, before he had a chance to even pull back, she herself pulled away from him, stroking his cheek one final time before setting distance from him. Sam was astonished at this sudden change of gesture from her. She normally would have lingered on, and even asked to go all the way.

She had been one of the finest apothecaries and mana potion sellers he’d known, but unlike her craft, he had realized that she herself was not as still as she had brewed the potions.

She was one of the most brilliant mages Sam had ever laid his eyes on, able to take down enemies with a single spell, and even going as far as to cast spells without need for incantations. She was in every sense of the word Sam knew it for, a genius.

However, she had once hexed him into nearly taking her, but exhaustion from his side made his mana vessel overload and pass out, and the hex lost effect. Once he had learned about it, he left her without warning, despite appreciating her being there in the darkest moments of his life.

But she had reappeared once again.

And she seemed eager, although more subdued than before. She didn’t have the flair of someone who had hexed him, but she still seemed more forward, having kissed him the moment she saw him.

“What are you doing here, Vexia?”

Vexia closed her hand and placed the clasp on her chest.

“I came from Melusina to see you,” she began. “I’ve felt some negative force and I thought Byleck had gone to slay you and I was so worried and—”

“Slow down, Vexia,” Sam cut her off, trying to keep her steady. He let her attempt to breathe.

And breathe deeply she did.

Sam knew the port harbor of Melusina had traders and merchants sprawling about everyday until dark, but with winter setting in, perhaps even freezing the lakeside Sam had once seen with Ellen as they sold lanterns, it was unlikely Vexia had come from Melusina, let alone heard about Byleck and the negative mana with dire wolves.

Sam attempted to stay vigilant, and opened his mouth to reply to a possible bluff that she might have said just to get closer to him. He was instead surprised by the sudden, yet gentle, cupping of his cheekside by her.

“I was worried sick, Sam,” she said, her face showing genuine concern that for a moment Sam thought she had been.

Maybe, within all that allure and seductive nature, she had become remorseful of what she’d done to him.

Sam softened his stance. His shoulders lowered.

“I’m fine,” Sam started. “But you have to go. This is no place for your talents.”

Vexia shook her head. “I wasn’t looking to establish my talents, I wanted to see you.”

“And I’m here,” Sam replied. “What do you want?”

Vexia reached for his hand. Sam allowed it, ready to jerk back if she ever placed a hex curse on him again. She might have been one of the mightiest mages, but she was also one of the most impulsive ones, especially when it came to matters regarding romance.

Sam didn’t have time for romance.

Not then, not now.

As Vexia squeezed his hand, the other was about to follow.

“I love you,” she started.

“Don’t.”

“But I do, my cherry pie. It’s the truth.”

Sam shook his head, gently removing her hand. “I don’t know if I can handle the truth.”

She grabbed it again, like they are locked in a chase of who would hold Sam or set him free. Sam felt like he was a bird in a cage, trapped and denied its right to fly. Vexia wanted him to, thinking she was denied the right to love.

“Please, Sam,” she pleaded once more. The tears that had welled up are now slowly streaking down on her face. “I want what we had again… can’t we start once more? I know I’ve messed up, and I know I shouldn’t have done that to you, but please if you would give me just a chance…”

She tried to finish, but she bawled her eyes out. She took her hand off Sam’s and wiped her eyes with it, but the tears kept coming. Sam had seen this scenario before, as if he got locked into some twisted antithesis of a deja vu, or the warden of time was just messing with him, or perhaps he was locked in a trance-like state where the flow of time is structured like a circle and not a straight line.

Driven by instinct, the hesitancy within him completely sidelines or thrown out the window, Sam reached for Vexia’s face, wiping the rest of her shed tears. In a reversal, something that Vexia nor Sam ever thought would happen, Sam cupped her face, but only stood there. Vexia melted toward the calloused hands of a traumatized man, and Sam closed his eyes.

“Vexia,” he started.

“I never meant to lead you on. I know I had left that time, and I still feel hurt that you’d hex me like that.

“But Vexia please let me go.”

Vexia shook, her eyes widening after hearing what had been said.

Sam continued.

“Whatever it is you want to have with me, it’s not there anymore. So, please Vexia, for both our sakes… I don’t want to see you hurting because of me. I don’t want to see you go through hell because of me. I don’t want to see you sad because you loved me. I loved you Vexia, and now, I wish things were the same as well.

“But please, again,” Sam pleaded, his voice breaking. “You have to let me go.”

Vexia stood in shock. Sam had removed his hand cupping her face, and in that moment, she only wanted some truths, but inside her emotionally catatonic state, her head laid down towards the snow filled pavements. Her expression became unreadable to Sam, and he became worried that what he had said made her become worse than what he had intended for her to feel.

“You love someone else…”

Sam couldn’t deny it, but he couldn't confirm it either. What Sam didn’t know is that what he tried to hide, Vexia had known. Not because of some magic or hex that she cast upon Sam, she knew it because she had loved him before. To a broken man like Sam, there were only a few things she needed to find out.

“She loves you, too…”

Sam silently nodded.

Three.

“She’s kind and worries for you, too…”

Sam nodded.

Two.

Vexia clenched her fists, it was right under her nose and she had been too desperate to figure out who it was. Her tears spread through her cheeks as a purple aura started glowing around her.

“And you promised you’d protect her…”

“Vexia,”

Vexia looked at Sam. However, this time Sam had flinched towards a pose he used to mark his stance. He couldn’t finish it; he was too focused on what was happening with Vexia.

“Vexia, please—”

“Enough!” she commanded, in her tear-streaked face. Her tears melted down some frost and around her circumference, the frost particles quickly turned black. Sam realized too late what he had done, hoping to have gently laid her down; it seems all he had done was agitate her, which confused him as he’d been completely honest with her.

Something broke within Vexia.

One.

That was enough.