Harmony

He looks at me, his eyes now soft, his hold delicate.

"She needs you." He whispers again. His voice now tender.

"The kingdom needs you."

Putting my hand on his chest, I exert a slight push as I shake my head while staring deep into his eyes. The land will no longer hold the stain of the name Artino and its sin. Let it all be gone with them and me.

"They had been victorious in the past and they will be this time around. They do not need me on their land."

I pull away, a small smile to my face as I take a step back but the tight hold of his hand on my shoulder and my face stops me. "If you think I'm letting you go, you are very wrong."

And just like that, the chains that hold my resolution together comes loose. I stand frozen as I look between his eyes, ice cold but they hold so much warmth in them.

"Cleo now." He shouts as he pulls me along with him, bringing me back into the now spinning world. He strides towards the golden light slowly forming, taking some kind of shape, a circle.

"What are you doing-"

But before I knew it, I was pulled into its inevitable darkness, my voice mute but my mouth wide open. I close my eyes and count the seconds as I let it all be anything but my imagination.

"Alex you are finally back." A woman's relieved voice makes me open my eyes.

But this all was very much true. I look around me, blinking as I take in my surrounding. In contrast to the wide-open ocean from a second ago, I now stood in the middle of the green woods. "Where am I?"

"The land of Blue Blood." The same woman answers.

I look at the familiar set of eyes, I had seen those emerald somewhere else. Her porcelain skin made the green stand out even more so as she stands beside this brightly lit golden circle like the one, we just stepped through. But only, it was bigger, wider and brighter, like it was meant to house an army, to carry the land itself along with it.

I take a step back, my eyes solely on the massive gap perched in the space before me. If my assumption was correct, it led home. A doorway to the past. To where it all began. Happiness, sadness, mirth, guilt, freedom, suffocation.

The birth and the death of all my feelings.

I take another step back but no further. The hand that was still within his grasp, locks my movement. It burns hot on my wrist as if his touch was labelling me, marking me as his. As if I belonged to him. And I finally tear my eyes off the golden circle and into his.

"Please." He pleads me with the soft golden lights flickering onto those brown orbs. And I would have done anything to see those eyes smile, to ease the hardness in them. But-

But I cannot go back.

I shake my head once as my eyes burns with the surging of the dead emotions, raw and fresh. "I cannot..."

Weak. My voice, weak. My resolve, weak.

"We need to hurry. We have no time to waste." The women speaks and I quickly divert my eyes elsewhere.

"Alex, we need to leave." I watch as his face morphs, forming thin lines across his forehead.

"Now." The wind blows her whisper, followed by its own.

"Alex?"

He squeezes my hand tightly, pulling me a little forward, his eyes never leaving mine.

"Harmony."

His lips whispers my name for the first time.

And I cannot help but get wrapped by his sweet plea of my name. I cannot help but feel the thumping of my heart, the calling of my soul. I cannot help but feel more for this man.

Because it almost felt as if he was inviting me back home. But not the land that I was born in, rather the vacant space in his soul.

"Once. Just once. Come back with me this once." His eyes flickers across mine just before he licks the surface of his bottom lips. "And if you still want to leave, I won't stop you. So, please come back with me."

He gives a slight tug, and my weak legs cannot help but take the steps forward into the proximately of his heat. "Please Harmony. Come with me."

When he says it with such depth in that voice and an ocean in that eyes, my heart immediately shouts out 'anywhere'. I'll go anywhere with you. I'll even follow you to the pits of hell.

And with every inch he takes towards the golden circle with a light tug of my hand, giving me my own resistance, my legs blindly follow his lead, eyes never leaving his. And soon enough, I fall into the blackness of the light once again and into a land far away but so much closer to heart.

I return home.

The raging war and sharp clawed hands welcomes me back. But he never lets it near me. He rips those hands that reach for me, he tears those limps that mean me harm.

Taking a moment to look around as he shields me, I see the darkness first followed by destruction. My home, the land that once covered the sole of my feet and filled the small of my heart.

Red blood. Its horror paints the land.

Death. Its odour reeks the air.

Everywhere my eyes can reach, all I see is anger, hate, pure rage. My heart breaks the more I look around me.

I left so I never had to see this day. I left so this moment will never reach the land. But here I stand as the land bleeds red.

"Take me to her."

A sad tear runs down the valley of my cheek. "Take me to Amara." I look at the woman just as she sends one of them flying over and gives me a curt nod.

"I'll come with you."

Alex grabs my wrist, but I shake my head and pull his bloodied hand off mine. "They need you here." And they did. "I'll be just fine."

"Trust me, she will be." The woman reassures him just as a smaller circle opens up beside her.

"I'll come find you once this is over. Wait for me, Harmony." He takes my hand in his hold, one more time or maybe one last time, and squeezes it tightly as I look into his hard eyes and take a step back.

I didn't know what the future had for me nor did I have enough courage in my voice to tell him anything else. So, letting go of his hand, I step into the light with tears spilling from my eyes and a tight squeeze of my heart.

As if it was bidding him goodbye.

Wiping my face dry and my heart numb, I look at the view now in front of me. Unlike the war I had just encountered, this place held a peace. A huge bonfire lighting the silent darkness. It's wall and its ceiling made of the rich earth, its length wrapped with greens and vines. And I realise, we were encased within the earth.

Then I finally see the walls of my home, nothing like before.

Amara. Of course, it was her. Only she holds such power, such control.

"Harmony?"

I hear my name echo as I finally notice the Lycans by the beautiful garden, planted with delicate colours, filling them with life. It bloomed brightly even amidst this darkness. But something else caught my eyes even more so and my legs unconsciously moves towards it.

And just as I thought I saw. It really was her.

Sleeping peacefully in the heart of a wide tree. Maybe eternally.

Oh, dear goddess. What have you done? "Why call for me when you already planned to seek solace in the warmth of the cold soil, Amara?"

A deep growl resonates from beneath and I see a Lycan shaking with anger. He stands tall on his feet as his dark eye looms over me with such anger. And before I could even grasp, he stands before me as I float in the air, his deadly fingers wrapped tightly around my neck.

He seethes, his lips stretching further, displaying his elongated canines. But I stay still even when my lungs begged me to be stuffed with air. I look at the Lycan that means me death and the Lycan wrapped within the tree.

I see his pain. I see his tears. I see his soul bleed.

But as I look at the unmoving body of Amara, I hear her cries, I hear her despair, I hear her soul reach out for help.

Placing my hand lightly onto the back of his large hand, I force him to lower me down, back on the ground as I look at the darkness in his angry eyes. "You are sad. You are hurt. You are broken. But so, is she."

I inhale a lungful of breath. "She lives, although she isn't alive. She isn't present amongst us, but she fights for us. And what do you do?"

I look around me. "What do you all do?"

Their flickering eyes shy away from my accusing glare as I take a few steps towards them. "Are you all really that weak? Are you all really that fragile?"

I shake my head. "Does someone always have to sacrifice themselves in order to save you all? Do you always need a daughter of this land to martyr herself to free you all? Do you feel no shame?"

I look back at Lucas as the fogginess in his eyes slowly starts to disappear. "She protects lives, and you protect a lifeless body."

He snarls at that and charges forward. But with my palm flat on his chest, I hold him there as I stare deep into his eyes. "She protects your body so you can protect her soul. Yet here you stand, wrapping your arms around her soulless body.

She whispers you to be strong, to fight but your mind is too plagued with sadness and rage that you can no longer hear her soul." The darkness finally clears his eyes and I see the blueness in them again.

"Don't forget who you are Lucas. Don't forget her."

He steps away from me and makes his way back to her. Her lifeless body. Stroking gently along the curves of her face, he looks at her. "Koraki, my love. I'm sorry I have disappointed you."

Reaching forward, he places a kiss on her pale lips, and it breaks my heart to see another man so heartbroken. I hear his whispers of love, my hard glint now pulled to the ground, in sadness and in spite, witnessing another reality of mates and their cruel destiny.

"...I love you, Koraki."

Then I feel the wind as he moves past me. "Thank you, Harmony." And it whispers in my ear.

"Follow me if you wish to." He shouts as he walks into the golden circle. Hesitant at first, but the Lycans too, follow his lead one at a time until I'm left alone with her.

"Are you coming too?" The woman's voice echoes loud in the silence.

"No, I'll stay."

Without looking back at her, I move forward, towards the wide tree, taking in the heartbreakingly beautiful scene laid around me, bodies she protected, some faces familiar. Even the King and the Queen had fallen.

"You can leave me here."

Standing directly in front of her, I study the soft features on her luminous skin, a ghostly pale in comparison to her dark, Raven black hair. "I left so I didn't have to see this day. But here I stand, in the reality of my nightmare. I'm sorry I couldn't protect you, Amara."

Reaching my hand forward, I place the tips of my fingers onto its rough trunk. "I'm sorry, sister..."

Welcome home sister.