"You mean this one?" I grinned pulling out the all-black card like some magician. Cheesing even wider as Charlotte scoffs in annoyance, a few of the guards nearby chuckle in understanding.

"Do I even want to know how you got that?"

I shrug my shoulders, the memory of the forbidden pulses like a heartbeat at the back of my head. "I mean if you want all the clear-cut details, she got on her knees -"

"Alright, Alright" she chimed with a smile; it soon dissipates melting to an apathetical face. Something was a bother. And when her orbs glossed with an unspoken fury, I knew than what it is she wanted to say, without her yet putting it into words.

My eyes meet the guards around us to silently dismiss them. They nodded, spreading out and dispersing back into the dancing crowd, leaving Charlotte, Ray and I, in this moment. The music of the ball shifts, the rhythmic drums mellow down, and the tunes of a violin are strung. The bellowing gowns align, and the women are entangled with their partners in the melody.

"Nasir." Charlotte says to me, her voice at the mention of my name holds so much sorrow alone. "Are you ready, for when the signal is given?"

My last moment of amusement dissolves, now bringing me back to the cold shell I am to be. The signal. My signal. Given by King Adelheid himself when the time comes, and when that time does approach, would I even be able to recognize myself in the mirror anymore?

If this had been to the people I search for, then bringing such havoc would have fared well. But this will be a bloodbath that will paint my hands red with the innocent. My eyes float up to the new Queen, she is temporarily distracted by the greeting guests. Without her eyes boring down on me, I released a pocket full of breath, and that breath undoes the guilt spiraling in me.

"I can't stand that you're doing this on your own." Charlotte continues as she steps up to me, it had been a long time since she ever brimmed tears, I believe it was when we were children, she shed her last tear, now at my expense they were brimming.

"Please say something Nasir" she beckoned, yet I couldn't muster the words, never am I to go against the orders given to me, for if I ever do, the last few people I cherish most on this earth would be taken from me, and I would be there to watch the life strip from their eyes.

Her slender hands reach out to touch me but was ceased by Ray, who gently latches onto her wrists, his demeanor in this matter was alarmingly calm. And with the hard gaze of his eyes meeting mine, he knew I could never go against King Adelheid's words, no matter how much it would break me in the end.

"Come Charlotte," he suggested as he guided her by the waist, the night wasn't over, and they were to continue on with supervision amongst the crowd.

I am left alone, staring at the golden floor, focusing my attention to the painting encrypted underneath the soles of fancy shoes. My gaze continuously disrupted by the moving heels and dress shoes that dance away, darkness shrouds me as I go over my future tasks when I peer up to the throne, searching for any sort of light to warm me in such cold times.

And that is when I found her. There she sat on her throne, aside the new king that paid her no mind. Her side to him as she is face to face with a woman, chatting away.

As I gaze up to her the corner of my lips tugged to a sensual smirk. It was strange, this emotion in me as I gaze at an old friend. Now that I looked at her, she was all I can see. It was as if everything around my peripherals decelerated, and everyone around me moved ever so slowly as if they float amongst the ground, blurring from sight.

Leaving her to be the only sight worth a million stars in the room. My eyes locked on her, as she too was affected by the slow of time, I can no longer hear the music, instead was consumed by a muffled thump drumming slowly in my canal, growing with heat the more I stared.

Her dazzling smile as those succulent lips stretched, displaying rows of Ivory teeth.

Thump.

The swaying of her lustrous curly hair.

Thump.

How she moves so gracefully even when she doesn't intend to.

Thump.

This warmth, it feels so good. My skin was not cold anymore.

But what was it? this emotion, this thumping sound that weakens me in the knees at this moment. Even blinking was agony, cause than I'd miss that second of watching her smile. And I didn't want to miss out on anything, especially since she will soon detest me more than the devil himself.

"It has been so long, young Nasir."

I'm taken back by the raspy voice aside me. The voice spews my name disrupting the time stopping moment I was taking time to treasure. Body heat emanates next to me, the floating figures return to normal speed bringing the music along with it as I tore my eyes from her, to look at the man next to me.

Suited formally in his grey attire, white gloves clean as a whistle with not even a speck of dust, Patrick stood aside me with his hands interlocked over the other, resting it calmly on his suited abdomen. An apathetic expression plastered on his face as he stares straight ahead.

I spare him only a glance, seeing the lined wrinkles at the edge of his eyes, before nodding.

"It would seem the higher power above granted me life to see this night."

I crease my brows, looking back to the dancing crowd. Not yet found the words to respond to him. But felt it deep down, he knew who I was from the start.

"I always knew you would return young Nasir, but never did I anticipate it would be by the hands of the King's enemy. My calculations have been Imprecise, yet again."

He garners my attention but as I try to discreetly glance over to him, he stops me mid-way.

"Look ahead, and not at me." he says dryly. "Your eyes need to be keen on the individuals before you, and not a dying old man."

I guided my attention to where he spoke of, there I watched a few butlers and Elite gentlemen make a swift exit out of a strange door, the ball room itself seems to decrease exponentially with guests, especially children. I huff out of my nose, and I felt the nerves in me boiling suddenly.

This old man was getting at something.

"Gather your rage young man, do not cause a disruption before my Queen."

The boiling in my veins stills than with his words, and I peer up to her, who is now glancing down at me. Another monetary serenity I needed. And within the midst of the serenity, the silence settles between the old man and me, but the music in the background.

"With this never-ending tick of time I can only deduce, those feelings you harbor, have grown."

Feelings? I crease my brows in question, once against tearing away from her captivating glare, and arrow my chin slightly toward him.

"Don't play Imbecilic with me young man," he retorts calmly, yet darkly. "If you are aware of emotions, then you know feelings. But I will ask you this young Nasir. Keep away from her, and never let your identity be known."

It was as if my breaths shrunk immensely from my lungs. Crystalizing solidly. Jarred by his sentence.

"With the crown now bestowed upon her head, many of these ill willed individuals would see to it to detach her skull from her spine and claim the nobility for their own, for the sole sake of a woman never being in power." he rasps.

I swallow thickly, eyeing the laughing elites.

"Getting her distracted in childish affairs would be detrimental to her life, and you would be to blame. Guard her as you are instructed and keep her from the ritual tonight."

With that, my head fully twists to him, but he kept his straightforward, and his expression blank.

"That card you swiped from the bishop's daughter during your private affairs, keep it tightly sealed within your grasp, and use it when the time comes."

My eyes already deadpanned on him as he spewed his words, but the lingering gaze made him turn to my questioning glance.

"The young womans cry of ecstasy was heard from outside. I did my best to navigate the guests to a rather much quieter bathroom, but matters were in need of me, and I left to tend to them."

He truly is a wise man.

"If her life truly meant something to you Young Nasir, then let her live it, without knowing she is within reach of you."

His words were spears, gutting me in the chest. But it was the truth that I needed to hear.

"Starting with this distance. You are to be at her side at all times, yet you are down here. And not up there." He ticks. "Perhaps if you spent less time fornicating with the daughters of the bishops, then maybe real matters could be of importance."

My throat painfully expands as I swallow a thick gravel down my throat. Biting my tongue to not utter any words, forbidden from interacting with anyone besides Adelheid's' men. Bold words at the tip of my tongue threatening to fall.

He glances slowly at his wristwatch and looks back up apathetically. "It is nearly time for the feast. Do not worry about the bishop's daughter, I had our maids tend to her and clean the mess you left of her, she is resting in one of the rooms nearby and has not stopped fawning over you since. Yet her son However..."

His eyes lock on me, and I nod in understanding. The young boy's tears earlier, they were a foreshadow to his fate. He wasn't running around in an act of childish behavior; he was trying to escape, and I foolishly brought him right back. The back of my teeth grinds, yet I hid the anger behind a smirk. Knowing her eyes were steadily on me.

"Within an hour, something will occur on these grounds. It is best you remain at her side when the time comes." His dress shoes click the ground as he sets for his departure, leaving me in dismay to his statement. When he stops. Shoulder to shoulder, our faces facing opposite sides.

"At least your wish has come true Young Nasir. You are at her side, guarding her with your life, just like you wanted." he says, this time turning to meet my eyes, I could see a soft ghost of a smile forming on his lips. "I must bid you a goodnight, it was very good to see you again, you have grown into a man."

"How?" I blurt, the word weighed heavily on my tongue, a question I just couldn't refuse to ignore any longer. "How did you know it was me?"

This time I stilled him in his tracks as he looks beyond, silence settles between us two.

"I may be an old man, but I can deduce the mathematics. But it is the Queen, that confirmed my theory."

"And how so?"

"For years I have guarded young Tiana and have documented every little detail about her behavior. From the beginning, when you entered her life, she has done nothing but prance around with every privacy she is granted. And now as an adult, I watch the same woman look up to a strange man, and star's involuntarily twinkle in her eyes. I guess what it is I am trying to say is, although her mind has not confirmed it. But her heart already knows it is you."

I look back up to her once again, now picturing that little girl he spoke, the one that pranced around. With me on her mind.

"Hence why young Nasir. It is you I entrust to protect her when my timeline is complete." And as he professes these words, he hacks a wretched cough, the gravel stuck in his chest.

"Time is upon you, young Nasir, make way to her, things are about to take a dark turn."

I remain stoic as he weakly walks away, coughing painfully until I could no longer hear him. I'm suddenly unsettled by his last remaining statement, maybe I hadn't noticed it prior, but something was amiss. My eyes incessantly bouncing with speed, surveying until I can resolve this disturbance.

When I saw IT then.

Standing out amongst the sea of people glimmering with the finest jewelry, was a hooded figure just at the corner beside the double doors. My muscles suddenly tensed tightly, suffocating me around the neck, eyeing the figure. I see it, and it watches me. The same slow pacing of time returned, this time leaving it and I to gaze at each other across the room.

The last time I saw him, I walked on a trail of bloody footprints of young soldiers. And now he has returned. The apparition elevates itself high above the unknowing guests, floating like a dark cloud, plaguing with poison, increasing in size, only visible to me. And is unseen by everyone underneath him. Yet none sensed the sinister power it exudes.

Death has returned, although I knew he never left. This time he wasn't hiding in my shadows, but looms above another, within this room. The obsidian cloak that stretched its darkness like blanket. I could only question, where has he left the corpse, King Adelheid.

I could only watch, but he doesn't strike, instead awaits. As always. Chills prick my spine like needles, my body held down by anchors, not wanting to move. It being here, meaning something will go awry. I tear away to look up to the Queen, who is now engaged in a conversation with a guest. I tear away to find Charlotte, who mingle with a man but spares me a glance.

Her forced amusement diminishes at the sight of my jaw clenching with agitation. I tear away to look back up to the nimbus like cloud, when it vanished from sight. Not even a swirl of its apparition remained, but the atmosphere was still unsettling. My eyes remain keen on its last sighting. I peer down to the crowd, and just as I did, the crowd seemed to diverge, scattering apart until my eyes land on a familiar pair.

An old man and woman, platinum strands of thin hair above his skull, red patches and inflammation of his head. The woman aside him, sported jet-black strands, the same height difference, the same couple that have stood out to me since the beginning.

Why has Death chosen them?

The old man turned than, I steal the moment to look at his face for the first time tonight, a face so abundantly familiar, I have never interacted with this man, and yet I have seen his face before. The memory at the back of my head was smudgy. Until it finally clicks.

That day all those years ago, the old man on the wheelchair. Eyes stripped of color leaving a white emptiness. Patches of white hair. And that nightmarish smile he grinned to me as he blinked away from the sky, narrowing his head to me hungrily before I walked into the house.

My heart skipped a dozen beats, every limb of my body undergoing a momentary paralysis rendering me immobile. An unbearable scorching heat shoots throughout shooting through me like a negative effect of a drug, the adrenaline coursing through me was enough to still the working nerves.

That old man, he still lives, he lived for all those years, defying death by undergoing unholy rituals, and stealing the life source from an another. I look at him, and tear away to look at Tiana, all whilst the last words of Patrick reiterating in the back of my head.