"The Cliff at the edge of the Universe" by Lyndsay E. Gilbert aka Liadan

My Lord,

I stare into your amethyst eyes and you are not there.  I lie beside you when night has fallen and touch your ivory skin. It is cold for you are not there. Where have you gone My Lord?

Your words sting me like winter’s frost breathed into my lungs on a December morning.  I must stay out in the chill.  Your rooms fill with the demons of your trade.  The dead walk your halls.  I feel their worthless breath run down my spine.  They grip my arm with bone thin hands as I go about my chores.

Let them walk beyond the Ninth Gate and into heaven, my Lord.  You cannot hold the dead captive as you hold me.  Let them travel on the cloaks of their real master, let them sail the river of wraiths and meet with those they have lost at the end of time.  I see myself waiting for you on that cliff at the edge of the universe.  Then we may clasp our hands and dive together into the abyss.  When you come back to me.

Do you remember childhood?  I remember clearly the day I came to you.  I was standing in lines of slaves, my hair dark brown with mud, my face smeared as though I were a painted warrior.  And you sought me out, your child eyes meeting mine.  You were a spoilt child, and I was just another present.

I could barely speak, so young that I was. “Avayelle.”  I said.  My name.

And you cared for me in your own clumsy way.  Even though you did not understand that I needed to be fed on things other than chocolate and candy canes.  They made me smile though.  You always wanted to make me smile.

And so we grew and grew, master and slave, Jordan and Avayelle. 

I was brought up in your world.  It was a world of Kings and Queens.  Castles and Midnight Kingdoms.  Your Epsilon.  The world without a sun.  But I began to understand.  It was a world that had slaughtered my village.  And I was an orphaned victim.  Sometimes I remember my mother’s smile and my father returning from the hunt.  He used to pick my mother up and spin her around.  I loved to watch that.  I loved the way you spun me around like that.  I think that was how I came to remember him.

There are sparks between us, I could remember your soul from lives past.  We are soul mates, we have never denied this to each other.  But we have been denied it by society.  You with your many wives, not one of them me.  Always just Avayelle, Avayelle your favourite slave.  It is not enough to be your favourite when I want to be your everything.

Do you remember childhood now?  You were always hungry for power.  You always had power.  Powerful mind, powerful love, most powerful magick.  And it was always Dark.  Dark magick to suit a Dark Kingdom.

I never wanted you to toy with the souls of the dead, nor stand in the magick circle with those cloaked priests around you, chanting like demons from hell.  You conjure them.  They are eating your soul.  I cannot even see you when I look into your eyes.  You have gone. This is a letter to nobody.

This is a letter to a ghost. 

Not even a letter to what you have become.  Head Mage of Epsilon.  The darkest necromancer.  War mage, death mage, cold blooded killer.  Temple Sacrifices that used to terrify you are nothing now as you draw cold steel across her throat.  Only a foreigner, only a woman, only a sacrifice to the God that demands death.

I am only a woman, only a foreigner.  I think I have already been sacrificed.  Just as you too have been.

I die inside when you take me to your bed. There is not a trace of your soft touch,  a parody of love inside a cruel smile.   You crush your lips on mine, biting down until I taste the tang of blood in my throat.  And the plight of six wives, a hundred Courtesans and a slave.  A favourite slave.

Meet me at the cliff.  The cliff at the edge of the Universe.

Please come back, My Lord.

I can’t leave this world  without you.

Avayelle