LUX AETERNA

Lux

The Thaw.

The Melt.

The Great Awakening.

Pretty, grandiose names meant to hide the end of times.

I had waited for this day for centuries. Long life was exactly as such, long, in days spent lonely, ripped from the arms of whom I was not allowed to love.

The palace walls dripped and shrank. I ran, the sound of my panting did not echo, the ice too thin to bounce it back. I wielded my magic but my power could not coax the walls to freeze. The Earth was reclaiming what we'd stolen but The Kingdom had prepared for such a day. I did not know how small a window I had to find him.

But by the Gods I would. He couldn't be dead. They had tried. With fire. With saws as great as talons of winged creatures once called birds. I'd seen their pictures in old school books but he'd told me they were real. He'd seen them himself, back when his kind ruled. When the Earth still had life and abundance and color.

Before the Deep Ice of my Kingdom had settled into the furthest cracks of the world we knew. It had taken everything, including him. Those same school books told lies but he'd shown me the truth. We were a parasite, using up what the Earth gave freely, then moving on to purge warmer lands. Such was our way of life.

They hadn't counted on their princess falling in love. Neither had I. Nor had he.

The pounding of my feet was masked by screams threatening to disintegrate the floundering walls of my home. The Kingdom was falling.

Ships were ready and waiting. The Thaw would free the waters to tide, and waves would carry us away.

The frantic screech of my mother's call put more fractures in the ailing walls.

"Lux!!!"

She screamed my name again and again and my shoulders sagged. There was more fear for herself in the tinny of her voice than there was concern for me. I had been shunned since they'd discovered my secret. All I had to do was wait out the destruction of the palace and she and my father and siblings would be gone. One dishonored princess left behind was not worth risking guards for a search or ships leaving port without the royal family.

A crash from above lifted my head to the ceiling and I leapt, throwing a jet of power over my shoulder. The dislodged ice missed me by a breath but I was thrown to the floor as it collided with my parents' thrones, destroying itself and the royal settees.

How poetic.

What did he always say when I let him feed upon my life force?

"Quod me nutrit, me destruit, my Lux."

It was a language out of a time long before mine. But it was beautiful. He said my name came from it. I'd learned some, he had promised to teach me the rest, maybe he still would.

Getting up, I dusted shavings off my arms and legs. Some had soaked into my clothes, turning them damp. The ice had never done that before, not on its own. I turned to look at the remains of the throne room, smashed and melting. The panicked cries from palace residents had stopped, they were gone, every one of them.

I was free. And alone.

The ground rumbled beneath my feet and I lurched toward the doors. Two tall frozen panels which opened and closed by magic now hung forlornly on hinges of waning spells and sorcery. I fell through them into the sleet and snow outside. Behind me the palace groaned, its inner-structure close to toppling. The dome sank lower and my eyes narrowed in pain.

I had never seen the sun shine. I'd beheld only its shadow, rising and setting, banished into the heavens by our clouds. Through their break it was released and it was magnificent. A golden orb of dazzling light, reflecting off the snow, blinding me as vengeance for the years of isolation. The palace glittered beneath the rays, its pillars reduced to trickling icicles. The whole of it would be a lake by sundown.