To Aurum With Hate

Ten: Xavier Bones

Ten:

Xavier Bones

            I had done plenty of stupid things in my time with The Argenti. Bombing the Royal University of Aurum. Stealing from the stock exchange. Writing an illegal pamphlet that I distributed listing the wrongs of the Aurum Imperator.  What I was doing now was probably the dumbest of them all. At this very moment, I had crawled into the room of Princess Sirena. I was now waiting for her to come back.

            I had kidnapped this girl. Granted, she’d been found within a few hours because she was a Princess and engaged to the future Imperator of our Kingdom. But after I’d seen her that first day, I had to talk to her again. I had to see her. I could see the anger within her. She was like me. She didn’t like the system that she was in. She hated it. With her, maybe I could use her to topple everything the way I’d been trying for as long as I could remember.

            I had to see her again.

            Which was why I had crawled into her bedroom window in the palace and was now waiting for her. There was always the chance that a servant could come in, find me, and I would be arrested before dawn. But I hadn’t been able to help myself.

            Since I had kidnapped her, she was all that I was able to think about. I dreamed about her all the night before. It was like a song on repeat, telling me that I needed to go after her. I sat on her bed, like an expectant lover waiting for her to return.

            It was afternoon when I came.

            Afternoon turned to early evening. It was early evening when she returned. She came in, with curly hair pinned back in a pink bow, wearing a pink sun dress. She smelled of Madame Primula’s perfume.

            She came in and was in the process of locking the door when she paused. She must have sensed me. Then, she turned around, and let out a scream. I was across the room quick as a flash, and I covered her mouth with my gloved leather hand. It was summer, and impossibly hot, but I wore them because I couldn’t risk leaving fingerprints.

            “I’m going to remove my hand, Princess, but you’ve got to promise me that you won’t scream,” I said.

            Her brown eyes widened, and she nodded slowly. Carefully, I took my hand off of her mouth.

            “Your voice….you’re the one that kidnapped me,” she said.

            “Smart girl.”

            “They said your name was Xavier Bones, that you’re the leader of a revolutionary group called The Argenti that is trying to take Aurum down.”

            “Yes,” I said, “and I think, my dear---”

            “Don’t call me that,” she snapped, “you don’t get to call me that. Only-----”

            I raised an eyebrow. “Oh, my beautiful little fool. Have you already fallen for his charm?”

            She crossed her arms over her chest. “No. I simply realized that it was better to comply with him than it was to fight if I wanted to save my people.”

            “Did you realize that at lunch?” I asked.

            She nodded. “He took me to The Gentleman’s Club, and I was surrounded by all of these men that could make the choice whether or not to blow my country up with the snap of their fingers. I realized that I was the best resource my country had to keep them from getting blown up. Only I could make them see that we weren’t all monsters.”

            “You know that was planned, don’t you?” I said. “They took you there so that you would be compliant. So that you would realize exactly who you were dealing with and play ball. Otherwise, why else did they meet at The Gentleman’s Club? If they wanted you to think that you had power, why wouldn’t they have chosen to make the Lords come to you at the palace?”

            Sirena frowned. “I know what you’re doing. You’re trying to get in my head, to drive a wedge between Zale and I. Well, it won’t work. I am here to do my duty to my country. It doesn’t matter how many pretty boys try and get in the way.”

            I smirked. “You think I’m pretty?”

            She rolled her eyes. “You’ve got a certain something with your curly dark hair and your blue eyes. But it’s completely ruined by the fact that you kidnapped me and you’re a terrorist.”

            I snorted. “Is that what they call me? I’m not a terrorist. I’m a revolutionary.”

            “One person’s revolutionary is another person’s enemy,” she said.

            I shook my head. “Spoken like a true monarch. It’s such a shame, Princess, because you are so very beautiful. I should hate to see you meet the same fate as Marie Antoinette, her head taken clean off.”

            She jutted her chin out. “I’m not going to.”

            “Oh, I think you are,” I said, “because you are a fool, and you think that you can save your country, change Aurum, and change him. But at the end of the day, he is simply a boy who will inherit power he doesn’t deserve. He will be exactly like his father. A destroyer of worlds. Do you really want to be part of that, going forward? Or do you want to be part of stopping that? I know that’s what you wanted to do. I know you came here to kill him.”

            “Killing him won’t stop the problem, Xavier,” said Sirena, “but loving him might.”

            I laughed. “Just because you love him doesn’t mean he won’t keep on hating everything and everyone else.”

            “I don’t think that’s what Aurum is,” said Sirena, “it’s not hate, Zale told me; he’s trying to remake the world because the world doesn’t work the way that it should. I think that’s beautiful.”

            “I think you’ve been brain washed,” I snarled, “it’s a shame Princess. I came here hoping to kiss you and convince you to join our side. It seems that you’ve made the decision to be a stubborn i***t. It looks like I’m going to have to kill you instead.”

            “I’m not a stubborn i***t,” Sirena insisted, “I’m here to save the enemy.”

            “Giving into your enemy isn’t saving your country. It’s giving up.”

            “Sometimes, giving up is what must be done to save people. There is honor in it.”

            “It will never be that way for me,” I said.

            She frowned. “Are you going to kill me today?”

            I shook my head. “Not today. It would be too messy. But you will see me again, Princess, and when that day comes, do not expect to walk away with breath in you.”

            “f**k you,” she snarled.

            I smirked. “In another life, maybe, my dear.”

            I reached out and I stroked her chin. She followed my finger the entire time. Then, I pulled away, and I crawled out the same window that I had crawled in. No one even noticed that I had come or gone.