Frozen Heart
By: Lorraine Acevedo Franqui
He has seen 73,000 moons after that first dreadful day. He has seen them wan and wax, grow and deflate, shine and then wrap themselves in shreds of darkness. Two hundred years of solitude and grief, of monotony. Two centuries of neglecting the orders he had been cursed to heed.
He rises with the sun. He ties his sash around his waist and fastens his scabbard to it with a thread of gold, his trusted sword resting within its wrappings. He reaches up and binds a rope of long black hair and begins his short walk to his personal frozen hell.
He stops by the pond where Koi fish once swan freely in a kaleidoscope of gold and oranges, reds, whites and blacks. The pond is now lifeless, covered with a layer of frost.
For just a moment, he allows himself one look at his face, daring to hope that maybe age or time or death had begun to carve into his skin, commenced to take away the time that had been unlawfully, unwillingly given to him. But no. His face retains the youth and beauty of the past two centuries with not even a trace of his sorrows, of his sleepless nights or fitful, terrible dreams or even of his self-inflicted violence. Once more he wonders if it will all end if he finally dared to do the unspeakable, if he finally decided to complete his duty.
“Today. This morning is the hour, this day is the time. Today,” he whispers to himself like he does every morning, allowing himself to hope, to gather whatever strength time and agony had not stolen from him. “Today is the day.”
He enters the palace, with its concave high ceilings of glass embellished with intricate patterns of intertwining curls and twists and spins that appear to be in motion, running the length of the massive space, and with its elegant columns and carvings, immaculately white marble floors and its frozen, dead queen sitting upon a high silver throne.
“No. Not dead,” he bitterly says to himself, for who else is there to hear him in a country struck down by the fury of its queen? No, there is only him, whose life was spared for only one purpose. “Not dead yet.”
He steps as close as he dares, his hand hovering over the hilt of his sword. Would he dare to do it? Would he finally plunge his sword into the heart that beats no more, embed it in a body perfectly suspended in sleep? Could he do it? Could he finally finish the task that was entrusted to him? Could he bring himself to end the life he loved the most, the one that cursed him to this existence?
She sits upon her throne, looking less like death and more like she is enclosed within layers of soundless dreams. Silvery-white hair tumbles past her shoulders in a cascade of locks of tinsel. Her eyes are closed, thick crescent moons of silver lashes resting upon her cheekbones. Her white, delicate, hear-shaped face, as pale and uncorrupted as freshly fallen snow, and the reddish swelling of her lips set in an inexpressive line that bears no indication of the grief that destroyed this young queen’s sanity, of the rage that led her to annihilate all within her kingdom.
“Except for me,” he breathes out. At first the thought had filled him with contentment, allowed him to go a century without thinking of ending his life in this wasteland he once called home. But now he understands. She very well told him, yet he had refused to truly grasp the meaning of her words, of her intentions. Her most trusted guard, her only friend, the man that would end her life when she no longer could, for that was his purpose, to destroy her. That was her last order, her last wish, her last curse.
Would he be free once and for all, if he cut out her heart, slashed at her throat or severed her head? If he destroyed her like she had intended it, would the relief of death finally seep through his veins? Would he feel the embrace of the cold, numbing black abyss of his own demise? Or would he continue to walk the earth, cursed and alone, looking towards an end that would not come, following an angel of death that would not welcome him into its bosom?
It wouldn’t take much, really. Only a swing of his sword in a sweeping arc across her neck or a forceful stab into her chest. It would be easy. Is that all it takes? Would that be the price Death would collect from him to allow him entrance into the kingdom of the fallen? Would it finally end?
“Today is the day. I will cut the chains that bind me to this wretched existence as I cut out your lifeless heart.” His hand wrapped around the hilt, slowly pulling the blade from its sheath, the glow of it bouncing against the glass walls. Will she make a sound? Will her icy blue eyes open once more in one final look at the world she destroyed, at the life she abandoned? Will she be grateful or does she regret her choice? Is she even there anymore? Does she suffer her current state? Or is this nothing but an empty shell of what was once the woman he loved? The woman he loved that loved another man whose abandonment brought upon the innocent of this land a wrath and a downfall they did not deserve. “Today. I will fulfill my orders and end this curse.”
The sword is out of its prison, both hands gripping it forcefully. He has lowered it, pointing it directly to his queen’s heart beneath her pallid flesh and the silver silks of her dress. There, the one thing he always wanted but could not have. “Yes, today I’ll do it. Today is the day.”
Will she bleed? Will she scream? Will she come back to life, to awareness, for just a moment? Will she ever know he fulfilled the promise he foolishly agreed to that terrible day when she intruded on his quarters, that day when he thought with idiotic hopes that she’d be his once and for all? Will her body crumble into dust or will it remain as it is for time to slowly claim its decay? If it doesn’t, what difference does it make if he does it or not, if she’s already dead to the world? But, is she dead to him? After two hundred years, after the pain and the sorrow and the solitude and the anger and the company of her living corpse, does it make a difference to him?
No. She had always been his frozen queen, even when she was fully alive. Her thoughts were a secret and her heart was closed to him, always unattainable unless he slashed open the constraints of her clothes and the skin of her chest and ripped it out himself.
Had she known he loved her? Did she know he would’ve brought down the skies, ruined the moon and collected the stars for her? Had she known he would’ve slayed the entire land himself if she so would’ve asked from him so that she wouldn’t have had to spend her own powers, cursing herself to this state of living death? Did she know he would’ve died for her? Did she?
But of course she did. Of course she knew he loved her. Would she have otherwise asked him to finish her life after her abuse and rampage? Would she had kissed him that night had she not known that it would compel him to agree, to be bound to his word to destroy whatever existence she has left now? Of course she knew, of course she used that. Did it make a difference to him?
No. It did not. She had always been his frozen queen and would always be.
He drew back his sword and sheathed it. He ripped the scabbard out of its bindings and tossed it across the room, where it skittered against the marble until it clashed against the walls, scraping it, marking it with ugly lines for eternity. Like his heart would be. Forevermore.
He sat on the steps, at the feet of his queen, of his love, of his tormentor. There, he quietly waited for the falling of the sun and the rising of the moon.
He has seen 73,001 moons after that first dreadful day.
He rises with the sun. He ties his sash around his waist and fastens his scabbard to it with a thread of gold, his trusted sword resting within its wrappings. He reaches up and binds a rope of long black hair and begins his short walk to his personal frozen hell.
