Haunted Love

Thalia Lanoue dreamed a familiar dream, but the dream’s familiarity did not stop fear from consuming her.

The world was on fire with storms of magic and the light spectacular. The roar of winds, of hurricanes and maelstroms, tore at Thalia’s body, sending a soul-deep chill down into her marrow. In the void at the end of worlds, those winds churned through all of Thalia's senses, punctuated by her heartbeat and an undercurrent of guttural and yet somehow melodic chanting.

“Please!” The sound of the voice that carried over the current was as familiar to Thalia as the dream, and her fear mounted.

It was him. He was trapped in the circle, and he was screaming, calling out to her for help.

Over his plea, another figure chanted. The words within the chant had no meaning. Their language might as well have been that of demons or dragons, or creatures beyond the ken of even her wildest fantasies. Yet she knew the words and their rhythmic melody. She knew their meaning, knew their intention, as clearly as if the sounds of them had been tattooed into her own skin.

“Tethered. Bound. Owned. For life eternal.”

Outside of the circle, the chanter stood, arms raised, the fires of magic answering his command, and yet their light did not reveal his features. Inside, cast in shadow and darkness amid the brilliance of colours and light of magic, the owner of that most precious voice was crouched in fear and agony. As he lifted his arms over his head, Thalia couldn’t see his face. She never did, but that didn’t stop her from hearing his plea.

“Thalia, please! Please, help me!”

The second line of the caster’s spell rose up and drowned out his call:

“Tethered. Bound. Commanded. For unyielding time.”

The noise and chaos pressed down on Thalia like a zero-gravity carnival ride. She couldn’t move. Despite her best efforts, the weight of the chaos pulled her down, even while that otherworldly chant rose up and out of the standing figure.

The magic tore through the darkness, and Thalia knew that her time was running out.

The final piece of the spell locked in place as the caster’s voice roared in triumph:

“Tethered. Bound. Stripped of power, life, and soul.

Mine to do with as I will.

My descendants’ to do with as they will...”

“Thalia!” Desperation. Pain.

Thalia’s fear on the man’s behalf was shattering and cold. She ran through the thick air and sand of dreams like the very world weighed her down and the distance would never close between them. Time was running out. Time had never been in her favour. She would not get to the circle before the spell was completed. And then it would be too late.

Wild ribbons of magic tangled like flames around the dark form that crouched in the circle. Silken threads of craft and spellwork twisted and pulled at the body lying in their grasp. The figure sobbed in pain and confusion. It screamed in anger. It struggled and heaved and surged. But the spell had taken hold. The magic had been threaded through him. The circle had been drawn. The figure in the center was everything and anything that the guttural, cacophonic melody of the chanter decreed.

Tethered. Bound. Helpless.

Tethered. Bound. Undone.

Tethered. Bound. Your body is gone. Your spirit is gone. Your power is my own.

To do with as I will…

And it was done.

A hot gust of wind pushed Thalia back as the spellcraft exploded into full manifestation. Her slow trudge forward came to a stuttering halt, even as her heart and soul screamed for her to move. But it was too late. The circle closed, the magic rose up in a funnel of flame and lightning, roaring like a hurricane in the haze of power, and the man who called out to her was swallowed by it.

In the heat of the magic’s fire, in the surging of the raging storm, in the throes of pain and anguish, Thalia lifted her arms to hide her face from the light and power radiating from the circle and the victim and the caster. She turned away, hating herself for refusing to bear witness to whatever might next transpire.

And she was met with cold and darkness and a starless void.

The calm and quiet was almost deafening compared to the raging maelstrom left behind, but even the dreadful relief of that silence was nothing compared to him.

Gentle hands caressed her face, their owner unseeable in the darkness, but she knew him. She recognized the spirit that had been bound within the circle. Her relief at his presence consumed her.

“You’re here,” she barely breathed the words as she took eagerly to his embrace. His fingers tangled in her hair in a desperation that matched her own. His lips found hers in the dark. Soft kisses. Pleading, desperate kisses. A voice turned hoarse and ragged by relentless screams now spoke her name in a whispering caress.

“Thalia.” A gentle echo in an otherwise silent world. The sound of something rippling through the vast eternity of nothing. His voice sent flames of another kind through her body, warmed her, melted her from the inside out. “Come back to me. Please. Save me.”

A hundred times before, she’d dreamed this same dream. A hundred times before, she promised she would try. A hundred times, and now, knowing what would happen, regardless of what she said or did, Thalia could only hold on to that figure in the darkness, and let those desperate kisses consume her. Skin against skin, breath joining breath, he pulled her down, pulled her under.

“Can you feel it, chérie? Things are changing now.” His mouth covered hers and his lips fluttered over her own as he murmured, “It’s almost time.”

Could he see her in the dream? Was that how he was able to land kisses on each sensitive spot along the curve of her neck without missing a single point? Was that why he could feel out the curves of her body so easily? Was that how he could lift her hips to his and turn her world upside down with a gentle stroking caress?

She was ready for him. Her body hummed quietly with desire as he pulled her closer. Kisses on her neck; his body settled between her legs; in the abstract and hazy nature of dreams, each sensation magnified her pleasure and her desire. Any moment now and he’d take her for his own…

“What’s my name, chérie?” The question was unexpected. It was not usually part of the dream. She pulled back, confused, even as his kisses fell against her shoulders and collarbone.

In the darkness, a sound reverberated that was not a part of the dream. Thalia turned her head in its direction.

“Stay.” A gentle hand guided her back, a desperate plea behind the soft command. “It doesn’t matter. Let it go.”

She turned back, kissing that figure hidden in the darkness and knowing that their time was short, and that regardless of what happened next, the dream would soon start over with fire and wind and magical storms.

His mouth settled next to her ear. “It’s time. Save me. Give me my name.”

She knew his name. It was on the tip of her tongue, in the taste of his kiss, in the sensation of his hands on her body.

The sound got louder, became familiar, repetitive, and irritating. It pulled her away, pulled her out of the sightless void.

“Thalia…” His tone became more pressing. Hands interlocked with hers. “My name?” His mouth covered her own. One last kiss as she wrapped her legs around his waist and invited him to take her.

“Your name?” She whispered the question, her lips curving into a smile against his own, “My dearest love, your name is—”

The phone blared, the dream shattered, and Thalia awoke to a moonlit night and empty arms.