Stolen Hearts

I know he knows I’m here from the second I step into the room. The same way I’ve been aware of his presence so acutely our whole lives that I swear my skin prickles the second I feel him nearby. I step into the room, and he turns to look at me. He's washing his hands in a basin. I look down at his fingers, fingers that have brushed my cheeks and held my hands. He’s wiping blood from them, the water tinged pink. My stomach churns, and I hear the screams. I hear the heartbeats thundering in my ear.

Justice, Healer. Give us justice.

Marcos speaks first.

“I’m sorry. I am. But you know I have no choice. And you won’t leave me,” he says quietly. “You love me.”

"I don't love you anymore," I say, the words shattered glass on my tongue.

"I see." Marcos sits on the couch, almost lounging on it, his long fingers clasped over one knee.

I used to think his eyes were the ocean. Serene and blue, a comforting wave, a paradise I could lose myself in. It's not till this moment that I realized I was wrong. I was so very wrong.

He leans back, hands moving to support his head, and gives me a broken grin. "I would cry, but you didn't just break my heart. You stole it. I don't feel anymore, Penelope. Because of you."

"No, no, no." I shake my head desperately at his words. "Don't put this on me. This is your fault."

"I had no choice. You say you don't love me anymore when you know I had no choice. That’s my fault?"

"I can't love you anymore, Marcos! And that’s all on you.” His eyes are darkness. A blue so deep they're almost black. A storm, ready to submerge me at the second I show weakness. As dark as his heart. "I'm tired of compromising everything I am, everything I believe in for you! Tired of sacrificing my soul in the hopes that you'll turn around and come back to me. You do have a choice. You could have chosen me."

It started as a cry, but I strangle back the tears, my sentences ending flat and monotone. "I watched you kill an entire village. And I did nothing. I'm supposed to be the Healer, Marcos. I'm supposed to fix things and instead I've let them break even further."

Part of the deck of cards of fate, I am the Healer. Supposedly, my role is to help those around me, mend curses, heal lives. End wars. Instead I stand at the side of the Reaper, the voices of those he wronged echoing in my head. Because I am-- was in love with him. I thought together, we could cheat fate, change the cards we had been dealt and reverse this blasted prophecy. I thought I could save him from his role, from himself. But looking at him, sitting in front of me, dressed head to toe in grey silk trimmed with black, his cheeks smeared with black ink, his reaping knife in his hands stained with blood, I know I was playing a fatal game, and I have lost this round. But not the game. Not yet.

"And I'm supposed to be the Reaper," he says slowly, sitting up. "You understand that?"

"I do now," I whisper.

Six cards. Six roles, six people whose lives have been intricately tied since birth. Me, the Healer. Marcos, the Reaper. A King, a Queen, a Sorcerer, and a Page. I'm not even sure what two of the roles are for. The King and Queen, of course, are prophesied to rule our anarchic country, wherever they may be. But the Sorcerer and the Page are a mystery. And the Reaper...the Reaper is a killer. My best friend. My first love. Marcos.

The villain.

And I'm supposed to be the hero. To find the king, and the queen, crown them, to work with the Sorcerer and Page to save the world. To protect the hearts of everyone in my nation that has been broken for so long. But how can I do that if I can't even protect my own? Marcos looks at me like he's being torn in two, and I am his mirror, feeling the exact same ripping inside of me. Like our lives are being broken in half, one tied to each other in a tangle of years together, growing up and falling in love. The other glowing with the purpose of the roles we’ve been given, the inevitability of their power. And I know which we are both choosing. Marcos stands and walks over to me, his golden hair hanging in his eyes and hooks a finger under my chin.

"You may not love me anymore Penny, but I will always love you."

He lifts my face to his and kisses me as he has so many times before. Softly, eagerly, reverently. It takes everything in me not to kiss him back, and far away, I hear my heart shatter. And then he plunges his hand into my chest.

Marcos pulls away abruptly, face shocked. His hand comes up empty. "What?"

I let the tears flow now, giving him a sad smile. "You thought I'd come here with my heart in my chest? That I trusted you after what you did?"

Marcos' face is a tragedy on skin. "Penny..."

"You were right, it isn’t your fault. This is your fate. You can't help yourself, Marcos. And if what you say is true, and I stole your heart, I couldn’t let you take mine. Even if part of me wanted to.”

I reach up and run my fingers across his jaw, and then I step away from him and snap my fingers. The air twists and folds around me, transporting me far away from the love of my life. The last thing I see of Marcos is his eyes going darker than they were before, his hands clenched into fists as the veins in his skin turn black. He lets out an agonized howl. No longer Marcos, but the Reaper, fulfilling his fate.

And now it’s time for me to fulfill mine.