Jareth caught his beloved as she crashed toward the wall. She twisted in his arms, searching for his face, her eyes screaming silent pain. His dear Kaeda, his reluctant consort, the woman who’d cracked the evil shell around him with her purity and goodness. Her body convulsed in pain. He clutched her to his chest, his gaze jumping to each one of the six Keyholders standing in formation across the room.

     Salis, the holder of the Key of Healing, put a hand to her throat. She was only one who betrayed any emotion.

     Kaeda gripped a handful of his sleeve, shuddering. She went limp and he sank to the floor along with her, cradling her against his body.

     There was no way she could survive this. She’d taken the blast of his malignant energy as well as the combined forces of six trained Keyholders when she’d leapt between the warriors.  Jareth, the mighty King, bitter to a fault, sobbed helplessly into Kaeda’s singed hair.

                         ~~~~~~

     “I won’t call them.” Kaeda crossed her arms over her chest. She thrust her chin out defiantly. “I refuse. Kill me. Curse me. Do you best to me. I will not call them.”

     “Kaeda.” His voice carried a warning tone.  “My dear, you have no choice.” He thrust the Callinc Crystal at her. She smacked away his hand. The clear stone bounced across wooden dock. Jareth dove after it, scrabbling over the rough, gritty boards in a very undignified manner. It was not fit for a king! Enraged, he seized Kaeda by the back of her neck and forced her to her hands and knees. “Get it!”

     She fought him like a wildcat. Scratching, clawing, kicking, she was a formidable enemy in hand-to-hand combat. Desperation made her twice as strong, twice as fierce. She managed to get him on his back. He recognized her tactic. Knock him down, then run like hell.

     “Enough!” He reared back and slapped her hard with his open hand across her face. She landed on her bottom and he leapt on her. Jareth straddled her waist, holding her arms over her head. As she recovered from the daze he’d knocked her into, she tried to buck him off. Her hips and feet hammered futilely against the dock. He was bigger and stronger.

     He watched her struggle to draw in a breath, keening grievously. Kaeda behaved as a captured wild animal might. “I can’t breathe!” she managed to croak out.

     “You did this to yourself!” His face was inches from hers, his lips close enough to feel the puff of her breath. The insatiable need to kiss her, ravage her sweet mouth with his own, nearly unseated him. “You have everything you want here. As my wife, you are a queen! All I ask is an heir, and the Keys.”

     She moaned deep in her throat. Having no reason to earlier, he delved deep into her mind, her consciousness. “You carry my child already.” He grinned and felt a chill of revulsion roll through her mind.

     He released her. “I’ll kill it!” She scrubbed at her tears and scrabbled away from him on all fours.

     The moment he’d touched her sexually, the powers she nurtured vanished. The faint glow that had illuminated their sweaty, entwined bodies faded. She didn’t notice it until they’d parted, exhausted, and she touched it to rejuvenate her aching body.

     The powers could be returned to her, but she was young, separated from the other Keyholders. She was the newest to the league. And the most naïve.

     Sheltered since birth, recognized as a Potential, the Holding claimed her. When her gifts of healing manifested at puberty, they inducted her into their exclusive society.

     Jareth tricked her. He made her love her. She still didn’t know if he had cast a spell to induce the illusion of love. Willingly, she kept it a secret. Keyholders only married other Keyholders in arranged marriages. Nathe, the holder of the Fire, the Keyholders’ leader, already had her mate picked. A young water mage from a distant Holding.

     When she met a charming, seductive gentleman at the Faire, she lost her heart. He tied a ribbon around her wrist, a sign of interest.

     Her talents were yet undeveloped, and she couldn’t see through his façade. She cursed her naiveté. Jareth was no country gentleman, but the King of Aichin, the sworn enemy of the kingdom of Isamann. He wanted the power of the Keys, like each of his predecessors. A thick veil of evil had descended over the family, created by their greed and perverse desire for the Keys.

     Jareth was different. His approach was devious. To succeed, he must work from the inside out.

     Kaeda hated herself for falling right into his trap of seduction and betrayal. Her weakness would allow him to achieve the goal of generations before him.

                    ~~~~~

     Her aquamarine glare was deadly. The distance between them was short. He could cross it in an instant.

     If he crossed it, what would he do?  Kiss her? Throttle her?

     Her anger dissolved. “I hate you. That hurts me more than anything you can ever do to me. I loved you so much and now I can’t stand to look at you.”

     She sliced him deeper than any sword ever could. He blinked, his eyes remaining closed for an instant longer than normal. He responded with cruelty. “You will call them, or you will suffer. Get up.”

     He crossed the distance in one step of his long legs. He jerked her to her feet. Keeping a strong grip on her arm, he bent to retrieve the calling stone.

     The dock was damp and slippery from recent rains. He forgot about it in his anger. Kaeda let out a strangled cry and surged away from him. He lost his balance, arms pinwheeling wildly. The rocks just under the surface of the water rushed up to give him a violent greeting.

     Kaeda gazed down at his body, half-in, half-out of the water. Waves lapped over him, covering his face, filling his laboring lungs with each breath. His eyes flickered open once, then settled closed again. In the twilight, she saw the water around him turn red from his blood.

     She sobbed, crouching at the edge of the dock, sobbing. She didn’t even know why she was crying so hard. She hated him. she wanted him dead. When he died, she would be free.

     If she wanted her freedom so badly, then why did she long for his possessive caress, for his kiss?

     His love haunted her. He had loved her. Before he kidnapped her. Before the madness of his predecessors gripped him. His eyes were windows to his soul, and the thick layer of darkness and hate had cracked. Even as he fell, she saw it deep in his eyes. Though he knew he must succeed where his forefathers had failed, he was loathe to harm her.

     Kaeda stared around, searching for a wandering servant, a goblin sentry, anyone to help. No one. The summer palace was a quarter of a mile away. Hoarse from crying, her voice wouldn’t carry that far.

     If she waited any longer, Jareth would die, and she would lose any chance she had at redeeming his love.

     She slipped off the dock, splashing into knee-deep water. Her knee connected with one of the rocks. Pain radiated through her entire body. Her wet dress clung to her legs, inhibiting her movements.

     Kaeda lurched forward and grabbed Jareth’s shoulders just as a wave washed over him. She dragged him up from the water and stumbled backward up the shore. She fell with him in her lap.

     He wasn’t breathing.

     It wasn’t right for anyone to die like this.

     Blood still pulsed from the gouge in the side of his head, staining his ash-blonde hair crimson.  There was still a chance.  Kaeda was thankful her healer training included lessons in medical care that didn’t rely on spells.

     She leaned down and tilted his head back. Puffed air into his lungs once, twice, three times.

     If she let him die, guilt would destroy her.  If he lived, he would destroy her.

     Sobbing, she sucked in one more lungful of air and forced it down his throat.

     Jareth gagged and vomited a copious amount of water. Kaeda rolled him on to his side and pounded his back. His hands clutched handfuls of sands as he heaved again and again.

     She held him, one arm over his shoulder, crossing his chest, the other under his clasping his shoulder, and wept. She had sealed her fate. His sandy hands pawed at her arms, grasping her forearm and her wrist. The grit dug into her skin. Over his rasping coughs she heard him whisper her name like a mantra.

     For a moment, she felt the hot surge of his love wash over her. His skill in telepathy rivaled what hers would have been, had she completed her training. She had a rudimentary knowledge to go along with her untapped power. Kaeda focused for a moment and reflected the emotion back to him.

     Warmth soaked into chest. Glancing down, she observed with dread the vermilion shade seeping into her clothing. He was still bleeding badly. With careful fingers she probed the wound. The gash was deep and long, and there was a dent in his skull where there definitely shouldn’t be.

     A loud rattle-tromp-tromp-rattle jarred her from her examination. The goblin sentries, on their rounds. “Guard! Guard!” she shouted, her voice scratching agonizingly.

     A withered-apple face peered down the bank. The helmet was absurdly large, as was the breastplate. The entire ensemble created a comical effect. Goblins, dwarves and elves overran the kingdom of Aichin, and the only way to keep order was to keep the sub-intelligent species busy.

     “Get help, guard!”

     Another sentry joined the first, this one taller and stouter with a bulbous nose and round cheeks. “Yah!”

     They both scurried off in a jangle of ill-fitting armor and weaponry.

     Kaeda staunched the steady flow of blood

and cried silently into his damp hair.

     Her fate was sealed. He would live.

     Human servants rushed to her aide. They bore Jareth away, leaving her crumpled on the shore. Her maid urged her to come to the palace, but Kaeda waved the young woman away.

     Something glittered in the reeds a few feet away. Her calling stone. She crawled over and picked it up, taking comfort in the way it fit into her palm. The Keyholders could save her. They save him. The Jareth she loved. The one she knew was still inside him. He went to lengths to make her believe the cruel, cold being she saw was the real King of Aichin, but she knew otherwise.  She had seen the real Jareth.

     Nathe could show her how to regain her powers. With help from him, she could channel her talents into a single, purifying energy.

     She had an opportunity to rid the world of an evil. Jareth believed he was the only one who had the advantage.

     Pocketing the calling stone, she trudged back into the palace. Immediately, the servants swarmed her and had her bathed and dressed in warm, clean night clothes. She surprised them by entering her abject husband’s chambers. Normally, she kept her own room and avoided as much contact with him as possible.

     The elven doctor tended Jareth’s wound. He finished and exited with a low bow.

     With all the courage she could muster, she slipped into the bed next to him. He mumbled in his sleep when she rested her head on his shoulder.

     Love would save him. She had seen in his soul what it would take to redeem him, to make him the man, the King, he was destined to be.

     Kaeda rested one hand on his chest. His breathing was even and deep.

     “You saved me,” he whispered.

     Kaeda suppressed her urge to bolt from the bed. “I had to.”

     “If I’d died, you would be free.”

     “Jareth, I’ll never be free. Your love holds me captive.”

     He sighed and for the first time in a month, since his deception became clear, he took her hand. The gesture was unsure yet tender, haunted by ghosts of misplaced love. Kaeda closed her hand around his. A bit of the icy veneer had chipped away.

                    ~~~~~

     “You must do something!” Jareth pleaded. Tall, regal Nathe glanced at his mate, Salis. His face was as impassive as a glacier. Salis looked at the woman beside her. The look was passed down the line until the Keyholders’ thoughts were collective.

     Nathe spoke. “There is nothing we can do. She is weak.”

     “No.” Jareth shook his head. The leather thong holding his hair back slipped out and his hair fell around his face. “You, you’re a healer.” He jabbed a finger at Salis. “There must be something you can do. I will not lose her!”

     Kaeda shuddered in his arms. One hand fluttered to her abdomen, resting over the secure spot that harbored the heir to both factions. Jareth smoothed the hair from her face. “I will save you. Even if I have to give my own life to do it.”

     They were approaching. He felt a moment of cold fear. They could kill him with a thought. He’d wronged them by stealing their most powerful student. He deserved to die.

     The six knelt in a semi-circle. Rio touched Kaeda’s foot, clad in a pair of soft slippers. “Her child…she would have Potential.” Her soft brown eyes flicked up to Nathe. “All our potential.”

     A wave of regret passed over Jareth, a remnant of his old self. A child with all that power, lost!

     “No!” He shook those traitorous thoughts from his mind. When the six Keyholders stormed his castle, making his army look like the bumbling fools they were, he believed it was his moment of conquest. Though Kaeda hadn’t called them, they had still come for her.

     As he knew they would.

     He planned it, down to the last minute detail. What he hadn’t counted on was being swayed by Kaeda’s sudden devotion, sudden acceptance of her position. Though her eyes were still hazed by sadness, her touch was kind and gentle. When he reached for her in the night, she responded, if not as ardently as she had before.

     It undermined his confidence. The king lost his footing.

     He fumbled inside the collar of Kaeda’s dress. Her amulet, her healing crystal. Warm from her body, it seemed to mold to the contours of his hand. He offered it to the nearest Keyholder. “You have to make it work.”

     Salis shook her head sadly. “It won’t work for us, Your Majesty.”

     His queen was dying and she would never know her love had won him over. “You are supposedly all powerful. Your powers are limited by death, but she is not dead yet.”

                    ~~~~

Salis clutched her own crystal. “Long ago, I read of a healing in the archive.” She took Kaeda’s crystal and wrapped the unconscious woman’s hand around it. She molded Jareth’s hand tight around his queen’s.  “Hold her hand tight, Jareth.” She was the first to use his name rather than his title.

     Part of Kaeda was still strong and alive. Salis sensed her devotion to the King.

     Their kind had fought Jareth’s kingdom for as long they both had existed. Young Kaeda had made more progress in three months than they had in generations. Salis touched the King’s mind. He was vulnerable, thanks to Kaeda’s devotion. Hundreds of years of hunting and terror and strife were at an end.

     Almost.

     A dark shadow still lurked around his heart. It wouldn’t take much to make him resume his quest for power.

     She clasped her calling stone in her other hand. “We’ll heal them both,” she said to her comrades beside her and the ones scattered over the planet in watchtower Holdings. “She’s accomplished more in this short time than we have in generations. We will finish what she started.”

     Nathe looked at Jareth, his expression cold and full of bitterness. “You’ll be defeated, King Jareth.”

     “I said I would give my life for hers.”

     Salis silenced them with a curt wave. She waited for the response from the other Holdings. Nathe wasn’t the only reluctant Keyholder, but the majority won.

     “Jareth, hold her tight. If you let her go, you will die. Even in this state, she protects you. Don’t let her go. Think of her love and all she’s done for you. Meditate on a new future. A new kingdom. Think of light instead of darkness.”

     Jareth gathered Kaeda into his arms, burying his face in her hair.

     Salis instructed him to close his eyes. “We’re beginning.”

     Jareth squeezed his eyes shut. Warmth enveloped his body, a sensation not unlike the one that had swallowed him and Kaeda the first time they made love. Before the betrayal.

     His muscles relaxed and he almost dropped her hand. He remembered and held her even tighter. 

     Think about her.

     Kaeda’s smiling face at the Faire as he fastened the blue ribbon around her wrist for the dances. She laughed so hard she wept when he tried the complicated dances everyone else knew.

     Kaeda’s tears, soaking  into his shirt. She hated him and she loved him. He had kidnapped her, claiming it to be the only way they could be together. She knew nothing of his dark plans, or who he truly was. That evening, in his palace deep in the labyrinth, they consummated their relationship. The sweetness and passion flooded his veins once more.

     Kaeda, Kaeda! Intense burning nearly made him scream. He wanted to push Kaeda’s scorching aside and put out the flames that consumed him. He held her tighter instead, screaming into her hair.

     He betrayed her. Her eyes said it all as he unfastened the gold chain from around her neck and dangled the crystal in front of her. He slipped it into his pocket. Staring in gape-mouthed horror, he swirled his fingers in the air and produced a golden circlet which he placed reverently on his head. Seduced by the enemy. He allowed himself a moment to revel in his conquest. Upper lip curling in disgust, she turned her back to him.

     He tried to give her the crystal back, some part of him wanted her approval. She accepted it, tucked it into her tunic, and locked herself in her rooms.

     The night on the dock had began as an opportunity to apologize. Greed reared it’s head like a swamp-goblin and he ended up hurting her even worse.

     Jareth was freezing now. The sound of a thousand voices singing echoed through his throne room. Salis’s voice rose above the din, clear and sweet. The song of spiritual healing was sharp as knives. He cried out into Kaeda’s hair. Strands stuck to his tears, caught in his mouth.

     Salis’s song changed. The high notes softened, lowered. The voices faded away until only hers remained. Salis’s and another familiar voice. Kaede’s. The song that reverberated through the room was one he heard at the Faire, the Song of Healing. The icy wind warmed.

     He felt nothing. Kaeda’s music swirled around him, pulling him from her.

     The notes absorbed into his skin, purging the curse left by generations of evil. Light blasted through him, lifting him off his feet, surging through every pore in his body. It burned like fire but it was the most exquisite pain he’d ever felt.

     He wanted Kaeda nestled against his chest, head pillowed in the hollow his shoulder. Suddenly she was there before him, arms reaching for him. He could see Keyholders through her ethereal body. “You were supposed to hold on to me.”

     He caught her hands and pulled her to him. He mumbled words of love into her ear. Blissful darkness wrapped around them like a cloak.

                    ~~~~~~

     Jareth awoke alone, slumped against the cold stone wall.

     “Kaeda?” he whispered. His throne room was in ruins. The grand chandelier had fallen at some point and lay in shattered ruins. Shards of glass caught the sunlight streaming in through the narrow windows high in the walls. prisms bounced around the room.

     Sunlight? It had been centuries since sunlight had last filtered through the gray clouds that obscured the sky over his dismal kingdom.

     Jareth got to his feet and held his hand in one of the beams. He felt the warmth and smiled. A real smile. How long had it been since one of those crossed his face?

     Where was Kaeda? Had the Keyholders taken her away with them?

     Fury flared within him. A seeking spell snapping into his mind. If they had taken her…. The six traveled the plains on the borders of his kingdom, but they bore no burdens other than their consciences. He heard their doubts. Had their healing spells worked on him? Tomorrow, would he wage another war against them?

     The rage abated and he sent them a silent thanks. He had been reborn. The drive to conquer the Keyholders no longer fueled every thought.

     Now where was Kaeda? Had she awakened?

     Dread settled in his belly. Had she not survived? Salis had made no promises when she performed the healing song. He swept the throne room with his gaze.

     A twinkle caught his eye. He knelt. Kaeda’s crystal. She was alive! The crystal ordained to a Keyholder dissolved when the holder died.

     The cone rolled under his fingertips, the pointed end directed toward his overturned throne.

     Blue silk peeked around the round base. Jareth rushed to the dias and leapt up the three low steps. He flung the throne out of the way.

     Relief clutched his whole body. He dropped to his knees beside his beloved. She seemed to be asleep, a peaceful expression on her lovely face. He touched her brow, brushed her hair back.

     Her aquamarine eyes opened. “Jareth?”

     “I’m here.” He gathered her up into his arms. “You won, you know.”

     A ghost of a smile curved her lips. “I knew I would.”

     “I love you, my queen.”

     “And I you, my king.”

                    ~~~~~~

     Kaeda sought her fellow Keyholders once more. They were far away, across the borders. “Thank you,” she whispered.

     Her crystal glowed in Jareth’s hand. Nathe has restored her powers!  Jareth fastened the chain around her neck.

     Salis’s presence washed over her, caressing her as a mother would. “Be safe, young one. Raise your child well. Our future will on her shoulders.”