“Mycah, who is Ailani King?” I asked, intrigued. There was something about the look in Roana’s eye that deeply concerned me. There was hunger there, in those green eyes. But hunger for what?

“Ailani King, though a mere sixteen years old, is already a household name.” Mycah explained, as we followed Roana down the elevator to his car. “Her impossibly curly hair and dimples made her an immediate hit with her father’s audiences. He introduced her to the public through his broadcasting company, Savannah Sun. It was said of her, at the time, that she was simply too cute for words. You can judge the truth of that for yourself when you meet her. I can tell you that her childish antics have fueled season after season of her award-winning TV series, Home is Where the Hart Is. It tells the tale of a lion widower who meets and falls in love with a widowed doe. They marry and join their two families causing hilarity and chaos on screen. Ailani, just a baby when it began, was cast as the youngest of six siblings. She immediately stole the show, throwing a huge shadow over her co-stars. But like all good things, it eventually ran its course. The writers tried, unsuccessfully, to shore it up past its prime with casting changes and even more ludicrous escapades – the same way they have ruined many other shows. But the simple fact is, Ailani King, the main draw for the audience, isn’t a kid anymore. She is still cute, in a girl next door if the girl next door is a supermodel, kind of way. And her offscreen antics have kept many of the biggest tabloids in business. But for her part, Ailani really isn’t into it anymore. She has branched out into music. Her band Kitteh is topping charts around the globe, mostly because of the sheer volume of teen angst their songs exude, and her collaboration with music’s notorious bad boy, Catgut Wilson. Rumors are already swirling that there is more than music being made between Ailani King and the ol’ “Possum” from West Arkadia. Catgut, naturally, has denied any unprofessional involvement with the junior Miss King, but no one believes him, or her, for that matter. It is as if people want them to be up to no good.”

“People do love a good love story.”

“They love train wrecks more, believe it or not.”

“You think so?”

“I am certain of it. In time you will see it for yourself.”

He would go on to tell me that David King, being one of the best in the business when it came to predicting trends, suspected that the public was ready for a more mature Ailani King, and was preparing to give her to them. That was the prompt for this meeting and the request he made of Creat’s best-selling, most controversial author. I don’t think anyone suspected how it would all play out. I certainly didn’t.

2

Time is not a straight line, as we have been led to believe.

In fact, it bears more of a resemblance to our planet than a roll of film.

It is built up, one life on top of another, stretching out in all directions.

It has layers like a gobstopper.

But the layers are not symmetrical or flat.

They have forms and voids where some lives last longer than others.

The long-lived cause the forms – things that rise above a surface, while those who die young cause the voids – things that recede below a surface.

The “surface,” itself, is filled with those who live average lives of average length.

The winds of fate blow across these layers, building up towering mountains here, and winding valleys there – much like the forces that shape the surface of our own planet.

And to us mortals the layers seem even harder and more impenetrable than the dirt and granite that comprise our planet’s crust.

We cannot penetrate them.

We lack the ability to reach back into time to see things for ourselves.

We must rely on witness testimony and our own ingenuity to ring the truth out of the ground beneath us.

The barrier of Time is barred against us.

But Mycah is not one of us.

For him these things are not impossible.

His impossibilities are so much more mundane, I have learned.

His dreams seem to be filled with the things we take for granted.

Eating.

Sleeping.

Mating.

All the carnal pleasures.

He requires none of these things and is unable to take part in any of them.

He is only able to bear witness to them as we slake our thirsts and satisfy our hungers.

They are a source of bewilderment for him, the way time travel is for us, at the moment.

But we have potential.

We can grow.

According to him, we are already so much more than what we started as.

For him growth is an impossibility.

The barrier that is open to us has been barred to him and his kind – the Beings of Light.

Only a finite number of them has ever existed.

They cannot die or be destroyed, except by their Creator.

In him lies their love, their hate, their disgust, their joy,  and their fear.

Mycah has told me that they are incapable of acting of their own accord, and that they exist merely to do his will.

I find this difficult to believe, as Mycah seems to have a mind of his own, at times.

For instance, why would the creator of these wonderful beings, if he truly had absolute control over them, move them to coerce me to try and kill him?

It’s crazy, I know, but Mycah has repeatedly mentioned that I must do that very thing.

I must kill the Lord of All Things.

I’m not sure what to think of that.

I feel as if it is some sort of test.

A joke, maybe?

No. I doubt that. Mycah seems to lack any sense of humor. And each time he has brought it up, he has done so with the utmost sincerity.

He’s kind of pushy about it, in fact.

And I have yet to determine the nature of his relationship with the Frog Prince.

My prince.

The one who gave me the greatest gift any mortal has ever received – the Revelation Blade known as Epiphany. A sword so sharp that, rumor has it, it can cut through anything.

To date I have found no use for it, except to stare at its beauty and wonder what it will be like to slash my enemies to ribbons.

If only I had some enemies.

Even the Paladins who rule over my world with their gauntleted fists cannot truly be counted as my enemies.

OK, maybe the ones who killed my parents? But I do not know their names, or where to find them. And they were just…brats. Little boys raised in a world where carrying a sword is the reserved privilege of the religious.

The Cheeters.

The followers of Vee Chee the Victor – A long-dead prophet.

They were taught to bleed their new blades within an hour of purchasing them, to break them in properly.

They chose to break them in on my parents – the first heathens that crossed their path.

They broke no law in my world. Cheeters consider it a mercy to cut down a heathen. It’s a quick ticket to the Feast – the afterlife that all cheeters dream of. Heathens could not get there any other way.

They could try and convert, but the requirements for conversion are…insurmountable. I am not aware of any heathen who has successfully pulled it off.

And those kids were so young…

Just babies, and…

So was I.

I barely remember it. Running with my baby sister in my arms. Turning back to see my mother fall – after screaming at us to flee – next to my father, whose head had not yet stopped rolling in the dust.

And those kids, and their proud parents…walking away as if what they had done was…no big thing. As if they had not – with two strokes – brought our world crashing down around us. Comparing their blades, teasing each other as to whose was better.

And their parents were just so…proud.

But they were just kids.

What did they know?

Listen to me…I always do this. I talk myself right out of my hatred.

It is a curse that I cannot stay angry. If I could I would…

No.

I won’t.

I never do.

And now, ironically, I am one of them.

Gifted a sword by Vee Chee, himself – my Frog Prince.

Not dead, but very much alive. Surprisingly so.

Picking me, of all the people in the world.

Choosing me – who has never been chosen for anything.

Loving me with all his heart.

And being loved by me to the point of physical pain.

Why does love hurt so…exquisitely?

He is my world, now.

And not the least bit disappointed that I have not yet bled my blade. It has been many hours since he gave it to me.

And the inscription on it…

“Those who have swords and know how to use them, but keep them sheathed, will inherit the whole world.”

Know how to use them.

Those words stick in my mind.

I did not, when first he gave it to me.

So I train.

Mycah helps me.

I am not a warrior – no paladin.

Religious zealotry does not seem to be his wish for me. And I think, after seeing him face to face, that those others, who call themselves his followers, are deceived.

They have skewed his words.

Taken them out of context.

Added here, subtracted there, until they no longer make sense.

Something tells me – a feeling down deep – that I must show them the truth.

I must correct them.

I must lead them.

I am not a princess.

I have never cared for those who crowned themselves or set themselves above everyone else.

Perhaps it is my own short stature that makes me feel the keen sting of oppression more so than most?

I cannot say.

I only know this.

For my Frog Prince, I would give up all that I am, and turn my back on all that I hold dear.

If he asked.

But he has not.

He has only offered me a crown, and his hand when the time is right.

As for Mycah…

I could never have imagined, in all my wildest dreams, that an immortal being of pure light could try my nerves the way he does.

Why, at this very instance he is coaxing me from my reflections and bidding me pay attention to what our old friend Roana Ignah is up to, as if he ever does anything but write and try to convince his wife to have intercourse with him.

Perhaps tonight will be his lucky night, and mine.