“You will not see her any longer,” Orion ordered.
“You won’t keep me from my soulbond,” Jareth seethed.
Ava gasped.
“I forbid it!” Orion yelled. “There will be no consorting with females of other kingdoms, especially those heathens in Monterre. I do not care if she’s your fated one. You are royalty. I will not allow you to sullen our bloodline with lesser magic.”
Jareth sneered, “Just like you did with Casimir’s mother?”
Orion raised a fist, as if he was prepared to strike his son. “Watch your tongue, boy.”
“Too afraid to hit me now, father?” Jareth took a step forward. “Now that I’m older and can actually fight back?”
Orion seethed, lowering his arm. “I’ll handle this,” he muttered as he stormed out of the room.
Ava reached out to Jareth and touched his arm. He flinched, pulling away. “Jareth,” she said softly. “Come on. Let’s go.”
But the scene changed yet again. It was dark, damp. Stone walls lined with iron torches.
“Where is this?”
Jareth frowned. “The dungeons of my castle.”
Orion stood before a cell, speaking softly to whoever was inside. He moved, revealing a woman huddled on the ground in a corner, shivering in a threadbare nightgown. She was stunning. Long black hair, olive complexion, bright green eyes. But she was dirty and starved, her hair matted, shadows beneath her eyes.
“Jareth, who is—” The look on Jareth’s face stopped her.
It was as if his heart had cracked in two, his violet eyes rimmed with tears. He took a step forward, extending his arm as if he could reach her, touch her. “Celine…” he whispered, his voice breaking.
Orion stepped closer to the bars.
“Please,” the woman, Celine, begged. “I promised you I would leave him. And I did. Let me go and I’ll never speak to him again.”
Orion shook his head. “I won’t risk it. My son refuses to stay away. He won’t accept that you just left, blinded by his misplaced love. I won’t allow him to consort with anyone not from Caelestia. You aren’t suitable to join our family.” Orion turned to a nearby guard. “No more food or water. Let her waste away,” he ordered, then left.
The scene dissolved and they were back in Orion’s office, now free from the tablet’s magic. Jareth collapsed to his knees, hands shaking. Ava clasped a hand over her mouth, her own tears threatening to spill.
It explained everything. Why Jareth was so angry, so cruel, especially toward the members of her kingdom. Because he once loved someone from Monterre. Not just anyone, but his soulbond.
And she was gone.
“I thought,” Jareth whispered to himself. “They told me she was killed in a raid…”
“Jareth,” Ava whispered. “I’m so sorry…” She didn’t know what to say, what to do. Taking another step closer, she knelt in front of him. “Are you okay?”
He didn’t respond, his eyes glassy and distant.
Reaching out, she touched his shoulder. “Jareth…we need to leave this office…we have to tell the others what we learned…”
His head snapped up, his expression morphing from devastated to unbridled rage. Ava yanked her hand back, rising and backing away. The way he was looking at her…the fury in his eyes…he didn’t even look like himself.
Jareth stood, yanking the star fragment from the tablet and putting it back on the shelf beneath the glass case. “I’m going to kill him.” There was a deadly tone in his voice.
“Kill who?” she whispered, though she knew.
“My father.”
Ava frantically put the tablet back and closed the portrait, the lock clicking into place. Jareth jerked the office door open.
