25. Let The Hero Die
LUCIAN
After half a Collianth cycle (commonly referred to now as 6 months) of strife that cost 70% of Elysia’s entire population, Mabis Aibek, the queen of Soma, obtained the Soul Ruby and created a new universe to house the Arcanes.
– WARNING: FORBIDDEN TEXT
The first week after Lilac’s attack, I didn’t sleep more than thirteen hours. From the moment I woke up to the moment I blacked out, I had a bottle of vesi in my hand, dripping down my throat like the IV drips into Lilac’s veins. I sparred with Yuki, and when Azaire pushed me to talk, I pushed him away.
“Lucian,” Azaire said on one of the first nights post attack. “Talk to me, man.”
“I can’t,” I said, “think about anything other than Lilac and her sliced-open stomach.”
I couldn’t think about anything but the vision of Desdemona and the moonaro. I couldn’t think of anything but the possibility that I’d invited and allowed the culprit to stay.
I couldn’t think of anything but the hope that I was wrong.
I couldn’t think about anything but Lilac and the part I’ve played.
“Cause you’re cooping yourself up and hiding from the world,” Azaire responded. He didn’t look at me—he looked at the bottle on my bedside.
“I’m putting together a plan.”
“With alcohol?”
“Copious amounts.”
Azaire shrugged, and with a sigh he said, “More revenge?”
My voice was despondent as I said, “You know me irrevocably.”
“Do you ever think that maybe you could live your life without… hurting more people?”
I sat up straighter, appalled. “The Arcanes are not people. They ruined my life, they took everything from me.”
His voice was too soft, his heart too kind, too ready to understand, to forgive, when he said, “What will ruining them do?”
“It will make up for what I’ve lost!”
“But it will never bring it back,” he whispered. “You have to start learning to live with what you have now, to find peace with the past.”
“Azaire, I know you had it rough. But it’s not the same.”
“No?” he said. “I may not be forced to do things in the same way you are, but I am, nonetheless. There can still be content.”
“Peace and content can wait until the universe and I are even.”
Azaire was quiet for a while. “We should get out, go to Barely’s or something.”
I shook my head. “I don’t think I can ever go back to the septic.” The dead prisoner has faded a bit, but he is always present.
Carved in my soul with the sharpest of blades.
Azaire smiled a little. “Or something?”
“Yeah,” I said, grabbing my bottle and taking a sip. “I’ll let you know.”
The second week, I didn’t sleep more than thirteen hours. The vesi continued to sustain me in the way that water should’ve. I sparred with Yuki, and when Azaire pushed me to talk, I pushed him away.
The third week, I didn’t sleep more than thirteen hours. The vesi was my only source for something that felt sort of like sanity. The stubble had grown into a full beard along my jaw and the bags under my eyes looked like bruises. I avoided mirrors, and with them people. It would do no good for the kingdom to let anyone see me in such a state. I hid myself for my family and my position.
Then Kai came to me, begging me to save her. The girl that has my sister in a coma. Yet, there I was, following the prince of Lorucille and putting out a fire she started. Telling myself I was doing it to conserve the thing that can offer me the most answers.
Here’s the kicker though, Cynthia couldn’t put out the fire. Cynthia, the woman who taught me everything I know, couldn’t put out a fire from an untrained Fire Folk.
If my mental alarm bell wasn’t already ringing, that would’ve set it off.
That day I felt true fear when I looked into Desdemona’s eyes. Not the kind that I should have. Not in the way that I wish to.
I had to look away, I had to run—because in those moments I knew that one day my eyes would fall on her and I would never be able to move them again. I would be incapacitated like a bug to nectar. Bound to her. Frozen in her warmth that holds the world I only ever got to glimpse.
I’ve never known hunger, but for the first time, I feel it. Unlike a pit in my stomach that is easily remedied with food, this is something that cannot be satiated. This is something that cannot be put into order. Because there is no order to my heart, beating like the wings of a bird encaged.
And if I wasn’t so eager for hers—in my hand to rupture or to revere, I have not yet decided—I think I’d envy her. For she is the only person who has ever returned my wit tenfold.
The fourth week, I didn’t sleep more than thirteen hours. I’m pretty sure my blood was made of vesi at that point. I continued to avoid mirrors, and with them people, until I got the call. Lusia and Labyrinth wanted me in the kingdom.
I put myself back together like a broken vase. With nothing but glue, I cut the mess that was the flop of hair on my head, shaved my scruffy jaw, and even found concealers for the bags beneath my eyes that looked like bruises.
Then I had to give up my standing avoidance of mirrors and people.
I met Lusia and Labyrinth in the throne room. Lusia kissed my cheeks and Labyrinth clasped my shoulders. The former threw around words like “darling,” while the latter called me “son.”
I knew what would happen—the same thing that always happens. They were going to ask me to do something I’d be forced to accept while disdaining at the same time. They’d force me to do something that makes it harder to look myself in the eye. At least I would be ready for it, I thought. At least I would protect those who are important to me.
After an exhausting boast of niceties, Lusia dropped the ball. A thousand-pound ball, that was about to make it impossible for me to swim.
“Lilac is healed,” she said, “her physical injuries, that is.”
“What does that mean?” I asked, too eagerly, too emotionally for Lusia’s liking.
“It means that there’s something else keeping her from waking,” Labyrinth said. He had the decency to act discomforted.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, well Desdemona already has, hasn’t she? But fool me three times, I would make sure that was an impossibility.
I stood by Desdemona, lie after lie. I took a man’s death as my own, for her. I’ve scarred my very soul for eternity. Every time I close my eyes, I’m watching a man’s world who simply tried to feed his family, then I’m feeling him die. Always and forever, for her. Because of her.
I watched her in a vision, looking at a moonaro like the thing was human, days before a moonaro attacked my sister.
If something was keeping Lilac asleep beyond her wounds, it had to be Desdemona.
“We need you to bring her to us,” Lusia said. “We can’t let the,” she wiggled her fingers with a look of disgust on her face, “others,” she spat the word like a slur, “talk.”
Others, as in those less than her, which means everyone. She is the queen of the strongest world in Elysia. A world that values the woman’s input and intuition above the man’s. There is no one above. Her throne is too high for tantalizing.
I did what she asked, because there is never another option. I brought Lilac to Soma, and that was when Lusia instructed me to hand her over to Piphany. She wasn’t even going to take her daughter to the infirmary, she was going to have her advisor do it.
“No,” I said, holding tight onto Lilac. “I’ll take her.” I looked at Piphany. “You’ll follow me.”
Piphany scoffed.
“Darling, there is no need for theatrics.” Lusia laid her hand on my back and pushed me. “We’ll go together.”
That was when I knew she was up to something. I knew I wouldn’t like it, and I knew I was screwed, right then and there. My only concern was for Lilac.
Surely enough, we were—screwed, that is—because when we made it to the room that was prepared for Lilac, I saw the faint shimmer that comes with a Light Folk’s barrier. Once she goes in there, she’s not coming out, not without being electrocuted at least half to death.
Not until Lusia is ready to let her out.
While I held Lilac, I asked, “You’re locking her away?”
“For her own good, darling,” she said, her voice chillingly devoid of emotion. “We need to make sure she is betrothed as soon as she wakes up, without trouble. She’s never been as,” her cold hand settled on my cheek, “compliant as you.”
I must’ve shown signs of fight in my eyes, because the next thing she did was look down at Lilac, pulling the life force from her.
I knew I’d be willing to die if it’d save her. Dying that day would’ve only doomed her. Doomed Azaire, and my entire reasoning for doing everything I’ve done in life thus far. Dooming the very reason I’ve been so compliant.
I looked at my sister, unconscious, defenseless, and now dying. I made a choice that, like so many others, I’m scared I will never be able to wipe from my conscience. I handed Lilac to Piphany, then I lived with the disgust and my deepest fear—that I will only ever be allowed to survive under their hands.
“And, Lucian, darling?” Lusia said. “Get to class. We have appearances to uphold.”
I got more droozed than ever that evening, and when I was slightly more sober, I went to Cynthia. The first thing I did was fall in the davenport and began laughing uncontrollably. Then I pulled the silver flask from my coat pocket and took a sip, sliding it over to her from across her wide, mahogany desk. She poured herself a glass. I took another sip and briefly thought it may have been one too many.
I was still laughing when Cynthia said, with caring eyes on me, “I’m ready to listen when you’re ready to talk.”
“Perhaps I should just–just,” I laughed and laughed and threw up my hands, “kill them all!”
“We can work toward it,” Cynthia said, and she sounded much more levelheaded than me. It wasn’t the first time I’ve heard her speak treason.
I ran my hands through my already messy hair and drank even more vesi. The rest of the evening is mostly a blur, and I made a very rash decision in this blur. “I’ve let myself become consumed with the notion of revenge. What happens once I have it?”
Lusia continues to control my life? I continue to find pointless ventures to distract myself?
There’s one question that looms over me more than most, at least lately: will I always feel that man’s death when I close my eyes?
“Revenge won’t be your salvation,” she told me. “But it’s a step toward it.”
“And yet, it’s all I have left to hope for.” If I can’t have freedom, I will have vengeance.
“Everything is more connected than we believe.” She pulled a loose thread from the blue curtain of her window, weaving it through her fingers. “Isa was taken to the void the day Desdemona showed up. You tracked her, and eight—nine days later, the corenths are attacking all over the universe, but not here. Not yet. And when the corenths do make it here, they go to Desdemona, but don’t attack. They go to Lilac, and they do attack. Now, that’s suspicion enough except for one key detail: Lilac took the creature’s life force.
“I’ve been on this universe for well over two hundred years, and I’ve seen that there are no accidents, no coincidences. Life is like a spider’s web, intricately woven together, one string at a time, to create something bigger. Something with the propensity of being understood.” Between her hands was a web of thread. “Like a web, there is one starting point, one thing pulling the strings,” she said with a smile. “Now, you’re thinking it might be Desdemona, but you’re forgetting a vital string. Isa is in the void because of a weapon she created. And why did she create it? Because Willow knew something more happened to my girls.”
“You don’t think Desdemona’s responsible,” I said.
“We won’t know until we look back,” she said, raising both her eyebrows at me with a small tip of her head.
“Message received,” I answered.
Loud and clear.
“But she’s certainly a string. A dangerous one at that. Survivor’s have the habit of letting others lie first. Don’t let her travel too far.”
More or less, those are the circumstances that have led me back to the mountain region of Lorucille. I’ve been here every day for the better part of a week, watching the welders come in and out of their steel-reinforced cave. Once a day, the doors open for five minutes. Four welders come out and four go in. They work in twenty-four-hour shifts, and it’s always the same eight men working, four at a time.
Today, when that steel door pulls open, I run, knowing what’s at stake if Queen Melody or King Easton find out I was here. I slide under the door. Once I gain my feet, two Fire Folk are in front of me, holding iron poles in their hands.
There’s no time for idle chat before they swing. The iron is smoldering, the heat coming from their hands when it passes an inch from my cheek. Shadows move from me, and I unsheathe the sword on my back. To combat the heat, I wrap the sword in shadows before I swing.
The iron snaps on impact, and I bring the armed man to his tippy toes, wrapping shadows around his neck.
“Now, boys, we can go about this civilly,” I flash a smile, “can’t we?”
The other two Folk are looking down from the main room—the only room—where the weapon is held in the middle. I try to get a good look, though I get pulled back into a fight against a burly man and his smoldering fist that slams into my jaw.
The smell of my burning flesh singes my nostrils.
I duck against his next swing and punch him in the stomach, then twice in the face. The man I’m asphyxiating with shadows is trying to choke his words out. I decide to let the burly man meet his friend, stringing him up with my shadows as well.
The other Folk and Freyr start toward me, their hands alight a deep and glowing orange. “I could kill your men with a twist of my fingers,” I warn. “I’m only here to collect Freyr.”
Freyr looks around conspicuously, and the little guy is still trying to talk. I take back my shadows and he plummets to the ground, out of breath.
“He’s the prince of Soma.” He holds onto his neck while he pants like a corenth.
“Yes,” I draw the word out. “It is I. If you’ll allow me to see the weapon and collect Freyr, I’ll be but a moment.”
“I’m sorry, Your Majesty, but we’re under strict instruction to not let anyone pass,” the Folk next to Freyr says.
“Let’s put it this way.” I clap my hands and dare a smile. “You spare the man and some of your time, and I will spare your heads when I am crowned king.”
“Or we could take yours,” Freyr says. “Here and now.” His eyes turn orange, and I become keenly aware of the tension in my bones coming from holding the burly man without choking him to death.
I take in Freyr’s stature, certainly twice times my size. Perhaps almost thrice. “If you want a rematch, I won’t be so inclined to keep it to physical combat.” I tighten my hold around the burly man’s neck, and he makes a deeply unpleasant sound.
This is it—the moment I may find out how far I am willing to go for answers. If any of them are to swing right now, I don’t believe I will be leaving this room without spilling blood. Though I can’t spill Freyr’s.
“Choose wisely,” I warn. “Friend.”
Freyr swings for my already burnt face with an already smoldering fist. The other two men advance on me as well, one of them equipped with another burning rod that comes for my side. I move out of the way in time, but I do take a burning punch to my other side.
I tighten my hold on the burly man, snapping his neck so I can ease the tension in my shoulders. I slice the previously choking man across the chest, producing a flow of blood. Then I sneak into Freyr’s subconscious while I struggle to fight off the other man.
I punch, not well enough, because he catches my fist while I’m trying to root myself into Freyr’s mind, who certainly knows what I am doing, as he’s able to fight it. If this were his first—or even fifth—time he wouldn’t have the faintest idea of what I’m trying to do. Failing to do, apparently.
His fist breaks the nose I just had fixed after Desdemona. I punch him once, twice, then I tie his wrists together with shadows while I root myself to the other Folk’s mind. He’s easier to subdue.
“Open the door.”
The man whose mind I’m currently playing with walks to what I’m guessing is a control panel.
Freyr kicks me in the stomach, forcing me into the steel door with enough force that I hear something crack. I see the man I sliced across the chest crawling across the room.
Toward the weapon.
“What are you doing?” Freyr yells, running to the control panel.
“Opening the door,” the man says absentmindedly.
“Have you lost your bloody mind?”
I let those two work it out and run to the main room. To the weapon. It’s twice the size as it was when Azaire was here. If they’ve made this much progress in three months, what design number are they on?
What in the worlds is it made to do now?
I slide beneath the weapon, looking for anything that could tell me what the power source is. There’s no signs.
I run back to Freyr, who still fights the man I’m controlling despite his tied wrists. I kick the bleeding man on my way, as I am unsure of what his goal of making it to that room is, and I’d rather not find out. I grab Freyr’s restrained arm, prepared to pull him with me, and he headbutts me in my already broken nose. My eyes tear until my vision is taken from me.
“Open the damn door!” I shout, though saying it to the man’s subconscious would’ve been enough.
“If he does, the crown will be alerted!” Freyr yells at me. “We only have clearance to open it once a day.”
I instruct the man to open the door as I wrap Freyr entirely in shadows. “Luckily for your comrades, they’ll only think it’s you who ran.”
The steel door opens, and I pull him out by hand. It’d be much simpler to use whatever pulling technique Lusia used against me. I drag him to the river—where I see the burns taking over both sides of my jaw—and we portal directly to the dungeon Cynthia gave me the key to. Then I shove him—not so gently—into a cell.
“The weapon,” I say. “What’s the power source?”
Freyr spits on the ground.
“The power source.” I clench my jaw. Freyr does nothing but stare at me blankly. “Not to worry, I have other questions. Such as… Isa Althenia!” His eyes widen, but he says nothing. “What’s your relation to her?” I crouch down so we’re at eye level. “Ever, I don’t know…” I shrug. “Conceived a child?”
Freyr spits again. “What do you want from me?”
“Answers.”
“Well, I’m not talkin’.” He shakes his head with a little smirk.
“And I’m not above torturing you.” I can feel my eyes flare.
He sweeps his eyes over me, stopping at my bloody, broken nose. “Been through worse than you.”
Lusia?Is that how he deflected me from entering his subconscious?
“You say that now.” I rise to my feet and my shadows rise with me. They circle him, forcing his mouth open and entering his body. They’ll freeze him from the inside out if I’m not careful. “Scream when you’re ready to talk.” When he begins to dry heave, I say, “Or at least try.”