40 || Seeping Blood and Swords
Blue was the colour of innocence — of life born anew.
There was something about the shade that was inherently pure, as if the touch of stress and darkness were unable to reach it.
Hues of it swirled in two curious spheres in front of Ilyana as sleep blurred her vision, the view of one of them blocked with a strand of purple hair.
It was Viviana.
Every inch of her was perfect, even with the scars that sullied her skin that Ilyana's heart yearned to heal away. She was so close yet so far. It felt as if she was right beside her, even when she knew her twin was in the next life waiting for her.
Viviana's lips quirked up into an awkward grin. "Good morning."
Except, this wasn't a lingering figment of her dreams. She wasn't a comforting memory that she craved to see once more. Her weight dipped the bed, a faint heat emanated from her body, her chest rose and fell with hesitant breaths.
The princess shuffled backwards and screamed, clutching her bedsheets as if they would protect her from what couldn't be real. But she was. It wasn't a haze between reality and a dream. Her sister was alive and inside her bedroom.
Viviana.
The blue eyes widened and she fell off the bed, scurrying underneath the frame as the door flew open.
"What? What's wrong?" Clove questioned when she couldn't find an immediate threat. Her sword was drawn, ready to run through any enemies that stood in her path — just like she had already done with her twin.
"Sorry, I just had a nightmare," she replied, which wasn't a lie. Her dreams had been bedevilled with dragons and curses and death that she couldn't stop, no matter how she tried.
The captain's grip on her sword loosened and she cleared her throat. "Right. I'll, uh, be outside if you need me."
As soon as the door clicked shut and she was sure Clove wouldn't return, Ilyana crawled to the other side of her bed and peered underneath it, slowly raising the blankets obscuring her view.
Amongst boxes of trinkets, she found her sister smiling, rolling what appeared to be fragments of bone over her knuckles.
"Thank the Gods for that," Viviana whispered.
"I didn't want to die again today.
Not yet, anyway." She pulled herself out and sat next to her, all while the princess remained wordless.
Her thoughts were lodged in her throat, unable to believe the sight before her. Reaching out with a finger, Ilyana poked her and found real flesh. "You're alive?" she breathed.
"You thought lobster hair was going to beat me in a fight?" Viviana scoffed. "Don't insult me."
Without thinking, Ilyana tackled her with a hug — encasing her with an iron grip that she could never escape from — and sobbed into her chest. Never had she reckoned she would see her again.
She thought the one chance of having her family reunited had been shattered for good.
Now, her twin was safe in her arms. "I can't lose you again. Not again."
Her sister flinched at the sudden contact, her arms stiff at her sides. But, soon enough, she slipped them out of the princess's embrace to hug her back. "I don't want to ruin the moment, but don't be too loud. We can't have that arsehole out there run me through with her sword again."
Ilyana pulled back and rubbed the tears from her eyes.
Her necklace lurched forward in a surge of blue, almost making her fall on top of her sister.
Viviana's did the same, the kaleidoscope of lilac and cobalt reflecting wondrous shimmers across her room.
Her magic buzzed in her veins, thudding through her heart.
The happiness it felt to be reunited with its other half once more, to be alive again, sent tingles across her skin.
It was back. Even when she backed up further so the crystals weren't magnetised, it still thrummed with joy.
"How? How is this possible? That was the second time I watched you die and yet you're still here."
"I'm a necromancer, Illy. I wield death." There was something proud in her voice until she bit her lip. "That and the Necromancer's Curse is keeping us both alive. There's a lot that needs to be explained and we have very little time." Her gaze fell to the balcony doors and then returned to her.
"Are you leaving already?" The princess had to resist the urge to grab her hands and keep her rooted to the bed.
"No, not yet. But the curse, amongst other things, isn't helping."
Ilyana sighed. "You can say that again. All I've been doing is rushing around — one problem after another — because of it."
A knock rapped at the door and a voice reverberated through it. "Your Highness, your breakfast is ready, if you would like it," a servant announced. "Would you like to take it in the dining hall today?"
She shot Viviana a warning glare and motioned for her to get back under the bed, pushing her towards the edge of the mattress. Only when she was safely hidden did she respond. "No, thank you. I think I'll eat it here this morning."
The servant entered with a steaming plate and a glass of orange juice balanced on his hands. He set them on the nearest table and then bowed before leaving. If he noticed her tear-stained face, he didn't acknowledge it.
Her twin crawled back out, her tongue wetting her lips. "That smells heavenly."
Ilyana arched a brow. "Fried eggs, toast, and bacon?" The plate wasn't as full as it usually was, but she suspected the kitchens were too busy preparing for the ball.
"I don't think I've had bacon since I last lived here." She eyed the crispy meat as if it were her prey and she was hunting it down, prowling around it.
The princess couldn't help but laugh and hold out her plate. "Have some."
Viviana moaned in delight as she swiped it and shoved it straight into her mouth — like something so mundane was the best thing she had ever discovered.
"What do you usually have for breakfast if this brings you joy?"
The purple-haired woman shrugged. "Nothing, I guess. Sometimes I steal a pastry from one of the bakeries if I'm around the main cities of Wyrith, but it's usually too expensive to get in the Lost Abyss. Alongside two other meals and other necessities to stay alive, that is."
Handing her the whole plate, Ilyana frowned. "Have it all."
Ignoring the cutlery conveniently placed on either side, she picked up the egg with her fingers and tore a chunk out of it.
A quirk of a smile appeared on her lips, mirroring her sister's own.
After swallowing her mouthful, her serious expression returned.
"About the Necromancer's Curse. I learnt from a tome used by the previous necromancer queens that we can't die because of it, and the only way to break is for one of us to die. "
Ilyana nodded. "I heard that too from a sorcerer in the island's ruins and, well, that didn't work." She lowered her gaze, pushing away the memories of seeping blood and swords. "Were you there that day? At the tower?"
It all made sense now. The sorcerer had mentioned she had been there moments before they were and they had stubbornly thought that her sister had been captured by the renowned assassin. Only, her twin was Morana The Cursed.
Viviana nodded. "Yeah. I was hiding when you and Clove entered and then I left soon after you both reached the top.
For... reasons." She rubbed the back of her neck.
"The book also told me that we need to be the ones to kill each other or else it won't work.
That's why I've been unable to die." Her sister held her hands up in defence, a piece of buttered toast held in one of them with her fingers smeared with melted gold.
"And I'm not here to kill you, by the way.
But that is why I'm here — I'm trying to break it.
My next lead is in the forbidden part of the library. "
The princess's heart ached. She knew her sister wasn't the monster everyone made her out to be.
Viviana was just like them, trying to break the curse so nobody else would lose their life.
However, a fine needle pushed into her love to hear that she was only here for the library and her assistance. Not for her.
"I can help you with that," she confirmed.
Besides, after the curse was gone, perhaps that would leave them with the chance to rekindle the time they had lost growing up apart.
"I just don't know how you are going to get there.
Clove is outside and she'll be joining me.
She follows me everywhere I go as my personal guard. "
"That's okay." Her twin took a big gulp of orange juice. "I can climb around the outside and use one of the windows to get in. I'll just have to meet you there without a busybody hovering around you, hopefully. I'm just unable to access the keys to open it up."
Ilyana took a deep breath. They were doing this — her and her twin sister. They were going to figure out a way to break the Necromancer's Curse once and for all.
The princess nodded. "Let me get dressed. We've got a library to go to."