Chapter 40 #2
“I wouldn’t want whatever monstrosity the World would concoct—only to be at risk of disappearing should another make a wish.
She wouldn’t be my mother. She’d be what that card thought would be mine.
An amalgamation of magic. A chimera. A hollow monstrosity that only exists in that new world.
A specter that’d vanish like woodsmoke should another wish be made, because she was never real to begin with.
” He drags his eyes to mine and whispers, “I’m sorry. ”
I’m sorry for letting you have any hope. For not telling you explicitly sooner, so you’d help me pursue the World last year. I can fill in the blanks that follow those two words.
I’d thought I’d given up on bringing my mother back with the World—I was looking toward the future.
Yet here I am…wounded and aching at the idea that I can’t.
That even if I changed my mind, the option isn’t there.
Mother, Bristara, Jura…What has been lost to me can never be regained, not even with the mightiest magic.
If they were, it’d be just a fake veneer.
“Would you say none of us are ‘real’ after the World card?” Genuine curiosity creeps into my voice.
“Of course we’re real.” He pauses, clearly musing on how to explain.
“We existed in this world; we’ll exist in the next.
But if we die…if we’re brought back to life…
Where does that soul come from? Where does its casing?
Is the soul the same as it would’ve been?
Or is it merely the idea of what the soul might have been—should have been—in the eye of the wisher? Are its memories true? Would ours be?”
“Does it matter?” I close the gap between us and take his hand. Kaelis continues to stare at the portrait with longing. “If you could have her, could hold her again, does it matter?”
“To me, it would.” He nods. “I never knew her, but I’d like to think she was a woman who would want to see this world keep its forward momentum. That she would not want to be some manifestation of magic, but would want to be real.”
“What are any of us if not manifestations of magic? What else is life?”
Even his amusement looks somewhat sad right now. “How philosophical of you.”
“How does the World’s wish work?” I ask pointedly, not wanting to get my hopes up for anything else I plan to do with it until I am sure I understand it.
“When the twenty golden Majors are assembled at the font of the World and the vessel is presented, the World imbues the vessel with its power—it takes residence within it, if you will. Then, like any card, it can be cast,” he explains.
I appreciate him not deflecting, though I already know all this.
“Once it’s cast, the caster gets a single wish, and it can be anything.
The world will interpret the wish and bend its shape to the new design. ”
“How did your father build all this?” I gesture around us and then to the portrait. “Seems like a lot of changes for one wish.”
“Some claim it is the intention—the vision of the caster, combining with fate’s interpretation of that vision.”
“The World is sentient?”
“Perhaps. Perhaps it’s a force we cannot understand—not quite conscious, but not in the realm of our perception,” he muses. “That may be a question better posed to your friends in the Worldkeepers. They’re supposed to hold such knowledge.”
His eyes drift back to the portrait.
“If your father killed her before he cast the World so she wouldn’t be here, why does her memory still exist in this world?” I whisper, as if saying it softly could make the question easier.
“Who knows. Perhaps my father wanted reminders of his triumph. Or perhaps it was merely how the World decided to manifest his wish.” A pause for a heartbeat.
“Whatever the reason, I’m glad for the remnants of that time.
Glad I still have pieces of her in this world.
It’s all I will ever have of the woman I should’ve known before he took her from me. ”
I’m standing at the edge of an emotional chasm.
A gap between where my pain ends and his begins.
Where he stands is so similar to me, and yet it might as well be a world away.
My mother was also ripped from me. But I knew her smiles, her scent; I can still force myself to recall the sound of her voice.
Kaelis, however? He never knew his mother.
Yet, he wouldn’t try to bring her back. He would endure this over finding comfort in a phantom.
He means it, then. Everything he’s ever said. About the World, his vision, what he wants to use it for…
Every doubt I’ve had about him is at last, fully, completely abandoned. He has been sincere—honest with me the whole time. And what have I given him in return? Deception. Lies. I swallow hard as if I can better stomach my guilt that way.
Let people in, Clara. All of this hurt and struggle is only worth something if you’re fighting for someone at the end of it.
Wordlessly, I reach up, and my hand glides along the edge of his cheek and the sharp line of his jaw. I slowly pull his face toward mine. Kaelis doesn’t resist.
Our lips meet. Gently. Sweetly, even. His hands glide around my waist and pull me closer.
“Stay with me tonight,” he rasps over my mouth.
Without a thought, I reply, “Yes.”