Chapter 32
An eerie light filters through the material of the tent. I scrub my eyes. Sleepiness still clings to my lashes. To my side, Moe is sleeping peacefully, and I can’t bear to wake her.
Carefully, I make my way out.
The light is entirely too vivid; too artificial. No place in Tartareia is this bright. Naturally, I’m curious about its origins.
The beam of light converges to a point beyond the campsite; next to a cluster of trees.
As I step into the patch of forest, the first thing I see is a red figure. This time, however, her body is not draped in flowing blood. A red veil covers her from head to toe, obscuring any detail that might render her recognizable.
The Scarlet Lady.
She’s sitting comfortably on a bent tree trunk as if it were a chaise. Her head rests on her hand as she watches me—or, at least, I think she is.
“You’re finally here,” she says in a high-pitched voice. “Do come in. I’ve been waiting for you.”
At that, I frown.
“You’ve been waiting for me?”
Memories of her previous presence trickle through my brain. I remember her now but somehow I lacked this knowledge before I went to sleep.
“You’re right,” she says without me speaking. “You will not remember most of what happens here. It will stay only between us. For now.”
“I don’t understand—”
“You don’t have to.” She laughs.
“Who are you? And why are you always appearing before me?”
She makes a clicking sound with her tongue as she blows air against her veil. “Who am I? It’s a little too early for you to know. But I’m a friend.”
“A friend?” I snort. “Didn’t you warn me of my doom? What were your words? That I always make the worst choices?”
She lets out a loud laugh. “You remember that because I will it, so be a good boy and don’t throw it in my face. I was doing you a service.”
“Service? Lady, I don’t know you and frankly I don’t think I want to.”
“Such harsh words, Nykander. Didn’t I tell you? I’m a friend. Consider my other visits…a warning. Yes, look at them as a warning. I’m looking out for you.” She nods to herself.
“And how are you doing that? Do tell me, friend,” I say mockingly.
“I’m teaching you lessons about yourself. Come, sit by me.” She suddenly moves to a sitting position, scooting over on the tree trunk and motioning for me to sit next to her.
Perhaps I shouldn’t. But a part of me is curious. She’s both foreign and familiar and I can’t put my finger on what that means to me.
It could be a trap—that, I know. She could be someone sent by my mother to torment me before ultimately killing me. The options are endless.
And yet…
I walk to the tree trunk and sit next to her.
Her veil flutters in the wind, each breeze carrying with it a sweet scent.
I gulp down uncomfortably and place a bit of distance between us. She notices and snorts at me.
“So prim and proper.” She chuckles. “I must say, this version of you is quite striking. If I did not know it was you, I would have never believed it.”
“What are you talking about? What version?”
“Do you consider yourself a good person, Nykander?” She suddenly asks.
I purse my lips. “I don’t know. I don’t think there’s such a thing as a good person. But I’ve been told I am by someone I trust, so in a way, I suppose I am?”
“Such a roundabout answer,” she teases with a laugh. “Why don’t you think there’s such a thing as a good person?”
“I haven’t seen much of it.” I shrug. “People are generally bad on account of being people. The existence of the self creates the basic requirement for being selfish.”
“I can’t argue with you there.” She nods. “You’re young, but you have quite a philosophical outlook on life.”
“I don’t think age matters much when you accumulate experience fast. Some people live a thousand lives in one. Others barely live one.”
“Hmm,” she purrs. “What about the person you trust? If you don’t believe there’s goodness in the world, then that person must not qualify as such either.”
My lips stretch into an instinctive smile as I think of Moe.
“She’s good to me. That’s all that matters. I don’t care if she’s bad to others. Honestly, she should be bad to them so she doesn’t get walked on. But as long as she’s good to me, she’s the embodiment of good.”
“And if she betrayed you? If one day she turned against you, what would you do?” Her voice is breathless, almost as if she’s salivating over that answer.
“Perhaps I deserve it. If one day she decides to betray me, I won’t blame her. I’ll just blame myself for not being better,” I answer honestly.
“Are you sure you’re not idealizing her? You seem to talk about a paragon of virtue not an actual person?”
That makes me smile, because I’ve asked myself that question before. And there is only one answer I came up with. “She is a paragon of virtue to me, so I treat her as such.”
I don’t know what reply I expected from the Scarlet Lady, but her soft laugh wasn’t it. She brings her fully gloved hand to her mouth, muffling her laugh.
“Ah, Nykander, you’re quite perfect, aren’t you?” She adds drily. “Such an innocent little soul. You would have made such a perfect main character, you know.”
“Main character? What are you talking about?”
“If only you stayed like this. Forever. But you are right about something. People are selfish. And your greed will just grow. Even now, you feel it, don’t you? That restlessness… Nothing is enough.”
I want to protest against her words, yet how can I when it’s like she’s holding a mirror to my face?
“You’re right. It’s not enough. I want to do more, be more. I want to be worthy of her.”
She tsks. “Such a nice pretext. Everything is for her, no?”
“Of course. I want to be strong enough to protect her, to earn money and give her the life she deserves.”
“And if it wasn’t for her?”
“I probably would have continued on with my life.” I shrug. “It wasn’t bad but it was lacking.”
“So what you’re saying is that when she came into your life, it became even more lacking?”
“No, no! You’re twisting my words. When she came into my life she showed me just how lacking my life had been.
I isolated myself and in a way I was content to live the rest of my life as a hermit.
But she showed me what it was like to yearn for someone’s company, to do things because it pleases the other person not because it pleases you.
She showed me that I had become complacent, and I realized I did not like that about myself.
I did not like the future I was heading towards. ”
“You exchanged it for an even worse future.” She chuckles cynically.
“I don’t understand your cryptic words.”
“You don’t have to. You will understand when the time is right.”
“And when is that?” I ask with a roll of my eyes.
“When I will it.”
Everything she’s said until now has been ambiguous and rather ominous, hinting to a dark future. A part of me wonders if this isn’t some manifestation of my mind; of the stain that is my birth and the prophecy it evoked.
Maybe my connection to Rheus and Rhea goes deeper than I thought.
The words from that forbidden book flash in my mind: Urteos’s wretched fate and his subsequent doom.
He, too had been born during the eclipse; and he too had fallen to its curse.
But it hadn’t affected only him. It had reverberated through time and space for generations to come.
He’d brought upon chaos and to chaos he’d succumbed.
Is that to be my fate, too?
“Perhaps,” the Scarlet Lady answers, though I have not spoken anything aloud.
“You… You can read my mind?” I gulp down.
She nods. “I can see everything. The spoken and unspoken. And I can see what plagues your mind.”
“Is it true then? Am I truly cursed?”
“That is for you to figure out,” she replies. “The key to destruction is within you. How you use it… It will depend on you.”
“What key?”
“You read parts of that book, though you were not supposed to,” she adds, her voice amused. “You saw what became of Urteos. All he wanted was power. He chased it until he lost sight of everything else.”
“He went mad,” I whisper.
“He did. Your kind is an abomination, Nykander. It is chaos itself. Some manage to regulate it. Others give in. And the stronger you are, the more destructive that chaos becomes, and the harder it is to control.”
“I’ll keep that in mind when I start cultivating,” I say quietly.
It is widely known that the higher a Tartareian’s level is, the harder it becomes to control their chaotic core.
The Sons of Tenebreis are at the peak, but as strong as they are, they are also unpredictable.
They also need more and more energy to keep themselves in check—more souls.
One of the many reasons why the War Department monitored them so closely.
“What if you don’t start cultivating?”
“Huh?” I turn toward her, my eyes wide.
“You’re scared you might fulfill the prophecy of your birth. There is only one solution. Don’t cultivate. Stop everything. Go live however long you have left with your mortal sweetheart. Do that and you’ll never worry about becoming like Urteos.”
“But—”
“It’s really simple,” she says in a light voice.
“I will die…”
“Everyone dies at one point. You might die, that is true. But so will your mortal sweetheart. This way, you can be with her until the end of both your lives. Isn’t that quite romantic?”
“No!” I answer immediately. “That’s too little time, too—”
“Too little? Mortals only have that time, and they manage quite fine.”
“No.” I shake my head. “I—”
“So you will watch your sweetheart die?”
“She will live. With me. We’re both going to live. I will find a way,” I state resolutely. “I don’t believe I should be satisfied with the bare minimum. We can have more—we can have everything!”
A burst of laughter erupts from her.
“And that is your issue, Nykander. You want everything, but what are you willing to sacrifice?”
“…”
“Everything, too?” She asks, her voice dropping a notch.
“Everything but her,” I whisper. “I will sacrifice everything but her.”
“But if it comes a time where the sacrifice required is her?”