20. Hall of Memories #3
Darien’s other hand cupped Lovisa’s face. He took a steadying breath. “I think you’re more beautiful than the morning and stronger than the seas. When you take your place as Princess, your kingdom will be better for it. And I ...”
“Yes?” she breathed out.
“If you’ll let me, I’ll be by your side through it all. Neither the AEsir nor the Jotnar could ever come between us.” He leaned in, lowering his face to meet her rising lips Lovisa’s eyes slid shut.
“Lovisa, Darien, are you coming?” Anara called.
The intimacy of the moment vanished as their bodies froze, their lips only inches from meeting. Darien released a low chuckle and muttered, “Perfect timing.” In a louder voice, he called, “Coming!”
But neither of them moved until Darien tilted up his chin and brushed his lips across Lovisa’s forehead. “Next time, Princess.”
Larissa felt the flush that burned in Lovisa’s cheeks. Darien straightened his shoulders and offered his arm, the perfect picture of propriety. “Ready, Lov?”
She placed her hand on his, slightly entwining their fingers. “I’m ready, Dar.”
His eyes softened, and he led her from the room.
Released from the memory, Larissa looked away. The room faded from her view, but Darien’s phantom touch remained.
She found herself in the same hallway as before, with doors on either side. Voices called to her from behind each one, beckoning for her to listen and learn.
What was the point? She had already determined what it was that Halla had asked her to learn.
She had once been the Princess of Perle.
It left a bitter taste in her mouth, although she could not say why.
These memories were laced with guilt—a guilt that rose within her, a guilt she did not want to release.
She could leave this place. She could return to reality and refuse to remember any more.
But then she would have to face Halla. Of course, Halla would love to hear that Larissa was the Princess, but she wouldn’t think of the cost. How would the Empress punish Halla if she learned that Larissa was actually Lovisa?
It would be better for Larissa to forget all of this, to pretend she didn’t remember. Then Halla might actually stay safe.
Larissa grasped the ring, knowing that if she removed it, she would wake up.
Then stopped. Safe? The draugr had already proven that to be impossible.
Even if they joined the resistance, there was no promise of protection there.
Would they demand that Larissa accept her past as Princess?
Would they throw them out if she did not?
Anara had said otherwise, but there was no guarantee.
Larissa’s ignorance had already been Pappa’s and Mamma’s downfall. No, if she was going to protect Halla, she would have to know the truth, or at least enough of it. She shoved the ring back, feeling the frustration pouring through her. Beneath her, the ground quivered and shook.
Were there earthquakes in memories?
Larissa’s fingers drifted across the wooden doors, dipping in and out of the carved runes.
She was searching for something, even if she did not know what it was.
Finally, there was one door. It stood slightly ajar, and it squeaked open at Larissa’s barest touch.
Through the doorway, she thought she could hear the quiet sound of crying.
Stepping into the room, Larissa immediately recognized it from her dreams. A loom sat in the center of the large, windowless room, but it held no tapestry this time.
There was, however, a fireplace and a small sitting area where the Princess sat huddled against the couch.
Rather than her finery, she wore simple pants and a shirt with long sleeves she used to wipe at her cheeks.
Without her royal regalia, Larissa was struck by the similarities in their appearance. It was like looking into a mirror.
When the door creaked open again, Lovisa sniffed and looked up. Her hands fell to her lap and, for the first time, Larissa noticed that she was holding three letters. The ink was smeared, bleeding through the paper.
Stjarna rushed across the floor, skirts rustling, as she sat next to her daughter. “Lovisa, what is it?”
The Princess handed over the letters. “Your plan won’t work, Móeir. Rubin is overcome with insurgents. Anara writes that she’ll come when her parents have regained control of her kingdom, but she says to not wait for her.”
“What of the other two letters?”
“They’re both from Darien. The first says that he must wait for Aeron’s return before he can come. The second—” she stopped as another tear escaped out the corner of her eye. “He says that only one of Aeron’s men returned from the last battle. Smaragd has fallen. Aeron is dead.”
Lovisa collapsed into her mother’s lap. Stjarna brushed back the hair from her face as emotions chased themselves in the Queen’s eyes. There was anger and sadness, but most of all, there was fear.
Stjarna raised her daughter’s face, one hand cupped under her chin.
“We’ll mourn all of our losses one day, and we’ll honor them.
If anything, this proves that we have run out of time.
Your father and I had hoped that we could turn back the tide so that this did not all fall on you, but the Norn were right. Of course they were.”
“Me? What are you talking about?”
The ground shook again, and Larissa nearly fell from the force of the tremor. Neither the Queen nor the Princess acknowledged it.
“Lovisa, there is so much that I should have told you. Your grandmother Rúna had a vision—”
“That the peace would end. I know, Móeir. That’s why you’ve kept me hidden all my life.”
“There’s more to it than that. She had a vision that our bloodline would be involved not only in the destruction of the old regime, but in the creation of a new one.
I hoped that responsibility would fall to me, but I always knew that it would have to be you.
After Shiko’s coronation, your father and I stopped in the Smaragd forests before coming home. ”
Another rumble. The tile beneath Larissa’s feet shattered. The cracks grew in width, running the length of the floor and up the walls, separating Larissa from Stjarna and Lovisa. What was happening? Was the memory broken?
“Myrkvier Forest?” The Princess’ voice faded in Larissa’s ears.
The tile in front of Larissa fell, revealing a bottomless pit below. Another tile followed suit, and another. The abyss crept toward her feet. Larissa could not hear Stjarna’s reply over the crumbling of the floor and the roar of the growing earthquake in her ears.
Heart pounding, Larissa fled back into the hallway, slamming the door behind her.
A crack splintered the door right up the middle then leapt from the door to the stone wall, traveling up toward the ceiling of the hallway.
The world shook with renewed fury. Larissa watched in horror as the crack raced along the ceiling, branching off at every new door to splinter the wood beneath it. The entire palace was coming apart.
“Kings and Queens!” Larissa exclaimed, one hand on the wall to steady herself. She gripped the ring, but it was stuck as though burned into her skin.
“Why are you running?”
Queen Stjarna stood in front of her, oblivious to ground shaking beneath their feet and the cracks that spiraled down the hall as chunks of ceiling fell to the ground.
“What’s happening?” Larissa shouted over the roar in her ears.
“This place holds your past, Lovisa, and it’s being destroyed.”
“Who’s destroying it?”
“You are.”
“What?” Larissa ducked as another piece of stone fell beside her. “I’m not doing this.”
“You are by rejecting your past.”
“I haven’t! I can admit it. I was the Perle Princess.”
Stjarna shook her head as, for the first time, she too was shaken by the quake.
The Queen placed a hand against the wall to steady herself.
“It is not that you were the Princess, Lovisa, it is that you are . Understanding that makes all the difference. If you cannot accept your role in the past, then you will never accept your role in what is to come.”
“How am I supposed to do that?”
Queen Stjarna gestured to another door, the only door that remained whole and unbroken. The Dagaz rune, etched into the center of the wood, seemed to burn. Larissa yanked the handle, but the door would not budge.
She groaned in frustration. “It’s locked.”
“It will be until you accept who you are.”
“This is ridiculous!” she shouted over the next quake that rolled through the corridor. “I’ve already told you that I accept who I was, but that’s not me anymore. I’m Larissa, daughter of Dal and Vern, sister to Halla; I can’t just forget all of that either.”
Queen Stjarna raised a delicate eyebrow in response.
“Oh, forget this!” Larissa snatched her hand away from the door and took a step back, raising her leg and kicking at it with all her might. The door shuddered but remained closed. She tried again.
“That won’t work.”
Stjarna walked toward her, and Larissa noted the thin blood trailing from her nose just as it had done so many times before in her nightmares. Another shift of the ground caused Larissa to fall forward into the Queen’s arms.
The blood was flowing more heavily now. Larissa stared in morbid fascination. “Why does this keep happening to you?”
Stjarna touched her nose, then stared at the blood on her finger as though unsurprised by its presence. “I gave up everything so that you could live. I don’t regret any of it.”
The rumble reached its crescendo as a final loud crack reverberated through the tile, shattering the ground into hundreds of pieces. The floor beneath them gave way. Then Queen Stjarna was gone, and Larissa was falling, falling, falling into the blackness.