Chapter 14 A Woman and A Stone
A Woman and A Stone
Desdemona
S
he’s gone.
I stare at the last spot where I saw my mom. The last spot I’ll ever see her.
I reach for the empty air, my hands shaking.
She’ll never remember me.
A hard hand lands on my back, knocking the wind out of me. I raise a shoulder to shrug him off, but Mial’s voice is so gentle that I freeze.
“There’s power in your choice, child. There is ease in keeping a bird confined, yet no bound being can love you as truly as a free one.”
No. She wasn’t confined. I mean, she was literally—but she wasn’t confined to me, was she?
“She loved me the best she could,” I say. But I don’t know if I’m saying it to him, or trying to convince myself.
“Yet it was not what you needed.” He rubs my back, his touch soft.
I shake my head, rising to my feet and stepping away from him.
“Do you trust me?” Mial asks, catching me off guard. Something in his tone compels me to be honest. Is that what all this has been—his gentle words and tattoos, just a way to earn my trust?
I pick at the sleeves of my shirt, considering a lie. But I doubt he’d believe me if I said yes. So, I answer, “No.”
“Would you trust me, were I to send you home?”
My pulse surges, my chest tight.
Home. The thought both excites and scares me. Home. It’s both real and not—I was born in Folkara, but I’m not sure I consider it home. Yet one thing weighs heavier in my mind than everything else.
“Will they remember me?” I ask.
Mial smiles, but it’s an empty expression that quickly turns into a frown. “No. Only that which cast the spell can undo it.”
But it can be undone.
“Who cast it?” I do that foolish thing again—I let myself hope.
I’m laughing with Lucian while he teaches me to dance, walking into the ballroom with Aralia. Leiholan jumps in front of the kapha to save me.
I can have them back.
“It’s not so simple as a who,” Mial says.
“Then what?” I ask.
Mial sighs, shifting on his feet. “A woman and a stone. My wife, and my punishment.”
I step away, watching every micro-movement he makes—the twitch of his hand, the depth of his frown, and the moment when his gaze meets mine before quickly shying away.
That would mean this entire thing—my life’s woes—are because of a lover’s quarrel, that my suffering is threaded through his.
“What did you do?” My voice stays low—if I raised it, I don’t know what would escape me.
“I loved another before her, and such love never ceases.” He looks at me again, his lips curling slightly. “My wife Aurora was a Phoenician; my true love, a Lyrian.”
I take a deep breath.
He lost the people he loved, too—stolen from him by The Void.
“So… how did Aurora do it?” I ask.
How did she make a universe forget a person?
Mial nods, as if he recognizes the inevitability of this conversation. “She was power itself—bred from the strongest Phoenician line. Imagine, then, what she could do when she got her hands on the Soul Ruby.”
Slowly—cautiously—I stand taller, asking, “Do you think if I found the Soul Ruby, I could use it? Bring back the memories?”
It’s a ridiculous question. The chances I could find the Soul Stone from a dead world are slim to none.
But Mial says, “Perhaps.”
It’s enough for me. I have to try.
I turn to the doorway with a new hope. Nothing is promised. I have no idea how I’ll do it—but maybe I can. Just maybe.
“Be careful,” Mial says from behind me. I glance back. His arms are crossed over his chest, his eyes narrow. “Sleep on the thought, give it time before you return and make your choice.”
Before you return. So it’s a promise. But I’m not sure I want to go at all, to face the people I lost. Where would I go? Back to the Welding Village? Visnatus?
“You’re not going to kill me again?” I ask. Mial’s eyebrows furrow. “For training,” I add.
Mial takes a small step back, frowning as he shifts his weight between his feet. “Your training is finished.”
“But I haven’t beat you.”
“No, you have not,” he sighs, touching a light finger to his chest. “Though I cannot bear to see you dead another time.”
My throat tightens, and I look away. He cares. I promised not to grow attached to another person, but what if it’s beyond my control?
“Come,” Mial says, offering me his hand. “I’ll walk you to your room.”
I place my hand in his, wondering what will become of this when I’m back home.
?
The air gets colder as I walk into my room. The doorknob is nearly frozen as I close my door. But it’s not my room I’m in. I’m nowhere—a shimmering, unsettling kind of nowhere. An emptiness that makes my stomach lurch. I’m scared if I take one more step, I’ll fall.
Death, I’d come back from. But this would be oblivion.
I turn away, opening my mouth to call for Mial, but I hardly make it a step. The shimmering—the emptiness—reminds me of the woman I saw in the library.
I turn back around. My hand moves before I think—reaching forward, through the veil. It’s slimy and biting. It freezes my skin, but there’s something on the other side. I can feel it.
Pulling my hand back, my fingers shimmer with the remnants of the iridescent glow, as if steeped in some ancient magic. Frostbite seeps into my bones.
It should hurt, I’d think at least, but it’s nearly comforting. Once, there was a fire in me. The cold, though opposite the heat, is welcome. I’ve missed the feeling of intensity, wherever it comes from.
I make a rash decision and step through the shimmering slime. On the other side is a room as cold as Ilyria. It kind of looks like Ilyria, with the same blue, white, and silver stone making up the floor and walls, and the same cool-toned lights.
The room is small and narrow, but at the end of the long path is a glass tank. Something waits inside, and I step forward, the image sharpening like wiping fogged glass.
It’s the woman.
Like before, she doesn’t move or breathe. But this time, she isn’t in a painting. She’s standing in front of me, three-dimensional. Her lips are blue, like her veins, and her eyelids are shut and pale—but not as pale as her hair and eyebrows, which are the purest white I’ve ever seen.
It’s the shell of a woman, and as I stare at her, I search for any sign of breath. There’s nothing in her lungs. She doesn’t move at all.
My steps grow hungry, starved. I want to see more of her—to know her. I watch her, entranced, forgetting I have a body to move. I would walk to her with or without my mind commanding my limbs—
“Desdemona?”
The world snaps back. Color rushes in like blood returning to a limb. The room is warmer now, the chill gone, and so are the pale blue lights.
I turn.
Icarthus is standing at the door, his hands clasped behind his back. But Mial is nowhere to be found.
“Are you well?” Icarthus asks.
I glance back, but the woman is gone. Everything is. It’s just my room—red and warm again, with Mial nowhere in sight.
“I once watched Mial struggle with a similar plight,” Icarthus says, his footsteps drawing nearer. “He was able to stop them, and so shall you, in time.”
I meet Icarthus’ gaze, nodding. It was a hallucination, then.
Icarthus offers me a small bow, bidding me goodnight. But I whisper, “Wait,” before he can step out. “You said something to me before—‘sometimes loss is better than love.’” I lick my lips. They feel cold, like I’m still half in the hallucination. “I have to know what you meant.”
Did he mean my mom? She’s gone now. Is it for the better?
I need someone to tell me.
Icarthus takes a step forward, and I’m surprised by the softness in his gaze. “You are not aware of Lucian’s purpose, are you?”
I shake my head.
“You are a dangerous being, Desdemona,” Icarthus says, and my stomach plummets. “Mial may see you as kin, but others see you as destruction. We created Lucian to protect the universe from you.”
I wipe my nose, running from the cold. It feels like everyone sees me the way my mom did. Was she right to do what she did? Am I truly that dangerous?
“You misunderstand us if you think hatred drives us,” Icarthus says softly. “Fear, perhaps. Necessity.”
That makes it no better.
“And what does it mean? He’s meant to protect the universe from me?” I ask, throat raw.
“Your power is special. Different from the rest of us. You are nearly untouchable. Lucian is the remedy.”
A chill creeps up my spine, as cold as the hallucination of the woman.
“Lucian.” The name alone curdles in my mouth. “He’s supposed to kill me?”
“Not supposed to.” Icarthus shakes his head. “Fated to. The only one who can.”
Is that why he pursued me in the beginning? Because of some string of fate?
“Does he know this?” I ask.
“I told him before I brought you here. If he remembers you again, he will remember that, yes.”
I should’ve killed him the day I branded him—no, I don’t know. But letting him live, letting him in, seemed stupid then.
It seems suicidal now.
I nod once to Icarthus, my voice flat as I say, “I bid you a goodnight, as well.”
Icarthus nods as he turns to exit the room, taking with him the last illusion that I’ll ever be safe again.