9
“Come on, Little Flower! There’s no need to take everything so seriously!” Nárs’s voice reverberates sharply against the red mud walls. I desperately try to wipe his saliva off my ear.
“Don’t touch me!” I growl at him. He lifts his hands in submission.
“Alright, alright! But follow me and don’t lag behind. So, you have met Léthé before?” he continues, vigorously gesturing with his hand. “Not many survive, you know, if she doesn’t fancy them. That’s what they say nowadays, right? If you don’t like someone? Fancy?”
He stops, puts his hand on my shoulder, his gaze filled with a sincere curiosity that leaves me stuttering.
“Uh… I think so.”
He takes his hand off me.
“I like to stay up to date. You know, to understand everyone’s language,” he explains, before continuing briskly.
“So, Léthé is a witch.” He nods at me slyly, as if expecting me to do the same.
“Of course, witches don’t exist. I just know that you guys use this term for bad people, although everyone here is considered a bad person according to your standards.
If I were you, I’d stay away from her, although I think she’s afraid Darya will kick her out of bed if she harms you. ”
So, I was right. She is jealous of me.
“A piece of advice. Wait, let’s be friends first?” he asks, taking my hand in his. “Good advice from a good friend. Don’t look Sylla in the eye ! She amplifies all your dark desires. Until you go crazy. It tortures you. Of course, sometimes I beg her to do this to me for hours!”
I regard our intertwined hands intensely until Nárs lets go.
“Oh, forgive me, Little Flower. There should not be actual contact, right?”
During the rest of our walk through the tunnel, his speech is inconsistent. He talks about whether I’ve seen Kripot, and how beautiful he is. We don’t move forward until I nod in agreement.
On one of our many stops, he reaches for the straps attached to his thighs, unlocks one compartment, and takes out a fan made of metal. As he unfolds it, I see the spreading spikes of the extended weapon.
“Of course, that foolish Lizander would only use his knives,” he grumbles, fanning himself. “He likes you, you know? Although he’ll never admit it to you.”
“And when is he coming back?”
Nárs pouts.
“If you want to be with him, then you’ll have to wait until tomorrow. I’ll let him sleep until then, but he knows that the Kraldem needs me now, not the boring war counselor.”
“I didn’t find him boring.”
The edges of Nárs’s mouth tremble, and his facial features soften for a moment, but the next moment, it’s as if nothing happened.
“His thoughts alone are enough to rock me to sleep!” he says disdainfully, rolling into genuine anger. “Just strategy. Thinking. Plans. Seriousness. Ah! Here we are!”
We arrive at a thick door. Nárs opens it, and the pleasant chirping of birds welcomes us in the poison-green vine-covered park. We are outdoors. Green plants weave through the space like snakes, accompanied by narcissus. So, this is where my bath oil comes from.
Sharp rock walls stretch around the area like a hand holding the piece of land. I can’t see to the end. The blue sky is beautiful and in the distance, appearing as black dots, fly bats – or demons, perhaps.
It’s as if we’ve arrived in the middle of an oasis; the sun shines white, not as yellowish as would be natural to me. Green vines tightly surround statues that seem to be a thousand years old. In some places, only parts of the carvings are visible.
I stare ahead in bewilderment. Each statue depicts Lizander or Nárs. Some are frozen in a scream, others proudly hold their hand fans towards the sky, their broad chests thrust out.
“Did you carve these yourself?” I ask the demon standing behind me.
“Oh, no!” Nárs’s purple lips twitch, his sun-kissed face showing both lust and hunger at the same time. I gulp audibly and look around.
Rows of mirrors hide among rocks and vines, each reflecting me differently. In one, I wave happily with a graduation cap on my head.
“The Mirror of The Old Life,” Nárs says behind me. “It shows the false desires.”
I bite my lip. It doesn’t feel true. I always wanted to graduate. Makeup interested me more, though.
I move on to the next mirror, where I see myself and Darya, so lifelike that, for a moment, I glance behind, checking if he’s really standing there. But only Nárs is grinning back at me.
By the time I return to the mirror, my reflection is already half-naked. Darya’s lips cling to my neck, and I hear my betrayed moans.
“This shows the future.”
“No!” I shout, vigorously shaking my head. Nárs bursts into laughter.
“Just kidding, Lily Girl!” He wipes away a tear. “It shows the current desire of your body. I wonder who you saw in it. I see blue, muscular arms…”
I decisively step forward when he starts caressing himself.
He must be lying. I know Darya is handsome.
It’s like I can once again feel him dragging his claw down my spine, just like he did while sat on the throne.
It should have scared me, but instead, I only felt warmth.
The way he looked at me flashes before me.
Like no one else has. But he’s a demon. I should keep that in mind.
The mirrors continue. I’d bet they would talk to me as though they’re alive. Rather than my brain, my heart or something deep inside responds.
In the next image, I’m in bed with Nathan.
According to Nárs, it represents my past physical desire.
In another, I am stronger; more muscular, more stable, as if I’m a sportswoman.
With narrowed eyes, I read the writing on the frame.
The mirror of the desire for possibilities.
Could I really be as strong as Darya said?
I pause at the next one, where I sit by my parents’ graves, laughing. Nárs whispers in my ear, and I recoil.
“The desire of your anger.”
There are so many mirrors, I couldn’t go through them all in a week.
I see myself everywhere – it’s getting too much. Nárs puts his hand on my shoulder.
“Look into this one,” he whispers, turning towards a mirror surrounded by vines.
All I see is mist, rippling as if contemplating.
I step closer, and a sense of peace takes hold of me, making me feel like I want to cooperate with the mirror.
I close my eyes, and my life, with all its good and bad moments, unfolds before me.
I blink, then study the glass again. Two massive iron doors stare back at me.
Identical, with no difference between them.
I reach towards the mirror, touching the space between the two doors.
“What do you see?” Nárs asks.
“Two identical doors.”
The man raises his eyebrows.
“Are you sure there’s no difference?”
I take a closer look at the simple patterns adorning each one. Even the small punctuation marks seem identical.
“Nothing,” I reply, and Nárs genuinely ponders.
“Hmm. Strange.”
“What is the mirror for?”
“It’s for destiny.”
The word sounds so serious, and yet the doors appear so meaningless. I furrow my brow.
“And how does it fit in here?”
Nárs snarls at me.
“Every mirror is a Mirror of Desire. It shows your fate. Actually, the desire of your fate. Tricky mirrors.”
I roll my eyes, looking towards the next mirror. I tilt my head. I can’t see myself in it and only smoke billows behind the glass. Hazy, just like my thoughts.
“The Mirror of The Desire for Knowledge,” Nárs says from directly behind my ear, and I jump back with a curse, to which he laughs. “In those mirrors that you are not ready for, you cannot see. And you cannot be a part of them until you believe in them.”
“What do you mean, I cannot be a part of them?”
The demon doesn’t answer, and I continue to watch the foggy mirror. I desperately need information about the world and what is happening to me. That’s all I can do here, and I need the Mirror of the Desire for Knowledge to show me…
A figure moves in one of the mirrors just a few steps away from me. My heart pounds so hard in my chest that I feel it skip a beat.
The messy, blond hair is familiar.
My body moves on its own; I don’t command it. I step over the vines covering the ground. When I reach the mirror, I cover my mouth with my hands.
Bengt. My brother stands in front of me as a child. He smiles, calling me by name. I touch the mirror. His honey-colored hair is darker than my original blonde, and his face is reminiscent of the well-being before the illness.
“What’s up, Lolo?” my brother asks, and my knees tremble. Grief and astonishment sweep over me at the same time. I can’t speak. When Nárs reveals the name of the mirror, I feel like I already knew the answer.
“The Mirror of Dead Desires, or, in other words, the Mirror of Impossible Wishes,” he whispers, before his voice becomes even more serious. “Dangerous amusement. That’s why we keep it hidden here among the vines. It can drive you insane.”
He looks meaningfully at me. I haven’t seen Bengt in ten years, only in pictures. It’s been ten years since he stretched out his hand to me and begged me to go with him. That snub nose. Those bulging eyes. I take a step closer. Then another. I hear Nárs’s warning words too late.
The surface of the mirror turns into water, and I plunge into it.
With a deep exhale, I resurface. I stand there, hand in hand with my brother.
Everything around us is white, as if we’re in a cloud.
His touch momentarily stops my heartbeat.
I am as tall as him, as though Bengt is a few years older than when he died.
Yet he looks so small. I can’t figure out what’s happening. Without thinking, I hug him.
“Bengt…” I cling to him. My consciousness darkens as grief shuts out the outside world. I will never leave this place.
My brother pushes me away so I can see him.
“What’s up, Lolo?” The smile on his face is wide, but his eyes don’t smile.
“I… you’re here. I ended up in a cave full of demons. My God, Bengt.” I’m trembling. “I missed you so much!”
My brother smiles.
“Will you stay with me?” I nod first, then look at him more closely. His eyes are glassy and he is an adult now. He can’t be an adult. Blinking through the black mist, I see my brother’s gaze pulling me back to reality. I move away from him.
“I can’t stay here,” I admit to myself. “You’re already… I can’t be here with you.”
“Please!” he says, but his voice sounds mechanical. It clarifies the image in front of me even more. “Don’t leave me alone again! I don’t want to be alone again.” He looks at me intently, and in the blue of his eyes, I see my own.
“You owe me.”
The knife that was already in my heart now digs even deeper.
“No…” I whisper. “Don’t say that, Bengt, please. I didn’t want—”
“It’s your fault. You could have known that—”
“Enough!” My voice breaks. I have to step away from him. He’s not here. As much as I want to keep him in my arms, he’s not here. I have to escape.
I look around. I don’t know where the vine-covered park is, and Bengt is still in front of me. His eyes fade, and his face becomes pale. His gaze is now sad for the first time, and I feel an old, healed wound in my soul reopening and spreading.
“So, you’re leaving me stranded again?”
“No…” I say, shaking my head. “No, Bengt, I…”
I feel guilt gripping me, as if a snake’s fangs are boring into my heart. Desperation overwhelms me and I cry out to Bengt: “No!”
I repeat it once, then multiple times. Eventually, I’m only talking to myself, crouching down, hands pressed to my ears.
He’s not here. He’s not here, he’s not here, he’s not here.
But it’s in vain. Bengt’s voice keeps reaching me, filling me with guilt.
Climbing up my neck, shaking my body, stabbing a knife into my heart. I thought I had accepted it. I thought…
A huge scream erupts from my lungs. The gray light emanating from me burns through space, and along with it, my brother, too.
Gasping, I find myself back in the vine-filled garden with narcissus.
I stand in front of the mirror, its right corner now cracked, and I have to grab onto a nearby stone pillar to help calm myself down.
Next to the glass, the vines are weaved around the statue of a little crouching girl.
It’s me. I was huddled like that, screaming.
The snake-like, crawling poison-green plants embrace the statue’s legs, claiming her as part of the space.
There is a similar statue next to my petrified reflection.
The vines have almost completely covered it, but the tears flowing down its face remain distinctly visible.
Lizander. All the carvings surrounding the two suffering statues depict Nárs’s triumphant figure. What was it he saw?
Nárs leans against a rock to my right, lazily fanning himself. When I look at him, he spreads his arms innocently.
“I told you it was dangerous! You didn’t listen to the warning.”
I turn away from him. He’s right.
“It felt so real,” I insist.
“Of course it did,” he retorts. “Every desire is real!”