12. Chapter Twelve
Evelia stands in the library, staring at the wall-length portrait of the ocean.
Tears flow freely down her cheeks for more reasons than usual.
Pictures of the ocean always make her cry, but this runs deeper than that.
Her tears cause me pain, but if I delve too deeply into their reasons, I will be tempted to let her go, and I can’t.
Years of work have gone into making her mine.
“I promised to take you there once.” I take a seat on the green cushioned chair that faces the painting.
“Lucky for you, I no longer want to go with you.”
“Yes, but would you like to go at all?”
“You know the answer to that question, Lazzus. No one has ever known me better than you, and that makes everything hurt so much more.” She doesn’t take her eyes off the painting, like if she stares long enough, she can escape me into the artwork.
“Explain.” I clear my throat when she stiffens her jaw at my demand. “Please.”
“No, I don’t want you to know my deepest thoughts and feelings anymore.” She flings her tears from her face and leaves the library.
I immediately find Basim in his study. The man loves plants, and they are all over his office, with leaves climbing his walls and bookshelves. Some are magic and snake constantly around chair legs and the bronze statues of gods he keeps in the corner.
He mists several pink flowers with a silver can. “What has you enraged now?” The man never changes his stoic tone.
I pace his office, swatting several leaves out of my way. “She won’t accept anything from me. No matter what I do. No matter how kind I am. She still hates me. It’s like all the years of our love and friendship have been erased.”
“What did you expect?”
I relax my fists and take several deep breaths not to send Basim flying out his round window. “What do you mean?”
“You stole her and forced her into the most sacred bond. Maybe if you had asked instead of murdering and kidnapping, she would have forgiven you.”
“She might have said no, and I’d have lost her forever. Her heart would have the same rhythm as that bastard prince!” I crush an orange lily and let the pieces drift to the ground. “I should have killed him!”
“Why didn’t you?”
“He may still be useful.”
“How so?” He picks up the crumpled lily and sighs.
“Evelia is human, and that means she will die much too soon. That’s something I can’t handle.”
“And you think the prince will bring her back? That he will do that for you after everything.” He tosses the destroyed flower into a pot full of yellow leaves and fading petals.
“Necromancy is rare. It can be hundreds of years before we find someone that good at raising the dead. I have a piece of the prince’s heart. He will do what I ask.”
“There are consequences to raising the dead. Especially if the necromancer is not skilled.”
“The prince is said to be the most skilled to walk our lands. It’s the least he could do for me for thinking he was worthy to even stand in the same room as my love.”
Basim returns to misting his plants. “Will you keep her here forever if she continues to hate you?”
“I have no other choice! Existence is nothing without her. It’s like floating in a void alone. The pain of a solitude that deep is worse than all other afflictions. This is only a matter of winning back her love. Grander gestures are what I need.”
“Letting her go would be a pretty grand one.”
I rip his favorite yellow flowers from their stems and throw them at him. “That could be your head.”
“Do you feel better now?” He picks up the flowers and tosses them in the same pot as earlier.
“I want to take her to the ocean, but she doesn’t want to go with me. Letting her go on her own isn’t an option. Too much can happen to her. I also feel uneasy at her traveling too far from my borders.”
“You could go into Eldermere and see the witch. She has a collection of portal mirrors and most likely has one that leads to the ocean.”
I dress in a black hood to prevent anyone from realizing the king is among them. It’s a task I could have sent servants for, but I want Evelia’s present to be given by my effort alone. The streets in Eldermere are filthy, and the people aren’t in much better shape.
An extremely aged woman holds a dented silver cup toward me. “Could you spare some change?”
I kick the can from her hand. “There was a sign in the bakery. They will give you coin in exchange for hard work.”
She lifts her mangled fingers in the air that look like they were broken and never corrected. “My hands don’t work for baking. It makes work very hard.”
“That is no one else’s problem.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to help? Is there no good left in your heart?”
I walk over and pick up her can, dipping it in the muddy rainwater rushing to the drain and handing it back to her. “Good thing water costs no coin.”
“Your heart is cruel. You should be careful. For things never end well for cruel hearts.” She dumps the water out. “You have shown me all I needed to see.”
I smirk and continue to find the witch. Her shop is down an alleyway between two grey brick buildings.
A golden sign swings from a small pole that sticks right above the top of the only doorway.
On frosted glass are blue letters that spell out, Aquila’s Emporium of magical items and curses.
I open the door, and my arms prickle. The longer I stay in this realm, the more human my body becomes, and it seems my skin figured out how to form goosebumps.
The store extends far out of sight, but the aisle is narrow, which leaves room for two continuous shelves.
One side has potions and powders in glass jars and boxes.
On the other side are trinkets like feathers and pieces of bone.
After I walk for some time, I feel I have strolled all the way to the village inside a building that didn’t look much larger than a typical village home.
The trinkets change into daggers and arrows. The potions become scarcer, and the shelves hold mainly various types of blood.
“A beast has exalted himself to a king.” A young woman with the straightest black hair I have ever seen sits in a brown wicker chair, rocking back and forth on its two upward arched bottoms. She knits something together with thin red thread.
“I’ve come to see you about your mirrors. Specifically portal ones, but it doesn’t seem you have any.”
“Maybe I don’t want you to see that I have any.”
“I will warn you I am leaving with a portal mirror to the ocean.”
She looks up from her task, and her pale face is young, maybe still a teenager, but her yellow eyes look centuries older and match her scratchy voice better. “Your humor needs practice. Maybe this is the mirror you want.” She holds a small mirror with a simple silver frame.
I peer into it, and the room changes to darkness.
The only light is ahead on a platform where an opened wooden box rests.
As I get closer, the black roses carved into it sharpen into focus.
The open top of the box is lined with white silk, and in the bottom, a person rests.
I don’t wish to look inside, but the coffin comes closer without my permission.
Evelia sleeps inside with a single black rose in her stiff fingers.
Her gown is sky blue, and her curls fall sweetly around her gorgeous pale face.
I fall to my knees and scream. My rage breaks every glass in her shop when she pulls me from the mirror.
Tendrils burst from my back, and I wrap one around her throat.
She laughs louder the harder I squeeze. “That mirror wasn’t to your liking.” She talks like I’m not crushing her windpipe and appears back in her chair.
I go to impale her but am stopped by an invisible wall. “What was that horrible object? Why did you do that?”
“I matched the level of cruelty radiating from you and gave you my worst mirror. It shows how someone can destroy you. The fear that haunts you most because it would bring your demise.”
“Are you the beggar from the street?”
Her laughter bounces around the room. “No, I am not her, though I know her well. Give me a bag of gold, and I will give you your ocean mirror.”
I toss two bags at her. “How does Evelia die?”
“How would I know?” She narrows her eyes for a split second to tell me she’s truly surprised by the question.
“You can’t see what the mirror shows people?”
“No, it’s in your mind. That is what creates it.
” She snaps her fingers, and a large oval mirror appears.
Around it are shells and coral stacked on top of each other to create the frame.
The looking glass is blue and ripples when the dangling crow lights hit it just right.
“After you go through the glass, all you have to do is will your way back, and it will return you from the point you left.”
I grab the mirror and turn to smoke to get back to my castle faster. The mirror slows me down, but I make it back much faster than walking. I set the mirror in my room and test it. It takes me to white sand and almost transparent blue water.
Birds fly overhead in a cloudless sky above waves that crash onto colorful red and green pebbles.
A few plants grow between the clusters of tiny rocks, and there is nothing else in any direction.
I walk in all directions for a long time, and it never changes.
Satisfied it doesn’t carry me to a deadly realm, I will myself to return, and the mirror places me back in my bedroom.
I try it three more times to be sure it’s safe and make three guards and Basim go through four times.
When all return safely, I cover it in purple paper like I did the gifts I made her as a child and knock on her door.
She opens it and slams it when she sees it’s me.
I knock again and keep knocking until she remains in the door.
She purses her lips at the present. “What do you want?”
“This will take you to the ocean. I’d like to go with you, but I think maybe you need somewhere to go when you need to escape.”
“How?”