40. Chapter Forty
My soldiers pile the bones of Sarek’s soldiers to the east of my property.
I burned them all in my rage after I carried my unconscious wife to my healers and demanded they save her or die a brutal death.
King Sarek and his army didn't deserve the mercy I gave them when they first arrived at my wall. It is a mistake I will not make again for any living soul who is not Evelia. Sarek suffered the consequence of having to live with causing his daughter’s death.
He will endure that torment for the rest of his days.
Evelia is still alive, but that isn’t what I told her father. I rebuild my wall with all my new power to lock him out, and I use one of the witch’s abilities to transport her shop onto the property.
The necromancer prince smirks at me from his cage by the window in the shop. He’s been there since I summoned him using the small piece of his heart I’ve stored for months. He’s been there since the healers told me Evelia has taken a turn for the worse. It created the need to speed up my plan.
“I too have a bone garden right inside the gate of my summer castle, you know? They’re fun to reanimate. Only mine are animals. I enjoy killing them and bringing them back until their bodies are too broken to do anything with,” he says.
“Did I ask?” I place the two cages with the crow and mouse on the counter.
“No, I would show you with your skeletons, and it’s fun to mix up the parts. You can put an animal skull on a human body, or the other way around. You can adjust the sizes. It’s great fun. Only I wonder why you buried the soldiers’ skulls?”
“The dirt I buried them in prevents their souls from leaving, so they suffer being trapped in darkness forever. A soul mage I killed taught me that.”
He cackles the most grating sound I’ve ever heard. “Here everyone calls me cruel.”
“They hurt my only reason to exist.”
“Such a romantic. How do you expect I can help you? I can only animate the dead, not prevent Evelia from dying.”
“Yes, but you can keep bodies from decaying when you aren’t constantly killing them and bringing them back. I already have the ability to keep her soul attached to something. I need it to stay in her body, but without your magic, it will decay.”
“You want a partnership? My ability and yours to give Evelia immortality.”
“No, I don’t need you beyond what you can do.” I rip out his heart for the second time and pull his magic into myself.
He grunts and holds his chest like he’s holding something in. “Stop doing that!”
“Don’t worry. That was the final time.” I squeeze.
“My mother will never let you get away with this, Zyon Lazzus!”
“If she comes for me, I will only destroy her too. Her ability to create visions would be nice to have.”
“That’s something I have too.” He lifts his hand like he’s about to show me the ability.
“It’s something you had.” I crush his heart, and I don’t bind his soul to a trinket like I did the other mages.
Rather, I send it on its way to the afterrealm.
While I’d like him to suffer as Sarek’s soldiers are, I want no way for him to be resurrected.
It’s his punishment for ever thinking he could marry Evelia.
I pass by the mirrors on my way out. My eyes change from the near black of my rage to their normal orange and yellow. I need to look like myself when my wife wakes up.
Basim is in the doorway. “Your Majesty, the queen is asking for you. The healers...”
“Know nothing!” I grab the heart necklace and stick it in my pocket.
Something hard strikes me on the head, and I don’t at first realize it’s happening in the present. Not the past. Neera is on her feet and has a second rock in her hand. “Why the hell did the prince call you Zyon Lazzus?”
“You know the answer to that question.”
She steps away from me and shakes her head. “No! No, I don’t.”
“Shall we finish the story, or do you no longer wish to know what I regret?”
“Fine. Continue.”
I return us to my vision of the past.
Dinivan is outside my queen’s room. He arrived with the healers I asked him for, as they have skills mine don’t.
“Zyon, they’re saying there is nothing more they can do.
It’s a miracle she even survived the initial fall.
She’s a fighter, but sometimes spirits can’t survive the cages they’re placed in.
There’s not much time left. Minutes maybe. ”
I push past him, knowing his words don’t matter anymore. The necklace against my fingers assures me she will be fine. She’s so beautiful as she sleeps. Watching her sleep next to me has always been one of my favorite things.
Evelia opens her eyes when I take the chair next to her. Her heartbeat is weak in my mind, but she will be okay. I have the power to save her now. She lifts her hand to reach for me, but it quickly falls to her side.
I rush next to her and bring her hand to my lips. “Save your strength, love.”
She closes her eyes, and her chest rises with great effort. “Promise me you won’t become cruel. It is my greatest wish, Lazzus. That you will not be cruel when I’m gone. Protect our people and treat them well.” A tear slips from her clenched eyes.
“Shhh... You’re not going to be gone. We’re going to have centuries together.”
Her eyes flutter open, and she takes a while to focus. “Those are happy thoughts. I wish them to be true.”
“They will be.”
She touches my face below my eyes. “They’re back. I've always loved your eyes. Like flames. No matter what form you’re in, they’re always your eyes.”
“Always your fire fairy.”
She laughs and moans. “Such a foolish girl I was. Lazzus, she sent me to you.”
“Who, love?”
“Zantara, she came to our castle to visit my father, and I thought she was the most beautiful person I’d ever seen.
She could make pretty things come to life, and later I assumed it was her ability to make people see things.
But she made me these butterflies, and they stayed after she left.
It was something I didn’t remember until recently. ” She closes her eyes.
“You need to save your strength. I want to hear everything you have to say, but it’s something that can wait.”
She squeezes my hand. “Let me finish.”
“Okay.”
“While you were away on your quests you wouldn’t tell me about, I visited my father.”
“You what?”
“Stop interrupting me.” She sends me the sternest look she can when she’s so weak.
“I visited my father and went to my room. The butterflies were still there. It made me think of how you always turned objects into creatures, like Raffe and the others.” At his name, the bluebird peeks his head above her shoulder.
“He thinks you should save your strength, too.”
She pets the little bird’s head. “I know. They’re always chiding me when they think I’ll find harm.”
“That’s what I created them to do. To protect you and tell me whenever you’re not safe.”
“They’re aggravating at times, but I love them all. The butterflies were the same, and it made me realize that while she does project visions, she’s also like you.”
The witch’s final words play in my head. I thought the queen she said was the same as me was Evelia. “How did she send you to me?”
“It didn’t fully make sense until I put that together.
But when I confronted her about the villages, she told me the first time she ever met me, I showed her my room and all my fairies.
I didn’t remember that either. She told me how to find a real fairy.
That, I sort of remembered.” She pauses and closes her eyes.
I start to tell her we’ll talk later, but she opens her eyes again. “Don’t stop me. I want to tell you this,” she says.
“Okay.”
“I told her I couldn’t leave the castle, so she told me how to leave through a secret way.
It’s the same way I used for years to meet you.
My father always panicked and blew his trumpets when he discovered me gone, but he never figured how I did it.
She told me to wait three days after she leaves to go to the poppy field.
I was so excited because I’d always wanted to visit the red and purple flowers outside my father’s castle. ”
“We made so many flower crowns there.”
She smiles. “All purple and three red.”
“Why did you always make them that way?”
“I loved how it looked. The red flowers were like us. Different from everyone else around us. But the third balanced it. But I waited until the third day, and there you were. Just as she said you would be.” She coughs, and blood trickles down the side of her mouth.
I get a cloth and wipe her mouth. “Healers!”
She shakes her head and tugs on my arm. “Can you warm me like all those nights we watched the sky turn to night?”
I climb into bed with her and warm her with my fire. Her heartbeat is so slow in the back of my mind. It’ll be fine. I can save her. Binding souls is all I’ve practiced for weeks, and the prince’s power will preserve her body until I can practice enough to bind her soul to her body.
“Promise me, Lazzus.”
“Anything.”
“Promise you won’t become cruel. That you will keep learning to be kind every time anyone tries to fill you with their hate. Especially the collective.”
“I promise.”
"I love you most." She smiles, and her brilliant green eyes dull.
“Evelia? Evelia! No! No! No! No!”
She’s gone, gone, gone! the bluebirds chant.
“Shut up!”
She’s gone! Lia is gone! Lia is gone!
“Shut up!” My power shoots from me, and the bluebirds fall to the ground. I grab their souls and bind them into jars, so Evelia isn’t angry when I bring her back. Five little yellow orbs bounce against the glass I’ve trapped them in.
I reach into my pocket to pull out the necklace, but it isn’t there. I search the ground and know it was in my pocket when I entered the room. It’s nowhere in the room.
“Are you looking for this?” Queen Zantara is standing in the doorway holding the necklace.
“Give it to me!”
There’s a familiar buzzing I sense from her that I have felt no other time I’ve seen her. It’s because she’s really here this time, and the witch and Evelia were right. Zantara is what I am. A Leqru sent here by the collective.