41. Chapter Forty-One
I take two steps away from Lazzus. “Right. Maybe it’s your grief that makes you wish Evelia is still alive.”
“I have wished year after year after year after endless years for you to still be alive, and every few decades it becomes true. Not because the universe is kind, but because a wicked queen can’t forgive.” He picks up a red flower growing close to the rock he sits on.
“Should she forgive you?”
“No, but she is the same as me because I can’t forgive her.” He brings the flower into his hood like he’s sniffing it. “You always smelled of the flowers in the field to me. That and something else that never had a name. It was you.”
“That’s lovely and all, but I have a family to save. I’m already annoyed I don’t get my prize. You told me all would be lost if I didn’t figure it out. Was that a lie for motivation, or is all lost?”
He grunts what might be a laugh. “I meant if I was unable to get to the end of the story, it wouldn’t matter because it would mean you never made it to the top of the mountain. I was only allowed to tell you the end if you made it here.”
I crinkle my nose as I’m pretty sure centuries under a curse has simply made Lazzus insane. My reward is a disappointment. Though I’m not sure what I would have wanted because breaking the curse is really all I need. “My prize is the truth.”
“Yes, but you can pick anything you want, and I will get it for you.”
“Even the heads of my enemies?”
“That would be my pleasure. Give me names, and I will place them at your feet.” He lets the red flower fall back onto the ground.
“You have always been so stubborn. In every lifetime. It was fun watching you aggravate the king because Zyon falls for you every time. Every time you win his heart, and you drive him mad with your defiance.”
“Aren’t you, Zyon? If you are one soul split in two, then you find delight in your own torment.”
“Yes. I despise that half of me for getting to love you, and he doesn’t even appreciate what he has until it’s too late. That man is a fool.”
“That is very complicated self-hate.”
“I suppose it is.” His shoulders fall as when I first appeared on the mountain, but this time they stay down, like he’s accepted something heavy. “If you don’t believe me, go into that cave and use your key. There’s someone waiting for you in there who can explain more.”
I walk to the entrance of the cave. “How much time do I have?”
“Plenty. As I told you at the castle, the key will provide you with a faster way down.”
I step into the cave, and my ring lights up the dark rock walls.
Water drips into puddles on the ground, and I avoid them.
Exhaustion is so deep in my bones that if there is some threat in this cave, I may very well let it devour me.
That would be stupid after everything I went through to get here, but I’m too tired to care.
The venom is extremely slow, but it’s still making its way to my heart.
It’s still affecting me in ways I don’t fully realize.
The path winds with several turns until I’m deep within the top of the mountain. There’s a black door ahead, exactly like all the forbidden ones in the castle, and as I approach it, a cat jumps out from behind a natural brown column.
“Ivelle? How in the world did you get up here? You’re a very skilled cat.”
“Lazzus gave me a ride.”
“He gave you a ride? How nice you got that.” I stare at the floor and try to process why he would do that.
“We have been friends for a very long time.”
“Yes, I know. Almost our entire lives. You’re the entire reason I became a blood expert and the guild hired me. I owe you so much.”
“No, Neera, Lazzus and I have been friends a very long time, though I did not call him that for some time. Your key will open the door if you wish to do that now.”
I take the key out of my bag. “This is not something I like to say, but I think the madness transferred into your cat body.”
“Go through the door, and I’ll try to help you process things better.”
I try the door first, and like many important doors in Zyon's castle, it’s locked.
The key easily opens it, and I step into a room with a pedestal, much like the one in the dragon library.
There are five mirrors that I recognize from Lazzus’s story.
On the pedestal is a box, and there is an extremely strong pull to it.
I stop halfway to it and turn to Ivelle. “Who are you?”
“A very long time ago, I was a witch who sold magical trinkets and mirrors.”
I laugh and can’t stop until tears prick my eyes. “This is all crazy.”
“Would you like me to explain?”
“Please.”
“Lazzus killed my original body and bound my soul to a jar. After Evelia died. After you died, he found your cat dead, like all other living things in his castle. He bound my soul to your cat to bring it back to life in case he could bring you back. He didn’t want you mad about him killing your pet, and it was practice for what he wanted to do to you.
To see if a dead thing could live again, and not only not decay, but hold the soul of another. He succeeded with me."
“Lyric?”
“Yes, you remember.”
I shake my head slowly, wondering if it would be wiser to play into her delusions. “That’s what Evelia’s cat was called. You’ve just been her cat for centuries, and then somehow became a human woman?”
“Lazzus grew weary of losing you in every lifetime.
He couldn't even try his new tricks on you because the queen is holding your soul hostage with her control. It destroyed his soul each time, and he finally begged me to help him. The first few times I turned him down out of anger, but it was his tangible grief that changed my mind. It was how he would sit by the ocean for hours. The most powerful being in our realm became nothing more than a wraith, overcome with his grief for the only person he ever loved. Ages of humans came and went, Lazzus still wanted nothing more than you, and his loss ate his soul piece by piece every time he watched you die. Every time he lost you again.”
“Right. That’s a beautiful story. Tragically sad, but beautiful.”
“It was. That’s why I helped him finally.
He begged for mercy to be put out of his misery of watching you live, suffer, and die.
He begged for mercy from all the waiting in between for the curse to restart.
Rest from all the waiting for you to be old enough each life to try to break the curse.
The queen made it so that every time you almost reached the age you died, it would begin.
Then you always died at exactly the same age.
Usually on your way up the mountain. Sometimes before. ”
“What changed?”
“I told him how to add a sleeping curse to it for himself, so he would only have to be awake for the time you were breaking the curse. The queen wouldn’t let him sleep through that, nor did he really want to because he kept hoping he could help you break it.
But the queen put so many rules on what he could and couldn’t do. ”
“Like what?”
“He couldn’t tell you who you were unless you reached the top of the mountain.
Zyon could make demands and forbid him to do things, and Lazzus couldn’t tell Zyon the truth either.
There were many things he had to follow, and over time, he bent them.
If he outright broke them, you would immediately die, so he became careful yet creative.
In the last cycle, I gave you a potion that helped you make it farther than you ever had.
You still died not even halfway up, but it made him realize he couldn’t help you, but I could. ”
“Then you posed as my best friend and mentor.” I press my lips and remind myself that Lazzus convinced her of his delusions somehow.
“Yes, I trained you to survive the mountain since you were still a girl. I put you in the path of those who could also help, and it worked. There is hurt in your eyes, but it worked.” She walks over to the box.
“I know you well enough to know that you think we’re crazy, but after everything you’ve seen, is it really the most unbelievable part? ”
I shrug and close my eyes for a moment to allow the burning in my hand to ease. “Maybe not? But I am curious. Why does the castle hate Zyon?”
“The queen set up the curse, but it took on a life of its own. It made its own rules and gained a soul. Many things within it weren’t part of the original design. Though Lazzus always thought it could be the souls of some of the mages he killed and lost track off.”
“You don’t know for sure?”
“No, but the curse has a soul now, whether it’s a mage who changed into much more than he ever was or if it was another thing sparked to life by an angry Leqru.
Both the curse and Lazzus have changed. He’s grown in power and the things he could do as a wraith, but none of it ever saved you. Unlock the box, Neera.”
“The same key?” I proceed at her nod and unlock the box. Light bursts from it, and I’m thrown back, like before I found the dagger. It’s the same energy and power. This time it sends me into darkness.
The ocean soothes any woe. That’s the only thing I know, and why it is the greatest present Lazzus has ever given me.
My muscles ache from dancing the morning away after making love to my husband much too late last night.
His heartbeat is a comfort at the back of my mind.
It’s always there when we’re apart. It’s something we gained with the bond, but it’s something that always felt present.
Lazzus is riding up the beach on his black unicorn, and he’s my favorite thing to watch.
The way he moves and causes his long silver hair to frame his face is gorgeous.
I’ve always been obsessed with his hair and eyes.
We are the same. Lazzus and I have always been the same.
An unquenchable fire burns in us both. He is my heaven, and I don’t think even in death I will find paradise anywhere else.