Spectral Crown: Chapter Thirty-Three

“Lady, it’s cold outside”

It’s been kind of a long weekend-slash-beginning of the week for me, for reasons that I’m not really going to get into here. It feels a bit like parts of my life are sort of imploding in on themselves, but that’s ok. Sometimes you have to let go. Not that you may have had a choice, of course, but sometimes that’s the case, too. Oh well. We all make mistakes. Sometimes even small, honest mistakes can have big, unexpected consequences. Maybe it isn’t even your fault. Maybe it is. Who can tell? By the time the dust has settled, it may not matter, anyway. But we roll with the punches, and lose friends, and move on, or whatever.

Anyway, it’s also sub-freezing in Minnesota finally! And there’s snow on the ground for the first time this season, so that’s very exciting. I put up a Christmas tree, even though I live in an apartment because who doesn’t love trees inside their home? I love the cold and the winter, so I’m pretty happy that it’s finally getting down to those fabled freezing temps. Nothing subzero yet (unless you practice Celsius measurements), but I did go for a run in six degrees Fahrenheit yesterday, and that was both a mistake and an exciting experience. Can’t wait to slip on the ice and pull my spleen.

That’s all for my weekly diatribe. Here’s the previous chapter.

Spectral Crown, by Andy Sima: Chapter Thirty-Three

I fell asleep quickly from my general emotional exhaustion.  Probably a bit of both.  But upon awakening hours later, I rolled over and faced Iacob, who woke up to greet me.

            “Good morning, Saelac,” he said.  “Did you sleep well?”

            “I suppose,” I answered.  He leaned in close for a kiss.  When I did not react, he tried kissing me more passionately.  I still did not respond, though I now wanted to.

            “Is there any way I can help you this morning?” Iacob said.  He winked at me, trying to play coy, but he seemed to have lost his touch.  He was not cool and collected any longer, but rather a sort of hopeless romantic.

            “No,” I said.  “I don’t think so.”

            Iacob looked rather defeated, but sighed and ended the conversation there.  However, I took up the thread again soon after.

            “Iacob,” I said.  “I have been thinking.”

            “Oh, do tell,” he said, sitting up and looking interested.  “Was it a dream?”

            “No, not quite,” I said.  “There is something I must confess to you, now that my mother is dead.”

            His face twitched in some odd emotion, but moved on quickly.  “What is it?”

            “I may have told you once before that my father died many years ago.  Well, this is not true.  My real father is King Adalbert.  I am an heir to the Uradel throne, and inheritor of their curse, just as much as Prince Maynard,” I said.

            It wasn’t true.  Not a grain of it beyond the fact that my father died years ago.  I was not, nor would I ever be, related to the Uradel family by anything other than employment.  But in his new puppy dog love, Iacob believed every word of it.  And I hated myself for it.

            “R- really?” he stammered.  He broke out into a bizarre smile.  “Well, that changes things a little bit,” he said.

            “How so?” I asked.

            “Well, if you so desired, I, well, maybe…” Iacob stumbled over his words.

            “Out with it,” I muttered.

            “Sorina might allow us to marry, then, for it would be useful to our royalty,” Iacob said.

            “Oh, boy,” I sighed.  “Because it would be useful to royalty.”  Iacob seemed to miss my lack of enthusiasm and mistook it for actual interest.

            “Yes, indeed!” he said.  “Even though a wasting curse may be painful, the power that it will give us, to have the strength of almost two curses, why, it would be close to immeasurable!”

            This was where I continued lying.  “It is not a wasting curse, the Uradel curse,” I said.  “It is a curse of slow immortality.  They are bound to live forever, just as you are.”  And now Iacob’s eyes bulged out of his sockets, as I knew they would.

            “You must be joking,” he said.

            “I am not,” I replied.  “Why would I lie to you?” And I smiled and kissed him.

            As I pulled back away from him, his face was beaming.  “Another immortality curse!  Why, we might be able to survive…” I noted that he stumbled over his words.  He knew perfectly well about his father’s curse and was looking for a way around it as much as Sorina was, though for different reasons.  Another immortality curse was enough to get his hopes up.  But then his smile dropped.  “Wait, but how can that be?” he asked.  “I studied the Uradel line very carefully.  Their telltale blue hues.  The weakness of body.  It is very clearly a wasting curse.  How can you say it is immortality?”

            “Do you not believe me?” I said, feigning disappointment.

            “I believe you,” Iacob said, scratching his chin.  “I just do not understand.”

            “Test it for yourself, if you wish,” I said.  Iacob’s head snapped up to face me.

            “Are you suggesting…?” he said.

            “Yes,” I said.  “If you do not believe me, kill me.  You will see that I will not die.  And that I am a part of the Uradel curse.”  My heart beat wildly.  Yes, mother.  Things were going well.

            “I… are you sure?” Iacob said.  He leaned over, off the edge of the bed, and reached underneath.  When he came back up, he had a vicious-looking knife.  It was long and curved, sharp enough to slice through flesh with ease.  I gulped.

            “Positive,” I said.  Iacob was really about to go through with this.

            “I believe you,” Iacob said, his mouth pressed into a hard line.  “But I have to be sure.”  And then he pulled me close, kissed me, and sliced the knife across my throat.

            The sensation was momentarily absent, and then I felt the cut go deep into my skin, separated layers from each other, a sharp, furious pain.  Hot, steamy blood fell from the gash in my neck.  I choked, then, as Iacob punctured my windpipe, and blood spilled into my throat and my lungs.  I gagged, and felt as if I was drowning, drowning in a red sea of mistakes.  My blood continued to roil from my throat and I fell back onto the bed, staining the linens.

            “Saelac!” Iacob said, and immediately wrapped his arms around me.  “I’m sorry!” he said.  But I only smiled.

            The pain at my neck continued, and the blood filled my throat.  I could not swallow, I could not breathe, I could not talk, I could not think.  I could barely move.  The edges of my vision went dark, and for a second I was terrified that I was actually going to die, there in that bed, spitting up blood.  But the pain began to subside, and to my horror, was replaced with pleasure.  The blood stopped flowing, and began to clear out from my chest.  The gash in my throat pulled itself together and began to weave itself closed, tendrils and threads of skin mashing and forming upon one another.  And then they stuck together, pulling my pieces into one, leaving behind only a thin white scar, like a second mouth, framed by a gold chain.  I had enjoyed it.  Like a drug.

            “Incredible,” Iacob said.  “The curse won’t let you die.”

            “Indeed,” I spluttered, clearing the last gobs of blood from my throat.  “Even if I wanted to.”

            Iacob gripped me by the shoulders.  “Do you realize what this means?  If we marry, if Sorina marries into the Uradel line, then we could do anything we ever wanted, and more!  There would be no stopping us, Saelac!”

            “That’s wonderful!” I said, pulling Iacob close.  Some remaining blood dripped off my neck and stained the back of his cloak.  While he held me tight, I kept my eyes wide open, looking around the room.  Scanning, and waiting.

            Just as quickly as I had leaned in to hug Iacob, he pulled away from me and stared at me for a long time.  Then he spoke, and said, “I must begin preparing matters for the wedding.  There is much that I shall attend to.”  A smile broke out across his face.  “There is little time to waste.  Let me escort you back to your quarters.  The sooner Prince Maynard and my sister are wed, the sooner we will be free of this wretched place.”  Iacob kissed me and pulled me to stand. 

            “Could I not join you?” I asked.  “Perhaps I can be of some help?”

            Iacob’s smile faltered, and he became lost in thought.  “Maybe you could,” he said.  “I would have to ask Sorina.  But until I do, you are better off in the safety of your own people.”

            “Well, you know now that death is no longer a problem,” I said.  Iacob smiled.

            “This is true.  But best not to risk it,” he said.  And we made our way to the door that led to Iacob’s dining hall, and then through the room and out into the castle’s main hallways.  Iacob led me with his hand at the small of my back, patting me affectionately on occasion.  My guilt rose, but the locket around my neck forced it back down.

            We walked through the tapestried halls of the castle, torches flickering in their own way, and Iacob and I made small discussions about our potential future together.  His enthusiasm was contagious and for a few blissful moments, I, too, dreamed of a future with this man, free from pain and hatred and fear.  But though my heart yearned, my neck burned.

            “We could travel to all parts of the continent,” he said.  “We could see the great wonders of the far east, the rich nations of Africa, find what discoveries lie across the water.  We could start a shipping company and deal in the trading of national goods.  We could build a house on a mountain in the woods and brew tea and wine.  We could do all of these things and more, for the time that we have been given is more than enough lifetimes for any two men.  Oh, what a blessing has come of this curse!”  I was silent, but smiled or nodded at the right times, and would occasionally add my own thoughts as the mood struck me.  I kept a stranglehold on the emotions that churned within, a stranglehold made of gold chain.

            Soon we made it back to the new common room that my people had been given.  I stood before the heavy door, and Iacob pushed it open for me.  “Until we meet again,” and he raised up my hand to kiss it ever so lightly.  I couldn’t help but smile, and I continued to smile as I walked into the room and the door shut behind me.  That smile, however, soon, jumped from my face as I found an empty room.

            When I had escaped up the fireplace chimney, there had been my mother, Franz, Freda, and four or five other servants.  I already knew my mother would be missing, but now, the only ones who remained were Franz and Freda.  They, in their turn, clung to each other and rocked back and forth.  They muttered to each other and tried to soothe each other, and only disengaged when they noticed me.

            “Ah, Saelac.  You’re back,” Freda said.  She tried to smoke her pipe nonchalantly, but she had run out of tobacco long ago.

            “What happened?  Where did everyone go?” I asked, appalled.

            Freda’s eyes began to tear up, and I thought she would start sobbing, but Franz beat her to it.  He rocked back and forth with more ferocity now, and the sounds that escaped his lips were not quite moans of pain and not quite words, either. 

            “Taken,” he shouted, over and over again at occasional intervals in his spasms, and then eventually, “taken in the night.  Thieves!  Monsters!  Demons!”

            “Your mother is gone, Saelac,” Freda said, dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief.  “I’m sorry.”  I felt the locket warming up a little bit.

            “I know,” I said.  “I saw her die.”

            “You saw her?” Freda asked, eyes widening.  “How?  When?  Where?”

            “I’m not sure where, but just yesterday,” I said.  “She was… consumed.  Like the others.”

            “Like the others,” Franz agreed, holding his knees tight to his chest.  “They were taken from us, one by one.  One by one, taken.”

            “We are the only ones left,” Freda said.  “We thought you had been taken as well.”

            The Blestemats were preparing for the wedding.  Now that everything was finally in place, Sorina had no reason to keep extra mouths to feed, I supposed.  And, with a shudder, I realized that sooner or later I would be the only one left.

            I had to find a way out of this castle, and soon.

It’s been a while since a Spectral Crown post! Which is a good thing, in general, but this week, it’s sort of a cop-out because I didn’t have the emotional strength either Monday or Tuesday morning to put together something better. Next week should be looking up, though. Although I do work an overnight this weekend, but it should be an easy one. Maybe I’ll write my blog from my cabin at work! Wouldn’t that be something?